NewsQuest

Fourth Graders Reflect on our Weblog Learning

Fifth graders were off on a field trip, so my fourth graders got some special attention today.  Jennifer, Derrick, and Emily - I want you to know how proud I am of you.  Your reflections on weblogs was outstanding!  I know lots of other educators will enjoy receiving your input. Here are their reflections:

Emily's Reflections

Derrick's Reflections

Jennifer's Reflections

We spent time discussing how we can extend our learning throughout the summer.  I'm thinking of making a weblog just for the students so they can send questions, thoughts, etc to me as we won't be meeting as a group during the summer.  I want them to still be able to post news stories throughout the summer, if they are interested!  All 3 of my fourth graders were very interested! I'll check with the fifth graders next week.

Jennifer's Reflections

1. What is your favorite thing about weblogs?

"My favorite thing about weblogs is that I can share my thoughts with others."

2.What have you learned?

"I have learned new things in writing skills like writing a good lead and what a nutgraph is."

3.How have you changed?

"I have changed into not being in my shy stage anymore."

4.If an outsider visited your site, what would you hope he or she would think about it?

"I hope an outsider would like my weblog and might learn something new."

5.In what ways have you become a better writer?

"I have become a better writer by using my new writing skills."

6.If you could start a weblog of your own, what would you write about?

"I would write my thoughts and feelings about what happened in the news."

7.What did you think about the Georgia-NJ Connection?

"I thought that the Georgia-NJ Connection was very helpful and educational. Travis and Jeremy were my mentors. I would always be waiting to see what they would say about my weblog."

8.Did you tell anyone about your weblog? Did others read your weblog? What feedback did you get from other people outside the class, if any?

"Yes I told people about my weblog. Yes others read my page. Yes I got lots of feedback to give me some advice."

9.Do you have any words of wisdom for future students?

"Yes I do and I want to tell them have fun and work hard to achieve your goal!"

10.Discuss your feelings about weblogs now.

"Well I love my weblog so much it is like I have an extra friend with me."

Derrick's Reflections

1.What's your favorite thing about weblogs?

What I like about weblogs is that you can choose your background and have comments.

2. How have you changed?

I have changed with my writing and punctuation errors and misprints. I have more confidence.

3. Do you feel more confident about any of your skills: computer? Writing? Reading?Explain.

I feel more confident about my writing, reading, and how to use the weblogs because I have a good computer teacher ( Mrs. Davis).

4. Do you ever find yourself helping others to learn something? How does that feel? Is this normal?

Yes, I find myself helping others and it doesn't feel bad at all unless you screw up.

5. If an outsider visited your site, what would you hope he or she would think about it?

If someone did look at my site than I hope they say it is very good looking at the writings.

6. What skills that you have now that you didn't have are most valuable to you and why?
I think that I do have some skills that are now valuable to use because now I think I feel like a computer geek.

7. In what ways have you become a better writer?

The way that I became a better writer is that I can write a little faster than before. My ideas aren't as scrambled as they used to be.

8. If you could start a weblog of your own, what would you write about?

If I made my own weblog than I would write about the life that I live in.

9.What did you think of the Georgia-NJ Connection?

What I thought of the Georgia-NJ Connection was that it was awesome and I liked whom I worked with. As soon as I came into the lab the first thing I would do is to check if Dave and Vennesa B. had responded to me.

10. Did you tell anyone about your weblog? Did others read your weblog? What feedback did you get from people outside the class,if any?

I told a few people about the weblog and I got some great feedback on my weblog. One person said that I had no
spelling errors and that I have been typing better.

Emily's Reflections

1.What have you learned?

I have learned that you should always try to do your best and not to give up.

2.How have you changed?

My writing has definitely changed. I look at it differently now & I have less mistakes and more paragraphs.

3.What has been the most challenging or frustrating thing for you and how have you met this challenge or overcome the frustration?

Choosing the topic is one of the most frustrating. I usually turn on the TV to a news station and see what interests me.

4.How have you integrated your learning of schoolblogs with any other area of your life?

I try to use it in math and reading to write more descriptive answers to questions.

