Community Building

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Community Building

• Research

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Community Building Group Time

• Set up your Museum Pieces.
• Browse.
• Form small groups to share favorite childrens
  book.
• Determine Readability for each book in your
  group.
• Share whole class.

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In the practice of being community members,
children find models and pathways that help them
move beyond themselves to connect with others and
to make contributions for the greater good. Ruth
Charney
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The beginning of the school year is one of the
times when the broad concept plays a significant
role in curriculum development and organization.
Community building experiences are introduced
with an emphasis on relating these experiences to
the broad concept. Crawford 1998
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Broad Concepts

• A broad umbrella concept is one from which almost
  any topic or issue could be examined so there is
  no limit on what students can decide to pursue.
  Concepts such as Discovery, Sense of Place,
  Relationships, Changes, Harmony, and Making a
  Difference are just a few examples that can cut
  across all content areas.

Short, Schroeder, Laird, Kauffman, Ferguston,
Crawford, 1996
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Common Experiences for Conceptualizing Harmony
within our Classes

• Whole Class Read Alouds We compiled a literature
  list of nine books to read aloud in our
  classrooms at the start of the school year. These
  books were shared and discussed with our whole
  class using three discussion questions
• What did you notice? - What did you think of?
• How did this make you feel?
• What Am I? by N. N. Charles
• Bein With You This Way by R. Nicola Lisa
• The World That Jack Built by Ruth Brown
• Something for Nothing by Phoebe Gillman
• My Many Colored Days by Dr. Seuss
• Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young
• Crysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
• Whoever You Are by Mem Fox
• What A Wonderful World by George Weiss and Bob
  Thick

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Common Experiences for Conceptualizing Harmony
within our Classes

• Creating Class Rules through Harmony In the
  first two weeks of school, we wrote our class
  rules together as a class. We discussed and
  compiled our class rules through read alouds
  about harmony with others.
• Museum Collection We asked students to bring a
  collection of items from home that represented
  themselves. Through sharing our museum pieces and
  reading books about harmony within ourselves, we
  learned to appreciate one another.
• Timeline of Self showing Harmony We asked
  students to reflect upon their growth over time,
  from the age of a baby up until now, at home with
  their family. As we shared and discussed our
  experiences, we learned about harmony of self and
  change over time.

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Common Experiences for Conceptualizing Harmony
within our Classes

• Getting to Know You Article We brainstormed
  ideas for getting to know you questions with our
  class. Then, students partnered up together to
  conduct getting to know you interviews. The
  students used their interviews to write getting
  to know you articles about one another. Through
  our experiences and literature discussions, we
  learned about harmony with self and harmony with
  others.
• Concept of Harmony Web We asked students and
  their family to discuss their definition of
  harmony. Then, students brought an artifact to
  school for sharing and discussing their
  definition with the class. The sharing of these
  artifacts became a tool for creating our own
  class web of the concept of harmony.

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Birthday Presents Example
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Birthday Presents Example
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• Something from Nothing Class book
• Class Rules from What a Wonderful World (read
  aloud)

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Harmonious Homework
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Pictures
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• The beginning of the school year is one of the
  times when the broad concept plays a significant
  role in curriculum development and organization.
  Community building experiences are introduced
  with an emphasis on relating these experiences to
  the broad concept.
• Crawford 1998

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Umbrella
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Parent Letter
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• Harmony Class Book
• Family Web
• Pictures

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Discussion

• Community Building Article
• Discuss in small groups
• Share highlighted or underlined areas of interest
• When your group finishes discussing, you may
  browse the text set and sign up for a Strategy
  Presentation date.

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Browse Community Building Books
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Writers Workshop

• The Writing Process Turn in small groups and
  discuss what your experiences were with writing
  during your K-9 years.

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The Writing Process

• Brainstorming
• Prewriting
• Drafting
• Beginning
• Middle
• End
• Revising
• Editing
• Final Draft
• Sharing
• Publishing

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• What are children doing at each stage of this
  process?
• What are you as the teacher doing during this
  process?

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Brainstorming

• What are some strategies in which students can
  brainstorm?
• Begin brainstorming ideas you have for writing.

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For Next Time

• Beliefs About Literacy Learning and Teaching
• A Continuum from Behavioral to Psychosociolinguist
  ic Approaches
• Cueing Systems
• Models of Literacy
• Writers Workshop Genres of Writing

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Homework

• Choose a strategy lesson and sign up for a date
  to present.
• Readings
• STW Introduction
• PKT Models of Literacy Handouts Chapter 2
  from RMI RS, Chpt 1 and Figure 2-3 School Talk
  Reading and Writing Workshop