Now onto the fun stuff...

Now that TAKS is over, we can get back to the real reading and writing work and we're beginning Inquiry Clubs, which I am SO excited about!

It works like this. I pose this question to them--

(and I just realized I said "has" instead of "have"...I'm shocked one of my little vanguard kids didn't catch my mistake in class! :))

...and then they look back over all the books they've read this year, come up with a question that's haunting them from those books--about life, about people, about things that people do...the possibilities are endless. Then, they group up with 2-3 other people in the class, discuss their questions and come up with a group inquiry, which they will spend the next 4 weeks trying to sort out their thoughts on. They'll read novels, poetry, articles and anything else they can get their hands on that deals with their inquiry. Then, as a club, they'll create a social action project to present to the rest of the school shedding some light on their inquiry and the issues that it deals with. They're excited (most of them anyway :)) and I'm excited!

In my ESL class we're doing a class inquiry as we read Bronx Masquerade (which is a great book, by the way, if you haven't read it) and the question they came up with together, based on all the other books we've read this year is...

Should be interesting. Especially considering that a number of them are doing this very thing right now.

And my vanguard classes came up with some pretty interesting inquiry questions also. I'm looking forward to the discussions that will ensue over the next month or so!

And, because I just love them so much, I have to mention my little sixth grade babies in my reading class. I love it because it's like I get to teach elementary and middle school all at once and it's a fun mix. And, it's fun because they're to the stage where they're enjoying reading, which I LOVE. We spent yesterday just reading books aloud to each other and it was awesome.


And I'm pretty sure this book is their favorite. We have enough copies for them all to have one and they like to partner up and each person reads their character's lines. It was the first book that most of them read by themselves this year (and probably ever) so it has good memories for them--and for me. I'm planning to give each of them a copy of it at the end of the year to take home over the summer.

(I'm not sure why this keeps uploading upside down??)

And, in other exciting news, there is talk at my school of me being able to have these kids (and a few other really low readers) in an actual english class next year, as opposed to just seeing them every other day for part of their english period. I'm pretty pumped--we could do SO much more if it was set up that way!

Happy Friday! Pray for Landon and I as we head off to our triathlon this this afternoon!