Preparing for the First Day Back
By Susan Mandel Glazer

The summer break is on the horizon, but I'm sure you're already thinking about and making plans for next year. Whenever the first day of school occurs, be it summer or fall, it usually includes the customary "getting- to-know-you" activities. Many of these begin with small-group discussions and lead to whole-class confabulations. Then there's maybe an essay entitled "What I did on my vacation." After the talking and writing, the entire class shares their recollections. I don't know about you, but when these kinds of assignments were made during my school years I'd say to myself, "Do I really have to listen to what everyone did? I already know what my friends did, and all I did was play stoop ball and jump rope." But, as directed, we sat idly and attempted to be interested in each classmate's discourse.

Opportunities for learning
I, too, am guilty of having asked children to engage in activities that seemed interesting, but in reality, were quite boring. I was unable to understand that what lured me into action was not what necessarily enticed elementary-age children to do the same. These samples include only a few spaces, so add more lines for writing. These exercises can help you discover as much as you can about each child's ability to use descriptive language in terse ways. Encouraging children to use fewer words will probably result in creating writers who say more with less.

Enjoy a relaxing summer.

Susan Mandel Glazer is the Director of the Center for Reading and Writing at Rider University in Lawrenceville, NJ.

May 2007, Vol.37, No.8