This week I am in Baltimore, MD, with three students at the National History Day (we've met kids from Guam and Hawaii!). I'm filling in as the "substitute" for our history teacher who had a conflict, also with whom I have already been discussing using the national topic as a basis for their research project for my class, as well as for his American History class.
Right now? I am tired! (I know touring DC is tough!) My brain, though, is thinking (as I walk Pennsylvania Ave) about how I can incorporate some of ideas from Writing Beside Them...some of the pre-writing/notebook ideas. I'm going to work more on this. Next year's topic is "The Individual in History: Actions and Legacies." I think this is a great way to go cross-curricular (kids love to think they are getting two grades for one project!) and multi-genre also. Thoughts?
This is an interesting program...if you haven't heard about it, you might consider checking with your history/social studies teachers. Maybe?

Quick Writes
In one of my classes, we read House on Mango Street. The students then created their own novelettes that had to consist of ten chapters. We used the Writer's Notebooks to draft chapters for their novels.