Writer's Notebook Part 3: My Fav 3 Assignments

            It has been a month since my last post.  Well, over a month.  That’s what happens at the end of the semester if you’re an ELA teacher – you lose yourself to final exams, retakes of final exams, and enough data to make you wonder if you teach Language Arts or Math.

            My previous posts have been about the Writer's Notebook in my classroom, and this post will wrap up that series.  The timing of this post is kind of on point – as I reflect on this past year to make new goals for myself, I get to think about which writing assignments worked well and which ones….ugh, which ones were lessons learned.

            I started the notebook in my classes last year, but have fully implemented it this year.  We start with 10-15 minutes of writing in our notebooks each class period.  Some days a topic might just be for the day.  Some topics might last 3 or 4 days.  Some assignments we work only at the beginning of class.  Others might last the whole class period.  It depends on the assignment, but more importantly, how it engages my students.  If it is something the kids really get into, I might let it go on for another day if they are working hard. 

            Besides getting to talk to kids while they are writing, my favorite part of the writing process is Author’s Chair, when the students get the opportunity to share what they have completed.  Sometimes this is meant to showcase their work; sometimes it is meant as an opportunity to present challenges or questions to the class so the author gets feedback.

            Here are my Favorite 3 Writer’s Notebook Activities from this semester:

Memorial Design

            This makes me feel old just thinking about it, but I teach kids who weren’t alive when the events of September 11^th, 2001 took place.  (I think I just felt a hair turn gray thinking about it!)  My kids don’t remember where they were when it happened (in utero is something we don’t like to imagine…or talk about in school), or comprehend just how much the world has changed since then (in utero vs. out of utero), but they have experienced the memorials.  So, on September 11^th, we talk about how we honor those who lost their lives – on this day or any day.  We talk about moments of silence, statues, scholarships, naming public places after people, etc.  Then, we read Billy Collin’s poem, The Names.  After reading it, table groups discuss if a poem or other literary work can be a memorial, and why.   Finally, students are given the opportunity to create a memorial for someone special to them in their Writer’s Notebook.  It can be a poem, drawing, song, etc.  I’ve had kids design parks for grandparents who loved going to the park.  I’ve had kids create football stadiums for parents.  One of my personal favorites is a ginormous Diet Coke statue that dispenses Diet Coke for a grandmother that always had a can of Diet Coke in her hand (I can relate).

            In the design, I ask kids to think about color choices (what do colors symbolize and how can they contribute to honoring someone), and what is the best way to honor that person (what was important to them and what legacy would they want to carry on).  This assignment usually lasts a few days and kids get the opportunity to share their work on the document camera.

            Middle school kids can be very self-centered.  This assignment is one of my favorites because it makes them really think about someone beside himself or herself.  I enjoy listening to the rationale behind their choices.   It also lets me hear about special people for my kiddos, which allows me the opportunity to know more about them before we start more formal writing pieces and they need help brainstorming topics.  With this assignment, I can start to tell what is important to them already.

A House of My Own Vignette

PQP Notes for a rough draft

            Everyone tends to use the “My Name” vignette from The House on Mango Street, and believe me, I did, too.  However, the “The House on Mango Street” vignette digs a little deeper.  We did the whole “My Name” thing and the first drafts were…well, not what I expected.  I started to panic.  I realized that my kids were being very, very literal.  So I told them we would come back to that piece, but we were going to read another piece.  The first drafts of “The House on Mango Street” were nothing short of amazing.  With that piece, students started to see the more creative, reflective type of writing we would be doing, compared to the more technical and formulaic writing they had previously done.  (I’m not trying to knock that type of writing – at all.  In fact, when I have kids who haven’t had to do a lot of writing before, I often start with “formulas” to help them.)  After that first round, we did PQP editing (Praise – Question – Polish), which is now a go-to process for a class in particular.  If you have extremely social kids, this works well.  Kids work in pairs or triads to share writing drafts.  The group then shares praises they have for the piece, question things that don’t make sense, and then give the author a couple of ideas for things that might need to be polished for the next draft.  Because this involves a lot of discussion and movement, the students love it.  Because the discussion is very specific, I love it.  It is really a win-win situation. 

