SOLSC Classroom Challenge

Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge: Day 6 of 31

Anna Gratz Cockerille

Slice of Life_classroom image Black

Welcome to Day 6 Classroom Slicers! 

In his memoir, the writer Haruki Murakami claims,  “Most of what I know about writing fiction I learned by running every day.”

Writing is certainly a test of endurance and will, just like running. Getting better at it requires frequent practice. But getting better at it also requires acceptance, understanding, and patience. As I runner, there are days when I just don’t have the energy to get out there. I know when to push myself and when to give myself the day off. If I skip a day, I know I can get right back on track the next day. If I berate myself for skipping the day, I am much more likely to want to give up my running practice altogether.

In the month of March, we challenge our students to write every single day. This is no small feat. Some might not be at a place in their writing lives where this is a reasonable challenge. Of course, the SOLSC isn’t about struggle or pushing kids to do things they are not ready to do. Instead, it is about celebrating those who extend themselves just beyond what they were doing before, who use the challenge as a chance to grow just a bit more as writers.

, a fifth-grade teacher and blogger at Read, Write, Reflect, has a system for honoring all of her students’ efforts, even if they don’t write daily.

The levels of Katherine’s system:

Level One – the “Slicers”
These kiddos are slicing every school day – either at school or at home for their ten minutes of writing.
Level Two – Piece of Cake
These kids are completing level one and slicing each school day, but also committing to slice over our spring break. The reward for going above and beyond during a time you might be lounging at the beach? A piece of cake upon your return. J
Level Three – Super Slicers
Behold, the holy grail of our challenge. These kids are joining me in slicing all thirty-one days in March – school days, weekends, spring break. The reward for this is top secret.
You can read her entire post here.
Even if some of your students don’t write every single day in March (and even if we don’t write every single day in March), let’s still honor each other’s efforts. Doing some writing is certainly better than doing none.
Happy Slicing!

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Published by Anna Gratz Cockerille

Anna is a staff developer, literacy coach, and writer, based in New York City. She taught internationally in places such as Sydney, Australia; San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and Auckland, New Zealand in addition to New York before becoming a staff developer for the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University (TCRWP). She has been an adjunct instructor in the Literacy Specialist Program at Teachers College, and teaches at TCRWP where she helps participants bring strong literacy instruction into their classrooms. Anna recently co-wrote Bringing History to Life with Lucy Calkins, part of the 2013 series Units of Study in Opinion, Information, and Narrative Writing (Heinemann). She has been a researcher for Lucy Calkins, contributing especially to Pathways to the Common Core (Heinemann, 2012) and Navigating Nonfiction (Heinemann, 2010).

24 thoughts on “Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge: Day 6 of 31”

  4. Oh my goodness! After three separate tries, I think I finally have my kiddos’ slices rounded up correctly! I have 73 middle school students and I offered them 3 levels of participation:

    In for 15 – slice every day that we are in school and get 5 pts per day.
    In for 25 – slice a total of 25 days through the month and get those 5 pts plus a little secret something special!
    In for 31 – I have 43 of them who have committed to the full 31 days worth of writing and these hard workers will get the 5 pts, the little secret something special, and have their names entered in one of three BIG drawings, one for 6th, one for 7th, and one for 8th grade. I’ve been all over town rounding up donations. Businesses are loving handing me gift cards for $20 and $30 without batting an eye!

    So, here’s our first round up after 6 days in…you’ll have to highlight their URLs and open them in another tab. If anyone can give me better directions on how to create a link with a comment, I’d love to hear it!

    Enjoy! I am soo soo proud of their work!

    http://creatively-cardinal.blogspot.com/2014/03/call-for-slices-third-times-charm.html#comment-form

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  13. I do leveled prizes too, as well as “surprise” prizes throughout the challenge (i.e. random drawing for a prize out of kids who wrote the previous day, or everybody who wrote yesterday gets candy, or the person who left the most comments yesterday gets a prize…) to keep encouraging those who aren’t into doing it every day. We are off to a great start this year with several “super slicers” though — I’m so excited!

    Today’s posts will probably appear this evening (if at all) because of our big multicultural event after school, but you can still check out some of yesterday’s posts too.

    http://kidblog.org/WritingOurOwnWords/tag/slice-of-life/

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