Everyone did an AWESOME job!  I gained a lot of neat ideas.   The students are more creative than I am.  I want to use your children’s poems in my classroom!  I hope everyone shares them on their blog.

Toni-your students I poems were so touching!  You are so inspiring!

Holly-Wow! I never thought about using I Poems for science.  I was impressed my your 3rd graders.  Very creative!

Heather-I admire your time management and motivation in order to get great work in just 30 minutes each day. Great job!

Nicole- I am so glad you have positively impacted your students to enjoy poetry!  That’s impressive!

Christy-I want a copy of your gummy bear and solar system book to share with my children.  They were awesome!

We are learning about different types of poetry in my classroom since it’s national poetry month.  The kids had a blast creating our found/concrete poem on first grade.  They also enjoyed creating an acrostic poem about themselves.  Since I have grown to enjoy poetry, I can tell that the students get more excited than they used to.  Thanks Dr. Frye!

WOW!  I was so impressed with everyone’s hard work.  I gained many neat ideas through your creative ideas.  I learned so much new information on a wide variety of topics from Norway to Elvis.  I can honestly see how students can learn a lot of new knowledge through multigenre projects and presentations.  The genres stuck in my brain because they are active and emotional like Toni’s performance and Mary and Kari’s story.  How could you forget any of the presentations?!

Here are my favorite parts of each presentation in our group-

Toni’s presentation on Donnie McClurkin-the dance moves…AWESOME and very touching!  You reminded us how Christ will help us through our hard times.

Jennifer’s presentation on Abraham Lincoln-the box was really neat to tie all the genres together and I like the concrete poem of Abe’s hat.  I also liked the paper that you had all of your writings on…it looked old:)

Holly’s presentation on Ada Byron Countless-I loved your awesome scrapbook, diary, and neatly decorated CD case and the music you shared from your computer.  You are so crafty!

Heather’s presentation of Loggerhead Sea turtles-the turtle cut-out scrapbook was very creative and cool!  I learned a lot of information about sea turtles that I never knew.  Very informative!

Kari’s presentation on the history of Norway-her father’s story was very touching!  You should go into scrapbooking because your scrapbook was so neat, organized, and professional looking.  I’m sure your scrapbook will bring tears to your father’s eyes…it did mine.

Nicole’s presentation of Edgar Allan Poe-You are an amazing writer.  I like how you wrote a book with different chapters with a lot of information.  The inserts within your book were very creative!

Sonia’s presentation on Butterflies-Your scrapbook was VERY CUTE!  It was colorful, eye-catching, and informative.  I would like to share your project on the life cycles of a butterfly with my class. 

Christy’s presentation on Elvis-All I can say is…Elvis was here!!!  I loved your intro music.  It set the mood.  I found out that Elvis had a twin brother who died. Your visual was awesome!

Mary’s presentation of Ellis Island-Very touching!  Thanks for sharing something so special and personal.  You motivated me to learn more about my ancestors and my history.

In conclusion, I learned lots of things through others multigenre presentations and I enjoyed EVERY minute of everyone’s presentation!  Thanks!!!

Here I am…nervous! 

These are the different parts of my multigenre project:

Defense Paper-multigenre-defense.doc

Title Page- multigenre-project-title-pg.doc

Table of Contents-multigenre-table-of-contents.doc

Acrostic Poem-

ABC Book-abc_s-of-matt-kenseth

Found/Concrete Poem-multigenre-17-found-poem

Cleaner’s Ticket-

Trophy-

Board Game-

The Daily Sport Times-

I Am Poem-matt-kenseth-i-poem

Bibliography-multigenre-bibliography.doc

Reflective Essay-multigenre-reflective-essay2

Student Invitation for Multigenre Project on Dr. Seuss-student-invitation-dr-suess.doc

My I Poem lesson plan…

tiger-i-poem-lesson-plan.doc

The tiger I POEMS were a success…especially considering it was the first time they have ever wrote an I POEMS.  Here are there poems.  I printed the poems and they drew a picture at the top of their poem.  Then I put all of their work together to make a class book.  It is cute!  I will bring it to class.

tiger-childrens-i-poems.doc

 Now, I have placed their I poems on my class web page.  (I couldn’t put all of them online because did not get parental permisson from some students.)  Check it out at http://www.geocities.com/joanncrawford2002/tiger_I-Poems.html or you can go to http://www.alexander.k12.nc.us/ellen/Classroom.htm and click on Mrs. Hall.   Then click on the tiger!  I thought the children did a great job!

