Juli
Kendall's
2004-05
READING/WRITING
WORKSHOP JOURNAL
Entry #15
Reading Our Work at the Open Mike
It's a rainy, cold, Southern California Saturday in the middle of a Pineapple Express weather system. I'm getting off to a really slow start when my husband reaches across the breakfast table and hands me the comic section. "Check out today's 'Brevity' cartoon," he says. So I look at the top row of comics and locate a drawing of Yogi Bear standing in the forest holding a piece of paper with a surprised look on his face. The copy underneath the picture says:
Poor Yogi! He's going to be realigning his expectations. That's exactly what I don't want to have happen with our kids. Many of them are just getting the idea that they actually are readers and writers and that what they have to say about their reading and their writing matters. I want them to hold on tight to their vision of themselves as life long learners. One way we encourage kids to believe in themselves is through "Open Mike." It's a venue for getting the kids' writing work out into the world. (See Writing Workshop Journal #9, "Motivating With 'Open Mike.'") We used it for several years, but this fall we returned to it with renewed enthusiasm. It's now expanded across the entire grade level. Based on the coffeehouse concept, kids choose pieces of their writing to read into a microphone in front of an audience invited to listen to their work and respond. Depending on the teacher, the audience might include parents, as well as administrators, Literacy Specialists, and other classes. It's something the kids love! So how does this help build lifelong learners? We accept a wide variety of writing for "Open Mike." Kids read not just complete, finished final drafts but excerpts from plays, poems, writing seeds from Writer's Notebooks, Letters to the Editor, persuasive essays, reports of information, etc. Accepting all kinds of writing helps all students see themselves as writers. We've found that building a foundation with kids that encourages everyone to write and accepts all kinds of writing conveys the message that we are all in this together. We are a community of lifelong writers and we write for many reasons and purposes. Sometimes our writing is based on an assignment and sometimes it's by personal choice. Last Friday was our most recent Open Mike. The range of writing was amazing! Veronica shared a personal narrative about her first Communion in Mexico and then showed how she had used it to create a book based on the work of Carmen Lomas Garza, the author of Family Pictures. The book was filled with incredibly detailed illustrations of each part of her story but I think it was the ending that sealed the deal. "That was the best day of my life," she wrote. Steven's writing showed dramatic progress. In several months he had moved from nonsensical prose to simple, easily understood personal narratives. The one he chose to read was titled "Drive By." It began simply, "In the night they did drive by. On Sunday they found the bullet. It was a 45." Jose read his first complete piece of writing — one with a beginning, middle, and end that covered the same topic. He chose "At School" for the title of his piece about what he does every day at school. It ended with, "And the other day we do the same thing." I think the big surprise, however, was the piece of writing Gladys chose to read. It was titled, "Spin the Bottle." In a very straightforward writing style she told the story of a game of Spin the Bottle with her brother and his friends. TMI - too much information. But the writing was terrific. So Yogi, ignore what others tell you and just go back to believing in yourself. You can do it because you definitely are — smarter than the average bear!After all the scores were tabulated, Yogi would be ashamed to discover that he wasn't actually smarter than the average bear, that he was, in fact, stupiderŠand by quite a large margin.
Resources page for our Reading/Writing Project
