Lelac Almagor, a 5th grade English teacher at the National Cathedral School for Girls in Washington, D.C., has a terrific article about a writing activity she does with her students in the new Horn Book Magazine. And it is available for free online right here!
We met on child_lit and then in person when Lelac visited my school to observe my lesson annotating Charlotte’s Web. It is such a delight to meet someone like Lelac, a classroom teacher doing smart, creative teaching with children’s literature. In this article she describes a unit where her students have to write themselves into a work of literature. I’m now trying to figure out if my 4th graders are ready to do it (as it does require a fairly sophisticated ability to identify a particular writer’s style and then imitate it) and, if so, where and when I could stick it into my already-very-full curriculum. But if I was teaching older students, I’d do it in a second! A very, very cool lesson indeed.
