Leer leyendo, escribir escribiendo

In three short days that will fly by you will be walking out the door to being your summer vacation. This year we have written a lot and explored writing together. I hope that you will continue to grow as a writer over the summer. This website link by Ralph Fletcher gives a lot of tips that you can consider and revisit over the summer as you continue writing. I look forward to hearing about and seeing your writing when you come back next year! If you have any questions about any of his advice over the summer remember to leave a comment and then check back. I will respond to your comments over the summer.

This week you will be reflecting on how much you have grown as a writer this year. You will be compiling a writing portfolio. Each portfolio must contain:

*An introductory letter

*Your two favorite Spanish writing pieces

*Your two favorite English writing pieces

Your introductory letter can be either handwritten or typed, and it must include: an explanation of why you chose each piece of writing, what you are proud about in each piece of writing, ways that you have grown as a writer this year, and ways that you still want to improve as a writer. You can also mention if there are genres of writing that we did not discuss this year that you would like to discuss next year.

In your letter you must also tell me which piece of writing you would like to include in the class book that I will compile this summer and have in the classroom library next year. That piece of writing MUST be typed, and you must read it one more time to check for conventions.

Please complete both of these surveys. Remember to be thoughtful, thorough, and honest.

Survey 1

Survey 2

This weekend I was at my parents house. While I was correcting and writing comments on some of your historical fiction writing, my dad was watching the news. When they started to talk about Jessica Watson, I could not help stopping my correcting to watch.

She wanted to break the record to be the youngest person to sail all the way around the world by herself and without assistance. Guess how old she is? Just 16. I thought it was pretty amazing, and I can’t even imagine doing that. She was gone for 7 months. Can you imagine if in just a few years you were to say to your parents that you wanted to sail around the world by yourself to set a record? It made me wonder how she gained so much experience about sailing and geography to know what to do and how to survive.

Since we were just talking about the Age of Exploration, I thought you would be interested in it, so I googled her name and found her official website. This link talks about her, and this link is the blog she kept during her adventures. Explore her website and blog and then leave a comment here about your reactions to this story. This link is to a CNN video and article about her. Pull out some headphones if you want to watch the video.

Yo leo por diferentes razones. A veces leo por información, buscando información para complacer la curiosidad, para mejorar en algo o para saber cómo hacer algo. Muchas veces leo por información en la Internet. Con frecuencia leo blogs de otros maestros para sacar nuevas ideas o para mejorar en algo. También leo muchos libros de maestros por la misma razón.

Sin embargo, también me encanta leer libros para incluir en el salón de la escuela. Me gusta leer libros que pienso que serían perfectos para ciertos estudiantes para después dar recomendaciones.

Luego, paso mucho tiempo leyendo por distraerme. Puedo leer para descansar después de un largo día o en un día lluviosa de fin de semana. Leo cuando estoy esperando para citas. A veces leo libros para jóvenes y a veces para adultos. Leo fantasía, ficción realística, ficción histórica y más.

Cada día leo por horas y horas por diferentes razones. Cuando envejecía mi abuela, siempre decía que mientras sus ojos todavía funcionaban bien para poder leer, ella estaría contenta. Soy como mi abuela en este sentido.

Ah, casi se me olvido. También leo para comunicarme con otras personas. Leo correos electrónicos y blogs de mi familia y mis amigos para mantenerme en contacto.

¿Cuáles son las razones de que ustedes leen? ¿Para cuáles tipos de información leen? ¿Leen para dar recomendaciones a alguien? ¿Leen por distraerse?

Vi un ejemplo de hacer poesía con los libros aquí y me gustó mucho la idea. Yo pensé en los libros que he leído últimamente para pensar en que podía hacer yo. Me llegó a la mente la idea de juntar En busca de milagros y Dreamer.

Luego busque otros libros del salón que podían ir con el tema de buscar sueños o libros que había leído últimamente.

Después empecé a poner los libros en orden y hacer decisiones. Decidí que no más iba a incluir libros que yo he leído y que iba a tener una mezcla de inglés y español. Me gustó la idea de terminar con Landing on My Feet y A Step From Heaven porque me hizo pensar en alcanzar un sueño.

