Follow Up with Donte

I followed up with Donte, asking him to show me what he was in the process of writing while he waited for that marker yesterday. Here is what he showed me:

"Stevie {told} his mom that Opal sade she do not care what her mom say she is not her mom so she can no tall her what to do. An she think her mom is going to tall her dad an her dad is going to {shame} her in front of everyone in the church and he ran of to tall his mom she whant to get in troble because she is mean like she was being with the two boys that was follow her on there bikes. And she sade shoot up you bald hade boys."


Me: Why did you choose to write about this in your reader's notebook?

Donte: Because she was being mean to two people and I think she's going to be mean to someone else.

Me: Why do you think that?

Donte: Because like she was being mean, if someone be mean to two people they always be mean to another person like Sweetie Pie Thomas at her birthday party because she gonna make her mad and then she's going to say something to make Sweetie Pie sad.

Me: What do you think makes Opal be mean?

Donte: Maybe they be saying something that make her mad.

Me: What kind of things make her mad?

Donte: Like if they say something about the preacher or Winn Dixie.

My Thoughts: What Donte wrote about is several chapters ahead of where the rest of the class is with this novel: Because of Winn Dixie. So that's strong evidence that Donte's very engaged with the class novel. You can also see Donte applying the strategy of inferring here, as he explains that Opal will probably be mean to someone else too. He also had a clear purpose for why he was focusing on that event from the story, although it was not a very important event in the scope of the plot. What he actually wrote is a fairly literal explanation of it.

Follow up questions:
1) Why do you like reading Winn Dixie so much (as a possible way of finding other books he likes)?
2) Why do you like to write about what you read? (I wonder if this an attribute more generally specific to boys? or just in general, is it a very sound tool for reader engagement and deeper thinking around reading?)