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Monday, June 30, 2014

Student Created Book Ideas

This year, I tried a different technique for encouraging student narrative writing.  We created a cohesive project over the last few months of the school year, building and refining skills found in the Six Traits of Writing.  We also created an art project for each writing sample.  At the end of the year, I wanted each student to have a special keepsake showcasing all of their hard work, as well as a memento reflecting on the topic we had been learning about- the challenge to "write God's story on our hearts."

http://looktohimandberadiant.blogspot.com/2014/03/write-your-story-on-my-heart-narrative.html
Instead of just sending the work home or simply creating a writing portfolio in a folder to keep, we decided to make a bound book for each student.  There is always something special about a finished project like this that makes it more meaningful for the students.

I wanted to be able to bind together the students' five essays and five art projects with a nice cover easily and more importantly, inexpensively.  We all know that school budgets are tight and teachers spend lots of their own money on classroom set up and supplies.  It was the end of the year, so I was even more determined to do this at no cost.

Fortunately for me, a lot of people know that I am a teacher, that I am pretty creative, and that I like to find new uses for old things.  This has led to many donations of old office supplies from people over the years, so I have a nice collection built up of random things that come in quite handy.

You may not have a handy closet of random office supplies, but I hope that the books from this post inspire you to find a creative way to bind a keepsake book of your students' or kids' writing or other work.  The sense of accomplishment that comes from "publishing" is important and can give them a goal to work toward with excellence.

A few ideas:

1. Have a student created cover.  We used computers for much of the typing aspect of the project, but I liked having their handwriting preserved on the front of their books.  They used markers, crayons, etc. and I provided both full sized and scraps of construction paper.

2.  Have each student create a Table of Contents.  Our books had an average of 15-20 pages each, so organization was an important step.  The contents page helped them present an organized finished project.

3.  Consider different methods of binding.  If you are only holding together a few pages, stapling along the spine of a collection works well enough.  We had too many pages for that, so we used a variety of random report covers I had been saving.  The kids got to pick what to use and then helped with the binding.  We used a three hole punch with moveable distance punches, allowing us to accommodate the various set ups for the report covers.  Occasionally, I had to use a single hole hand punch to get through a stubborn art project, but I was grateful for the three holed punch overall.

Some of the report covers I had opened landscape and others portrait, but they all worked.  Here is an example of one of the landscape books:
And here is the inside of a portrait style:
Both were easily bound with prong style fasteners to hold the paper in.  They created a very professional finish.  The covers on those books were just glued onto the outside of the folder, which wasn't as "clean" looking, but they still turned out ok.
We also used the clear cover report folders, which were not as fancy but still pulled everything together.  One problem with these was that they were meant for 8.5"x11" paper, but most of our art projects were on 9"x12" paper.  Most of the kids just let the edges hang off, but a few used a ruler and scissors to trim them before binding.
We also had some portfolios that had these neat closures, which really lent to a finished look.
The whole thing was an easy way to create a memorable final project and a keepsake for the kids.  Individual essays almost always get thrown away, but I am hoping that most of these books are held onto for a bit longer. :)


Here are a few more covers for you to enjoy:








For more info on the rest of this specific writing project:




http://looktohimandberadiant.blogspot.com/2014/03/write-your-story-on-my-heart-narrative.html


For more info on the art projects that we created:

http://looktohimandberadiant.blogspot.com/p/faith-in-core-content.html

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Finish the Picture Art Project


Back in this post I shared the ideas for helping kids see God at work in their lives through reflective narrative writing.  My students wrote five narratives this year as part of that project, and also created a corresponding art project to illustrate their writing.  This is one of those five art projects, and it matched with this topic:
o   Writing God’s Story on Your Heart: Write about knowing that Jesus is a part of your life.  You have lots of choice with this topic!

First I gathered old magazines, textbooks, calendars, etc. that could be cut up.
Then I created a set of stencils for the students that were 4"x4".  I cut them out of sturdy cardboard.
I also made stencils that created a "blank" 4"x4" square for the students to actually be able to see what they would end up cutting out.
Each student cut out one picture that went along somehow with the theme of their essay.  It could be part of a picture, or a piece of a whole, or even just something in the background.


