Juli Kendall's Weekly
Reading/Writing Workshop Journal

A MiddleWeb Listserv Project

Members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List and other interested teachers are joining together to explore the Writing Workshop and other ideas about supporting young adolescent writers and readers. Juli Kendall, a reading-writing teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Juli also posts a weekly journal entry from her reading/writing classroom.

This year, Juli will focus on her efforts to integrate subject matter into her reading and writing workshop approach. In her first journal of the year, she explains the rationale behind this move and some of her thinking about how she hopes to accomplish this goal.

Find out more about our project at our Reading/Writing Workshop homepage. You'll find Juli's background article here. Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.

If you'd like to join the daily discussion that parallels Juli's Journals, find out how here.

2003-04 Reading/Writing
Workshop Journal
Week #22

Our "Bloody" Investigation!


The classroom is dripping in blood. It's everywhere!

It covers the desks, the Nonfiction Writer's Notebooks, and the computers with Internet access. But don't worry; we have it all under control. That's because we're using the Internet to investigate blood and the circulatory system. It ties into our Standards for science and health - plus the kids are fascinated by this topic.

One reference for our "bloody" investigation is Kids Discover Magazine. I first learned about this resource in Strategies That Work. The magazine's online pages include several colorful articles about this topic: "Lifeblood" and "In Sickness and In Health."

Our investigation also leads us to our grade level science book and the section on "The Circulatory System." This ties in to Helen's investigation about pulse rates, which started in Journal #21. Right now, everything seems to be coming together. I think it's because we started our investigations with "I wonder" pages in our Nonfiction Writer's Notebooks. Everyone seems "primed" to understand this process.

We're beginning with a structured investigation for a common topic to teach the task. Then everyone gets to choose his or her own topics from six recommendations. Our ultimate goal, at the end of the year, is for everyone to generate his or her own questions and research individual topics. But for now, I'm scaffolding the process by modeling and guiding the investigations. By doing whole group investigations first, I'm teaching the components. Then everyone will choose from a selection of topics and work together on investigations in small groups, to support each other in the learning process. The goal is for kids to have the skills they need to work on their own. In this way, they'll gradually assume more and more responsibility for their inquiry.

Day 1

We start by just exploring the Kids Discover website. Even though it's simple and very straightforward with just a few links, kids spend one whole day opening and closing the web pages about blood and discovering what's available. To make it easy to find, we enter the web address into the Favorites menu. It takes them at least one day to get familiar with how to find the content. Interestingly, the section on vampire bats seems to attract the most attention. The idea that they suck blood from sleeping animals causes some concern, especially to Daniel.

Of course, this isn't for everyone. After several minutes staring at pages covered in red, Michelle gets sick to her stomach and needs to leave. She may want to find an alternative topic.

Day 2

I share copies of the magazine, "Blood," so that everyone can make a connection between the visual text on the Internet and the print based materials. What grabs their attention this time is the section on "Beastly Blood." It has to do with the fact that not all blood is red. Crabs have blue blood, earthworms have green blood, and "many invertebrates, like starfish, have clear or yellowish blood."

Rigoberto finds the information fascinating, but disturbing. "I don't think they're right," he comments. "Blood is supposed to be red."

Day 3

We get out the Nonfiction Writer's Notebooks and the post-its and start jotting down our connections, some questions, and some truly amazing facts about blood that we want to remember.

Some of our connections:

Edgar --"Reading about the vampire bats reminds me that blood drinking bats have big teeth."
David --"Blood. It reminds me of a cartoon, "Itchy and Scratchy," that makes fake blood to make the show."
Michelle --"Once I cut my finger with a knife and it lasted for a few days."

Some of our questions:

Vanessa --"Why is blood red?"
Vivana --"What does warm blooded mean?"
Rin --"What does cold blooded mean?"
Juan --"I wonder if different animals have different blood."
Carmen --"Why is blood red?"

Some amazing facts about blood:

Jose --"Veins take the blood back to the heart."
Yaritza --"Vampire bats have two sharp teeth that punch tiny holes in sleeping cattle, goats, and sometimes humans."
David --"The stomach and intestines leak nutrients into capillaries."

Day 4

Meeting in small groups we talk about our investigations. We share our connections, our questions, and the amazing facts about blood that we've collected. It makes for a lively discussion.

Day 5

Using partners, we bring our science books into the investigation. Kids work together to read the two pages on "The Circulatory System." It's part of our study of the theme of "Systems." This aspect is related to systems in living things. Our reading focus question is: What is the job of the circulatory system? As kids read, they use sticky notes to write down connections, questions, and facts. Then they save the notes in their Nonfiction Writer's Notebooks.

Helen's still working on her independent investigation of pulse rates. She started out with her Writer's Notebook in Journal #21 and has been making steady progress. She found a great explanation of this phenomenon in the science text.
Your arteries expand and contract as blood pushes through them. You can feel a throbbing where arteries are close to the skin. The throbbing caused by blood rushing into the arteries when the lower chambers of the heart contract is called a pulse. (From Houghton Mifflin Science Discovery Works, 5th grade, page A57.)

For now, we've finished our joint investigations. The next step? Kids will select one of six topics (rain forests, oceans, volcanoes, the brain, weather, and the solar system) and then work in a group to collaboratively investigate their choices. I'm curious to see what directions their group investigations take.

You never know what you might learn!


SEE Juli's Curriculum Map for Investigations - Unit Four

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