In Love With Self-Created Anchor Charts!

Dear Lara,
I LOVE these anchor charts that your students created. Not only do I think they will be more likely to use an anchor chart that they have right at their fingertips, but I believe they will be empowered to use these charts because they designed them. Ownership equals investment. I can't wait to see more examples! I can't wait to try it out in my room too.

I am posting a few pictures of my writing workshop mentor text board during our fairy tale unit. We charted the writing "moves" we noticed authors making, the name we decided upon for that move, why we thought authors used the move, examples from mentor texts, and examples from the students' writing. As you can see from the board, we charted various versions of Little Red Riding Hood, and the students wrote their own versions of the story. We will be writing informational pieces during our next writing unit focusing on insects to coordinate with our FOSS science unit. I will try to post a few pics of that board as well.
Frances

Student Created Symbols

Hey Fran,

Symbols are abundant in my classroom, the hallway, the road, the park, phones, and on and on.  I am on a mission to have each child transform our class anchor charts/rubrics into small hand held tools that have self-created symbols.  Below I have posted pictures of a recent example from my class --  the classic 5 Finger Retelling Hand created by my students.  I LOVE the varying symbols for connections in the palm of the hand.  I believe that the plug, lego, heart and cars crashing illustrate the power of a self - created symbols for making meaning and... making meaning last.

heart

legos

plug

cars crashing