For those of you using our Writer's Notebook Bingo Cards, you know our "center square lesson of the month" for October was our "Life is a Recipe" metaphors. My students each created a two-page spread in their notebooks; on the left-hand side, they created a personal recipe metaphor; on the right-hand side, they created--in my class--a science-related metaphor. As of November 1st, I began checking my students' notebooks for these two recipes, and I am astounded at the quality of thought many of my students gave me while competing this project.
Here, by the way, is my teacher example from my own notebook that I shared with them throughout this month-long writing process.
Since beginning this assignment, I even have a few students who have begun creating recipe metaphors beyond the two required recipes my assignment asked for. I look forward to seeing how these students' extra recipe metaphors will guide them to creating rough drafts for future assignments during upcoming writer's workshop time.
Below is 8th-grader, Alex's, two-page "recipe metaphor" spread; click on it to see it with more detail. If you click here, you can see several more great examples from my classroom of amazing students, as well as the whole assignment that inspired these samples!
I hope this inspires you to think of "recipe metaphors" that you can share with your own amazing student writers.
--Corbett