Seguí poniendo los libros en medio en orden y moviéndoles por diferentes partes.

Ya cuando vi al final me di cuenta que casi todos estaban en un patrón de español-ingles. Entonces, acomodé los que no estaban en este patrón y luego quité un libro del final para no tener dos en inglés al final.

Ustedes necesitan pensar en su propio tema y buscar los libros apropiados. Luego tienen que pensar en si van a hacerlo en inglés, español o los dos idiomas. ¡Qué disfruten!

6th and 7th graders:

This month is National Poetry month, and I celebrated by finally reading Sharon Creech’s Heartbeat. A few years ago I started to read it one day after school and was immediately hooked. It was the first time that I had seen a novel in verse and was surprised at how Creech was able to tell so much with so few words. However, for some reason I never completed the book. I needed to leave work for the day, and with the rush of the year never got back to it. Yet, I still remembered how powerful the words were and how much it grabbed my attention.

Many of you have been loving novels in verse this year, reading books such as Love That Dog, Hate That Cat, Out of the Dust (in English and Spanish), and Lisa Schroeder’s three novels. We also have another book in the classroom library that I think most of you would love called The Poet Slave of Cuba.

This week I would like to know your thoughts on novels in verse. If you have never read one, I encourage you to give one a try. Also feel free to post on your thoughts about poetry in general.

Keep in mind that poetry usually holds many great examples of word choice, so play close attention to author’s craft with poetry to see what you can learn from the authors! You can also share a favorite line as part of your response.

Mrs. Villagómez

Many of you have been enjoying Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine series books this year, both in English and Spanish. One of the tips she provides for writers on her site it, “Pay attention! Train yourself to notice things, and make notes about them. Jot down the way the sky looked on the way to school, what color sweater your mom was wearing, what made you nervous, or excited or sad during the day.” Remember that your writer’s notebook is a great place to record these thoughts and observations. Your notebook is a tool to use often for writing and you should be using it more than just when I guide the whole class through a writer’s notebook entry. Sometime this week I want you to write down something that you observe to gather your ideas/record your experience in your notebook. Remember that you can gather ideas in many different ways, such as with lists, webs, pictures, and quick writes. The most important thing is to capture the moment so you will be able to draw on that experience in the future.

On her website, Shannon Hale has many tips for young writers. These next two weeks in writing you are able to choice your own genre. I encourage you to think about the type of writing you love to read and try to write something similar. Your favorite authors can also be your writing teachers if you think about what it is you love about their writing and try to incorporate those aspects into your own writing.

One of Hale’s tips is, “Don’t be afraid to imitate. Don’t worry, eventually all your ideas will be original, but when starting out, it’s OK to imitate your favorite authors or even write new stories using their characters. This is called fan fiction, and you won’t be able to publish it anywhere, but that doesn’t matter. It’s all practice.”

These two weeks will go by quickly, so you might not have a chance to publish your writing, but I everyone should complete a rough draft and be able to reflect on what the writing includes that you admire about a different author. Enjoy your choice genre weeks!

Alumnos de 6to y 7mo grado:

Muchas veces cuando estoy eligiendo libros, leo de los mismos géneros. Sin embargo, para ser mejor lector sirve leer de muchos géneros distintos. Además muchas veces me encuentro gustando libros de géneros que pensé que no me gustó. Por ejemplo, yo pensé que no me gustaban los libros de fantasía. Luego empecé a leer unos libros de fantasía no más porque sabía que quizás a ustedes o otros alumnos les gustaría. Aunque no lo quería leer mucho al empezar, me di cuenta que no podía esperar para ver lo que iba a pasar al siguiente.

Esta semana no tienen que escribirme un correo de lector. En vez de eso van a responder aquí para hablar de libros que leyeron y disfrutaron aunque no fueron de su género preferido. Puden hablar de porque leyeron el libro y de lo que les sorprendió del libro o lo que les gustó del libro. También pueden hablar de sus géneros preferidos.

Sra. Villagómez