March 12, 2008

After our last class, I understood our multigenre projects much better.  I am doing my project on Matt Kenseth and I’m having fun doing it.  It’s very addicting!

February 28, 2008 

After looking at the multigenre project pictures on the ppt…WOW!  They were impressive and very creative!!!  I am a little overwhelmed now.  I know that I can use multigenre with first graders and ReadWriteThinkhad some great multigenre lessons for the primary grades. I thought some of the lessons would be very challenging for my class especially the research part.

I have been thinking about my topic for a while but I’m not sure if it is a good idea.  I would love to do my project on a NASCAR driver (yeah, I must be a redneck) named Matt Kenseth because I want to learn more about him. Racing is how I connect with some of the boys in my classroom and I grew up watching (and sleeping through) races every Sunday with my dad.  Would this be a good topic?  Who is going to be my audience?  Is it other teachers in this class?  My family and friends?  My students?

 After looking at the lists of genres, I already use poetry, plays, songs, posters, timelines, and drawings in my classroom.  I would like to use more fun ways of sharing information such as radio reports, board games,  and bumper stickers.  I have an ABC book that I made about first grade that I can bring to class.  I can use my ABC book to model and show the children how to create an ABC book.  Plus, there are lots of ABC book literary models available.  I cannot think of any additional genre right now that I would add to the lists on the websites, the Moulton article and page 5 in Writing Without Boundaries.  These lists have a lot of possible genres!

I also want to add that I love the student materials on ReadWriteThink.  For example I like  the acrostic poem site (for primary students)http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/acrostic/ and graphic organizers http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/animal-inquiry/

This article stresses that teachers must model and scaffold in order for children to write poetry.  Teachers must also provide poetic formulas (which also helps me write I poems) and provide students with the time and opportunity to develop poems.  Langer and Applebee shared the 5 components of effective instructional scaffolding, which are ownership, appropriateness, support, collaboration, and internalization.

 I agree that “I” poems help students learn more about the particular person, place, or object.  “I” poems require them to think deeper and more critical about the character.

I like the “plan” for instructional scaffold on pages 6, 7, and 8.  It has clear, easy, step-by-step instructions.  I also benefited from the examples from Kelly’s fourth grade classroom.

I poems are written in first person.  I poems tell us what the person, place, or thing feels, sees, and experiences.  All four books (Sierra, I Am the Mummy, Atlantic, Dirty Laundry Pile) are I poems that are written to educate others about that particular person, place, or thing.

Sierra expresses what it is like to be a mountain.  The mountian describes herself and her history.   I Am the Mummy is the story and life of the mummy, Heb-Nefert.  Heb-Nefert is telling the story.  The reader can put himself/herself in the mummy’s shoes.  Dirty Laundry Pile has many poems on objects.  The poems are written in the voice of the object or animal.  Atlantic is written in the voice of the Atlantic Ocean.  Students could learn a lot of information and facts about the Atlantic Ocean through this book.

 I poems are more personal.  They teach important information on the person, place, or object.  They are easy to read and understand.  I poems provide a fun way of learning!

Here are my concrete poems, acrostic poems, “I” poem, and found poem.  I had blast creating poetry for the first time!

4-types-of-poems.doc

Here is my journal invitation…finally!  It took me forever to figure out how to upload this.  Let me know what you think.

care-bear-pic-and-invite.doc