Reading Rainbow Reviews

The Thursday before Winter Break was our school-wide Publishing Night.  This annual event brings families into our classrooms to celebrate the writing process.  However, in the past, we've typically had only one polished, re-written, titled, and illustrated piece of writing to share.  This year, in accordance with the new Units of Study from Lucy Calkins, our published work looked a little different.

First off, as I explained in my last post (here) about the Opinion Writing Unit, the kiddos actually "published" three different reviews.  For Publishing Night, I set up tables with our collection reviews and review anthologies.  I put the kiddos' book reviews at their tables, with their book inspirations propped up.  It was incredibly powerful for parents to see all of the writing that their kiddos had produced.  One mother picked up her daughter's first review and actually ask if it was from the beginning of the year!  When I explained that, no, it was only from a few weeks earlier, she was definitely impressed with her daughter's progress.

Not only did we have more writing this year than ever before, but for the first time we did not spend time re-writing.  In the past, I've saved 3-4 days at the end of each unit for the kiddos to copy their finished writing neatly onto clean paper.  My rationale was always that they could use the handwriting practice, but some fellow teachers who attended Teachers College this past summer, pointed out that re-writing every piece was really wasting up to two weeks of valuable instructional time.  More importantly, by not re-writing, we were able to recognize and honor the hard work of revising and editing.  I "warned" families ahead of time that they would likely see cross-out, carets, arrows, and other tools that writers use to revise their work, but no one seemed to mind.  I think they actually appreciated seeing how the kiddos had worked to improve content, spelling, and grammar of their stories.

Another new feature of this Publishing Night was the interactive SMART Notebook with clickable pictures of the kiddos and their books.  At the end of this unit I filmed each kiddo reading his/her book review.  (In order for the kiddos to get this concept we watched a couple episodes of Reading Rainbow on DVD, since, sadly, the show is no longer on the air).  The kiddos loved touching the pictures and watching the reviews pop-up!

I've usually enjoyed Publishing Nights just fine, but this one was, by far, my favorite.  Not only that, but I think it was most "impactful" (I know it's not a word, but it just works well here) for parents.  I'm already looking forward to teaching this unit and producing Reading Rainbow reviews next year!