Julia M. Biagiarelli
Integrated into the unit will be sharing of personal experiences both verbally and through student-created images or student-acquired images for those who are less confident with their own artistic ability.
The final activity will be the "publishing" of their work. Each child will select two or three of their favorite pieces that will get a final round of editing, be typed, bound and reproduced so that all members of the class will have a booklet. The class can brainstorm together to create a title for the collection of work. Holding an event so that other teachers, administrators and parents can be invited to hear the stories from the collection read aloud by the authors will be the grand finale of the unit.
This unit can also be modified and adjusted to work for children who are still mastering basic written expression skills and for children with specific IEP goals. They will require more adult assistance than is needed for the exercises above. In the composing stage the teacher can offer sentence starters that require the student to insert only a few key words, as in this example: The day I felt happiest (saddest, silliest, most excited, very scared, etc.) was when____________________________, because I______________________.
As the lessons progress, these students may also need an adult or more advanced peer to script for them in order to fill out the sharing chart. The teacher can also provide them with additional assistance during the editing process as well.