I keep thinking about this quote from Jim Burke's blog that I read yesterday: "Chinese leader Deng Ziaoping apparently described his policy for running the country as mozhe shitou guo, which means roughly: fording a river by feeling for the stones with your feet. This seems to me an authentic, realistic way to think about each class, each day, each text or lesson we teach. No two classes, no two kids are the same; nor are any two days."

Although I am a planner, and always have unit plans and lesson plans done, this describes perfectly how I like to teach. I like to have it all planned, but throw it all to the wind when something better suggests itself.

Today was one of those days.

I started a new read-aloud, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The students voted for it and it won by a large majority. But I could tell that they weren't getting into the first chapter of the book which was setting up the plot and the character development. I didn't want them to miss the character development, so I threw my plans to the wind, and set them up in groups of two to read the scene from the book where Claudia is telling her little brother that she has chosen him to run away with. I modeled the procedure with one of the students and showed how to act out the narration without reading it. Then we let her rip. And boy, were they ever super-engaged. I decided to work on reading fluency this read-aloud and do these mini-reader's theaters every so often. Also, having to physically act out the descriptions would help them visualize. I'll keep you posted.