Every day, at the end of the day, we ask the scholars to take a few minutes to reflect upon the day: what did they learn, what did they find interesting, challenging, rewarding or frustrating? Then, on Thursdays, they do a timed 5 minute writing about the whole week. There are several benefits to this activity, but two in particular are the opportunity to work on writing fluency by having regularly anticipated timed writing. They will come to expect this time, and will grow to be keeping ideas in their head as they anticipate the writing time coming. They will do a word count and we will graph their word count. This is personal; there is no competition with others. They are looking to increase their writing fluency. This week they may have written 25 words, next week we hope for it to be 35! The second advantage to this writing activity is for communication with those who love and care for them at home. We are asking for you to read their Scholarly Reflections and to write a few meaningful comments. What did you like about what you read? What do you wonder about. These "Likes" and "Wonders" need not be of great length, but we hope for them to be encouraging and meaningful. We also ask that you sign and return the Scholarly Reflections with your scholar the next school day. Thanks for your partnership!
Respectfully,
'Carol Smith
Respectfully,
'Carol Smith