Gronberg Education Model

My Homeschool group just completed their Essay Writing Unit, much to their relief. For a few, thesis statements were the problem, for others, connecting body paragraphs to their thesis was. They will be starting a Creative Writing Unit, inspired by their reading of my first novel. One, who doesn't want to write, is naturally gifted in creative expression. I hope he considers an attempt at publishing.

The students studied the explorers, but not before we discussed why economics and religion drove exploration. First, we studied how the Natives to the Americas were civilized under the five established features that comprise civilized cultures; and we concentrated on South America. Next, we discussed Western European trade with African nations, starting with Ghana. How the civilizations evolved into Feudalism led to talks on how the Crusades became possible. We briefly went over the real reasons for the three waves of crusades, then we discussed the main explorers. On an interactive website, we tracked the explorations of Portugal's Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama, Italy's Christopher Columbus, and several more. We spent the bulk of our time discussing how Columbus convinced Spain's Queen Isabella that the Caribbean islands were far more valuable to Spain than a Northwest passage. The assignment was to segment the archipelago of Caribbean islands into what European nation had claimed them and to research the years of slave uprisings on the sugar plantations. The sugar industry was discussed so the students understood why Spain eventually swapped Florida for the Caribbean islands. Their other assignment was to write an essay on where Columbus might have landed if the winds and seas had been calmer or stormier and how landing somewhere else would have changed history.

We looked into the established, larger Native American tribes and what part of the country they lived in; the students thought it interesting that some of the Native American words were French in origin. At the end of the lesson, we focused on the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mound Builders for about 10 minutes because the public schools in Texas do, but my students were much more interested in the Iroquois nation and how they interacted with the French vs. the English settlers. We took post-it-notes with tribe names and placed them on my big U.S. map. When we were finished, the tribes were evenly distributed throughout the map. We had discussion on why this might be the case, and the students came up with the right reasons: food, space. We discussed their different habitats depending on what part of the country they lived in, and we discussed some of their similarities and differences. The students read reports and did an interactive lesson on one of the history sites about the lost colony of Roanoke to finish the day. Their homework was to write a narrative on their assumptions about what happened to the settlers of Roanoke as if they were one of the survivors.

We are well into the American History Workshop. I have been so busy that Facebook has taken a back seat (more like I left it behind altogether). At any rate, people have been asking what I am up to, so here it is. I started with the population of North America by people we now call Native Americans and how it is believed that most came over the Bering land bridge in pursuit of their food source. We discussed the tribal territories and their different shelters. Their assignment was to research tribes and show how the entire United States was segmented into Native American tribal territories centuries before the explorers found them. We wrote the tribes on small post-it-notes and placed them on my large map of the U.S. There was no free space, particularly in the Northeast.

My 7-8 grade class looked at two Longfellow poems - "The Village Blacksmith" and "The Children's Hour". We read for clarity and discussed the differences in cadence and stanza. Then we discussed Longfellow's choice of topic and imagery. The students had different impressions of "The Village Blacksmith". The emotions ranged from sadness, focusing on the blacksmith being lonely after his wife's death; to peacefulness, focusing on how steady he was and how the village children loved him; to strength, focusing on how he kept going despite adversity. "The Children's Hour" was more difficult for them to comprehend. We worked through the imagery first, which was extensive. They were confused with the switching between fantasy and reality. After having read it once and looking at it from the perspective of imagery and vocabulary, they were still unclear about what was happening in the story. When I read it to them and answered questions about who 'Grave Alice' and the 'Bishop of Bingen' are, it started to gel for them. Then they discussed their own stories of sneaking up on daddy before bedtime. Their vocabulary words included sinewy, sledge, sexton, forge, repose, wrought, Bingen, and moulder. Their writing assignment was to choose a cadence structure from one of the two poems and write a poem that told a story.

My 7-8 grade group looked at the beginning and ending of four fairy tales: "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Anderson, "Rumplestiltskin" by the brothers Grimm, "Reynard and the Fisherman" from Tales of Reynard, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" from Thousand and One Nights. Their task was to determine whether the introduction told enough to write the middle of the story. Their clues were in the conclusion of the story. In each case, the answer was yes. They used the texts of the beginnings and endings to substantiate their answers. Their writing task was to pick a fairy tale and paraphrase the middle of the story. They could be creative if they wished. This was a fun exercise as their renditions were imaginative. There were no words the students didn't know.

