In Pictures and in Words CH 2

Chapter 2 is about building stamina for writing. Earlier this year I mentioned to some teachers in my building that our children lack stamina for things academic. Everything is instant gratification. To my surprise the teachers were more upset with my word choice... stamina. Rather than thinking that the word could apply to reading and writing, they stressed that stamina was a word that you use for running or physical activity. I love this word actually and it is something that my kids get excited about too. We are able set timers and see our growth! And how do I love to grow and celebrate growth!!

I love this quote from page 22: So composing with illustrations is the only logical entry point for them to begin developing stamina or creative work.

Think about it... all children can make pictures. Even the most unskilled child can make pictures. Here is my case in point, the child who drew the picture below was one of my lowest students. You can see that she is filling the page, but with random marks. However in the middle of the page are people... can't you see them?

Now lets look at her work from the end of the year. After lots of talking about illustrations and how we use the picture as much as the words to tell our story.

I really love her drawing here. You can clearly see the pet( it's an alligator) and the people in her family. Her mom is is on the left and she drew her with a red face because she didn't want an alligator for a pet. Now I didn't get this information from her words written on a page. I got that through a student interview. She could tell me volumes about this picture.

So much of this chapter was looking at the story of the young writers. Now one thing that I didn't do this year was to create student books, but I am really rethinking my whole writing block. I plan to use two new tools this year. 1) creating books and 2) the idea that something is NOT finished in one sitting.