Week 16 -- Writing stories, making art, bowling, and sledding

The week before a big break is one that always threatens to descend into chaos. Happily, we have a few projects that have kept us busy and engaged in these last days of 2016.


The artwork for our biome games is coming along marvelously, but it’s a lot of work. Each team needs to make a total of 41 cards, each with unique artwork, and each student has taken responsibility for some portion of that. We’re also in the process of assigning point values to each card, which need to accurately represent the organism’s place in the trophic level of the biome, while also being a functional card in the mechanics of the game.

Artwork for Into the Great Barrier Reef 

Artwork for Into the Great Barrier Reef 

Everyone also started a new story from their choice of one of the following writing prompts; “Write a story in which a young superhero gets a part-time job to support his/her secret identity. Unfortunately, s/he is hired by a super villain.” “Write a story about a magician who has a terrible act… until s/he discovers a mysterious portal to another dimension.” “While digging in the woods, a child stumbles across five ancient dragon eggs…”

The rest of the week was peppered with other activities. We made more progress in When You Reach Me, which is our current read aloud book. The highlights of the week, however, are both the work of PE superstar Shan Cook, who arranged an all-middle school bowling trip on Wednesday morning, and a sledding trip for us on Friday. Here are 45,000 photos for you to peruse (it's difficult to shoot photos in a bowling alley):

Finally, we kept things simple in our math group, devoting one day to Singapore work, and the other to a spirited session of math games. Have a lovely break!

Week 15 -- The Nutcracker and fiascos

It’s difficult to top the excitement of an unexpected snow day, but we did our best with the rest of our week. On Tuesday, we began reading When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead. It’s a difficult book to talk about without giving away its secrets, so suffice to say that it begins in the late 1970s in New York City, and a mystery quickly develops. We also continued group peer review sessions of our Summers-Knoll myths, practicing active listening and giving constructive feedback to one another.

On Wednesday, we entered into a fun new phase of our Into the Biome project, which was born in science class. Kids are working in teams to create their own versions of a game we enjoyed called Into the Forest, and we began creating the artwork for the games. Our room is quickly filling with renderings of wolverines, blue jays, raspberries, sea cucumbers, and more.  

On Thursday, we traveled to the Power Center in Ann Arbor to see a production of The Nutcracker (and to cheer on our classmate Rebecca, who was one of the sugar plums!). Between that and our work on the school play last week, theatrical productions have loomed large in our minds, so when we returned to school, we listened to act 1 of the Fiasco episode of This American Life while working on artwork for our games. It’s a very entertaining story that certainly puts some of the minor mistakes that we may have made in our own performances into stark perspective.

Math group was quite abbreviated this week, as we missed two sessions (one from the snow day, the other to go see The Nutcracker). The remaining two days were spent working in our Singapore books, and doing a self-audit of progress. I had each student make note of what page they were on in their books, then told them what page they had been on at the beginning of the school year. Some students were pleasantly surprised by how much progress they had made in 15 weeks of school, while others have a renewed sense of purpose in making good use of their time and energy in class. On Friday, our work period was punctuated by a fun visit from Mrs. Carpenter’s math students, who came and performed some math magic for the group.

Week 14 -- Peer review, myth, and multiplication

Scenes from the Stratford workshop

The week of the school play is almost always wholly consumed by rehearsal and prep, and this year is no different. We’ve spent much of our homeroom time running our lines, practicing the staging, and trying to hone our performances to make sure that we put on a good show. Meanwhile, the students who don’t have roles in the play have been working to design and construct the props needed for the show. We hope to see you at one of the performances of the show!

Scenes from the Stratford workshop

When not working on the play, we’ve been doing group peer review of our Summers-Knoll myths. Our protocol for this is as follows: First, each student reads a piece of writing to the group twice. Both times, students are actively listening for things that they find interesting and enjoyable, as well as making note of where they were confused, or where the author might want to go into more detail on something. After reading their work, the author takes control of the room and calls on volunteers. For the first few minutes, we ask only for positive thoughts. Kids might point out something that they thought was clever, an interesting turn of phrase, or praise a plot twist. Then, we switch into constructive criticism. The audience shares what they were confused by, where the author might go into more detail, etc. The author’s role during this time is exclusively to listen to their audience. Questions about the work are deliberately not answered, and points are not argued. The point is that the author knows that their audience had those thoughts while hearing the work. The author then processes and considers the feedback, and uses it as they see fit during the revision process later.

For example, an author may have intended for a particular character to be somewhat mysterious in their story. However, if they get feedback from their peers that the character came across as merely underdeveloped, they can then take that information and work to clarify their intent during the revision process.

Scenes from the Stratford workshop

This method of review requires a community of writers who are all taking the exercise in good faith, and who are actively working to support each other during what can be a somewhat harrowing process. It can be challenging and scary to receive feedback on your writing, and I am happy to report that the conversations have been kind, productive, and supportive.

In math group, we have concluded our survey of multiplication methods, culminating with the standard algorithm, which is the method that most of us were taught during our own schooling. We learned and practiced seven different methods of multiplication, On Thursday, we began an assessment to see how well we could perform each of them, while also evaluating their effectiveness. Which methods are the quickest? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? Perhaps most importantly, which methods are the most efficient for each individual? Surveying these varied methods has drawn a fine point on the idea that there isn’t one “correct” way to perform this operation, and by examining each method and comparing them to each other, we have developed a deeper understanding of what is actually happening when you multiply.

Henry performs at the Music Cafe