Young Children - March 2008 - (Page 29) Influence of Teacher’s Writing on Kallen’s Reenvisioning writing by taking a giant step toward print production. She had not used print in her previous writing. When Ronda displayed Hungry Hen on the bookshelf, Astride studied the large words written on the cover and copied them onto her page. After several attempts and three crossed-out formations, Astride turned her paper around Kallen: “That’s a moon. And he’s sad. Those are his tears. He has and wrote “hungry Teacher: “This is a moon and it is sad. He’s crying.” arms and legs. And those are his teeth. And that is his sword, hen” on her page (see and it is pointing that way. And these are the sun’s swords, and that’s one sword and this is a sword.” “Astride’s Monsters”). The read-aloud text supported Astride in thinking of a way to include the characters in her writing and pushed her to add print to the page. After her initial success, Astride continued to print the title on subsequent writing. By reenvisioning, Astride increasingly merged new information with what she had included in past Teacher: “I went on a camping trip with my Kallen: “This is the first guy from Fantastic Four. He is roasting writings. Her writfamily. We built a tent and a fire. My daughters marshmallows. And the brown and red stuff is coming out of his ing represented her wanted to make s’mores. I love s’mores! hands. And his face is all fiery and his legs and arms too. And he understanding of the I think they are so yummy. So we put marshhas brown eyes, and that’s it.” world and of print. mallows on a stick, held them over the fire, Later, She wrote “hunand made some s’mores.” Occasionally, Ronda’s writing demonstration crept into gry hen” on her prodKallen’s work and continued to influence it. He used these ucts until she discovered another symbol, word, or phrase. demonstrations to add to his stories, borrowing ideas from Ronda supported Astride’s progress by demonstrating them and expanding on them in his unique way. When the use of books in writing by reading aloud from a book Ronda wrote a story about a sad moon, Kallen copied the and then displaying it. An astute observer, Astride intecharacter and wrote a different story that explained the grated Ronda’s lesson. sadness of his moon. Two months later, Ronda wrote about a family camping Teacher writing demonstrations trip. On the trip she made s’mores by roasting marshmalKallen, an imaginative boy, was a natural storyteller. His lows on a fire. After this demonstration, Kallen added writing had complex characters, plots, and fanciful endings. marshmallows to his typical writings about superheMostly, Kallen’s stories were his own, but they sometimes roes. (See “Influence of Teacher’s Writing on Kallen’s reflected the story lines of cartoons he watched at home. Reenvisioning.”) Young Children • March 2008 29
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.