            With my Pre-Advanced Placement class, several students had done this type of writing, while it was completely new to others.  For my kiddos that needed to be challenged, I gave them the challenge to emulate an author they really liked.  I had a student that took this to a whole new level and “shaped” her poem like that of her favorite author’s works, Ellen Hopkins.  Click here to see it.

            If your kids really get into this activity, they can create their own version of The House on Mango Street.  My students created The School on Veterans Parkway, full of their own stories.  It is being self-published in Spring 2016 (in other words, I finished editing it during break earlier this week and am sending it to an online printer to be published).  In the meantime, here is a student's work on his "My House" vignette published on his dad's site.

            When building relationships with my kids, I often wonder how they became the person they are now.  The “My House” dives into this a bit.  Kids have talked about renting apartments with the dream to one day own a home so they get to paint their walls, to the crazy neighbors their family likes to prank, or the loss of a home due to poor choices and how that impacts them.  This particular assignment had me laughing and crying while reading.

The Desk

Desk Writing Collaborative Piece

            We had a day at the end of Quarter 1 that we literally didn’t have anything that had to be done.  We had completed our end of the quarter exam and had made corrections.  We had organized our binders.  Our Writer’s Notebooks were in order.  So, we did a writing assignment that I will now be the first writing assignment I do every year.  My high school English teacher did this with my class back in the day, but I put my own spin on it.

Desk Writing Assignment with "Favorite Line"

            I put a student desk in the middle of the room.  I then told students they had to write about the desk for 15 minutes (pencils couldn’t leave the page).  Also, no talking (which is a big deal – we do a lot of talking while we write).  I bet 10 hands went into the air.  I told them I wasn’t answering questions at that time – write for 15 minutes about the desk and no talking were the rules.  Students walked around the desk; one student even sat at the desk while writing.  After the 15 minutes, we did an author’s chair and students shared their work.  We had pieces that ranged from describing the graffiti on the desk to accusing the chair of being part of the Illuminati to a story set in a nightclub where the desk was a transgender transformer that had been accused of murder.  (Have I mentioned how much I love my students?!?!)  Students that had written more descriptive pieces wanted to redo the assignment to write more creative pieces.  So, we did, but in a different way.  I asked each student to choose one sentence or line from their piece that they really liked.  As each student shared, I wrote their line on the board.  When we finished, we had 25 really good lines, but no real piece.  Students were then asked to take those lines- all 25 of them – and create a new piece.  It could be a poem or a story.  The end result was AMAZING!  I know they are really good kids, but their work on this shocked even me!  As an exit ticket, I asked kids to send me an email about the activity.  Every kid wrote that it was their favorite assignment of the year.  Every. Single. Kid.  It was great!

            This assignment without a doubt is my favorite because we work on the final product together.  I try to instill a sense of community in my classroom.  With this assignment, I finally saw that “spark” in students where I knew our classroom community had come together.

I love getting new ideas - what are some of your favorite notebooking activities?

Love and Sparkle,

Writer's Notebook: Part 2 - Organization, Grading, and other Teacher-ish Questions

Cover of a student's notebook - it captures her personality.

     When writing is mentioned to any Language Arts teacher (well, and other content teachers, for that matter), one of the first things that come to mind is "Writing means soooooooooooo much grading!"  My first few years of teaching, I associated writing with Peppermint Patties because for every 5 essays I got through, I rewarded myself with a Peppermint Patty.  It was kind of like my own school economy.
     Anyway, during Writing Project, I'm pretty sure I loved the thought of a Writer's Notebook, but the thought of grading it made me want to curl into a ball and cry.  Then, what would happen when inevitably kids wouldn't set it up to my specifications?  What would happen when I couldn't find a single assignment in there because they didn't label it, or put it on the right page, or one of the other 583 ways that this could go wrong?
     I'm only in my second year of a Writer's Notebook, but here are some of the things I've learned:
Organization
     So, if you've ever met me, in about 10 seconds you can tell I'm a Type A personality.  I have a weekly to-do list paperclipped into my planner that has both a weekly and monthly calendars, long-term project pages, and note pages.  This is carried in conjunction with with clipboard that has a ridiculous amount of note pages so that I can reference anything at any time.  My first year of my Writer's Notebooks, I asked kids to set up their notebooks with tabs - Title Page, Dedication Page, Table of Contents, Writing Lesson, Writing Notes, and Writing Goals.  Then, I did the unthinkable - I asked middle school students to keep up with that.  Because they didn't, I gave up on the notebooks about halfway through the year.
   

