Another Summer Comes to a Close

I can't believe I'm actually saying this. I'm happy to be back at school. This is the first time I can remember being ready for summer to be over and school to begin. Maybe it's because I had such an awesome time with my freshmen last year. What a fun and energetic group of kids. I will miss them. All though many have already come to visit me in my room. Several have asked if they can still check books out of my classroom library. YEAH!

Reading is so important to me. As you know last year I had my students keep a reading notebook. In the notebook they tracked all of the books that they read as well as wrote about their books. They read 10 minutes each day at the beginning of class. I tested the kids each nine weeks to see if they were growing as readers. I'm excited to say that the majority of reading scores went up, up, up. In fact the largest jump was four grade levels. YES!

Well this year I'm sticking with reading, but also adding more writing. Instead of just a reading notebook, students will be keeping a Reading and Writing Notebook. Here's how I changed things up a bit.

Students are still reading 10 minutes each day of a reading week. They also choose any book at their reading level that they want to read. They record their book on their reading log when they begin a new book and when they finish they write the date completed as well as E for easy, JR for just right, or C for challenging. They may still abandon a book if they don't like it. This is still a difficult concept for kids.

Some new things that I'm trying are tracking how many pages students read rather than counting the numbers of books. This week I had students count how many pages they could read in 10 minutes. We then multiplied that number by 6 to see how many pages they could read in an hour. Then we doubled that number to see how many pages students could read in two hours. From there students created a simple book mark with the days of the week listed down the front. Each day they read they write their beginning page number for that day. At the end of the week, actually Monday in class, we'll calculate the pages they read for the week. If they read for two hours then they should easily reach their page goal for the week. I'm taking this as a homework grade. The only way a kid will receive a zero is if he/she didn't read at all. If they at least read one page, then they will receive half of the points.

I'm placing an enormous amount of trust on students' shoulders. I explained that I can't possibly sit with all 144 of them and watch them read every day. I also didn't want to have parents sign off each week saying that their child read. My students are freshmen now, young adults. I explained that I'm trusting them. It's common courtesy which is my number one rule in my classroom.

Students have a page tracker glued into their Reading Writing Notebook for the first nine weeks. On Mondays they simply transfer their page numbers from their bookmarks to their page tracker for each week. I send my classroom page tracker around the room each Monday and students transfer their page numbers read each day with their total for the week. This is what I will place in my grade book.

We're also placing all notes on reading like our short story unit in our Reading and Writing Notebooks. This week students will be working in their notebooks on character, setting, plot, tone, etc. It should be review. On the left hand side of the page they taped or glued the notes I gave them. On the right hand side of the page is where they will reflect on what they have learned. For example, on the right hand side of the page next to plot notes students will write major events from the story on post it notes and arrange them in a plot diagram. I got this idea from researching interactive notebooks. Learning on the left and reflection on the right. We'll see how this goes.

The idea is to alternate between reading and writing every week. So far we've spent a ton of time setting up our notebooks and reading. We'll finish our first short story this week and then we'll move into some writing. I'll keep you posted on how things go. Hopefully we settle into a routine soon.

Hugs,

HopeAnn

 

Reader's Notebook Turned Blog - A Teaching Moment

Back at the beginning of the school year, I wrote about The Book Whisperer and The Reading Zone. Both books inspired me to incorporate more reading into my classroom. Reading books that students chose as opposed to teacher or curriculum selected books. If you recall, my students read for 10 minutes a day, five days a week which adds up to 50 minutes a week. Not bad for high school. Side note: their reading scores improved! YEAH! More on that later.

They also created Reader's Notebooks. You can see the post on Reader's Notebook here. In their notebooks they listed the books that they were reading or had finished, including the name of the author, date finished, genre, and if it was easy, just right, or challenging. They abandoned books that they didn't like. Yes. They didn't have to stick with a book that they hated. The notebook also contained a section for someday books where students listed books that sounded interesting. Another section contained notes on genres, and the final section housed the letters they wrote to me about their books. Now that I've summed that up, let's move on.

Here at Perkins we're a pretty techie district. Students in grades six through twelve have their own laptops. Teachers are encouraged to incorporate technology into their curriculum maps. With that said, the Reader's Notebooks have been sitting in my classroom in their designated crates on top of my bookshelf, taking up much needed space. I decided to try blogging the Reader's Notebook. My honors English class was more than happy to play the guinea pigs if they received extra credit. Go figure.