They then glued the square somewhere on a 9"x12" piece of drawing paper and had to finish the picture using other media (crayons, colored pencils, markers, etc.) of their choice.  Some of them worked to recreate what the rest of the actual original picture looked like, and some used the small square to create their own story. 

Here are a few examples:

St. Joan of Arc
Jesus teaching

Jesus gathering the little children to Himself

Moses and the 10 Commandments

Artwork inside a church during Mass

The Sermon on the Mount

The Resurrection

The Crucifixion



For more info and resources about our Write Your Story on My Heart project, click here:
http://looktohimandberadiant.blogspot.com/2014/03/write-your-story-on-my-heart-narrative.html


Monday, June 2, 2014

Black Out Poetry



Back in this post I shared the ideas for helping kids see God at work in their lives through reflective narrative writing.  My students wrote five narratives this year as part of that project, and also created a corresponding art project to illustrate their writing.  This is one of those five art projects, and it matched with this topic:
o   Seeing God in the Hard Times: Write a story about something hard that has happened in your life and how God was there to help you.

This was an interesting essay to work with the kids on.  I think that too often we avoid tough subjects with kids, thinking that we don't need to open up about sadness or fear, believing that they can't handle it or don't need to talk about it.  However, kids experience hard things all of the time, and writing or art can be a perfect way for them to share the feelings that they may be experiencing.

I wasn't quite sure what I would get when I asked the kids to write about something tough, but I got some introspective and meaningful essays on moving away, the death of a family member, the tornado that hit our town in 2013, bullying, and more.  I knew that the art we created as a companion for the essays would also need to be symbolic of the emotions they shared in their writing.

So, we created black out poetry.  I printed an extra copy of each of the students' actual essays.  They were challenged to convey the emotion of their essay while blacking out most of the actual words on the copy.  They were only allowed to use black pen or black marker as their medium.  The result was suppose to look very scribbled/doodled.

Some idea for how to "black out" the writing:
  • create an illustration on top of the writing
  • scribble over most of the words, leaving only a few meaningful words white and visible
  • create large bubble letters spelling out a theme of your writing.  Leave the inside of the words white and black out everything around them
  • black out areas not just scribbling randomly, but by creating patterns of dots, lines, etc.
Here are a few examples:
Essay about having to move to a new home, using the first three the techniques described above.

Another essay about moving, using some creative doodling/scribbling in the background.
Finding the theme and message of hope in this essay.

Using scribbling to illustrate the topic of this essay, the Pekin tornado in 2013.
This was my favorite of the five themed art projects that we created.  It was the most meaningful and the one that the students used as tool to open up.  Many of the teachers in the building looked at them while on display and remarked on the students' honesty, creativity, and introspection.  Give this idea a try yourself!  You could even do the same thing on something that the students have not written themselves, like old book pages.

For more info and resources about our Write Your Story on My Heart project, click here:
http://looktohimandberadiant.blogspot.com/2014/03/write-your-story-on-my-heart-narrative.html

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Word Cloud Art Project


Back in this post I shared the ideas for helping kids see God at work in their lives through reflective narrative writing.  My students wrote five narratives this year as part of that project, and also created a corresponding art project to illustrate their writing.  This is one of those five art projects, and it matched with this topic:
o   Knowing God through His People: Write a story about a person who is/was important in your life and how they helped you to know God better.

Have you tried Wordle or Tagxedo?  My students have used both online applications to create word clouds for various school projects.  The challenge for this art project was to create a word cloud, but without using a computer.

Color, handwriting, lettering styles, and layout were all discussed.  We practiced how they could vary the lettering in their word cloud using manuscript and cursive, as well as by creating bubble letters, serifs, waves, symbols, etc.

We also discussed emphasizing something using size and color, as well as how to balance the layout to make it flow and be pleasing to the eye.

The word cloud had to contain the name of the highlighted person from their essay, as well as nouns and adjectives that told more about them.  The goal was that the art would say as much as the actual essay, but in a different way.

Here are a few examples:




fyi, a little weird to see myself as the feature of a word cloud...

and I have to love this one...her essay about Fulton Sheen was phenomenal!

There you go!  Student created word clouds.  An easy and decorative way to pull a summary out of your students while allowing them to use their creativity. 

For more info and resources about our Write Your Story on My Heart project, click here:

http://looktohimandberadiant.blogspot.com/2014/03/write-your-story-on-my-heart-narrative.html