Reading and Writing and Pancakes

At Coventry, every teacher, regardless of content area, teaches a literacy class. Last year, literacy classes included a vocabulary development program centered on instruction about prefixes, suffixes, and root words. Since this year’s Literacy curriculum hasn’t been established or implemented yet, I have freedom to do what I want.

Woohoo!

Before our first class met on Tuesday, I knew that my goal for the next week was to read a whole class novel. However, since I didn’t have a book yet and wasn’t ready to start that, I decided to do a carousel activity with a variety of quotes about reading and writing. I put each quote on a piece of poster paper, hung the quotes around the room, gave each student a marker, and let them walk from poster-to-poster to respond to each of the quotations. After the students made their journey around, I asked for volunteers to share which quote stuck out  to them the most and why.

Immediately, a student’s face lit up and hand shot up. I really thought he was going to fall out of his desk from the excess enthusiasm. Attempting to avoid this disaster, I invited him to share. He read out a quote on the back wall from Frank Serafini: “There is no such thing as a child who hates to read; there are only children who have not found the right book.” He eagerly asked if he could share his response and I, of course, couldn’t  refuse his smile.

“Anyone can make pancakes but they have to find the right batter.”

Seriously? Pancakes? I thought to myself. Well, I know who the funny man is now.

“Okay…” I said slowly. “And how does that connect to the quote?”

I expected something off-topic and was trying to quickly figure out how  I would bring the class back together . . . even if it was last period.

But the student impressed me. He wasn’t just being a funny man. He very eloquently explained how his metaphor was just an example to help explain the concept: just like anyone can be a reader or make pancakes, both either need to find the right book or the right batter to be successful.

On that same poster, another student wrote, “I love books.” And other confessed, “I hated books til I found Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”  I’m  not so sure I would have seen or heard these same responses if this were an individual or purely discussion-based activity.

I’m not claiming to make any earth-shattering conclusions here, but, overall, the responses I received reminded me why activities like this are so important. Having large pieces of poster paper for students to write on literally gives them the space to think and share their ideas. Students who might not want to speak in class regain power with a marker of their own.

Plus, now I get to decorate my class with their smart scribbles :)