In the Classroom: 4th Grade Scholars

I’ve written before here about my classroom work with Charlotte’s Web, in particular the glorious fun I have introducing my 4th graders to a scholarly approach to reading a book. I’d never considered that you could do such a thing with a children’s book until U.C. Knoepflmacher showed me how at a life-changing NEH seminar at Princeton in 1990 and have now done it ever since with my 4th graders.

This year, for the first time, I decided to see if we could rearrange the desks into a true seminar table. It worked and you can see the results here. The kids as always are blowing me away with their discoveries; I’m thrilled at all the new amazing things (even to me after so many years) in this remarkable book. This year, after the seminar is finished, I’m going to ask them to select a few of their favorite quotes and we are going to organize them as a display. It will be so interesting to see which they select and why.

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