Writing About Whales

By Patricia Sullivan, CSI Board

East Granby, Connecticut, sixth graders are once again learning and writing about cetaceans during a writing workshop presented collaboratively by CSI's Patricia Sullivan and middle school Language Arts teacher Mary Ann Moritz.

The fourteen week-long workshop, designed to improve written expression based on cetaceans, was originally presented by Sullivan to Moritz's sixth graders at East Granby Middle School for three consecutive years from 2002-05. Topics of the multi-modal, inclusive (all students participate) workshops, including cetacean communication with a focus on songs of humpbacks and orcas and echolocation; cetacean identification, comparison of humpbacks to orcas; current issues affecting cetaceans; extinction; and behavior are presented in 50-minute periods. Students listen to tapes and cd's of whales' songs recorded by CSI's Paul Knapp and others, view videos of whales taken by CSI's Dan Knaub, touch pieces of baleen, whales' bones and teeth, hold their breath to compare their times with those of various cetaceans, as well as other exercises, and then write about their experiences.

Sullivan, a veteran special education teacher and writer, combined her passions when creating the workshop so students may learn and write about cetaceans at the request of 30-plus year teacher Ms. Moritz. The two employ the reflect, plan, act and observe cycles of action research when preparing the lessons, and align the workshop with district and state language arts standards. The workshops are about as close as one can get to whales without leaving the comfort of the classroom. Students are immersed in cetacean sounds and information, with great results; Connecticut mastery test scores in written expression improved since the students first completed the workshops in 2002-05. The concluding activity of this year's workshop, begun in October, 2006, is entitled Author's Chair, during which students to pick their best expository essays to present orally.

Reviews have been positive; students' comments include: I didn't know there were so many kinds. I really want to seen a Narwhal. I learned that they could act like dolphins. I didn't know they could jump out of the water. I found their communication interesting; the sounds, why and how. Why do we try to tame the largest and most dangerous animal in the world?

Sullivan hopes to ultimately market Writing About Whales Workshop to schools in Connecticut as a tested and proven remedy for less-than-optimal mastery test scores in written expression.