Tag Archives: mrs anderson

Dona’s sixth grade report card: Mrs. Anderson

Memories, People, Series, Things, , ,

Mrs. Anderson was the best teacher ever. She encouraged my love of reading. When I entered her class from Miss Jaderman’s class I was initially placed in the lower reading group with a different 6th grade teacher but somehow Mrs. Anderson knew I was a good reader and brought me to her reading group. I don’t think we used typical reading books in her class, but we read real books — and she read to us. After reading each of the books we would often do a special project as a class. For instance, after reading The Hobbit we made a hobbit hole out of chicken wire and papier-mâché. After reading Wind in the Willows we put on a play and presented it to the school. We even did the screen writing ourselves — turning the book into scenes. I excelled at that. We may or may not have put so much effort into the other subjects, but we sure had fun with language arts.

Reading Mrs. Anderson’s comments makes me smile. I don’t know that I knew she considered me a “favorite”. It took me years to overcome my shyness — and I still fall into it now and then.

Readers are Leaders

Memories, Rant, Reading, , ,

I’ve loved books for as long as I can remember. Weekly Saturday trips to the library (where my mom would drop me off and pick me up hours later) were sacred. I scored very high on my first grade reading evaluation and often read books above my grade level. I preferred reading to visiting friends on weekends and after school.

But I didn’t like writing about what I read. In 5th grade Miss Jaderman evaluated our reading ability on small book reports we wrote for books we read. After 5 book reports we got a small pin, after 15 we got a better pin and after 25 we got a gold pin. While I eventually earned my 25 book pin, I got low reading marks for a few quarters and was recommended for the remedial reading class for 6th grade.

We were not expected to write much on the book reports, they were less than half a sheet of 8.5×11 paper. The top half was reserved for an illustration. After filling out the title of the book and author, there was maybe room for 100 words. But I hated doing it. I know I read more than 25 books that year, probably more than most of the class, but because I was so reluctant to fill out the book report forms, I was considered a poor reader.

At the end of the year we were given all of our book reports, bound between two sheets of construction paper with brass colored brads. I think my book report portfolio was orange. I think I still have it somewhere, I distinctly remember what it looked like.

A few weeks ago I found the book report pins. Strange how I kept them all these years, despite despising the method of earning them.

  • 5 book pin
  • 15 book pin
  • 25 book pin

I guess this is one of these things I need to let go. My anger at Miss Jaderman for not realizing I was a good reader — just a reluctant writer and the shame I felt being placed in the low reading class in 6th grade (luckily my 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Anderson, figured out I was a good reader within days and brought me back to the regular/advanced reading group).

Things like this could squelch the love of reading out of someone. I am forever grateful to Mrs. Anderson for this, as well as for fostering an even greater love of reading.

Old Writing: Part 17::Picking Countries

Writing, ,

This was written when I was in 6th grade. I am thinking we were studying how to write newspaper articles.

Picking Countries

“Wednesday, February 5th was the day for picking countries in social studies,” said Mrs. Anderson, sixth-grade teacher at Highland School. “The boys and girls will each give a report on a country in Europe and tell about their country, the climate, geography, costumes, and people. Each report will take place when they come along in the social studies book,” continued Mrs. Anderson, “The purpose of the reports is for the children to get accounted to the countries for upper grades.”

Some children wanted the same countries, so Mrs. Anderson let one have the northern half and the other have the southern half.