5.What skills are that you now have that you didn't have are most valubale to you now?

(see above)

6.In what ways have you become a better writer?

I learned how to write very good leads and ending paragraphs.

7. How does having a weblog effect how you learn? How does it effect how you write?

I start to look at all the things you are asked to do and I think about them more. For writing, I make the lead be extensive and for the story to be longer, but to the point.

8.If you start a weblog of you own, what topic would it be on?

I would have to say I would want to work on telling about the latest games. I would give hints walkthroughs and everything inbetween.

9. Do you have any words of wisdom for future webloggers?

All I can say is for you to not do your work the night before you have to turn it in (trust me from experence) as it's harder to do.

10.Discuss your feelings on weblogs now.

I used to think of it just to get out of class, but now I look foward to things like this...

to see what comments I have

to tell about a really neat news story

to learn

to share my thoughts and my ideas with my classmates and other people too

to read other peoples schoolblogs

to post my story and let my voice be heard

to keep discovering new ways to improve my writing

A Simulated Interview with Our Teachers

Well done, students! I think you had a great session! You made excellent choices for your guests and I believe they really enjoyed their visit! They were in awe of all you had accomplished.

What a great variety of questions you came up with. I truly wish we had the time to actually go out and do the interviews. That will be another time someday, hopefully.

I continue to see improvement in how you are able to stand and give a quick review and synopsis of our previous session. Lindsay, you did an exceptionally good job in that area today.

Emily was quick to grasp the concept of disclaimers. She told us that she had read many of them. Remember to keep that up - always a good habit to develop!

Jennifer, as always, quietly and efficiently, goes about her work.

Even though Brianna was out, you quickly caught up and created a good interview.

Derrick persevered on his interview today. I am impressed with that.

Kayla did a good job explaining things to her guest as did Jacqueline, Lucy, Melanie, Ben, and Dane!

The brief and speedy lesson on stories seemed to be understood by most of you. If you need a quick review next week, let me know.

In closing, tell our guests how much we enjoyed their presence today. They added a lot to our class. Keep up the good work!

I enjoyed looking at and signing your yearbooks today. They are impressive!

Remember your homework on the weblog evaluation questions. You're probably all going to develop some more brain wrinkles on that assignment. I know you will rise to the occasion.

Do You Know Your Teacher?

This past Thursday more poetry in the news was posted on the student sites! They are getting good at this!

The students were delighted to find their discussions were now posted as comments! They thought this was sooooo much better. Then added joy when they discovered how easily they could post links on their site. They like the thought of just click and go to the various links they chose to put on their sites.

Students had already reviewed the lead mini lessons - Feature Leads, Writing News Leads, and Writing Other Leads. I have to say that having all these mini lessons is MOST helpful. Thanks again to Will's students!!

Next we all viewed the Asking Questions section of the mini lessons created by Will's students. Since our time is limited and we only have a few more times together we decided that each student could invite a guest from their classroom to come with them next week. They will be introduced to weblogs and how much fun learning is with them! They are going to simulate an interview with their classroom teacher. Each pair will conduct this "pretend interview" with their teacher - they will work together on the questions and answers. OK, how well do they know their teachers? We will see. I am sure their teachers will get a kick out of this. Today the group brainstormed questions on their website. They are going to meet with their partner this week and discuss answers they think their teachers would make. They came up with some thought provoking questions. Then they practiced with each other interviewing and answering the questions. I was impressed! I'm looking forward to next Thursday. If you get a chance, take a look at their questions and make comments, suggestions. The students like nothing better than having responses to what they write.

Poetry in the News

I arrived at school to discover that half my class were being tested for an advanced math class placement for next year in Middle School- good for them! They arrived back about half way through the session. Spring break has just ended for these students and now comes lots of end of the year activities that require readjustments in schedules. I decided to let them have a little fun with language and taught them how to create Poetry in the News! It's also National Poetry Month so what a delightful way to celebrate! We had a lot of fun and they were very creative. I'm going to spotlight them here:

First we tackled haiku - remember the rules for that type of poetry:
five syllables
seven syllables
five syllables

They read their articles and referred their reader to source. They learned about links in their weblogs. They also learned how hard it was to come up with the first one, but after that and with practice it gets a lot easier.

