How Can Students Share their Thinking about Writing a Query?

The Query Board

We wanted to find a way for students and teachers to share their thinking as they go through the Query writing process. The result this year is a dedicated bulletin board on which each class can display any types of evidence they might have of this process. It could include chart paper, draft versions, photos, post-it notes, scrap paper, resources that were considered, or anything else. 

This is our Quaker Query bulletin board. It's located in a hallway in the middle of the first floor corridor. It showcases a revolving display of the wonderful steps that classes go through during their query writing journey. It is a place for students or teachers to share the ideas, questions and reflections that occur during each class' process. 

Most of our classroom teachers are familiar with this amazing and challenging collaborative task. In the past it has been the role of our Lower School Quaker Life Committee members to hear about this process, from big ideas to final query, listening to the edits, compromises, sense of the class meetings, and more. 

We felt that it was time to find a way to share these reports with everyone in the community so that we can learn from each other’s approaches to query crafting.  

This month's query and the documentation of the process are below:

January Query

How can we play our part in the never-ending story of trying to make the world a better place?  Is our work ever done?

written by Ms. Tiamiyu and Ms. Bacon's third grade class

Planning for Query Writing

Time	Activity
10 mins	Start by showing: http://vimeo.com/110877004 “Today will be writing the January Query.  We must be mindful of our audience.  Our buddies, PK, 4th graders, teachers from both campuses, family, Friends and friends.” Teachers Says: “Let’s take a look at Queries from this past year and years past” -in color tables students will work together to talk to the page -encourage students to ask if we still have work to do on some of the queries -encourage students to highlight the “question/query” promptsà “how?” “why?”
5 mins	Read:  Quaker Book Wisdom  pg 177 (Family) -have students record on a post-it notes their one word take away
5 mins	January Themes What does January bring?
	-brainstorming queries with color tables -what queries do we have? -what work do we still have to do? -what do we want Friends to focus on in the New Year
10 mins	-bringing our thoughts together to form the query

 

*Thanks to Sarah Tiamiyu and Elizabeth Bacon for allowing me to share their process.

Book Titles on Silence

Suggestions for Reading - Silence

General:

Cain, Susan.  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.  New York: Crown Publishers, 2012.

Iyer, Pico.  “The Joy of Quiet,” New York Times Sunday Review, January 1, 2012.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?pagewanted=all

Lees, Helen.  Silence in Schools.  London: Trentham Books, 2012.

Lower School Families:

Baylor, Byrd and Peter Parnall.  The Other Way to Listen.  Aladdin, 1997.

Cherry, Lynne.  The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest.  Sandpiper; reprint edition, (1990) 2000.

Deedy, Carmen Agra.  The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark.  Peachtree Pub. Ltd, 2000.

Fox, Mem.  Whoever You Are.  Sandpiper, 2006.

MacLean, Kerry Lee.  Peaceful Piggy Meditation.  Albert Whitman & Company, 2004.

Martin, Bill Jr., and John Archambault.  Listen to the Rain.  Henry Holt & Co., 1988.

Radunsky, Vladimir.  What Does Peace Feel Like?  Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2004.

Scanlon, Liz Garton.  All the World.  Beach Lane Books, 2009.

Showers, Paul.  The Listening Walk.  HarperCollins, (1961) 1993.

Sweetland, Nancy.  God’s Quiet Things.  Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 1999.

Wood, Douglas and Dan Andreasen.  A Quiet Place.  Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005.

Middle School Families:

Quakerism

Black, W. Geoffrey, et al.  Whispers of Faith: Young Friends Share Their Experiences of Quakerism.  Philadelphia: Friends General Conference, 2005.

Poetry

Gordon, Ruth, ed.  Under All Silences: Shades of Love.

Spires, Elizabeth.  I Heard God Talking to Me.  

Fiction

Rorby, Ginny.  Hurt Go Happy.  Starscape, 2006.

The main character is deaf–this has some interesting ethical dilemmas in it.

Spinelli, Jerry.  Crash.  Laurel Leaf, 2004.

The main character is Quaker.

Turnbull, Ann.  No Shame, No Fear.  Candlewick, 2006.

A book geared more for 7^th and 8th grade and up as it tells the story of a Quaker girl who falls in love with an Anglican boy in 1600s England, at a time of religious persecution.

Wood, Douglas.  Old Turtle.  Scholastic Press, 2007.

Upper School Families:

    Allen, Irene.  Quaker Silence.  Villard, 1992.  [Mystery             novel]

Bein, Peter.  Words, Wordlessness, and the Word Silence reconsidered from a Literary Point of View.  Pendle Hill Pamphlet, 1992.

