Well, well, well...what a week it has been. I broke my finger last weekend and spent the majority of my week in an enormous splint/brace/THING that made me feel like a transformer.
Needless to say, I could not write, grade, type, put my hair in a ponytail....etc etc. Here comes a great big update from my world.
We began the week slow--still lethargic from the turkey? Who knows. We have begun reading Chew On This (Schlosser and Wilson, 2006), a kid version of Fast Food Nation. Because we have only 3.5 weeks until Christmas break (and middle school kids don't retain well over those types of breaks), I wanted to make sure to get the book done and do it justice in those 3.5 weeks....that means we can't focus on much else in class time. SO, I thought....how can I use the wiki and how can I keep them WRITING as we read??
Usually, my "work husband" (who teaches gr. 7 ELA) and I assign free choice book projects every quarter. This ensures kids keep reading, learn to find books that interest them, and share those books with other students. So I thought...why do we ALWAYS do free choice reading? Why not free-choice writing?
I had just completed a mini-unit on citations and correct MLA format (which let me tell you...they LOVED....hmm not really) and knew we would be reading about issues in Chew On This that would be firing them up...so I thought-- okay, how about them completing a free choice RESEARCH project and create a wiki page for their chosen issue?
They are doing a research paper and loving it.
It's crazy.
I am going to break the news to them after they create their wiki pages and they are going to be amazed. I think I am going to have them print off their pages and compare/contrast their work to to a traditional research paper. I can see it now-- realization dawning on their faces, looking at each other like, "She tricked us," and then sitting back and saying... "Huh. Well then."
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