Each student, voluntarily, created a personal blog through our school gmail account and blogger. They created a theme, personal profiles, cute animal widgets, number of hits, . . . - the whole nine yards. The home page was designated for posts like the letters they wrote to me about their books. They also created pages to house the Reader's Log, Someday Books, and Genre Notes. I gave them a week to create their blogs and write their final book review (letter) to post. Wow! . . . Wow!

Many of their blogs were something else! Plus their writing improved, immensely. You know why? Because anyone in the world could read their book review. Oh my gosh! How excited were they when they checked their stats and found out someone from Germany had visited their blog.

They decided that I just HAD to have next year's freshmen keep their Reader's Notebook on a blog. But not only that, they want me to have students write more of their assignments on the blog rather than turn them in the "old fashioned" way, typed. I was a little hesitant so they reassured me and suggested they post their final paper, a memoir, on their blog. Strictly voluntary, only those people who want to since writing a memoir is so personal.

We went back over the idea of how a blog is public.  We also spoke again about the power of words and that once we write them and send them out into the wide world of the internet, we can't get them back before someone reads them. No problem. We can handle it. And they did.

I'm so pleased with their enthusiasm for the blogs,  and the writing of their memoirs. With a "real" audience (I guess I'm chopped liver) they took extra care to make sure everything was perfect. You should have heard the conversations on revision and editing going on in this room. I wish I could share their blogs with you. Maybe some will say yes and I can post their links in the near future.

I'M THRILLED to say the least! Definitely a HAPPY teaching moment!

Have you used blogs in your classroom? If so please share what you've done and how it worked for you. Thanks! Have a blessed day.

Reader's Notebook

We're going into our fifth week of school. Believe me my mind and body feel it. I'm excited though because this year I'm trying the Reader's Notebook with my kiddos. Just before the end of summer vacation, I reread the Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller and The Reading Zone by Nancy Atwell. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE both of these books.

In a nut shell, kids need to read books of their choice in order to improve in reading. I always wonder when the love of reading stops. I've been watching my son who is in the seventh grade now to see when he will begin to dislike reading. So far so good, but he doesn't seem to read as much as he used to. I tack that up to how busy his life has become with football practice and games, school, homework, church youth group, and family. However, there were times last year when he would come home and tell me what a boring story they were reading in English. He would do well on the tests, but some of the stories just weren't grabbing his attention and keeping it. I think our children begin to dislike reading when they have to read a story, answer questions about that story, and then take a test about the story. Is that fun?

I understand that with high stakes testing and grade level curriculum that most of us feel we have to teach reading this way. This year I'm expected to teach The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, To Kill a Mockingbird, Night, and Left to Tell. And I will teach them. But in addition I'm trying something new - for me. The Reader's Notebook.

Each student purchased a composition notebook for the year. The notebook is divided up into the following sections: Table of Contents, Books I've Read, Someday Books, Genre Notes, Guidelines for Reading Workshop, Letters to Mrs. Wallace, Book Recommendations, Other Important Information.

In the books I've Read section students list the number of the book (whether it's their first book or their 20th), title, author, genre, date completed, and if it's Easy, Just Right, or Challenging. I had them begin their list with the summer reading book. Each student had to read either Quicksilver or Quiver by Stephanie Spinner. I'm setting the bar at 18 books for the year that each student must read. That's nine each semester. Breaking it down even further that's four books the first and third nine weeks and five books the second and fourth nine weeks. I think we can handle that. Yes. I said WE. I'm reading too and have my own Reader's Notebook.

In Someday Books students write the title, author, and genre of books that sound interesting to them, and they might want to read some day. Each week I give a book commercial about two to three minutes. Brief. Students will be doing book commercials as well beginning the second nine weeks. If a student hears about a book they want to read they add it to their Someday list. This way when they finish with their current book they can refer to their list and select their next book.

The Genre Notes are just that. Notes on different genres. Here are the genres I chose to use. Traditional Literature, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Adventure, and Biography, Autobiography, and Memoir. I chose these because most of the books on my classroom shelves can be easily distributed among these genres. After we discussed the different genres and they wrote the definitions in their Reader's Notebook, I had each class take the tubs of books off of my shelves and categorize them by genre. They had no idea that they were putting their notes into practice. They just thought they were helping me organize our library.

