Reflection-- Anne Frank Research

One of my favorite things about teaching is the ability to reflect on my lessons.  Figuring out what went wrong and implementing changes to enhance lessons brings such satisfaction.  Sometimes, those changes aren't going to be used until the following year, but still, there is growth in the process.  I also think that blogging is a fantastic way to reflect.  It gives you the opportunity to get comments from others who may have struggled with the same things.  Plus, there's the organizational factor.  I often refer back to posts I have written in the past to help me remember successful lessons.

So with all that being said, today's post is another one of reflection.  I recently did a pre-reading assignment with my eighth graders (read more about it in this previous post).  Last year, the students wrote and delivered speeches.  This year, I switched it up slightly and had the students write and present a newspaper article.  Each student researched a topic and wrote their paper, but we didn't have a lot of time.  Don't you hate the time factor?!  This is where I ran into trouble.  I really should have had each student do a visual to go along with their article.  Instead, I had the students present their article by reading it--with NO visual.  My ultimate goal was for students to learn from their peers' presentations.  I had the audience taking notes, but since there was no visual, it was very difficult for them to follow along with the presentation.  Students kept interrupting the presenter asking them to repeat things, "What was that date?  How do you spell that name?  What year again?"  By the end of two days of presentations, I wasn't sure the students in the audience got anything out of it.  Next year if I do this assignment, I will definitely require a visual that contains both pictures (to bring life to the topic) and bullet points (to help the audience follow along).  That way, the audience can focus on listening, but still learn from the research their peers did!   Lesson learned- sometimes forgoing parts of assignments "for the sake of time" actually ends up being more costly in the end.

Expository Writing and The Book Whisperer

I have obviously not stuck to my goal of blogging once a week, so thank you for sticking by my side!  So many wonderful things have happened so far this year, and as always, life has been overcome with busyness.  There are a few things that inspired me to pick up my laptop and write a post today.

First of all, I have started to read Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer.  It was talked about on many blogs this summer, and I have chosen it for my professional development book this year.  Donalyn is an inspiration to all teachers, readers, and parents.  I love what she says about inspiring young readers and making a reader out of anyone and everyone.  Basically, to awaken the inner reader, you need to give the kids time to read books and help them find books they enjoy.  She has her students read 40 books a year.  I have my students read for fun, but most of them are still in the phase of reading just to fulfill the requirement.  Another crucial step is that you (as the teacher, reader, or parent) need to help students find books that they will enjoy.  Donalyn has an extensive classroom library and knowledge of books.  While I enjoy reading, and have a small classroom library, I do not have the knowledge that I feel I need to help my students find books.  I love the idea of putting my books in bins by genre and knowing the level, but it is overwhelming to know where to begin.  I hope that this will be something that I can spend more time on throughout the year and summer (I know, I'm really thinking ahead).  I want to inspire my students and create life-long readers within my classroom.  Thank you, Donalyn, for your wise words.

I also want to talk about writing.  Throughout my years as a teacher, I have had my students do countless writing assignments.  This year I made a very specific writing plan for my students, so they knew what to expect.  I have about two assignments in each genre- expository, narrative , and argumentative.  It is interesting though, that the majority of my past assignments have been narrative and argumentative.  So now it is time to teach my students how to write an expository essay.  The goal of the assignment is to build background knowledge for reading Anne Frank's Diary.  I had about ten topic choices, and instead of assigning them, I let students pick what they wanted to research.  I gave them some website resources, directed them to use easybib, and told them to start with general note taking.  At this point, I need to figure out the next step.  In doing some research, I have determined that I want to review the organizational patterns, as these are often used as organizations for expository essays.  I was thinking of doing a foldable, so that is what I am in search of now.  Even though we are primarily using chromebooks this year and going "paper-free," I think switching things up will invigorate the class.   After reviewing the organizational patterns, I would like the students to pick an organization for their essay and start drafting.  I decided that I would complete the assignment as well, to model it for my students, and it is quite difficult.  Most of the topics have lots of information and require background knowledge to fully understand them.  Why is it so easy to make a powerpoint or a prezi, but not to take that same information and write it into a paper?   I am sure the students do this in Social Studies all the time, and yet, now it is designed to help them build background information.  What are your thoughts?  Have you ever done anything like this before?  Let me know because I am thinking that this might not be the best way to teach expository writing.  Maybe the students already need to have sufficient prior knowledge to write a cohesive paper.

Hope to hear your ideas!

What have I been up to???

I have been away for a long time.  Not literally away, but away from the blogging world.  I have been very busy in my education life and in my home life.  My dad came to good old Maryland for a visit (in fact he is next to me right now)!  I have so enjoyed having him and taking a few more days of vacation before heading back to school.  Prior to that, I worked on a number of posters for my classroom.  I started by making posters with cute backgrounds from Run Miss Nelson's Got the Camera.  I made posters with a chevron background, but then I realized that my bulletin board fabric was chevron.  Then I made the same posters with the crazy dot background, but even that looked too busy on the chevron fabric.  So I settled on a lime green and black background with white letters.  I think it will look great!  You can check them out here:  Six Traits of Writing Posters.

Here's a preview:

What do you think??  

I will also be posting my chevron and dot posters for sale on TpT, but I don't have them quite ready.  If you're interested, like my store and get updated when they are added!

Monday Made It- Planning, Common Core, and Freebie

As promised, here is my Monday Made It with 4th Grade Frolics.  

1.   The "Write" Stuff resource sheet.  You can find this on TeachersPayTeachers as a freebie by clicking the link.  Here is a quick preview.  This is linking back to my post about fun fonts.  I love the look of these two fonts.  You can read more about the fonts I chose in this post.  If you like the fonts, you can click on the link in my sidebar for free scrapbook fonts by Kevin and Amanda.  I still need to finish the resource sheet for my seventh graders, but when it is finished I will also post that as a freebie on TpT.  If you want an editable version of this resource sheet just request it and I'll send it by email.  This is very specific for my class and the papers that we are writing throughout the year.  Also, the 6 trait resource sheet that is referenced is not yet made.  : ) 

2.  I made my plan book today.  I still need to figure out how to cover it because I'm using an old binder.  I think I'm going to try and find some colorful (or chevron!) duct tape to make it fun.  I really liked the plan book that Lauren made (check it out at her blog-Life in Middle School), but in order for it to really fit my needs I had to make a few changes.  I used hers as a template and made my own.  I used GoogleDocs, which was a little tricky, but it was what was available.  Here is a preview and it can also be found at this link.   I decided to include an objective for each area that I want to cover.  Even if I am only doing a small activity for Wordly Wise or for grammar, it will help me to ensure that I am balancing all the areas that I need to teach.

When I started to copy my plan book I realized that there is not a ton of room in these boxes.  I teach seventh and eighth grade so I decided to copy the pages twice for each week.  I think I will like this better than the traditional plan books that include the class periods of the day.  This spread is seventh grade for one week, and when you turn the page it looks exactly the same, but it will be for eighth grade.  I love how having new resources brings excitement to things like planning!