I found the pirate Double Entry Diary to be very accommodating for students. Throughout the DED children can make inferences about what they have read and connect it to personal experiences, world experiences, or simply connections within the text. Keeping a DED allows children to internalize what they have read and to regurgitate the information in a way that makes sense to them. Students will retain information when they comprehend what is going on and learn the information when they are allowed to individualize the assignment. For example: Students have different personalities and will create different questions to place in the DED. This activity would be wonderful to do with any unit in a classroom where the children are participating in reading different types of books on one subject. I also really enjoyed the information the teacher gave the students to think about while reading the book. As a student, I stay more focused when I know what to mentally highlighting as I read along. The books were VERY EXCITING! Children will love them, especially the Pirate Diary: The Journal of Jake Carpenter, because he is a child to and he experiences so much while out on the sea. This article has made me so excited and I hope that someday I can implement the pirate unit into my classroom. I can imagine creating a captain and crew in my classroom and seeing the children’s face light up with thrill.
Good to read you enjoyed the books and the accompanying DED structures. Look forward to reading your entries.