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“old timey" schools. Following the interviews they decided to share what they had learned by “making a play.”
To write a play, they found they needed to read plays. They manufactured props and picked a cast, making sure younger children were included since “old timey” schools had children in various grades in class together.
“They were taking over, and it was scaring me to death,” Miss Brandt said. “I had to resolve that this is the way I want to teach, to empower the students.” She said that the found that 10 of the 15 “standards of learning” in her fourth grade curriculum were'covered “in this one project alone.”
Dee Van Home told how the county elementary school has had continued success in teaching sixth graders to write so they pass the literacy passport test in writing. He noted that there was a decision made to tighten standards last year.
Statewide a lower percentage of students passed, but at the elementary school a higher percentage of students passed, he said. He noted that the test places a greater emphasis on coherence and style than on mechanics and said that in giving the students practice writing, teachers had to switch their emphasis also.
In a discussion of how mechanics, such as spelling and punctuation get covered, he said that encouraging writing was more important, but suggested teachers pick one or two things for a student to concentrate on in the next writing project, selecting those things which most interfere with the need to have writing communicate.
Lee Buratti told about working with students at Wakefield School in Marshall to create the award-winning “Talisman” literary magazine. Diane Wood told about her work first in the classroom and now as a home schooler to use the child’s interests to develop an “inner curriculum.”
Tutt Stapp-Harris, who teaches at Wakefield School in Marshall, said she had found a similar approach to teaching writing to adolescents. “1 am convinced of the absolute need for technical knowledge,” she added. She said that the two greatest chal
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