Vogelsang House Blog

Next week is our Ellis Island Simulation, a grade-wide event that is taking place on Tuesday, November 24th.  For the simulation, Mr. Andre and Ms. Gordon created 90 unique characters based on people who really immigrated over 100 years ago through Ellis Island! Every fourth grade student received their own identity (a historical-fiction blurb that introduces us to their character). From the identity, we can gather crucial information for our characters, such as what country they are emigrating from, their job/occupation, health, etc. However, there is also information that we are not clearly presented with, and with research and accurate creativity, we can begin to flesh out, or build our characters.

For our Simulation to be completely successful, there are assignments that we must complete prior to our event. We will first learn how to build our characters by adding vivid details using an example identity, then complete an autobiography checklist, and finally write an autobiography for our characters. Read below for a brief explanation of these assignments, as well as links to PDF versions of the assignments.

Click on the bold titles for a PDF version of the Assignments below:

How to Build Your Character (click here): As you read your identities there are questions that you should ask yourself to gain a deeper understanding of your character’s life and motive(s) for immigrating into the U.S.

Autobiography Checklist (click here): Complete this before your write your autobiography, as it provides a nice outline for your final autobiography.

Example Autobiography Checklist (click here): A completed version for Pierre Escargot.

Autobiography: A final draft of your character’s life is required to fully gain entrance into the United States. There is no PDF here, as the final draft is hand-written or typed on “aged” paper.

Example Autobiography (click here): A final draft version for Pierre Escargot. (Please note that this is an exemplary model, and that your language/vocabulary does not have to be as sophisticated…. but reach for it if you can!)

Vocabulary List (click here): This is a great resource to gain a better understanding for unfamiliar words in your identity.

Today we looked at the wonderful art of Joseph Cornell. Cornell was born in New York, in the early 1900s. Inspired by both nature and the city, Cornell crafted beautiful “boxes” throughout his life. Detailed and carefully planned, his intricate boxes have now become world-renowned pieces of art. Many themes and objects show up in his work, such as birds, astronomy, theatre, ballet, film, etc. Following in this great artist’s footsteps, the students of Vogelsang House are going to create boxes of their own! Our themes for our boxes will be borrowed from the works of E.B. White, such as love/friendship, life/death, rescue/adventure, change, being small but mighty, etc. We will spend the following days collecting small objects that help communicate this theme, and will carefully design and create a box of our own! Click below for a short slide show on Joseph Cornell’s work, which we annotated in class.

Click here for a PDF slide show of Cornell’s annotated work

Vogelsang House has begun our Hero Essays. For this assignment, we are writing two paragraphs. The first paragraph answers the questions “What is a hero?” and includes details about specific heroes in our lives. The second paragraph answers the question: “Who is the hero of Charlotte’s Web?” The second paragraph is meaty, because we have to include a strong argument to prove our point by referring to lines in the text and even including a counter argument (when we say why other characters are not the hero)! Click on the rubric below to see the detailed expectations for the assignment. When we finish, our essays will be posted on the blog. Come back soon!

Click here for a Hero Essay Rubric