So here’s the first chapter as we annotated it today on the Smartboard.
Monthly Archive for September, 2009
Old Country
Where did you come from and when?
What was the reason you came to America?
What was your old country like? (customs, climate, food, childhood/special memories)
Did you leave anyone or anything behind? If so, would you like to tell us more about it?
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your old country?
Journey
What was it like traveling to America?
How did you get here? (Car/boat/train/plane/other, time it took,)
Do you have any interesting stories that happened while you were traveling?
Did you travel with anyone and if so, who? Tell me more if you wish.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about the journey?
Arrival
Where did you go when you first arrived and what was it like? How did it make you feel?
Where did you finally settle and why?
What did you think America would be like? Was it what you expected? Why or why not?
Did you know anyone here, family or friends, and if so whom?
Did you know English? If not, how did you learn it and adjust to the new language?
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your early days in your new country?
New Country
What are the big differences between your old country and the new country?
Have you been back to your old country? If so, what was that like?
What do you miss about your old country?
What are you doing now? (job, school)
What is your current status in the citizenship process? (Are you a citizen? If not, do you plan to become one? )
Is there anything else you want to tell me?
We often think of history as something written down in a book, but many cultures have not had written languages and relied on oral means to maintain their history. Today, firsthand oral accounts are as valued as written documents, letters, photographs, and artifacts when doing history. In this project you will learn the techniques of being a good oral historian and then use them to interview an immigrant and then take your interview and craft it into a picture book – one that captures as accurately as possible his or her immigration experience.
Oral History Techniques
• How to create good interview questions.
• How to listen during an interview, how to create good follow-up questions on the spur of the moment.
• How to use a recorder.
• How to transcribe an interview.
• How to select the most significant parts of the transcript.
• How to take these parts and craft them into a piece of historical writing.
A Model Immigrant Book
You will observe how someone interviews and develops the interview into a book.
Book Study
You will study a variety of picture books that all present immigration stories
in different ways. We will also look at other innovative picture books for ideas
on how to create your own books.
Individual Student Project
Subject Selection.
Each of you is required to interview an immigrant to the United States. This individual can be a family member, friend, or acquaintance. It is important to be sure that whoever is chosen is completely comfortable telling his/her story. In particular, you need to be aware and sensitive to those who are uncomfortable telling their stories. Some people love to do so, others do not. It is important not to press someone to do so, if it clear he or she does not wish to. If you are unable to find a subject we have many willing subjects in the school. Many teachers, administrators, and staff members known to you would be delighted to serve as subjects for this project and have done so in the past.
Interview Preparation
To prepare for the interview you will need:
- A working recorder and extra batteries and tapes (unless it is digital).
- A carefully prepared set of questions. (You will create this with your class.)
- A release form.
Interview
Do the interview outside of school. As soon as it is done bring all the documents, the tape, and the recorder to school.
Transcription
You will do this in class.
Follow-up interview
You may decide that your interview is not sufficient and may need to contact your subject for more information on certain topics.
Selecting Good Quotes
Go through your transcript and highlight those quotes that you feel most present the subject’s immigration story.
Craft an Immigrant Narrative
•Draft your subject’s immigrant story. Some possible approaches:
First Person
“I was five years old when I first came here….”
Third Person
“Mary immigrated when she was five years old….”
Question/Answer,
Q: How old were you when you immigrated?
A: I was five years old.
Subject’s View/Author’s Response.
Subject: I was five when I immigrated to the United States.
Interviewer: Boy, that must have been incredibly scary!
•Revise as necessary
You will be continually conferring with teachers and peers during this stage.
•Proofread and Teacher edit
•Plan Illustrations
Decide on medium, how they will work on the page, etc.
Also do research so the illustrations accurately reflect the subject’s story.
•Create final copy in bound book.
Oral History Celebration
Once all books are completed we will invite friends, family, and subjects mto an Oral History Celebration.
Often books have one or two paragraphs about the author, which are called blurbs. In fact, there are people who specialize in writing blurbs. It is a tricky job because the blurb writer wants to provide as much interesting information as possible about the author in one or two paragraphs.
For your first writing project, you will be interviewing a classmate and using your interview notes to create a blurb.
Looking at a Model of a Blurb
First we are going to look at two different blurbs for the same author, E. B. White to give us some idea what blurbs are like. Then I will do a model interview of Ms. McQuillan. After that you will get to do your own interview.
Each of you will be assigned a partner (and, in one case, it will be a threesome) to interview. This will be practice for an interview project you will be doing involving interviewing an immigrant. This is a much shorter interview, but you should be sure to listen carefully, take good notes, and allow your partner to say as much as he/she wishes in answer to each question.
Once you have completed the interview you will write a first draft of the blurb. You may or may not want to include everything from the interview — depends on how you want to approach this. You will want to revise (read over and perhaps make some changes), have the author read it and say it is okay), proofread, and then do a final copy. We will also take photos of all the authors and then you will be able to put the blurb and the photo together in a beautiful final presentation!
Today you are going to begin your very first literature unit in fourth grade, a study of the children’s books of E. B. White. You can read an overview of the assignment here. To begin I will be giving each of you a copy of Charlotte’s Web to read and, eventually, to annotate. “What is annotating?” you ask. Well, you will find out soon enough! Trust me, it is fun!
Together we will plan out how you will read the book. Most of it will be at home (part of your nightly 30 minutes of reading), but some might be during Lab in school. Some of you may read it very quickly and some of you may want to take your time with it. Both ways are just fine! Together we will decide when everyone should be done. And then we will begin the annotating!
If you want to learn more about E. B. White you can go to these two sites:
The fourth grade social studies theme for the year is immigration because the United States is a country full of immigrants — people who moved here from elsewhere. As we look at different immigrant stories we will consider the following questions:
- Why do people immigrate?
- What was their journey like?
- What were their initial impressions of the new country?
- How do they assimilate yet maintain what is important from their country or place of origin?
So let’s begin with YOU! Each of you has just immigrated to Big Dalton from another school. What has that been like for each of you? No doubt you have memories, feelings, and ideas to communicate about this on your first day in your new environment. And what better way to represent these than visually — in a creative map! I want you to be imaginative and to have fun with this.
Think about how you can represent your journey from a familiar place to one that is new (the same experience all new immigrants have) visually. You can use words, pictures, lines, and all sorts of things. These maps can have keys, symbols, labels, whatever you want! (They do need to have correct spelling and such as we are going to display them in the classroom for your parents and all visitors to see — do remember that even as you have fun with this!) Here are a few to get you started thinking about how you want to do your own.
I’m thinking about you and am looking forward to meeting you a week from today. Yesterday I was walking my dog, Lucy, and ran into one of you! She remembered me because she was in our third grade buddy house last year. Others of you were too, some of you have brothers and sisters I taught, and some of you are going to be new to me. I can’t wait for our first day so we can get started on our year together.
I was in school last week and the room is starting to get into shape. There are books, books, dictionaries, pencils, ladybugs, planbooks and more all waiting for you. I’m especially eager to see you put your individual stamp on it — your art, your writing, and just your own sense of things. Some of Edinger House looks the same every year (loads of books, the fabric on the walls, the ladybugs), but it always looks different too because there are different students in it every year. Can’t wait to see what you do to make it a special place this year!
Next Monday you will come to school a little later than usual and we will dive in! At the end of the day, a little earlier than usual, your parents can come to the classroom to see it (and you can show them around) to pick you up. Then on Tuesday, you will start and end your school day the same as everyone else.
See you soon!