Maggie Shearrow Learning Record Part 1- January 29 Maggie Shearrow's interview with her Mother, Estella.

My mother has known me since I was three months old.  She is my adoptive mother and not my biological mother which is a very special story of mine.  This is what she had to say about my development as a reader and writer relating to my thoughts and feelings about nature.       "Maggie picked up a pencil and paper at the age of 4.  She was learning how to trace letters on a letter sketch pad.  Her favorite thing to do while we spend time learning at home before she started kindergarten was to write her ABC's.  She did it well I must brag, for I was a home maker at the time and my children were picked up early writing and speech lessons fast.  Maggie's ability to write and write well for her age was followed by her ability to read.  Her favorite things to read were the series of golden books.  She loved stories of animals and imagination.

One of her favorite stories was the "Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein.  I believe that's when she began appreciating nature because there was one instance when she was in the field beyond our backyard fence and she came back to tell me that she had fun just sitting on top of the "Giving Tree."  She would always amaze me with her ability to relate things from stories to actual things in her life.  When Maggie started school her elementary language teacher Mrs. Montoya would take field trips to the local historical sites in town.  She was a great teacher in my opinion because she actually had Maggie and the rest of her classmates interact with nature.  I knew that Maggie really appreciated those times because her stories of the trips that day were very elaborate and exciting.  She loved those days in elementary school.  I believe the series of stories she was reading in elementary school was the Babysitter's Club.

.  I would always hear her evaluations of the chapters she had just read in her own words.  Back to her school life, every language teacher she had in middle school would assign them stories to write about particular events.  She like doing what the teacher told her to, of course, but I can tell that her attitude had changed quite a bit.  She would get bored of doing some of the assignments because everything she would write is what the teacher wanted her to write about.  The few times that she was allowed to write whatever she wanted I believe that was her best writing.  After reading opinions of a 13 year old girl really allowed me to remember some of my childhood and the great times I had as well.  During high school Maggie was assigned harder tasks by her teacher making her interpret works of others.  Of what I read of her writings in high school Maggie really caught on to understanding the writings of others seeing things through their eyes and understand things on a whole new level, per say." I asked my mother to write what she thought I had accomplished in my writing and reading techniques during my elementary through high school days.  I believe this fulfills the interview part of the assignment.

My next Learning Record

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