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Creating Community from
the First Day of Class
It's time for school bells
to start ringing, classrooms to start buzzing, and teachers to start
off on their year-long adventure with a new group of students. By tapping
the following resources, teachers can build community in the classroom
that will support literacy instruction throughout the school
year and encourage students to participate as reflective and creative
members of a variety of literacy communities.
The ReadWriteThink lesson Creating Class Rules: A Beginning to Creating Community (E) focuses on a simple shared-writing activity to bring students together. Combine icebreakers with language arts with the Creating Classroom Community By Crafting Themed Poetry Collections (E) lesson plan, which invites students to compose poems about themselves and others in the classroom.
Check out the ReadWriteThink lesson plan Introducing Each Other: Interviews, Memoirs, Photos, and Internet Research (M) for a get-acquainted activity that invites pairs of students to learn about each other and share their findings with the rest of the class.
For a similar activity for older students, try the ReadWriteThink lesson The Feature Story—Fifteen Minutes (and 500 Words) of Fame! (S), which asks students to write
a newspaper profile of a classmate, with a particular focus on a talent, interest, or passion
of that classmate.
Read creative
ways of producing a positive first impression on the first day of school in "Teaching:
First Impressions First, or Choosing Atmosphere over Method and Management" (C) from Teaching English in the Two-Year College.
NOTE: Free access to journal articles mentioned in this Inbox is provided
for 21 days. After this free access period expires, articles are available
to journal subscribers only. This Inbox Idea was published 02-15-2005.
Initials in annotations indicate academic level of the resource (E=Elementary,
M=Middle, S=Secondary, C=College, G=General).
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