Our four oldest students participated in a four-session writing short course on persuasive essays. The students read and listened to examples of persuasive writing. They learned how writing is only persuasive when there is an audience the author seeks to move. They learned how research, reasoning and anecdotes could be used in crafting strong supporting Read More >>
Writing Workshop with Paul
Three of our middle school students participated in a four-session workshop designed to enhance the skills of developing writers. In preparation, the students read “War Horse” by Michael Morpurgo — a story of World War I told through the eyes of a horse. Students discussed the the book and author’s writing style, and then wrote Read More >>
Kate Woodle, Children’s Book Illustrator
Kate Woodle conducted a four-week, illustration workshop for the seven oldest students. Kate kicked off her workshop as a Mystery Guest for the whole school, where she described the process of illustrating a children’s picture book. To the smaller class, students had to bring a fictional story they had written. Kate showed them how to Read More >>
Letter Writing
This spring, students in grades 3-4 participated in a unit on writing a persuasive letter. We read informational articles to gather baseline information about how littering affects the ecosystems on Earth. We began this unit by viewing letter examples and highlighting different aspects of the letter to view how a letter is formatted. As we Read More >>
Creation Myths
Since January, we began a class with the younger half of the school reading a wide variety of myths from Native American, South American, and African cultures that give voice to stories of how our world and elements of it have been created. We read many versions of how there came to be Day and Read More >>
Story Soup
Many a white page has been known to cause “writer’s block.” At The New School we recently tried something new. During Read Aloud we are reading “Sweep: The story of a girl and her monster” to the older children. Early in the book Nan, the main character. reminisces about happy days. Her Sweep collects lost Read More >>
Pick A Poet
The eldest students were given an assignment that involved self-selecting three poets. After browsing through collections of poetry by Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and more, they had to pick one poem from their selected anthology. After copying one poem from the collection, they had to illustrate Read More >>
Writing Workshop – The Elements of a Good Story
A small group of older students have been discussing the important elements of a great story. First we considered setting and the children created a drawing or map of a place or setting that intrigued them. The following week we discussed character and the importance of considering the inner as well as outer traits of Read More >>