My 4-5 grade group read an excerpt from True Grit. We discussed why the punctuation was not correct and that it had been written to mimic how we speak. We picked out the simple, complex, and complex compound sentences and discussed what made them such. Each student was assigned a paragraph and highlighted each type of sentence in different colors. Each student was asked to read a particular type of sentence and to tell the group why it was a particular type. Some of their vocabulary words were lurch, stout, muster, and purchase, none of which were used in the sense that we think of. Their writing assignment was to write a descriptive passage about a terrifying event in their own lives and present it to the class.

My 7-8 grade tried their hand at Shakespeare again with the third chapter of Macbeth. We had discussed the first chapter some time back, and they were encouraged to read the book. The third chapter brings the witches back. The reason I chose it was so prove that Shakespeare didn't waste anything. There was a reason for every character, every discussion, and every description. We talked about how simple the wording is but how powerful it is as well. The first word in the chapter is 'Thunder'. The students were encouraged to discover why it is the first word and what it's significance is. The next scene descriptor just says 'Drumming'. We discussed the significance and visualized the scene before we read it. Some of their vocabulary words were aroint, runnion, peak and pine, posters, and Thane. They paired up to write a simple, one-scene play and to perform it.

My 2-3 grade group looked at a passage on Harriet Tubman. We dwelled on parts of speech by going line by line and highlighting nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, pronouns, and adverbs. The rules for recognizing each part are on my wall, so they referred to the wall each time they got stuck. Each part of speech was highlighted in a different color. There were some discussions as to whether 'Underground' was a noun or an adjective as some argued that it modified 'Railroad'. After everyone presented their ideas, we decided it was a noun as it was part of the proper name of the escape route. Their vocabulary words were veterans, monumental, and suffrage. We discussed the word 'Civil' and looked up its meaning so that they would connect the reason for the name with the word. Their writing assignment was to write an expository on Tubman's quote at the end of the passage which read: "I had reasoned this out in my mind. There was one of two things I ahd a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted."

My 4-5 grade group compared poems. We read "The Eagle" by Tennyson, "A Tragic Story" by Thackeray, and "The Tale of Custard the Dragon" by Nash, in that order. Everyone liked Ogden Nash'es poem the best. They read each poem aloud without knowing the title. The first poem was tricky for them, but after discussion about the imagery, they agreed it must be about a bird, maybe an eagle. The second poem became obvious by the end, but they enjoyed acting out the protagonist's antics. The third poem was their favorite. Each student had different reasons as to why it was the favorite. One liked that it was about a dragon, one liked that it was make-believe, one liked the nonsense words and wanted to write nonsense words in his poem, and one liked that it was an interesting story. We picked out metaphors, similes, personifications, onomatopeias, and hyperbole. Their vocabulary words were azure, sage, yore, stout, and tack. They wrote their own poems following the mood of the poems studied and read them aloud. Some had trouble with telling a story while rhyming.

My 7-8 grade group tried their hand at Macbeth. Two of them had attempted to read it before. First, I had the students take parts and read the first two scenes as best they could. Then, we looked up the vocabulary words, annotated the first and second scene and discussed why Shakespeare might have opened with a scene with witches. We went over the characters and, as you can imagine, we had quite a few vocabulary words to discuss. The students read their parts again, and they had a whole new understanding for what Shakespeare wrote and what was happening in the story. I told them that Shakespeare doesn't waste anything in his writing, and to watch for the witches and the significance of their words again. Their vocabulary words included hurly-burly, heath, plight, valor, mark, and what a kern is. We discussed why Shakespeare might not use proper punctuation. Their writing assignment was to compose a play with three characters that the other students would perform.

My 4-5 grade group read a passage from "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen. We discussed proper punctuation vs. punctuation one might see in a novel and discussed what poetic license means. We went over the passage and discussed where punctuation might be if we were correcting the passage. We picked out the onomatopoeias, metaphors, and analogies. There was only one word that they couldn't give me a correct definition to - skitter. Their writing assignment was to write a descriptive action piece using all five senses. They had to have an onomatopoeia, a metaphor, and an analogy in their pieces.