Really Cool Action Research

A colleague and I are working with two classroom teachers in Chicago as they introduce their 1st and 2nd grade bilingual students to Color Coded Reading.  CCR is a strategy that focuses on students developing higher order questions, especially synthesis and evaluation questions, that relate to text being read.  The practice works for both content area text and narrative text making it one of the more flexible reading strategies.  More of this project to come in the next few weeks.  For now, let me say I am having a ball collecting data on this project.  I must be a really good geek to think that data collection is fun.

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What about Fern?

Fern functions as a transitional character.  Her intital act of saving Wilbur is selfless but she is unable to maintain her selflessness.  As she grows up her human interests overtake her childhood interests and she is forced to make a choice.  So far as the novel is concerned, Fern foreshadows Charlotte but she is not Charlotte.  Her willingness to be selfless for Wilber has its limits, its far to human limits to be sure.

Templeton also undergoes a transition as he saves Charlotte’s egg sac; although not entirely selfless,  Templeton acts as selflessly as he possibly can act in this case.  Engineering the transfer of Charlotte’s egg sac back to the barn is, for Templeton, an act of complete selfless behavior.  There is nothing in it for him.

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