Satisfying Story EndingsWe started by asking the students if they'd ever read a book or watched a movie that they hadn't like the ending of and why. Some of their responses included: - it was predictable - you knew what was going to happen throughout - it was left as a cliff-hanger - you wanted to know what would happen next - the problem was solved but then it just kept going; another event was added, and another, and another, and.. - the ending doesn't connect to the story - everyone died or everyone moved away - "They woke up. It had all been a dream." - "They lived happily ever after." -"To be continued..." Students looked at different picture books, for ideas of what makes a satisfy story ending and have been exploring Barbara Mariconda's "Extended Ending" techniques as one way to create satisfying endings. Her idea is that in most narrative stories, the character usually experiences something significant - they have solved a problem, had an adventure, or been involved in a significant experience of some kind. As a result of their experience the character has changed in some way. An extended ending reveals what the story is about and how the main character has grown or changed as a result of their experience. It has a natural sense of closure. Techniques that can be used to create a satisfying or extending include: Decision - something the character decided to do as a result of their experience in the story. Wish or hope - something that the character remembers most about the main event. Feeling - how the main character feels about what happened in the story. Memory - the main character reflects back and remembers something about the main event. After several opportunities to identify these techniques in extended story endings, students are working together to develop extended endings for "How to Catch a Star" by Oliver Jeffers. Here are some of our initial, unedited attempts: "The boy remembered how lonely he was when he didn’t have a star. That was then. Now he had a star, right then the boy made a decision he decided it would always be his star. The boy hoped the star would never leave him, and they would be friends forever." ~Claire M~ "He decided one star is enough, for now. He hoped the star would be his friend forever. He felt amazing when he finally touched the star’s delicate body. He thought back to when he longed for a star and now he had one of his very own." ~ Payton, Saviero, Claire ~ "He remembered how he was so sad and lonely when he didn’t have a star but now he hoped that the star would play with him. If not he would decided he would not be sad." ~Brooke, Jamie, Adam ~ "He remembered when he was trying to catch a star. He remembered the joyfulness, the loneliness, and the sadness, So he decided that he always wanted do challenging things." ~Clive, Ryan, Lachlan~ Subtraction StrategiesWhen we asked our students, as a pre-assessment, to show us all of the subtraction strategies they could find for a given problem, we noticed some patterns to their thinking. Some students were able to represent their thinking using tallies. Some tried this strategy but quickly tired of the process of drawing so many tallies. Some students drew pictures of their thinking and used a "code" such as colours to represent the different amounts. But most of our students, went right to the numbers and used various number strategies to develop a solution. Some examples include: We know how important using manipulatives and making models are to developing a conceptual understanding of mathematics so we embarked on a journey to have our students represent the concept of subtraction with models. Check back next week for images of their models.
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorsMrs. Montanaro, Mr. Messer and Mrs. Austman teach grades 3/4 at Elbow Park School in Calgary AB. Archives
April 2017
Categories |