Deepening Awareness of Place: Sensory Report

Content Objectives:

·  Students will engage in a process of observation and note taking using their science notebooks.

·  Students will use information from an observation to write a report.

Language Objectives:

·  Students will describe their observations in their science notebooks

·  Students will read their writing aloud to a partner

·  Students will listen to the writing of a partner

·  Students will discuss how observations and perspective can influence a person’s experience or writing

Process:

1.  Teacher explains activity and asks students to take their places to conduct their observations (5 minutes)

2.  Students pick an outdoor place to observe with a partner. Students sit together with their partners and note everything they observe with their senses (younger children may draw some things rather than writing) in their notebooks. After 5-15 minutes, students return to the classroom. Observations should be done silently and individually, as if students were a fly on the wall or a reporter taking notes at the scene of an event.

3.  Students return to the classroom and begin to write using their notes. They may write a report of their experience, a story based on an aspect of their experience, poetry based on their observations, etc. Note: The genre of writing is less important than the use of the information from the observation in student writing, however, teachers may decide to emphasize a particular type of writing that is being taught in the class.

4.  Students read their writing to their partners (with younger students, they may share their drawings and stories or writing with partners). Students can be told to listen for one similarity and one difference between their writing and that of their partner.

5.  (optional) Teacher facilitates a discussion about what students noticed about their observations and the observations of their partners and how this may be related to scientific observation, recording data, choice in writing, etc.

Adapted from Betina Hsieh at Bay Area Writing Project