empowerment through literacy || in defense of "crabby" teachers
TRANSCRIPT
In Defense of "Crabby" TeachersAuthor(s): Deborah DockweilerSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 42, No. 8, Empowerment through Literacy (Apr., 1989), p.656Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20200265 .
Accessed: 28/06/2014 10:58
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
.
Wiley and International Reading Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Reading Teacher.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 141.101.201.31 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:58:46 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
In defense of "crabby" teachers Deborah Dockweiler
What can one possibly say in defense of a crabby teacher? There's a lot to be said if that teacher is a hermit crab!
My learning disabled students would have preferred to do anything on earth rather than write. I used the excitement of the new year and a new classroom
pet, a hermit crab, to get them in volved.
Several days prior to the arrival of our pet, I set up an aquarium with the
necessary crab environment and then
taped the question "What is this?" on
the glass. This immediately sparked interest on the part of my 3rd to 5th
grade boys. They had many questions. Once the visitor arrived, I read Bill
Peet's Kermit, the Hermit to the class.
They decided that our new arrival was
indeed a hermit crab. We charted all their questions about the crab for later
use.
On another day we observed the her mit crab on a long table with no one
moving or talking for an eternity of 15 minutes. We then listed everything that we noticed about the crab. Any word or idea was included on the list.
Through this relatively harmless activ
ity, my students and I had embarked
upon our careers as writers.
On subsequent days, we took our
lists and grouped ideas that went to
gether. Students worked in pairs to try to answer some of the questions about our guest. This involved using the li
brary to gain information about some
thing that interested them. There were no complaints, other than mine: "Don't run to the library!"
It was a gratifying sight: groups of students all working to discover some
thing new. For several more days, each
group gathered information about her mit crabs.
^^^^r???????^BfWff^n^ift&ih\ ^^^w**"1 " "~--.
Finally we wrote interesting facts that were contributed by each of the
groups. These sentences were written
on the board and later on strips of pa per. As a group, we then took the
strips and arranged them into catego ries like habitat, food, description, etc.
This categorizing activity led to a
group report on hermit crabs. After I modeled this process, the students wrote their first research reports of the
year.
Although this activity took several
days, the students never seemed to lose interest. You can be sure that that crab
was observed very carefully every day by 11 pairs of eyes. Hardly a student entered the LD classroom without
picking up the crab or at least remark
ing that "He's out!" Still not "crabbed out," my students
and I used the crab as a catalyst for po etry writing. We again consulted our
lists for "crabby" words and produced a group diamante poem. Then they worked independently to write and il
lustrate a crab poem of their own. The results were wonderful for first time efforts.
In four short weeks of school my learning disabled students had done
more writing than they ever dreamed
they could do. The most important outcome was that my students were
writing because they had some interest in what they were trying to say. They owned these writing experiences.
Finally, we had to share all this ex citement about learning with the rest of the school. What better time than at our Open House? Our group and indi vidual reports, questions, lists, and
poetry were displayed in the hall by our room, along with our very special "crabby" teacher. We wanted everyone to know that the kids in Room 23 were
writers.
Dockweiler is a learning disabilities
teacher at Amberly Elementary School in
Portage, Michigan.
656 The Reading Teacher April 1989
This content downloaded from 141.101.201.31 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:58:46 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions