The Quest For The Pirate's Code (AKA 6th Grade Literacy)
This year Mrs. O and I are using the principles of gamification to gamify our Reading and Writing classes.
Gamification is the idea of applying the most motivational aspects of games to other industries, like education. In a game, children are willing to try over and over again to master skills and make it to the next level. Gaming inspires intrinsic motivation, self-taught exploration and learning through failure-- all of which support our students' success in the classroom and beyond. Our goal is that their learning will be driven by their own choices-- their choice to push their limits, their choice to try new assignments, their choice to go above and beyond.
In The Quest For The Pirate's Code each student is on a crew of a pirate ship of 4-5 students. As a team, they are collecting gold and travel cards so that they can navigate their ship to the fabled Island of Bibilioscript. They are on crews so that they can support and push each other to succeed in class and in the game.
Students collect gold by completing assignments on their literacy checklist. They will receive a literacy checklist every week.
The checklist is their guide to their success in literacy for the week as well as their success in the game. It contains:
1) Required assignments for Reading and Writing for the week:
Items listed under Reading with Ms. Morgenthaler and Writing with Mrs. Oelschlager are required for the week.
In reading this will always include 30 minutes of reading every school night. It is so important that students are engaged in a reading habit at home. This will support everything that they do in class and help them develop a life-long reading habit. They keep track of and submit their reading minutes on my webpage under the link that says "Reading Log".
They will also have a reading response where they respond to a question about their independent reading book.
In writing, this will always include a Quote of the Week, where students write a paragraph in response to a quote. They should explain what the quote means in their own words and describe a meaningful connection to their own life.
There will also always be word work where they explore a Greek or Latin root and the words that are associated with that root.
The second part of the checklist is the excursions:
These assignments are optional. This is where student-driven learning really comes in to play! It is the student's decision to tackle these assignments, to go above and beyond in their literacy learning and in helping their crew collect gold.
Almost all of the students' work will go into their reading and writing composition books. They need to turn these notebooks in to us in order to receive class credit, earn gold in the game, and get feedback from their teachers. As a parent, you can see the work that they are doing, and the feedback that they are getting from us, in their composition notebooks.
The final part of the The Quest for the Pirate's Code is the Pirate's Code itself! The Pirate's Code contains the keys to Purpose Driven Learning. These are characteristics that highly successful people have in common- characteristics that drive people to push the boundaries of learning and achievement. They are characteristics that we are challenging our students to develop in themselves to be the best that they can be. These characteristics are: Confidence, Creativity, Enthusiasm, Effort, Focus, Resilience, Initiative, Curiosity, Dependability, and Empathy.
This unit in literacy is all about character development. We will be studying the characteristics in The Pirate's Code in the books that we read, they will be writing about these characteristics in their personal narratives and we will be exploring how they can develop these characteristics in themselves.
As a parent, you can help support your child by helping them see when they exemplify these characteristics and discussing why they are so important. You can also support them in successfully completing their checklist assignments on time and applauding them when they make the choice to go above and beyond and take on excursions.
If you have any questions about The Quest for the Pirate's Code, literacy, gamification, or how your child is doing in class, please feel free to contact me. My email is megan.morgenthaler@jeffco.k12.co.us
It's so exciting to set sail! I can't wait to see all of the amazing things your students will do!
