Today and yesterday the girls have been working on their memoirs and responding to Comfort. At the start of WW I shared a poorly written memoir that I copied from Atwell's In the Middle. We talked about problems and I asked the girls to share how they would revised the draft. I'd typed the draft in google docs to make it easy to access. Technology held the first two periods and did not work during 3rd. So far today it has been working. Keeping my fingers crossed for 7th. Surprisingly the writing time during 3rd was the most focused and the girls shared amazing tidbits about their time writing. One student told me that since her sister had been in town over the weekend she wrote about her sister. She'll use the writing in her memoir. Another student said she had written about one of the places in her memoir. I was excited to hear how they were using their notebooks to collect around their topics.
Additionally I went over the first drafts of their memoirs I received last week. Trying to only focus on one aspect of their writing, I conferenced with each girl. The overwhelming area of focus was how they could show me that the story was important to them - sharing their thoughts and feelings!
Yesterday and today were the first days to respond to Comfort. Feeling that the needs of the girls were varied, I created 4 response activities. The first was a basic response: summary, response with a connection to the text - what made them think this. The need was apparent after grading so many summer reading projects. The next was choosing a passage to respond to. I found this need tied to recent reading responses. There was a character analysis activity - something I found in Gallagher's Deeper Reading. The fourth group analyzed the poem Invictus and shared how the poem tied to the text. While the prep work was significant and the set-up a little chaotic, I think it was a good idea. Divide and conquer. Meet the needs of our girls.
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