An Expedition with Relations
Lucas’s European cruise with his family was used as a springboard for two different tasks aiming to further develop his expressive skills, especially in expounding on a subject by providing supporting details.
To help in concretizing his memories, Lucas was asked to use a timeline as his graphic organizer.
This timeline was then used as a basis for his pre-writing exercise of noting down word/phrase associations for each place visited. For his first work, he was asked to follow the structure of a three-paragraph essay – featuring the introduction, the body and the concluding paragraphs.
My Summer
My summer vacation was long but felt short, because it was fun.
It started well. I lay down and watched TV all day long. I was with my parents and little brother. At the middle of summer, I went to Europe with most of my family.
My grandfather planned the trip around Europe. I went to 8 countries but I will talk about only 3. Amsterdam was the first place we went to. It was cold and had a lot of bicycles. We went to a wooden shoe factory in Holland. Another place we went to is Russia. There we went to a winter palace in St. Petersburg. It is connected to an art museum. The last place we went to was Spain. We were with my grandfather’s friend and explored Barcelona, Spain.
I had a great time in Europe. I had fun in the trip because of the things we saw. I learned about new sights in the world. Sights like the famous paintings of Da Vinci and Van Gogh. I want to go there again because Europe was a good place to go to.
The three particular stops that Lucas identified in the previous essay (Amsterdam, Russia and Spain) were further explored. This time, visual prompts – in the form of photos – were used to assist Lucas in coming up with even more information specific to the experience.
The original output of this task is a Powerpoint presentation, which he was able to make with minimal guidance. The main slides were converted into pictures – as seen in the series below:
My Summer (in Powerpoint)
(The text of each slide has been transcribed, for easier reading)
Amsterdam/Holland
Ø A big windmill beside a pond.
Ø The unpainted wooden shoes (above) only last for 3 years.
Ø The shoe maker explains about making the shoes. He used a block of wood.
Ø A statue of Rembrandt. My dad likes his paintings a lot.
Ø Outside an amusement park with some big shoes.
Russia
Ø Walking in front of a summer palace in St. Petersburg. It was big with a lot of rooms surrounded by gold. There was a room covered in amber.
Ø This is a long ceiling of fresco pictures of bible stories in the old testament. I stared at it for a while because it was very detailed.
Ø This is the unfinished sculpture of Michelangelo. It is a man exercising.
Ø This is the painting of the return of the prodigal son by Rembrandt. I think it is a bible story.
Spain
Ø This is a winery. It is somewhere in Barcelona. It was boring. The tour was about making wine out of a fruit.
Ø This is Paella. It is a kind of Spanish food. There is egg, shrimp, and fried rice mixed in a pan.
Ø This street performer looks like a headless guy. But I saw some hair when the picture was taken.
Ø I was with my brother and some guy in a robot costume. It transforms, somehow. My parents thought it was Bumblebee, but the body didn’t look like it because of the wheels.
Now on his 5th reading intervention program with Wordlab, Lucas’s steady growth – both physically and in his literacy skills – has been unmistakable. He is a very diligent 7th grader; yet he never forgets to make time for creative expression through drawing and painting. In fact, he recently joined his school’s Art Club.
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