Wacky We-Search Reports

A Barry Lane Resource that will make you look forward to writing class (and your students too)!

 I love this Barry Lane book and believe that every teacher should have it as part of their writing resource bookshelf. Practical, fun, academic, and common core covering (without needing to try) writing lessons that you can start teaching tomorrow! After reading about Wacky Reports in Barry Lane's book, I made a template adapted and inspired by his idea, and shared the sample from the book to start the mini lesson with my students. They especially liked the spreading disease grade of C and the comments explained that Musca's egg laying count was lower than expected, so she hopes to spread more Cholera next trimester. I took my students to the library so they had lots of options and choices to pick a "student" to learn some quick facts about, pick 5 of the most interesting, and think about writing their Wacky Report Card. Students researched interesting facts about an animal or insect of interest. Then they designed a wacky report card to go with their choice, using their knowledge in a challenging way. They graded traditional school topics like reading and math, and made up their own too (lunch manners, friendship skills). You could do this mini lesson with famous people and other social studies topics too. I was impressed by all of their clever ideas.

Snow Shoe Hare stays in fashion changing fur color with the season.

Humpback Whale earned a B for singing beautiful melodies in chorus.