The Guidelines for Reading Workshop was a handout that we cut apart and glued or taped into our notebooks. This is information about reading requirements, how to choose a book, how to write a friendly letter, how to proofread, suggested topics for their letters, due dates for their Reader's Notebooks, and the rubric for grading their Reader's Notebook.

At the completion of each book my kiddos will write me a letter. It must be three paragraphs in length. It must also tell me something important about their story; not just plot development. I've given them a huge list of ideas to write about their book. Here a just a few examples: How did the main character change throughout the book? Describe in detail the setting of your book and how it fits with the story? Who was the culprit and explain how he/she was a good choice. Explain how the book reminds you of yourself, people you know, or of something that happened in your life. Do you agree with the point the author is making and why? ... Some of these I thought up on my own, but others I begged and borrowed from other teachers.

In Book Recommendations students will obviously write a book recommendation about each book they complete. They will initially write it in their Reader's Notebook, but then they will also type it up and print it out so we can add it to our classroom binder of Book Recommendations. This binder is just one more place students can go to find a good book to read.

I'm keeping the Reader's Notebooks in containers by alphabetical order in my classroom. They sit on the bookshelf. Students may get their notebooks at any time during independent class time to work in them. The containers also make it easy for me to carry the notebooks home since they have a lid with a handle.

So how are we going to read all of these books? We read for the first 10 minutes of class each day. On block day once a week we read for 20 minutes. So that is 50 minutes each week. My students know when they come through the door that they have entered the ZONE and must quietly sit down, get out their book of choice, and READ. They also read whenever they complete their assignments, quizzes, or tests. Plus I ask them to try to read for 30 minutes each night of the week. After I take attendance, I read with them. This coming week, I'm going to begin circulating around the room each period and ask what they're reading and where they are in the book.

So far, just through my observations the majority of my kiddos are reading and in the zone. I have a few that read for awhile and then stare at the wall. I've placed several different books into their hands, but as of yet nothing has hooked them. I'll keep trying to find just the right book for each of them.

What I like about the Reader's Notebook besides all of the reading is that students will also be writing. Writing letters to me about their books is like writing a literary analysis. Writing book recommendations is persuasive writing. They're writing about their reading. LOVE IT! Of course this won't be all of the writing they will do this year. I also like the conversations that have already been happening in class. My kids are talking about and sharing their books! Can you believe it?! "This is such a great book. You've got to read it." "I'm at the part where..." "Can I read it after you?"

I pray this works. I want my kids to fall in love with books all over again or maybe for the first time. I want their reading to improve. Please keep your fingers crossed.

Update: Reader's Notebook Turns Blog - A Teaching Moment

Thanks Parents!

Yesterday was extremely looooong. On top of our typical school day we held conferences at the high school. It was so nice to visit with several of my students and their parents. Conferences aren't always bad you know. Many of our parents are so supportive of their student and me as a teacher. Our school is one of the lucky ones. We are truly blessed with wonderful parents.

However, there are those that I called numerous times to schedule conferences, speaking with the parent or leaving a voice mail, and they either did not return my call or completely ignored me. For instance, with one phone call I placed it was connected and rang twice, but then I received a message on my phone that said the call was ended. Just like that. I thought I had done something wrong so I dialed again. I was connected, the phone rang twice, and the call was ended. No one ever picked it up. The line just went dead. Is that what happens when I hit ignore on my cell phone? Wouldn't the call at least go to voicemail? I hope I haven't been hanging up on people when I hit my ignore button. How awful if I have.

This year being on the freshmen team we decided to have team conferences where the parents can meet with all four core teachers at one time rather than schedule separate appointments for each. I believe this is much more effective than one on one. As a teacher it's good to hear that my concerns for a student are similar to the other teachers on my team.

The parents seem to like it as well. If their child is struggling in classes they do not have to hear it over and over for an hour. Instead it's like a shot in the arm, all at once. But once we get the concerns out of the way, we can work with the parent, and sometimes the child too when they come along, to devise a plan of attack to help the child to do better in the classroom.

Thanks parents for taking time out of your evening to attend conferences last night.  It means so much to me as a teacher.