Table of Contents in a student's Writer's Notebook

 At the end of the year, I thought about what I liked and didn't like about the notebooks and why I gave up on them.  I realized I made it INSANELY too difficult.  My kiddos are a very transient popular, like I've had 8 new kiddos in 6 weeks and that's not anything new.  I need something that can be explained to new kiddos quickly, and a routine that can be picked up on after just a few days.
    So here's what I did this school year and I already really like it:  Every student had to have a composition notebook by day 3.  On day 3, we spent about 20 minutes numbering every page, front and back in the notebook.  Kids grumbled, but it has saved some headaches, for sure.  Page 1 is a Title Page, that includes first and last names, and a picture.  Pages 2 and 3 are a Table of Contents.  That's it.  No tabs.  No ten different sections.  Plain and simple.  Kids know we add the title of the assignment to the Table of Contents, flip to the next blank page, and that's where we start the assignment.

Grading

Mailing label grading - Ah-maz-ing!

    Remember when I said that the thought of grading writing makes me cringe.  Well...it still does.  I wish I had the ultimate solution to that, but I don't.  I have found a couple of ways to make it easier, though.
     First, I never collect all 75 Writer's Notebooks at one time.  I will do it by class period, or by tables.  Once I get those finished (2-3 days), I move on to the next group.  It usually takes me a little over a week to every notebook graded, and I don't feel so overwhelmed looking at the mountain of notebooks!
     Second,  I started following Sarah Koves at Kovescence of the Mind after participating in a Twitter chat with her.  She had this amazing tip for grading and it truly is a timesaver.  She grades using...wait for it...mailing labels (See her full blog here).  It is great.  You type whatever you want on the label (which can be a rubric you use on formal writing pieces or prompts even), and then stick it in the notebook.  It cut my grading time down by half.  I simply put whatever items should be in their notebooks and then grade it out of 4.
     Third, the most important part of grading is conferencing.  When I distribute graded notebooks, I do it through conferencing.  We conference quite a bit during the actual writing, and grading shouldn't be any different.  I pull students up and ask them which piece was their favorite and which piece was difficult to start.  Then, from there I may ask more questions, or ask them to elaborate more on something they said.  This gives me so much insight to how a student attacks a writing task and I can provide feedback for more challenging assignments.  Conferencing with my students about writing is the absolute best part of my job.  Any day with conferencing involved will always be listed as one of my favorite days (and Fro-yo Fridays.  Fro-yo Fridays are pretty amazing, too!).

I hope this gives you enough inspiration and answers enough basic questions about Writer's Notebooks.  Check back soon for my third and final installment, Writer's Notebook: Part 3 - Ideas, Student Examples, and What I Would Do Differently.

Love and Sparkle,

Writer's Notebook: Part 1 - Why I Write

   

One of my MANY Writer's Notebooks

     Last week, the hashtag #whyIwrite was trending on Twitter in honor of National Day of Writing (October 20th).  People were sharing their personal reasons for writing and why they see writing as a valuable experience in their classrooms.  My story begins in 3rd grade...

