What a long strange trip it has been....but we have made it. George, my third grade teacher participating in the 1001 Flat World Tales Project has posted his stories to the CMS Elementary Wiki. I will say this, I am impressed how George and his kids went about this project. George seeing an opportunity to tie the project into his curriculum had his kids explore "known" myths that the kids were familiar with. After partnering George with our writing specialist, Cassia they had kids dissect myths and determine what the "anatomy" of a myth is. From here kids were able to invent their own myths about certain aspects of Do Culture, Music, etc. Truly I am impressed and I think this pushed George's third graders to think a little differently about their writing. Did I mention the art to go along with the writings? Each student also has contributed an illustration of their story and Iminican Republic Geography, have not seen those but with the imagination I saw in the students as I looked over some of their myth stories, I no doubt will be equally impressed with those as well.
I will be honest about the next step of revision. I do feel a little intimidated for our kids being a grade lower than the kids we are sharing with and being the only non-native English speaking elementary class in the 1001 Project. But, I guess that is part of the experience and will hopefully be a cultural learning experience for our kids to read what native speaking children write like and vice versa on the part of the classes in the U.S.
Anyway, I have to now contact Terry Smith and Dean Meyer and let them know that kids can start revising our kids and to let them know that we will be doing the same for their students.
I'll keep you posted...whoever you are.
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Great news, Jeff,
The pedagogy your team at CMS is feeding into the project sounds first-rate! Is there any way they can share their lessons on this blog, or on the 1001teachers wiki? Future workshops in years to come can benefit.
As for the non-native English-speaking concern, I think your angle is right on. The peer modeling that will come from their US partners will help them learn.
And I would add--being a former ESOL department head and teacher-trainer--that the emphasis in good writing should always be on the first "5 traits" (ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency) far more than it is on grammar.
So this is a good message to send to your kids. Writing starts with ideas. Good ideas don't need perfect grammar; but perfect grammar does need good ideas.
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