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,