Jo
Wingo
In the first segment, Jo Wingo works with her kindergarten class to determine the writing activity for the day. Excerpted from a videotaping at Centralized Kindergarten North School (North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, 1999).
Wingo: "What should we write, Elise?"
(kid mumbling)
Wingo: "We did some M&M graphs, what else Rachael?"
(kid mumbling)
Wingo: "You worked hard today? How many of you worked hard today? You're kids, you worked hard too? I saw you working on those numbers, and I like the way you were working on those. Dwayne, what did you do?"
Dwayne: "We're making Valentines."
Wingo: "Making Valentines. One more and then we're going to have to choose from those. Robert?"
Robert: "We got a new activity bell."
Wingo: "Oh, we had a new activity bell today. Well, you have a really good one today and you just cannot wait, you have to tell me today, is that right right? Oh, you have a new pencils? "
Child: "Oh, I have a really really good ones. We have visitors."
Wingo: "We usually only write two sentences. (kids mumbling) We have visitors and and we get Valentines today. You know what, Andrew has a good idea, and the reason he does, can I tell you why he does? Because our visitors probably won't be here tomorrow, so let's write about our visitors. So, we should say we have visitors in our classroom."
Megan: "That's what I was going to say."
Wingo: "You think so too, Megan? How many of you agree that we should probably write about that? Yeah, parents would like to see that, wouldn't they? And, will we be working on Valentines the rest of the week?"
Child: "No."
Wingo: "You don't think so, well when is Valentine's day?"
Child: "After Christmas."
Another Child: "February the 14th."
Wingo: "Well, isn't that going to be Sunday?"
Child: "Yes." (kid mumbling)
Wingo: "Well, let's get back to this. Now, what else could we say. I heard somebody talk about something that could include all of the center. If we talk about the Valentines, we just include one center. If we talk about the new centers…"