Mastering the basics

Mike Swanson

A group of key fourth-grade contributors to Circle View Elementary

School’s Blue Ribbon Award, awarded by the U.S. Department of

Education last week, spent Friday afternoon mastering their parts of

speech.

The aim, established by seven-year Circle View veteran Joyce

Stalcup: Start with the parts of speech, move to the sentence, ease

into the paragraph, and by the end of the semester the students will

have a handle on the all-powerful five-paragraph essay.

“We’re going back to basics like when I was in school,” Stalcup

said. “We’re moving away from the touchy-feely philosophy and

teaching our kids how it’s done.”

Stalcup made a suggestion after patrolling the classroom and

seeing some of the children’s most consistent struggles.

“Don’t get too hung up on the article,” Stalcup said.

Her advice proved helpful to more of the classroom’s attendance

than just the students.

The last thing the award-winning Stalcup wanted her award-winning

students to do was to think hard about the word, “A,” even though

fourth-grade is the first year students receive A’s rather than E’s

for exemplary work.

Nine-year-old Tyler Head’s sentence -- comprised of an article,

adjective, noun, verb and adverb -- accurately reflected the

classroom’s conduct while hammering away at the exercise.

“The smart students worked quietly,” Tyler wrote.

Kyle Wicorek, 9, went a different route in bringing the parts of

speech together -- and even added a prepositional phrase.

“A bad student wrote terribly on his paper,” Kyle said.

Kyle wouldn’t comment on whether he was citing a specific student,

but his statement apparently wasn’t autobiographical, as his

penmanship was near flawless.

As studious as the class was in working on something college

students might labor through, some kids couldn’t wait for the award

of finishing early: A visit to the bookshelf.

Cole Ogdon sifted through a row of “Goosebumps” books, muttering

to himself about the exact piece of literature he sought. He spoke up

when mildly prodded.

“I’m looking for a really weird one,” Cole said. “It’s one that

has wolves in it doing all kinds of weird stuff.”

He found the book, pointed at the wolf on the cover, then opened

the book to the middle and started explaining how his favorite

“Goosebumps” book worked.

“You get to choose your own adventure at the end of the page,”

Cole said. “And when you reach the end, you’re dead.”

When free time to read his favorite book ended, Cole and the rest

of his class met a more rosy fate -- 20 minutes of Friday free play.