Birds-eye views with Mrs. Webb

Here's a lesson observed by Mr. Crutchfield:

Students in Mrs. Webb’s classes enjoy writing in their personal journals. Her stu-dents participate in all sorts of free writing activities using their journals. Word splash, is one type of assignment where students categorize vocabulary words from their recent readings. Bird’s eye view is another strategy where students are able to describe personal experiences by drawing a map that traces 10 memories with captions to explain them.

The best part about these journal assignments, students decorate the normally plain black and white composition books. When I walk in the class, their heads are down and they barely come up to share their work. Water color is the medium. Dots, sprinkles, swirls and dreamy landscapes are painted on each page. Every once and a while, a student’s eyes sneak a look at their friends work or share theirs. But then, eyes are quickly back to begin another page of water coloring. Students comment to me that when they decorate the pages the way they want, it helps them get into a zone when they write.
Mrs. Webb stops by my perch. She likes students to personalize their journals in hopes that all the good stuff that they have in it by the end of the year doesn't get tossed. I assured her that it doesn't. The art, done by my boys’ years ago in her class, is hanging on their bedroom walls to this day.