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End of Semester

The longer I teach, the faster the years fly by.  I can't believe this year is half over!  What I love about my job is that no years is ever the same and no two kids are ever the same!  It's been a wonderful year so far!

 We finished off the semester by reading "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."
 I read this story in high school and never forgot it!  It was so funny to me at the time.  It's about a man who is hen-pecked by his wife and is a total wimp.   In order to escape, he day dreams.  In his day dreams, he is always a hero, never afraid to stand up to anyone.  

  As we read the story, we analyzed techniques that James Thurber used in his story.  Afterwards, students were asked to emulate Thurber's style by writing an additional day dream for the story.  I gave them the option of working alone, with a partner, or in a group.  

 When students finished writing their stories, I had them turn them in to turnitin.com, as well as Google Classroom (a huge thank you to them for letting me experiment with technology).  From Google Classroom, I was able to upload their stories, delete their names, and post their stories to Google Classroom for all to read!  In class, they read all of the submitted stories and voted on their favorite!  

 Here are some of their comments about this activity:
  • This assignment was very fun and allowed everyone to be creative.  I thought my story was very good (it must have been; it came in second place).  I liked working with a group.  I could bounce ideas off of them.  This assignment was perfect.
  • I liked working in a group because we all had great ideas, and we put them together to make an awesome story.  It made the project more enjoyable.  I also liked reading the other stories because there were a lot of great ideas and some funny topics.  
  • I thought the contest aspect made it fun!
  • Working with a group was awesome for this project. My group had creative ideas, and at the end we had the best story!  My perspective for the contest was different than other's because we won.  I loved this entire project.
  • I really like how my story turned out.  It had good details and descriptions.  I'm really proud of myself for pulling off the dreamlike feel and point of view.  I had so much fun writing this.  The sky was the limit.
  • I did not work in a group, but I feel like my story turned out pretty well.  Overall, I enjoyed this experience.
  • Our story would have been 10X worse if he worked alone.
  • I liked being able to combine ideas.  Also, you have someone to help edit.
  • I worked on my story alone because I wanted to have more of a choice and freedom of creativity.  I was happy with the way my story turned out.
Some students commented that they wished they had more time to work on their stories.  In the future, I will allow a little more time.  What kids have to say is important to me!  After all, they are my customers!

Here is an example of a story :

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