Strategy:

Focuses on the interrelationship of reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visually representing. Provides authentic reasons for reading and writing.

Materials:

Paper and pencil; poster board and art supplies

Procedures:

• Tell students they will interview each other in order to produce a class bulletin that will introduce them to parents, visitors, or penpals as well as to each other. The purpose must be real. [In our case, the purpose will be to provide the teachers and students at Jean Gordon with an overview of who we are.]
• The class brainstorms questions to ask during the interviews.
• Students pair up and conduct their interviews, taking notes to remember the information. The notes can be drawings as well as words or phrases.
• Students then work individually and use their notes to write a brief article or paragraph about the person they interviewed.
• Students then take this rough draft to another person (or group) other than the person interviewed to get suggestions for revisions (called Author's Circle).
• Following the "Author's Circle," the interview is revised, edited, published and shared.