Back to Biographies

This week was our first week back on schedule after NECAP testing. Students officially have begun their biography unit and are in full gear. We received our letters from those people we chose to write biographies about and began organizing information into five categories (personal, work, favorites, family/friends, and school). After organizing information students went back and asked more questions. They asked about answers they didn't quite understand and things they still wanted to know. They also chose their two favorite topics to question more deeply because they will be the unique highlight in their written biography. 

To be more specific each student's biography will include seven chapters. The topics will be those five categories: personal, work, favorites, family/friends, and school and then those two most interesting topics they chose themselves. Examples of student work so far are:

Amira S. chose Ms. Hall the music teacher. Amira things it is very interesting that Ms. Hall's favorite game in Hungry Hippo and Ms. Hall is due to have a baby named Gavin Tripp in less than two weeks. Those are Amira's two unique chapters.

Madysen D. is writing about her Uncle Troy. Her two focuses will be Uncle Tyler's job in the Air Force and his son, Madysen's baby cousin.

 Nasra A. is writing about Mrs. Gaetani from Montello. She is focusing on Mrs. Gaetani's HUGE family and her babysitting job when she was younger. 

While students are writing their biographies, I am also focusing a piece of writing on someone very important to me. His name is Mr. Joseph Derouche. Students and I will be working together to research the five main categories and two interesting topics. I will model for them how to ask questions, organize information, and write these stories. We also have invited Mr. Derouche and Madysen's uncle to be part of the fun by letting our class interview them. We are in the middle of planning a Skype interview with Madysen's uncle and Mr. Derouche will be coming in for a visit hopefully very soon!