A Plum-tastic Day

Eating plums before recess

In the beginning of my teaching career, I had a job tutoring a Serbian-American kindergartner living in

 New York City with her family. Her parents didn't want her to fall behind her peers. I had little experience teaching, but had observed some wonderfully talented teachers at PS 89 during their literacy blocks. I remember them using many stories from their personal lives to model the process of choosing a topic to write about, planning the writing by re-telling their story, and then actually writing their stories on paper. My student was 5 years old, and not a fan of writing. She would frequently drop her pencil during our lessons. On this day, I came armed with what I considered to be a really engaging story, sure to keep her pencil firmly in her hand throughout the telling of it.

 I told of the time I returned from vacation to my Manhattan apartment to find some dark colored strings tossed on my stovetop. I flipped on the light switch, and realized that the strings were actually the tails of mice, who then scurried out of sight. I was distressed, and determined to remove them. However, I didn't want them harmed. I bought a humane trap, that had me putting a lump of peanut butter in it to attract the mice. Every night I heard a mouse running around my apartment, and every time I checked the trap when I returned from work, it was empty. One day I returned and saw the tiniest little mouse inside it. The trap instructions advised me to bring the trap at least a mile from my house, otherwise it was very likely the mouse would return. I followed the directions, and when I felt confident that I'd walked far enough away, I bent down and cautiously opened the trap. Nothing exited. I peeked inside. The tiny mouse I'd thought I'd seen in the trap was actually just the original lump of peanut butter I'd used to catch the mouse. Rafajella listened attentively to my story. She didn't drop her pencil even once. When I asked her to repeat my story, she said, 'Once there was a lady who had a mouse in her house. She put a trap out to catch it, but it was a nice trap that didn't kill the mouse. Then she caught the mouse, and took the trap far away so that the mouse could go into another lady's house.' 

Fast forward ten years. I am now teaching summer school to 2nd graders. For the majority of my teaching years, I have had difficulty straying from the scripts that accompany many successful curricula. One being Lucy Calkins' reading and writing project. I'd used the lessons many times before and though I have many colorful stories from my own life, somehow struggled to create my own scripts. This week I threw the script to the wind, and modelled a writing mini-lesson based on structures from the curriculum, but this time I ventured to use my own story.   

I gathered my students on the carpet, and told them my story of how I went with my friend Andre to his sister Lizz' new house to pick plums from her plum tree. There were hundreds of plums scattered on the ground. Many of them were squished, but my friend Andre chose to exclusively collect those misfits. (In his defense, he has an obsession with drying fruit, and swears the overripe ones work best.) I opted for the firm ones straight off the tree. When we went into Lizz' house after, Andre spilled plum juice on her new floor. She got mad, and he cleaned it up. The next day I brought some plums for the students to eat. 

When I was finished telling the story, I had different students take turns retelling the events in order as I wrote their words. When we got to the part in writing about Andre spilling plum juice on Lizz' new floor, the students all gasped in unison. Andre became very relatable.

When we finished writing, I demonstrated how to draw a quick sketch on each page just to remind them what they had written. Next was their turn to write their own stories independently. This is what I love about this curriculum- it's so structured and yet open to allow each student to get something out of it regardless of her writing ability. Students were extra engaged, which is something I noticed happens when I share a personal story. I know it seems obvious that if the teacher is passionate about her stories, the students will be too- but habits are hard to change. 

One of my students came right up to me before starting her own piece. 'There's something I want to tell you.' I was worried she wasn't going to get started and she was stalling for time. 'OK,' I said unenthusiastically. We had had a phonics lesson just before the writing lesson on how double consonants in words make only one sound. She pointed to the word 'Lizz' in my document camera writing I'd modelled for the class. 'This word has two consonants'.  I smiled from ear to ear. 'Serena, great job noticing that!'

During recess I passed out plums to all the children who wanted one. The plums were sweet and had a perfect firmness. But I think the real draw for the students was to continue the story plot.