Back at BF Day

I was happy to return to my main placement in the fourth grade this week and one of my first activities was to complete a bulletin board with the kids Thanksgiving writing assignment, "What I'm Thankful For". I read as I stapled, and was completely uninspired by the topic and the kids lack of imagination, with the exception of one essay in which the student was remarkably thankful for her very large immediate family and provided good detail in the reasoning. The class was given a new writing assignment this week, a story, both draft and final copy due in the morning. The writing prompt was "I looked out the window and saw the principal flying". I was not looking forward to reading these.

In the second assignment, unlike the first, the teacher did not model anything. She just stated her expectation for a quality final draft. I did a silent double-take. I was not hopeful.

Since the first assignment the class has been participating in Writers-in-the-Schools, and while I have not been in class during these sessions, it is clear that they are having an impact.The stories that came back were well written and imaginative. The usual over achievers wrote as well as one might expect, but the two best stories were from students that are not usually singled out for achievement. Actually, quite the opposite, the two students struggle academically and are often singled out for behavioral issues. One story had great voice and charm, with a surprise ending. It was fun to read silently and out loud. The second story had amazing detail giving it a strong voice as well, but was so hard to read because of the inventive spelling employed. Both stories were read to the class by their authors.

The one student's lack of spelling skill has been a topic of discussion because she is so far below grade level. Our ELL students are better spellers. There is no spelling instruction in the class, the teacher feels spelling tests are not good pedagogy in the fourth grade. So now the question is what to do for the one, whose spelling is clearly getting in the way of her storytelling skills.