Ben chose an article entitled The New Robots Are a Lot Like Us

Started in Japan

Over 20,000 words

Next generation

Brianna had a burning desire to write on the First Amendment.

The First Amendment

Gives the right to speak freely

Has Consequences!

Derrick interest in planes led him to a news article on the Concord entitled Bye, Bye Concord

Sleek looking jet

New York City to Europe

Flight of the future

Building a Better World grabbed Emily's attention.

Camille and Wissam

They are all just kids who care

About the whole world

Mrs. Mateling's good teaching in her classroom piqued Jacqueline's interest in writing about the dust bowl.

Dust, dust, everywhere

Dying, Choking, Suicide

In the Big Dust Bowl

Jennifer is concerned about SARS and read an article called Asia's Mystery Illness.

Guangzhou, China SARS

Asia's Mystery Illness

Helping to prevent

Kayla cares about school lunches and wanted to write about her feelings.

Feelings on Lunches

Are they healthy ? You tell me.

Doubtful Opinions

An Era Ends in Iraq was Lindsay's article. That brought this poetic response from her.

Tanks entered Baghdad

Welcomed with cheers and flowers

Saddam rules no more

Lucy dived in with the Dolphin Brigade and created this haiku.

Dolphins in Iraq

Searching for mines in water

K-Dog the hero

Melanie chose Women Aviators Now Flying Military Aircraft to create this haiku.

Women pilots soar

Serving as combat pilots

Females earned their wings

Good job students! What a great first attempt! Some of them even got to Cinquains so go to their sites and enjoy reading their Cinquains in the News!

Smile for the Camera

Hey team!

Thought you would enjoy viewing a great picture of all of you! I love it! Parents, don't your kids look sharp?

Mrs. D

Enjoy Your Spring Break!

Hi Students,

I hope you are having a wonderful spring break. Enjoy every single minute.

I am looking forward to seeing you all when you return. We are going to work some more on our stances. We are going to do some creative writing with the news. It will be fun.

We­ll also be taking a look at the mini-lessons prepared by Mr. Richardson's journalism students. They did good work and you will learn a lot from the lessons. It will be like staying in touch with a crew you really liked and admired. That's cool!

Also, we will be doing some reflective writing about this whole project. Be thinking about what you liked about weblogs and why , plus what you didn­t like and why. Brainstorm some project ideas that could be done with future students. Think about projects that I could do with students but more importantly, think about projects that your teachers might be interested in doing with students. I'll be sure to share all of your ideas. You always come up with the best activities. Reflect on how you have improved in your writing, how you feel about writing and just how you feel about learning this way.

I am proud of your writing. I have seen much progress and the most delightful thing to see is your pride in wanting to produce a good piece of writing. Keep it up!

As I said, enjoy your holiday and I will see you a week from tomorrow. Can't wait!

Recognizing Dane

Dane surely should be recognized, along with his classmate, Zakkiyya for being chosen to be the art reporters for the school.  What an accomplishment and one we want to celebrate!  Here is Dane's story: I was chosen by our art teacher to be the art reporter of our school along with one other student, Zakkiyya. Zakkiyya and I were honored to take the responsibility. Here is our report so far:  

The Art of Masks

BY:DANE AND ZAKKIYYA Over the past couple of weeks the fifth grade of J.H.House has been learning the technique of mask making. This unique art has been around for centuries. Back then, the masks were used for cerimonies and other rituals. Today, they are for fun and shows. Here are the steps the fifth graders took to make our artwork. Mask making can be challenging, but it can also be fun! Here are the steps  to make the cultural masks. Grab your materials, aluminum foil, craft sticks, newspaper print, permanent markers, pencil, and tape. On  the news print draw the craziest masks you can possibly drem up. Note* Make sure the face covers up most of your paper.        Take the foil and bear down on the foil, enough to make your face show up on the foil. Now do designs on the opposite side of the face. BE CREATIVE!! 5. Turn over your mask,color, and add your final touches. Dane's Mask                         Zakkiyya's Mask