Week of April 27

Continuing with our study of the story, Bad Characters, this week, I have decided to change things up a bit from our usual process of study.  This week the students have formed 6-person literacy circles in which each person takes on a different role in order to shed some new light on our story.  Within each literacy circle will be a Summarizer, a Vocabulary Enricher, a Quote Finder, a Connector, an Illustrator and a Discussion Director.  I have broken this story into parts and each literacy circle will focus in greater depth on a particular section of the text.  In this way, the students can learn from each other's different perspectives as each student either summarizes the main points of the story, shares new words from the story, picks out important quotes, makes connections to the real world, visualizes parts of the story or creates interpretive questions for all to discuss.

As we wrap up this week, we will be discussion our next important habit, Habit #6: Synergize!  In this habit, the students will learn about the importance of working with others to create something better than they could've created on their own.  No time to compromise... it's all about how to SYNERGIZE!

Week of April 20

This week the students will begin the week by demonstrating their understanding of Habit #5.  Working either alone or in a group, the students will give a performance (skit, rap, power point, etc.) demonstrating atleast one of the 5 poor listening habits and how to turn that bad habit into genuine listening.   This demonstration will wrap up Habit #5 for us.

For the remainder of the week, we will be focusing on a new story entitled, Bad Characters.  In this story, we read about two girls who become unlikely friends.  One of the girls tends to throw tantrums when things don't go her way.  She meets another girl who appears to be a "bad character" and yet who is able to entice the first girl into doing something that she would not ordinarily think to do.  We will spend the week going through our usual process of critical thinking in order to gain deeper insight into the meaning of this story.

Week of April 13

At the end of last week, the students utilized their critical thinking skills as they composed the answers to 5 thoughtful questions prompted by the story, The Mysteries of the Cabala.  These questions required the students to ponder about ideas such as whether life is mysterious and what is the most puzzling thing that they have encountered in life.  This week, they took their thoughts a step further by illustrating their thoughts to these questions and then focusing specifically on writing a response that meets all 6 of the requirements of an accurate written response.

The remainder of the week was spent covering the very important Habit #5: Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood.  In studying this habit, the students learned that the deepest need of the human heart is simply to be understood.  In order to be understood, we must first step outside of ourselves and try to "step into the shoes" of another person.  To do so requires good listening skills.  The students learned to recognize 5 poor listening habits that they often in their interactions with others.  Next, they learned about how they can begin the process of turning those bad habits into genuine listening.  To wrap up this habit, the students began working on a presentation in which they will demonstrate their understanding of this habit.