Chocolate

I took a chocolate tasting class a couple of months ago (planned and taught by Reference Librarian extraordinaire Bill Meltzer at Old Worthington Library). I decided then and there that I wanted my students' experience in our classroom to feel like, if not taste like, the chocolate tasting classroom that night.

Here's what I learned about my fourth grade classroom at the chocolate tasting class:

•WE WANTED TO BE THERE.
I understand that not every child loves school the way I did (and still do), but I hope to make my classroom so safe and inviting that my students look forward to our time together.

•WE GOT TO USE FUN MATERIALS.
Although we can't work with chocolate in our classroom every day, I will do my best to build hands-on activities into every day, if not every lesson. With a new SmartBoard, and Franki's brilliant thinking about learning to use it WITH the students, I think I've got a pretty good head start on this one.

•WE STARTED WITH WHAT WE KNEW AND THE TEACHER BUILT ON THAT.
Scaffolding. I want stay focused on scaffolding, not on rescuing. (see also Risk-taking below)

•WE DIDN'T GET IN TROUBLE IF WE DIDN'T FOLLOW DIRECTIONS EXACTLY.
I don't want to be the kind of teacher who must have absolute control over every moment of every day. First of all, I'd go crazy, and second of all, how would the children learn to control themselves? Since I won't have absolute control, I'll have to lighten up and not sweat it when the students...improvise, shall we call it.

•WE GOT TO WORK WITH OUR FRIENDS.
Learning is social. I will honor that. Nuff said.

•WE HAD FUN!
No matter how hard we work every day to learn and grow and achieve and improve and succeed...we also need to have FUN.
Every. Single. Day.

•THE TEACHER WAS VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE, BUT HE NEVER MADE US FEEL IGNORANT OR LACKING.
I will work hard to be a valuable resource to my students in their learning, and to make sure that they see me learning right alongside them.

•THE CLASS WAS WELL-PLANNED AND RAN SMOOTHLY.
I will remember the importance of detailed planning. I WILL remember the importance of detailed planning. Every Sunday night, I will REMEMBER the importance of detailed planning.

•THERE WERE BOOKS ABOUT CHOCOLATE ALL AROUND THE ROOM FOR US TO CHECK OUT AND TO EXTEND OUR LEARNING.
Some teaching is about instruction, but a goodly amount of it is simply about invitation. Rather than finishing units or even lessons, I'll do my best to point to the resources that students can us to continue their learning and exploring.

•THE TEACHER ENCOURAGED RISK-TAKING, BUT MADE IT FEEL SAFE.
We started by eating a half of a piece of Dove dark chocolate. Then we went on to taste chocolates of increasing amounts of cocoa. Each time we moved to the next level, we learned how to identify and name the new flavors and "notes" we were tasting. The next-to-last piece we tasted was 100% cocoa. I wouldn't care to sit down and eat a whole bar of it, but I had learned, step by step, to appreciate it for what it was. We ended by eating the other half of the Dove. It just tasted sweet. There were none of the nuances of flavor and texture that we had learned, in one short hour, to appreciate.

•I CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK FOR THE NEXT CLASS:  CHEESE TASTING!!
And so we circle back to my first point -- I want my students to WANT to come to school because of the fun and fascinating learning we'll be doing. I want them to be willing to take risks. Cheese tasting is very risky for me, especially since I know how much Bill knows about cheese. I'm a little leery of tasting some of the cheeses he thinks are luscious...but I'll take the risk and try to learn what I need to know to enjoy them.

Here's to a delicious new school year!

Mini lessons from my summer reading

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet
by David Mitchell
Random House, 2010
I own it. The audio version, too.

We'll spend the first days of the new school year talking about reading preferences: favorite books and authors, book choice, just right books, etc. This year, my mentor text for all my beginning-of-the-year mini lessons will be the best adult book I've read since last December: THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET. (For the record, the previous best book: THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver.)

Here are some mini lessons I'll be able to teach while holding up this book:

BOOK CHOICE: This is the newest book by one of my favorite authors. When I heard David Mitchell had a new book out, I didn't wait to hear what anyone else thought about it. I trust this author. I knew it would be good. I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it. {Who are your favorite authors? What are your favorite books?}

PACING: I read this book through my ears by listening to this book, rather than through my eyes by seeing the print. I noticed many times when I wished I could slow down to figure something out or savor the language, or speed up so that I could see how an exciting part turned out. {Do you read faster or slower sometimes? When? Why?}

CHARACTERS: There are lots of characters with foreign names in this book. I had to pay close attention while I listened so I could keep them straight. It might have been easier if I could have seen the names. The reader of the audio book did a good job giving each character an accent. Sometimes that's how I remembered who was who. {How do you keep the characters straight as you read? What does the author do to help you?}

PLOT/SUBPLOT: There are lots of story lines in this book. It was important to remember what happened to Jacob, the Dutch clerk; Orito, the Japanese woman doctor (pretty amazing for 1799); the many Japanese translators (Japanese/Dutch); Marinus, the scientist/doctor/harpsichord player; Lord Abbot Enomoto, evil incarnate. {What is the main story in your book (plot)? What is one smaller story in your book (subplot)?}

Besides all the main plots and subplots, there were the times when the author would go off on a tangent that didn't really take the plot anywhere -- a character would tell a story or there would be an extended description of a place -- but I trusted the author and went along for the ride. {Tell about a time when you had no idea why the author seemed to go off-topic, but you trusted the author and it turned out to be really important.}

There's a whole lot of plot/subplot in this book, but in the end, I think it was a book about character. (I should have guessed that from the title, right?) {Is your book more strong in plot or character?}

STAMINA: This is a really long book. I stayed with it until the end. {How do you keep going in longer and longer books?}

AUTHOR'S STYLE: I love the way Mitchell writes. At one point, I had to turn off the recording and write down a line as soon as I could get my hands on paper and pencil. By way of telling another character that his story was exaggerated, Marinus tells him that he "...rather over-egged the brûlée." {Let's start a bulletin board of lines we love in the books we're reading. Be sure you write the title and the author of your book, the page number you found it on, and copy the quote exactly as the author wrote it. Use quotation marks. Here, I'll get us started with my quote. You can use it as an example.}

Towards the end, I suddenly realized that a descriptive passage about gulls flying over Dejima and Nagasaki was a poem -- I could hear rhythms and rhymes. I rewound the recording so I could listen to it again. (Imagine my astonishment when I looked at the book and that section was NOT written with the line-breaks of a typical poem. Even the READER would have to discover by listening that there was rhythm and rhyme and poetry there! {Have you ever heard poetry in a chapter book? Or a magazine, or newspaper, or nonfiction? Listen closely. See if you can find an example to bring in.}

THE POWER OF DISCUSSION: When I was about two-thirds of the way through listening to this book, AJ started reading it. (When he got to the "over-egged brûlée," I had him turn down the corner of the page -- that phrase has become one of our favorites.) We have had quick discussions about the book over the last week or so. ("Where are you in the book -- what's happening now -- what did you think of this or that?") {Talking about books will be an important part of our reading workshop this year...}

I found JACOB DE ZOET at my place at the table this morning so I know we'll be able to talk about the ending now. I can't wait. As much as I've enjoyed reading this book, I'll enjoy it even more because I can TALK about this book with someone else who has read it. I'm still not sure what the title means. Maybe AJ will be able to help me think that through. {Who do you think would enjoy the book you just read? What topics do you hope you will you talk about?}

One of the things AJ and I have been talking about while I've been waiting for him to finish the book, is the difference between novels and mysteries. I think I finally understand why I don't like reading mysteries. But this is getting long, so I'll make that another post for another day!