First Post: If I Saw a Dog in School

Looking at Language arts in my classroom, I want my students to start writing! I have one student in particular that is really talented creatively. She wrote a poem as a response to a writing prompt that was really creative. The prompt asked how students would respond if they saw a dog walking through the halls of their school— They had to use 4 types of sentences. It is interesting to observe the students who are on the “highest” “reading level” because they are the students who are not going above and beyond the 5th grade expectation, they are the students who are doing exactly what they are told, correctly. I want to know how to challenge students and really expect them to challenge themselves instead of just doing work that they know will get completed marks.

My cooperating teacher really wants all of the students to connect with what they are writing— I want to help them self-start their writing and know that they can actually write their ideas down in a way that they will feel good about their work. I worked with several students to complete this prompt by asking thinking questions like “do you think it would be funny? would you be afraid? who would you tell? what would you do first?” One student changed his interpretation of the story to he saw a god drive to school. He thought it was hilarious. That sense of creative ownership is something I want to include in my classroom too!