Newsletter: Wednesday, September 22

This is what happens when the kids take my phone at recess for an impromptu photo op!

Dear Families,

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it out last Thursday for our Opening Picnic. I know the kids always enjoy showing you around the room and sharing their work. Our first Curriculum Night will be October 6th. We hope to see you then as well. And don't forget we have Gathering this Friday at 2:20!

This past week we've been doing a lot in our reading workshop. We recently began an inquiry into graphica. This is how we are referring to the whole of graphic novels, comic books, and comic strips. The kids are very interested in this genre so I decided to follow their lead and use graphica texts to help us learn about: (1) the relationship between observations and inferences, (2) the different ways illustrators share information in such a small space, (3) telling an event across sequential pieces, (4) the use of dialogue to advance a story, and (5) the use of narrative boxes to provide transitions or background information. Here's a peak at some of this work...

We first made observations from the illustration then developed inferences as to what might be happening.

In this illustration we noticed that Cat Woman's facial expression helps us to make
more careful inferences as to why or how she has come across these rings from the Green Lantern.

An important observation from this illustration was the fact Wonder Woman's head is
lowered as though she is sad or upset. This helped us develop inferences as to what was
'happening in the illustration.

Of course, we inference all the time when reading. Whether we're using the illustrations or
the words on the page, we are working to collect, organize, and analyze information
in a way that assists us in making sense of what we are reading. Can you figure out what has
happened in this series of cells?

This study of graphica is extending into our writing workshop as well. The kids are poised to begin creating their own stories. However, much to their dismay I'm slowing them down as we work together to be intentional in this writing because it is rather difficult to create a comic that makes sense to other people. Right now we are sequencing the main events from the plot line of a picture book to recreate as a comic. We studied the ways in which the illustrators zoom in and out from frame to frame (can you see examples of this above?), place parts of the characters and setting outside of the frame, and change perspective/position. We'll soon be adding dialogue and narrative boxes to provide additional information for our readers.

We've also been reading to our 1st grade reading buddies. The kids literally couldn't wait for this to begin. The benefits this partnership provides the younger readers is obvious. However, reading aloud to the 1st graders, as well as listening to them read to us, offers our kids a great deal of support as well - from learning to become more engaging oral readers to supporting the younger readers to interact with the text in a way that helps them better comprehend.