Mrs. Stevens likes to live in a Happy Place. Her oldest son, Eli, teases her about this. He says to her, "Mom, you only like happy movies."
"Yes," I say.
"You only like happy music."
"Yes," I say.
"But the world isn't like that," he says. "You can't ignore what is real."
"The world must be a happy place to me," I reply. "It must be happy, and it must be organized. It must make sense."
So, right after CSAP, Mrs. Stevens went to her happy place. She felt happy thoughts about how smart her students were and about how well they surely must have done on CSAP. She pushed them out into some independence. On Monday, Mrs. Stevens had the students write a summative paragraph about the Age of Exploration. She put the papers in her bag. On Tuesday, Mrs. Stevens had them write an imaginative paragraph imagining that they were an explorer. She listened to those who wanted to share, share.
On Tuesday night, Mrs. Stevens decided to sit down and read the marvelous paragraphs that her students had written on Monday. It was at that point that Mrs. Stevens was sad because she had to come out of her happy place. Only seven of her 28 children had written paragraphs that she deemed acceptable. Here were some of the problems:
Paragraphs have to make sense.
Informative paragraphs cannot have weak, "cutesy" supporting details. When someone writes that Spain became a nation-state, the supporting detail cannot be "They were happy that way." The supporting detail must explain HOW or WHY they were a nation state. A supporting detail such as "They were all Catholic and united." would be appropriate.
5th grade students cannot be relying on weak supporting sentences that they got away with in second grade. Supports that say, "They were happy, or That was bad," are not explicite and they DO NOT drive the point home. Cutesy details belong to first and second graders writing about bunny rabbits.
Informative paragraphs must be factually correct and precise in presenting information.
On Tuesday night, Mrs. Stevens was floumouxed. She was befuddled. She was perplexed. How could we drill details and supports all year and not be independent yet in our writing behaviors.
Why were there students who showed no pride in there work: poor penmanship...misspelled words...missing names. Such children were certainly not prepared for middle school.
Changes would have to be made.
