Families of the students in Stacey Venzel’s fourth-grade class at PBE were in for a treat recently.

They visited the classroom as their kids finished their nonfiction reading and writing unit. It was a special unit for the students as they spent a month analyzing Ms. Venzel’s memoir, My Life in the Amazon, a collection of weekly newspaper articles that were published while Ms. Venzel was working at an animal rescue center in the rainforest of Ecuador in the summer of 2009. With guidance and innovation from our ENL teacher Patricia Becker, students studied genre, text structure, theme, character traits, vocabulary, culture, and even geography. Now, the students brought their analytical skills to life!

 

 

For about a month, students practiced digital literacy by exploring choice boards in Canva, an online design platform for presentations. They analyzed the theme of the text and now had the opportunity to present it in to their family members and friends in their own unique way digitally.

 

 

Students also spent the last month creating at-home dioramas that represent the theme of My Life in the Amazon through a specific scene in the text they chose. Students were encouraged to use recycled materials for their projects. The projects were incredible, with great detail and creativity.

 

 

Finally, students created their own memoir, organized via text structure to build reading comprehension skills, in an All About Me booklet.

 

 

This was an amazing project showing all that the students learned in this nonfiction unit.