    If it is even possible, imagine a nerdier version of the current me, a 7-year-old that wanted nothing more than to read "The Boxcar Children" and become a country music singer with her two friends.  Yep, read that last line again.  A country music singer.  I can't carry a tune in a bucket, but that was my life goal (well, and to become Miss USA).  I had a teacher that probably realized I couldn't sing to save my life, dancing wasn't my strong point either, but encouraged my friends and I to write our songs.  Furthermore, she let us perform them for the class all the time.  Like, every day.  At one point, we even created "dance partners" by tracing our own bodies on poster paper, decorating them, and cutting them out to use.  That amazing lady never mentioned how ridiculous it was, nor smirked at our choice of lyrics (losing love at 7 is hard, man).  She encouraged an abundance of creativity and showmanship, and I loved her class for it.

     Fast forward to high school where I joined the newspaper staff.  I wrote what I still believe to be a phenomenal piece about how to be the best benchwarmer you could be.  I laughed.  My parents laughed.  My basketball coach did not laugh.  I enjoyed writing for the newspaper because it was fun and exciting.  I never associated it with creative writing, though, and I still don't understand why.  

     Besides newspaper, my high school career consisted of critical writing with very little creativity.  Lots of essays, reports, regurgitation of researched information. I considered writing to be a very technical process.

     And then I participated in National Writing Project two years ago.  If you are ever looking for a Professional Development opportunity that will rejuvenate your sense of purpose, NWP is it.  I found my love for writing and fun again, while learning that creative and critical writing are not two very opposite ends of a spectrum, but actually work hand-in-hand in a classroom.  I learned how to take information or stories, and present them in new, fun, challenging, creative formats, and how to model that for my students.

    Students need more opportunities to express themselves constructively during the school day. With my Writer's Notebook, my students are learning problem-solving, collaboration, organization, how to ask questions/wonder, and it helps foster a sense of self-worth.

     I write in my classroom because I believe critical writing can be creative and my students needs to see that.  I teach persistence through a blank page in a Writer's Notebook, waiting to be filled with thoughts, stories, and doodles that represent how my students see themselves.  My kiddos write to show they matter.

#whyIwrite

Love and Sparkle,

   Come back for the next installments of this series:  Writer's Notebook:  Part 2 - Organization, Grading, and other Teacher-ish Questions and Writer's Notebook: Part 3 -  Ideas, Student Examples, and What I Would Do Differently.

Positive Postcards

Small things are the ones that seem to have the biggest impact on my students.  Silly erasers and small pieces of candy aren't much, but they let students know we care, we think about them, and even look forward to things they do.  

My third year of teaching I worked in building that really promoted positive communication between school and home.  About 98% of our kids were on free or reduced lunch.  Most of their parents had 2 or 3 jobs in order to just survive.  Kids might not see their parents at all on a given day, so the kids thrived on any positive reinforcement given at school.  That was great, but not enough, so our principal encouraged Positive Postcards.  It is so simple, that it is kind of ridiculous more of us don't use them.  It is so simple, in fact, that once I moved to middle school, I just forgot about them. 

Until the end of last school year.

I look forward to my end-of-the-year evaluation every year. Yes, yes, I know that's crazy, but I like hearing what things I can do to improve the next school year.  I am an extremely competitive person (I get this from my Dad's side of the family - a game of Spoons is like going to war.  Blood is often drawn and small children are used to steal spoons from others.  No joke!).  Because of that, I make it my own personal mission to beat my evaluation scores from the year before.  When I had to make my goals for this year, I said that I wanted to have more positive communication in my classroom, with parents and students.  And that's when I remembered the Positive Postcards.

Positive Postcards are just a 3-4 sentence positive note you actually mail home about something amazing you've witnessed the student do recently.  Easy enough.

Here's what you do: 

Here's the design I chose for the postcard

First, get postcards.  You can make some on your computer and print.  Dollar Tree has packs of 20-25 postcards in their teacher section.  If you're like me and you like personalization, I bought postcards from Vistaprint.  It was an amazing deal - 250 cards for $16!  There are always 40% or 50% coupons for Vistaprint on coupon sites, which is what I used.

Second, print address labels for your students.  Most teacher attendance or gradebook programs have this option from the homepage.  If you can't find it easily, search it. 

