Choosing a Class Pet (6:41)

Sandy Patterson: Hi. My name is Sandy Patterson and I teach second grade at Lindo Park School. I was working very hard to incorporate the Common Core Standards into my curriculum this year because we have adopted the Common Core. For writing I decided that it would be fun to have the kids do some opinion writing. In the lower primary grades they call it “opinion writing” and in the upper grades they call it “persuasive writing.” I gave the kids the prompt by saying, “We are thinking about getting a class pet. In your opinion what class pet should we get?” So to begin our project I gave the kids the prompt which got them really excited about the writing and they had a purpose to write. After that I gave them three choices. They needed to decide on either a fish, hamster or hermit crab, and that got them even more excited. What I did is I told them I wanted them to make an informed decision about which pet they choose. I went ahead and put QR codes up all around our classroom. The QR codes would take the kids to different websites pertaining to having a hamster or a beta fish as a pet. They went ahead and they walked around the classroom. It really got them engaged and thinking about the pros and cons of having each pet.

I noticed as the kids were walking around the classroom gathering information from their iPod’s using the QR codes that they were really engaged in what they were reading. It also sparked a lot of discussion and argument between the kids about what pet we should get and why and why not. There was some rich discussion going on as well as lots of reading and they were so engaged.

Sandy Patterson: What animal are you thinking about getting?

Student: The hamster.

Sandy Patterson: Why?

Student: It’s cute and it is fluffy.

Sandy Patterson: What are you thinking about?

Student: Hermit crab.

Student: Because it can come on your shirt and it won’t get lost. We can pet it and we can train it to do fun stuff.

Sandy Patterson: You can train a hermit crab?

Student: I’m thinking about getting the hermit crab.

Student: It says hermit crab make great little miniature pets.

Sandy Patterson: Low maintenance which means they are not a lot of work. Student: This way of growing allows the hermit crab to replace lost eyes or appendages.

Sandy Patterson: Appendages which means arms and legs.

To start the actual writing process of this project I had the kids go ahead and choose one pet that they wanted to get. They used an organizer that looks like this that just had nine boxes. All they had to do was write reasons why they think we should get that pet. I explained to them that they are trying to get to talk me into getting this pet. The reasons should be powerful reasons. We left the last two boxes as opposing reasons. For example if this kid was writing about why they want to get a hamster they would put reasons why they wanted to get a hamster in these boxes. In the last two boxes they would say, “I don’t think we should get a beta fish because…” and in the last box they would say, “I don’t want to get a hermit crab because…”

After they did their reasons why we should get whatever pet they chose we move this on to our pre write. We use the learning headquarters model so they did their opinion in the central idea spot, audience hook and synonyms. This little girl is writing about a hamster so she wrote “animal” and “creature.” We also have the question on here, “What class pet should we get?”

Since this is the first time we have done opinioned writing in our classroom I kind of helped the kids come up with their point one, two and three. I kind of created those containers to help them organize their thoughts. The first point is “interesting facts”. The second point is “taking care of the animal.” The third point is “why we should not get the other two.” What the kids did is they took their ideas and they cut them out. They would cut them out one by one and decide which container that one would go to. They would glue or tape those points right onto those points. After they cut them all out they had details for each point or reason for their writing.

After the kids finish their prewrite we move it on to their draft. This is where they really work on putting those ideas and thoughts from their prewrite onto the draft in complete thoughts and sentences. We take our audience hook, central idea and we take each point and put them into complete thoughts and sentences. They really try to persuade or give their opinion about what class pet we should get.

After we finish our draft we will take it to the post write. We will revise and edit it to make sure it is our best work. The post write can be done either on a blank piece of paper or a word processing programs like Pages. I will probably have my kids use their iPod touch’s or iPad’s to type it in and then they can add pictures to their writing to make it a little more exciting.

From there I was thinking about having my kids work together collaboratively to create an iMovie to explain their opinion about what class pet we should get. Then they will be able to share those with the rest of the class and myself and then we will see if we are really going to get a class pet.

When I initially started this project I thought of it on a whim, literally when I was walking into school one day. I had to scramble around and get it ready. My intention was not ever to get a class pet. Once they saw the writing that we were doing I was not going to crush their dreams so we probably will end up getting a class pet at the end of this even though that was not my intention to being with. It is so exciting to see them so engaged in the writing and they are writing for a purpose so it will be exciting