How Teachers Can Capitalize on a Student’s Family Trip

In this article in The Reading Teacher, Laurie Curtis (Kansas State University) recommends that when students miss school to travel with their families, teachers should reach out to capitalize on learning potential. Here’s her suggested letter to the parents of Helena:

Dear Parent/Guardian,

Thank you for informing me of your upcoming trip. It is my belief that travel can afford Helena amazing opportunities for learning that cannot otherwise occur here in our classroom. Those new experiences can be captured through our writing! I will not be sending any typical “make-up” work for Helena to complete during her absence. Instead, I will be sending you with an assignment that when completed should provide Helena with optimal learning and provide you with a journal or log of your travels written through her eyes! When Helena returns, she will be asked to share her experiences with our class so we will all learn from her experiences. 

• The pocket at the front of this folder can be used to collect any brochures that show experiences your family has during this journey. Include additional road maps, menus, or brochures of what you have actually experienced.

• Using the map that is included, please help Helena keep track of the journey. She can draw the route or make notations of airplane terminals, landforms, etc. to show us where the family went. Please locate our town on the map to begin the log.

• I have included paper. Each day of your journey, please ask Helena to reflect on what happened, what she learned, what she enjoyed, with a date at the top of each entry. You will find a box of colored pencils and two regular mechanical pencils in the folder for this activity. Encourage Helena to write about the day’s events and draw or illustrate her work. Ask Helena to read what she writes to a family member once it is completed. She should write this independently and it is fine to use invented spelling. You may certainly help and guide this process, as needed, but this work should be Helena’s! If she has difficulty reading it aloud, you may wish to write her ideas on a sticky note and attach it to the paper. 

• Postcards or pictures of your trip can be placed in the back pocket for sharing with our class. Any additional artifacts or notes are welcome! If your pictures were taken digitally, feel free to e-mail a few to me and I can show them to our class (no more than 10, please).

Upon return from your travels, please make sure Helena brings this folder to school to share with us on her first day back. We will miss Helena – but look forward to hearing about your journey!

Yours in education,

“Literacy on the Move: A Journal for the Journey” by Laurie Curtis in The Reading Teacher, February 2013 (Vol. 66, #5, p. 360-364), http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/TRTR.01137/abstract; Curtis can be reached at lcurtis@ksu.edu. 

From the Marshall Memo #475