Third, find a time in your week to do it.  I don't feel like I have a lot of extra time - who does?!?! - so I thought about time that gets wasted.  I keep my postcards and address labels in my clipboard portfolio I take to meetings.  When I get to meetings early or technology goes awry during a meeting, I pull out those postcards and labels, and start writing to kids. This way, that time is still productive. 

That's it.  It's that easy.  I try to send out 5-7 postcards a week.  This means I can get through everyone in one semester, which means kids can two postcards a year.  I know who I haven't sent postcards to yet because I still have their label, so no need to keep another record sheet.

I've already had parents email about the postcard being on the fridge at home, or students who have shown me pictures on their phone of the card in their locker.

And if that isn't enough reason to do, it just makes me happier.  It gives me a specific reason to look at all of the bright spots happening in my room daily.  Some days the negativity starts to creep in, but when I write those postcards, I smile thinking of the specific incident I'm writing about.

What types of positive communication do you have with your students and parents, in or out of school?  I'd love to hear about them, so be sure to comment!

Love and Sparkle,

Pulling Small Groups - Leading the Circus and Making it Meaningful

     There is something about the phrase "pulling small groups" that starts to freak out middle school teachers.  I think a lot of it is because so many of us are trained for secondary classrooms where not as much differentiation takes place or is expected.  Well, unless you are in a Read180 classroom.

     The first year I taught Read180 I felt like the ringleader of a chaotic, but meaningful, circus.  Read180 is set up for about 20-25 kids to work in three parts - Independent Reading, Software, and Teacher-led rSkills Workshops.  Yes, I had managed group projects, but not stations or small groups.  This was an entirely different beast.  I felt overwhelmed because I was really teaching three different pieces in one class - AT THE SAME TIME.  I had a principal that sent me to the Internet to watch how small groups should work. I'm still so grateful for a principal that recognized YouTube could be Professional Development and actually encouraged that.  

    That year pushed me past the survival mode of teaching.  I learned so much about groups, stations, and how they could support learning in my classroom.  In hopes that you don't make the same mistakes that I did, here are some things I learned my first year of working with groups that I use for Small Groups now:

1. How to Design Groups

     Grouping has to be flexible.  The types of groups you will want will depend on the skill or task the students are practicing.  For example, even with reading, I switch from homogeneous groups to heterogeneous groups depending on the skill.  If we're working on fluency practice, I will pull a small group of kids that might have the same obstacle in fluency, like phrasing.  However, if I want kids to hear better readers, I might put them in groups with higher readers.  For grouping, I wait until after kids have taken the benchmark test in STAR, and I use the "Instructional Planning - Class" report.  This allows me to group kids however I want, and see what skills that particular group needs.  This is an amazing tool, I'm already panicking about what will happen in January when our district moves to a new reading assessment.

Where you post your groups should be consistent, but make sure it is something that can easily be changed.  I post mine on the side of the Promethean board, but on laminated strips of paper, so I can change the groups with ease.

2. Prepare Ahead of Time

     Teaching is an art and a science - we've all heard it before.  Grouping kids and what to do in groups is the scientific part and something that needs to be prepared before class.  Small group time is precious and shouldn't be wasted trying to gather materials or supplies.  To help, I keep buckets in my room for each day of the week.  Inside each bucket, I place copies needed for groups that I'm working with on those days.  When it is time to meet in groups, I pull that bucket and sit at the small group table.  This means I know how I'm differentiating things before I come into class.  Everything I need is in that bucket, so I'm not rushing around the room or my searching my desk trying to find anything.  

  It also means preparing your classroom space for groups.  Pencils, highlighters, lead, etc. are all in the cabinet beside my small group table so that I don't waste time with kids who don't have those things with them.  Because if you haven't worked in a middle school, kids will find any and every excuse they can to get out of their seat 20-30 times a class period!

