Oh my, it's a--

This week, we reviewed sentence fragments. In an attempt to energize a possibly dull topic (especially considering this has taken quite a bit more review than you might imagine), I first had them writing sentence fragments on their individual white boards.  They were supposed to make the fragment interesting enough to entice their partner to WANT to know the end.  

"Hey, that's a"

"Yesterday I tripped and"

"You look like a"

We traded back and forth for awhile. Then, I asked them to hold a conversation with their partner using only fragments.  They picked a topic and tried to communicate about it.  I listened, took part in a few, modeled once or twice, and then snuck off to the loo while Mama H. (our illustrious aide), took over.


When I returned, I came upon two of my little urchins laying on the floor.  They had been playing with one of the koosh balls while I was out and had, it appeared, injured themselves.  Rather than get up, they had decided to play dead.


What does a caped teacher do when she walks into a classroom with two dead students? It depends.  At this moment, this caped teacher was tired of the lecture.  Tired of explaining the dangers of horseplay, and tired of reminding them to behave while she was at the loo.  So this caped teacher went off on a tangent and created a crime scene.

We taped off the scene, identified the evidence, wrote reports (on sticky notes), and then, I asked for a crime scene report--using only fragments. 
"C- and A- were"
"Then they"
"The bear was"
"I thought"
By this time the "injured/dead" students were sheepishly cleaning up their mess and sitting in their desks.  I am not sure what they were up to while I was gone, and I realize there ought to be some consequences for whatever it was, but how many times can I lecture them about the same misbehaviors?


Next week we'll see if they learned anything about sentence fragments.  Or maybe we'll--