Today's Zingers: On the way to school today, I realized that this year's freshmen would likely be my first group to have no memory of 9/11. These kids were four and five years old. Before beginning a photo response writing exercise on the World Trade Center collapses, I decided to assess students' background knowledge. I was dismayed when one of my freshmen said, "Wait, 9/11, I've heard of that." It only got worse. Not one student in my first block class could tell me the nationalities of the hijackers. Guesses ranged from Indian to American. Not one student could tell me how many planes were involved. What I did not realize was that "Flight 93 landed in Transylvania." I was also surprised that "9/11 was the day the Japanese attacked America." Better yet, "The emergency number 911 was named after 9/11." I'm so afraid that this generation will never know the story.
Today's Tip: Trim back on paper by using blog posts as journal entries. The blog post is your prompt, and students respond by commenting. Here's an example from my school site.
Today's Resource: Here are some FREEBIES from my store on TeachersPayTeachers.com:
Tone Words in Categories
Accessing The American Pageant
Persuasive Speech Matrix Rubric
I took the liberty of reading your students responses. One really touched my heart. I left a comment on that student's writing. I hope you don't mind. I love how blogs and entries open up the world to students. I hope by knowing that others are reading their comments that they don't shut down, but are encouraged to write even better. You students are doing a great job of writing. I teach third grade, but my dream is to help my students so that they will someday be writers as your students are. Thanks for sharing.
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