3. Teaching Routines is Mandatory

     My first year in middle school, I was completely shocked by what kids didn't know how to do.  You mean I have to teach them how to get out a notebook for class???  Ain't nobody got time for that!!  Well, as the first team I worked on put it -  you better make time for it!  Spending a couple of weeks teaching routines in your room will save you DAYS and WEEKS worth of instructional time later.  Our district pacing guide last year included a three week window at the beginning of the year that included only collaboration, listening, and speaking skills so that we could work on routines.  IT WAS AMAZING!!!  I wish we had done that this year, because I'm already noticing little things creeping up, stealing my time when I'm in groups.  For example, I used to have a touch light that I turned on behind me when meeting with a small group.  It meant that I wasn't supposed to be disturbed when working with that group, so you needed to ask classmates for help.  In between groups, the light would go off for 2-3 minutes so that other students could ask questions.  I haven't been doing this and I'm noticing my groups are taking longer now because of the interruptions.  It is something we're definitely going to have to practice again after Fall Break...

4. Not Meeting With Each Group Daily is Okay

     I hate saying this and even though I do it, I still cringe thinking about it, but...*Gulp!*...it is okay to spread your meetings over a two or three day period.  For example, we've just started argumentative writing in my classes.  We read Chew on This and students have to write their essay over an issue in the fast food/junk food industries.  After talking about credible sources, students were to find sources and start taking notes.  My lowest group was given an article on their reading level from Newsela.  (I chose their argument for them so I could offer more assistance.)  I knew they could read the article on their own, but taking notes would be a problem.  I gave the article to those students and left them to read.  My average readers were told to find their first source, and then I met with my advanced readers to show them the graphic organizer and told them to work on finding all of their sources and begin taking notes.  Then, I went back to my average readers to check their sources.  Right about that time, my lower readers had just finished reading, and I pulled them to help them begin their notes.  I didn't meet with my advanced readers until the third day, so I could check all of their sources and notes at once.  They loved being left to work without the frequent monitoring and I had time to work with my kids most likely to shut down and not do the work.  This worked out beautifully, and for the first time in three years, I don't have a student who is not ready to write this paper!

     I definitely have learned so much about grouping and pulling small groups, but I'd love to learn more.  How do you pull groups and how do you use groups to differentiate?  Comment with your favorite tips below!

Love and Sparkle,

Positive Polly, Negative Nancy, and Kona Ice

   
     I think September is one of the most difficult times for teachers.  The shininess of a new school year starts to fade.  Hopes for change fizzle.  Kids start to show their true colors, so you start to see issues for the first time.  September is the month I feel myself go from Positive Polly to Negative Nancy...and I hate myself for it.
      I sat in a meeting today and cried.  No joke.  Just a normal professional development meeting and cried.  Now, if you come back here often to read what's happening in my little corner of the world, you will realize I am emotional and cry often.  Even at things most people don't.  Like Fox and the Hound.  I watched 30 minutes of it when I was 7 years old and cried hysterically.  To this day, I still can't make it through Fox and the Hound, Bambi, and Ice Age. Don't judge me...well, okay, but just a bit.
     I cried today because I could actually feel a weight coming down on my shoulders.  I could feel myself morphing from Positive Polly, with all of her "Do what's best for kids!" and "That's not asking too much!" to Negative Nancy, and all of her "You've got to be kidding me!" and "Why are we all being punished?"  At that very moment, I felt like a failure and it was making me become Negative Nancy.
    And what did I do?  What any good middle schooler does - I blamed everybody else.  At the time, it was everybody's fault, but my own, that our school scores are low.  It was because other teachers don't do enough to help our kids.  It was because everyone else doesn't spend time building relationships with kids.
     All day, I kept thinking about why it was everybody's fault, except mine, until I had my second cup of Kona Ice for the night.  Again, if you're going to judge, just judge a little.  Kona Ice is like a miracle drug and helps you see things clearly - I promise.  Anyway, I realized that by becoming Negative Nancy and complaining about things over which I have no control, I had just become part of the problem.  Positive Pollys are needed at times to say, "Hey, this does suck, but how do we make it better?  What can we do to make it work? How can I help?"
    My personal challenge for the rest of the quarter is to say good-bye to Negative Nancy, to keep being Positive Polly for as long as I can hold out.  And if that means I need Kona Ice daily, than so be it.

Love and Sparkle,