Trying Something New in English Class

We're about to begin To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  One of my all time favorite novels to read and teach. Typically my students research the historical events that surround that time period i.e.. The Great Depression, The Dustbowl, Jim Crow Laws, Civil Rights, . . . and write a research paper. We do this prior to reading the story so the kids have an idea of the time period and events surrounding the author's life.

We're still going to complete the research, but in groups rather than individually. However, that isn't what this post is about. I wanted to come up with a different way to introduce the story.

So here's the something new. I'm going to have my students write a "Where I'm From" poem. I got the idea from George Ella Lyon's website. She wrote the poem. You can find her poem here.

First I'm going to read the poem aloud as students follow along. I believe students should see as well as hear the poem. But they shouldn't just hear the story from me, they should also hear the poet read her poem aloud. I found a video on youtube of George Ella Lyon reading her poem. You can find the video here. (The video gave me another idea. I'll get to that later.) Do you think the meaning of a poem can be affected when read by a stranger versus the poet herself? We're going to discuss that very thing in class.

Following our discussion we'll go over a template for the "Where I'm From" poem. I borrowed the template from here. Students will also receive a worksheet to help them brainstorm ideas to complete the template. (The worksheet is under construction. I'll post it soon.) Once students complete the brainstorming they will pair up and share what they come up with. Afterwards they will begin to write. I can't wait to see what they come up with. We'll spend some time revising and editing to reach our final piece of writing.

So here comes the something even newer . . . After students complete their "Where I'm From" poem they are going to add links. For each piece of writing they add to the template they will "link" it to an image, a video, another piece of personal writing, etc. For example, in George Ella Lyon's poem she wrote, "I am from the dirt under the back porch." If this were a line from a student's poem she would add a link. The link could be a photo of her back porch, or the dirt under the back porch. I hope this makes sense.

Since we're a one to one school we're supposed to include technology into our curriculum. The "linky poem" as I'm calling it helps fulfill that criteria in my English class. More importantly I'm hoping it will catch the interest of my students and more of them will WANT to complete the assignment.

I'm thinking we're going to write our poem with their links in google docs. In order for the links in the poem to work, the poem and the linked items must be located in a common folder. To that end each student will create a folder where she will include her poem and other linked items. The folder will be shared with everyone in the class including myself. If it works, we'll be able to open the poem, click on a link and the link will open. Keep your fingers crossed.

Finally the something even newer than newer . . . Students will create a video like George Ella Lyon's video on youtube. This is the idea I got from viewing George Ella Lyon's youtube video. Students will read their "Where I'm From" poem on the video while images move across the screen. Yea! Even more technology in my English class. Many of my kiddos enjoy making videos.

My kiddos are in regular ninth grade English and sadly many of them don't like school, well the part where they have to complete work. I hope my students will enjoy this project so that more will want to complete the assignment and actually enjoy it, for a school project anyway.

Has anyone else tried this before? If so please share your experience. If not, please let me know what you think.

Have a great week.

Hugs,

HopeAnn

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.

Monday Musings

Monday Musings is not my idea. I borrowed it from another blogger. Her blog is called Stop and Smell the Chocolates. I really want to try to write more often so I thought this might help me out, especially on those frantic Mondays.

What I'm thinking: That today was the last Monday before school's out for Summer!

What I'm reading: Reading Blogger Behave: Make your blog benefit your life, so you can love both by Laura Booz. 

What I'm listening to: The whirring of my window fan. It went from winter to summer here in Ohio. It's hot in this house.

What we're learning:  I learned that sometimes I have to give more than one second chance. 

What I'm watching: I'm watching a ton of documentaries lately. We have apple TV and I never realized how many movies, TV shows, documentaries, etc are out there. Free! I'm also watching "Boy in the Striped Pajamas" with my freshmen. We read Night by Elie Wiesel which we loved. Sadly there isn't a movie. Although we did watch the Oprah interview with Elie at Auschwitz. I can't believe he was able to go back there. I don't think I could do it. Anyway we're watching "Boy in the Striped Pajamas." It gives my kiddos a different perspective about the Holocaust since it's about a little boy whose father is a Nazi officer in charge of one of the concentration camps. If your interested have tissues handy.

What's cooking: Matt fixed Boca burgers with lettuce, tomato, onion, and mayo along with tater tots. YUM! I can't wait for fresh veges for our "burgers".

