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Prior to the visitation by Sally M.
Walker, Mrs. Mata assisted us with preparing the
library for the luncheon with the English Language
Learners. The ELL teachers coordinated that our
students read Mrs. Walker's Mystery Fish : Secrets of
the Coelacanth and arranged for food. |
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Mrs. Walker visited with our ELL
students during their special luncheon in the library.
The student listened intensely as she shared with them
how books are made from start to finish. She explained
writing a book, the printing process, as well the
physics behind printing a book. |
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"When Mrs.
Walker presented to our ELL students, she held their
interest. She was able to use language they can
understand, and she spoke about things that interest
sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. She used lots of
visuals to help students understand what she was talking
about. The students found her humorous, and engaging.
They were all talking about the presentation when we
arrived back to my classroom." -- Mrs. Lena Wiese |
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| After presenting to our 7th and 8th graders, Sally
M. Walker spends some quality time with one of our more
active readers discussing how to get published as an
author. Her warm and open style was a big hit with
our students. |
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Over 400 of our students read various
books written by Mrs. Walker. Our school was filled with
students doing literature circles, read-alouds, silent
independent reading, research on the Civil War and
animals. |
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Mrs. Walker holds up an charcoal
etching of a gravestone that was next door to where she
one lived. She talked about where she finds inspiration
for writing. On the stone is the names of four children
that died within days of each other. This lead her to do
research about the family, the causes of death, and the
surviving family members. The 18 Pennies Goose
is based on the surviving family members. |
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Sally M. Walker chatted with one of
our book club members about how she had to research what
a bone is to find out more about the animal. Pictured
above is a fossil Mrs. Walker brought with her.
The fossil was approximately 14,000 years old from an
extinct species from North America. |
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Mrs. Willette, Mr. Holtz, and Mrs.
Sally M. Walker visited with the Brooks Book Club.
Mrs. Willette and Mr. Holtz co-wrote a grant application
in April of 2006 that provided Brooks with our third
author's visit. To date, Mr. Holtz and Mrs. Willette's combined efforts have provided us with 5
different grants. |
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May 1st, 2007 was a fun filled day for the students of Brooks Middle
School. This was a day filled with energy and excitement for
literature. It is amazing how eager our students were to be
involved in this special program.
Mrs. Walker's visit made quite an impact on our students. When you
compare the circulation records of her books against state-wide programs
you can quickly see the impact her visit made on reading. This year,
Secrets of a Civil War Submarine was nominated
for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers'
Book Award. The book took 20th place, which is quite
normal for a non-fiction book. In our school, Secrets of a Civil War
Submarine took 12th place in voting, but circulated in the top 5 titles.
"My kids keep on talking about her books, when we all went back to
the Library to check out more books. Numerous students asked where Sally
M. Walker's books were and checked them out. The kids are now trying to
read her tougher books." exclaimed one of our anonymous ELL teachers.
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