Children GET it. We need to LET them get it.

Today was one of those great days where everything just mushes all together and we grew and grew in our thinking!  We have been using the book, Freedom Summer, by Deborah Wiles, illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue, to explore perspective and point of view, author's message and theme and discuss what the nation was experiencing in the 1960's.  Each lesson has had some arts integration componant--for example, during the very first read of the story, I stopped  every now and then to check for comprehension by asking small groups to create a tableau (a frozen picture) of the setting, an event, or even a term that was new to them.  The next lesson focused on the question, "How can your group create a tableau that would describe what John Henry and Joe meant to each other?"   Eventually these frozen pictures were narrated by the group with a sentence or two.  I wrote these sentences on chart paper, and voila!  Here were interpretations of the theme! From there we imagined other points of view from which the story could be told--like the shovel for example.  What might the shovel see, hear, think, feel, and say if it could?  We brainstormed in a circle map some interesting ideas-I wrote down every single one!  We then used a poetry frame we are familiar with and created some GREAT poetry in our small groups.  I'll publish a few here when they are ready!  Tomorrow we're going to write poems individually from the point of view of a chosen object in the story.  I can't wait to hear them!

Melissa