What I'm buying:  We spent a ton of money this weekend on our yard. We bought boards to make our garden boxes (more on that later), paint for the goose and the fountain, a trellis for the climbing rose bush, bird seed, a new pole system for the bird feeder since ours bent, and flexible tube like things for the downspouts.

What I'm thankful for: I'm thankful for my friend Danielle who is so encouraging, creative, and always has my back. 

What I'm creating: A final exam to give to my adorable freshmen.

What I'm planning: I'm planning on writing in my blog more often. 

What we did this last weekend: Running around the stores for all the stuff we purchased and working in the yard to build the garden boxes, paint the fountain and goose, weed the flower beds, and sit quietly sipping iced tea and watching the birds.

What I'm looking forward to: Summer. I love my students. They've been such a wonderful bunch of kids this year. But I'm ready for a break before I begin planning for next year. I never seem to teach the same thing in the same way from year to year. I'm always changing to find what works best with the kiddos I have for that particular year. I'm looking forward to lazy days on the beach with a good book, weeding in my garden, riding our bikes, and riding the rides at Cedar Point.

A picture to share: 

I can't wait!

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

How do teachers get their students to do the required reading?

Getting students to complete the assigned reading is becoming more and more of a problem for teachers these days. Teachers spend hours creating a fantastic lesson around the assigned reading only to find out that over half of the class didn't read it. This has happened to me to often to count. How am I supposed to complete a lesson with my students when they don't even read the assigned chapters in the novel?

For example, during the second nine weeks I taught To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee to both my ninth grade regular and honors classes. The majority of my former students have loved the story about Scout, Atticus, Jem, Boo, and Tom Robinson. I tried to create some interesting activities to go along with the story in hopes to get them to read.

• At times, students met in small groups to discuss their reading, other times we discussed the story as a whole class. 
• We mapped out the town of Maycomb using clues we found as we read and learned how to properly cite the information. This was one way that helped curb the urge to copy the map from the internet. If they did not have the clues to back up the placement of a particular location then they did not get the point for that location. 
• Students researched information from that time period, Jim Crow Laws, the Scotsboro boys, the Great Depression, the Dustbowl, to name a few. 
• Students created their own questions to try and stump their classmates and me. 
• Finally, students participated in a Socratic Seminar, which they loved and want to do again. YEAH! 

The honors class spent about three weeks on the novel, reading, writing and discussing the story. For the most part the majority of my honors students spent time both in the classroom and outside the classroom completing the required reading assignments. They had much more to read each night than did my regular classes, and they came to class prepared. This didn't surprise me out of honors students who care about their grade. Not to say that my regular students don't care about their grade. Some of them actually do care.

My regular class spent roughly seven weeks reading, writing, and discussing the novel. Well, not much discussion took place because my students did. not. read. I began the novel by reading out loud in my best southern accent while they followed along in their own books. At first there were some giggles, but my twang southern charm got their attention and they listened. I would stop periodically and ask questions to make sure they were paying attention and understanding. No problem.

When they began reading independently, I assigned questions for them to answer while they read, thinking this might help them continue reading. I'm not crazy about using study guide questions because anymore anybody with half a brain can find the answers online. When I give study guide questions as an assignment, I only give completion points for the grade because I also believe the little darlings love to share their answers with each other. During discussion my students were fantastic at answering the questions I gave them, but when it came to extending their answers or discussing something that wasn't on their study guide most of them did. not. have. a. clue. Gee. I wonder why.

I then resorted to pop quizzes, which after awhile were no longer "pop" quizzes because they knew they were coming after each reading assignment. These quizzes were pretty easy if one read the assignment. Many of the little darlings' grades sunk to extremely low levels. Even then, they. did. not. read. Instead they asked if I was going to offer extra credit. ARGH! Pirate speak for frustration.

These kids are on the internet 24/7 reading Facebook, Twitter, email, and on their phones reading their text messages. Why won't they read a BOOK?

The next novel I'm teaching is The Count of Monte Cristo.  Holy Cow! If they didn't read To Kill a Mockingbird which according to them was a "fat" book. How am I going to get them to read about the count, which is in FATTER? And how can I teach the lesson if they do not come prepared? What do I do with those kids who did not read?

What are your thoughts? Does anyone have ideas that have worked for you? Please leave a comment and share how you get kids to read their assigned reading.