The Rocks Project: Phase 1 sharing experiences of rocks.

A "Three-Step Interview" technique was used in discussion of their personal stories. They wrote a brief description of their story in their learning journals, which was followed by proofreading, publishing, illustrating, and displaying the stories. 

The following day, using a pre-reading strategy called "cubing", Dot printed open-ended questions about rocks on a cardboard cube: What sizes are they? What colors? What is good and bad about them? What are they made of? Where do they come from and where can you find them? What can they do and what are they used for? Children thought, then wrote their ideas in their journals. Later, each cooperative team made a chart of their responses, headed with one of the questions from the cube. The lists served as early documentation of what we knew and wanted to know about rocks.

In addition, each child wrote a paragraph, responding to one of the questions on the cube. They went through the five stages of writing: prewriting (the cubing and discussion), first draft, revision, proofreading, and publishing. They ended their paragraphs with a question that they wanted to investigate through exploration.

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Last revised: November 8, 1996