Vacation time

Hi everyone,
It's been a long time since I responded on this. I hope everyone is having a great week. This week is vacation for all the students and teachers, so I used this time to go home and visit my parents, which has been wonderful. I have also been planning for next week. Next week, the students in Mr. Weafer's fourth grade classroom will be starting biographies. I have the amazing opportunity of teaching this unit, which I am very excited/nervous about. The first day will just be an introduction, and we, as a class will brainstorm what a biography is and the components of a biography. This unit will be a 2-3 week unit, and each student will be responsible for reading a biography. I will give them options and will supply a variety of books for the students to pick, and then the students will read these, sometimes at home. The students will be doing a big project for this unit, which will be a multi-genre paper. In this multi-genre paper, students will have the opportunity to use the research they have done on their specific person to compile different writing examples. By doing this, students will make artifacts (writing samples) that show their knowledge of biographies and the components of biographies in a fun and engaging way. They will do a timeline, biopoems, letters, and other writing formats to share their information with the class, and they will be able to dress up as their person. The last day of the unit, the students will present their information and go through an interview, pretending to be the famous person. What I will tell the students is that someone wants to write a biography on them (acting as the famous people) and they have to compile a bunch of writing samples and artifacts that I can use to write this biography. They will share a couple of the examples they have, and they will answer questions that the teacher asks them. I can't wait for this experience, and I truly hope the students enjoy it!