HUMANI T IES


This page, Fourth-graders, such


as Elliott N. and Emma R. at right, write myths based on stories of the First People.


Fifth-graders such as


Taylor O. and Tess P., below right, work on


formal, five-paragraph essays.


On Page 8,


first-grader Toby U. navigates an


imaginary boat on the stream at Aardvark


Community Park, and Third-graders such as Simon H. and Henry G. study paragraph construction and


begin working with expository writing.


On Page 9,


Ria D. ’20, wrote about Rosa Parks for her


hero project. Students in Third Grade write


fictional diaries about their experiences on the Oregon Trail.


Shown in pioneer dress are, from left, Alma N., Anisha K., Harper H., and Noelani J.


Facing page,


Middle School students such as Sarah P. ‘16 use school-issued


laptops to write critical essays about literary works.


for development into a script for the Potlatch celebration. Nick’s students study more


advanced punctuation, such as apostrophes and possessives, and he does an exercise called Daily Oral Language, which consists of writing an incorrect sentence on the board each morning. The students find the errors and correct them. It prepares them to find mistakes in their own work as they write reports on the wetlands and do a social studies report on a topic of their choice. Next year the fourth-


graders will start using the ERB Writing Practice Program (WPP), an online system the fifth-graders have been using in which a computer grades student papers. It evaluates student writing based on overall development, organization, support, sentence structure, word choice, and mechanics. Fifth Grade teacher Kathy Narramore says it may sound crazy to


10 OES MAGAZINE SUMMER 2010 10


grade writing with a computer, but the kids love it because of the instant feedback. “It grades it right away,” she


said. “It pinpoints problems and motivates them to improve their writing.” The fifth-graders work on


the formal five-paragraph essay, which they expand to eight


paragraphs for their global research projects. Developing the point-of-view concept that the second-graders used in their hero reports, all Fifth Grade students write a “diary” of the person they are portraying in the immigration project. They also learn about imagery by writing poems based on models such as “I Am From” by George Ella Lyon. Here’s an excerpt from a poem that ALEXANDRA C. ’16 wrote when she was in Fifth Grade:


I am from a stretch of lake and land


where in the jet black night you listen


to the coyotes howling, frogs croaking,


the owl family hooting, and the crickets singing their evening song.


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