Journal #11
April 6th, 2011
9:30-10:30 (1 hour)
Today, Oscar and I only had 1 hour to work together since the first hour that we typically work together he needed to make up a test that he had missed on a previous day. When Oscar and I met today it seemed normal. There was no extra excitement or frustration – it was simply a lesson that took place. Oscar and I once again looked at the Fairy-Tale he had written a few weeks ago. Today, I asked Oscar if he thought his story was interesting. He said he liked the idea but didn’t think it was interesting enough for others to read his story. So, Oscar and I worked through what I consider to be a fun lesson. First, we talked a little about 6 important questions every writer should ask when trying to make their stories more interesting – Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. Once Oscar could recite these questions back to me I pulled out a deck of cards. I told him to come up with any character name. He decided on Luis. Then, I told asked Oscar what it would mean if Luis had this particular deck of cards. Oscar said it meant Luis liked to play cards. Then I asked him what card game he most liked. He chose war. Then, Oscar and I set up the cards as if we were playing war with each other. I asked Oscar to answer the 6 questions about these cards. Who – Luis and his friend Marco, What – playing war, Where – in a school library, When – during lunch time and How – excitedly and with their hands. Oscar determined all of the above factors on his own.
Once this was complete Oscar was able to create a more interesting sentence saying “Luis threw the red ace on top of Marco’s king and swept the two cards into the enormous pile lying next to him.” Oscar thought this was a very interesting sentence and much better than saying “Luis and Marco were playing war.”
Once this was done Oscar and I walked around the library. I would occasionally see some people and give Oscar a simple sentence like: “The girl is chewing on gum.” Oscar would then try to create a more interesting sentence answering the five questions above. For this particular example he came up with “Lisa noisily smacked the tough pink ball between her teeth.” Oscar was easily coming up with easier sentences. Once we did this for about 20 minutes the lesson was almost over. I asked Oscar to look over his paper and try to make some of these changes during the week and we would look over his story together next week.
Overall, I enjoyed this lesson and found it to be valuable. Oscar definitely caught on to the idea very quickly and was thriving with the concept. However, it he wasn’t ecstatic about the lesson – like I said before it just felt like another day with just another lesson – but I enjoyed it and I feel that Oscar definitely learned how to write a more interesting story – I guess I’ll be able to see if that carries over from a spoken story into a written story when we review his story.
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