Birkel, Michael Lawrence.  Silence and Witness: The Quaker Tradition.  Orbis Books, 2004.

Carroll, Kenneth. Touched by God in Quaker Meeting.  Pendle Hill Pamphlet, 1998.

Dart, Martha.  To Meet at the Source of Hindus and Quakers.  Pendle Hill Pamphlet, 1989.

Punshon, John.  Encounter with Silence: Reflections from the Quaker Tradition.  Friends United Press, 1987.

Zielinsky, Stanislaw.  Psychology and Silence.  Pendle Hill Pamphlet, 1975.

The Sidwell Friends School LS Quaker Life Committee compiled this collection of books in October, 2012.  Suggested readings came from the Lower, Middle, and Upper School faculty and librarians.

This list is simply a starting point and is not a comprehensive compilation - I would welcome additional suggestions that I can add to this list!

Quaker Life Resources

The following on-line resources provide both a helpful introduction to the Religious Society of Friends and an opportunity for further exploration:

• For a good introduction to Quakerism, including links to Quaker organizations and resources, please see The Quaker Information Center: A Gateway to Quakerism. A somewhat more eclectic collection of links can also be found at The Religious Society of Friends, Quakers: Religious Witnesses for Peace Since 1660.
  
  
  
• For a wonderful collection of pamphlets addressing a wide range of social and political issues from a Quaker perspective, please see the collection available at Pendle Hill, which is a Quaker center for spiritual growth, study, and service located outside Philadelphia. There, you will have the opportunity to purchase specific pamphlets from the online bookstore. In addition, a number of older pamphlets are available to download for free. In particular, the following are considered “classics”:
  • • • Rufus Jones’s “Rethinking Quaker Principles”
      • Howard Brinton’s “The Nature of Quakerism” and “The Quaker Doctrine of Inward Peace”
      • John Hobart’s “Can Quakerism Speak to the Times?”
  
  
• For information specifically focused on Quaker education, visit The Friends Council on Education. Check out the essay entitled, “What Does a Friends School Have to Offer?” In addition, the Friends Council on Education has developed the following helpful outlines to guide further discussion:
  
  
• “Parent Education: Quakerism and Friends Education”
  
  
• In 2006, a volunteer group of librarians in Friends schools across the United States compiled a “Booklist: Recommended books on Peace & Social Justice” (divided into lower school, middle school, and upper school resources) from titles submitted for consideration from Friends school librarians, teachers, students, and monthly meeting members.
  
  
• A librarian at Germantown Friends School compiled a book list entitled “Testimony Themed Literature for Children,”recommending titles for elementary school readers organized around Quaker testimonies of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality, and Stewardship.
  
  
• For a good introduction to Quaker faith and practice – including the use of queries as a device for prompting self-examination – please see Faith & Practice of Baltimore Yearly Meeting.
  
  
• For a helpful introduction to Quaker testimonies, please see the extracts from writings on concerns, leadings, and testimonies published in Faith and Practice of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

Quakers on Twitter

Want to follow Quakers on twitter?

@twitter

Try these:

• @afsc_org                         Friends Council
• @madelinequakes              Young Quaker
• @quakerquaker                  Collection of articles and blog                                                 posts about Quakerism
• @dianefcnl                         Quaker lobbyist
• @WorldQuaker                  Retweeting Quaker articles                                                      and information
• @QuakerSpeak                  Weekly Videos
• @friendsjournal                   Tweets from the Quaker                                                          publication

Keepers of the Flame

This cool video is about teachers but maybe also a little bit about Inner Light... Enjoy!

Thank you to Peter and Paul Reynolds, FableVision Studios, and the Reynolds Center for Teaching, Learning & Creativity!

Cabinet of Spices

I can't remember where I found this little sheet - Canadian Yearly Meeting maybe... It is a really great teaching resources for all members of the community - parents, caregivers, educators, etc.

Center as You Enter

We use these little signs on most of the doors to our school buildings as reminders to "change our channels" from outside recess types of behavior to a more centered demeanor - ready to listen, reflect, share, and take on the next new challenge!

In our ongoing journey to make Quakerism more visible and more a part of our physical and verbal culture here at our Lower School, we are thrilled to be able to share the above poster/placard for your classroom display/use.  A simple representation of the idea of centering oneself.

We hope that having one of these posters visible on your classroom door will inspire a reflective spirit!

*Feel free to print and use or contact me for the .jpeg file.