ELA 101

I fear I haven’t a clue when my last entry was.  And to be honest, I would check, but once again the site has been so slow that I don’t dare multi-task (write and read simultaneously) on the off chance that it would bog the system down even further.

In any case, I thought it was as good a time as any to connect with the few (?) readers I may still have lingering out there.  The StudenTales book project was completed just before Christmas break and it was none too soon I must say!  I really felt the crunch those last few weeks days and am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the completed projects.  I am working to score the projects within the next two weeks (I’ll be asking students to submit them via digital dropbox at school) so that they are accounted for in the semester grade seeing as we spent a full month on them!  I think the most trying thing for me was having both grade levels working on it at the same time.  It made for extremely long computer lab days, even though the projects were completely different.

As much as I was internally whining about returning to school last week Thursday, I’m actually glad we did.  It would be a really long week this week if we hadn’t already eased back into the swing of things.  8th graders began learning about biographies and selected an individual to research.  They will be in the lab tomorrow gathering their information then working on their one-page paper throughout the remainder of the week (drafting Tuesday, conferring/proofreading Wednesday, revising/editing Thursday, publishing Friday).  The final paper is due by Friday 1/11 at the start of class.  It can be typed or hand-written.  If it’s handwritten it will most likely be a full front and back if not another front as well. 

7th graders watched the movie Paper Clips which ties into the book we read earlier this year entitled Chernowitz.  We also talked a bit about civic responsibility, tolerance/intolerance, prejudice and other topics.  This film has served as an introductory activity to our next unit as well.  We will be reading the short story version of Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.  Students will be discussing ideas such as the measure of intelligence, multiple intelligences, risks, etc.  In the past students have greatly enjoyed this unit and have generated great discussions!

Thanks for reading and please leave a little note letting me know you’re still here!  I’ll try to work on my patience and resume my weekly entries!!  Cheers!

To be honest, I don’t know the last time I posted.  As I’m sure many of you can relate, the busy-ness of the season has certainly overtaken me!  And I know I say it often, but this site has been extremely s-l-o-w, so I’ve had little patience waiting for it to load so I can post.

In any case, I’m about to head down to the basketball game (yes we’re having a basketball game despite the snow day) and I thought I would take a moment to leave a little food for thought.

As we’re gearing up to bring our poetry and storybook units to a close and head off for the holiday break, I’m reminded that far too often we engage in activities without really knowing why.

I had the privilege of attending a two-day workshop last week, where we talked and learned more about the value of assessment.  It really opened my eyes to the kinds of assessing I need to be doing more often in my classroom.  And no that doesn’t mean more tests.  Think of it as more “check-ups” to see whether intervention is necessary

It’s ironic actually, because it’s rather similar to those well-child exams that are required – the one my husband is taking my son to this very moment.  A periodic orientation to know if things are going well or if something should be done.

I also learned that I really need to do a better job of communicating to my students what the objectives (or targets we’re now calling them) are for a particular lesson and/or unit.  As this unit comes to a close, I’m questioning whether I’ve done that.  Whether every student would be able to tell someone what they learned (or what they were “supposed” to learn) as a result of this project.

I hope to delve into this work more over the holiday break and come back refreshed and ready to lead my students through the final half of the year!

I’m embarrassed by the fact that my last post was nearly a month ago!  It seems impossible that time has passed so quickly.  I hope that what few readers I managed to attract haven’t written me off as a lost cause (which is a round about way of asking you to leave me some feedback if you’re still lurking out there!!).

I understand that my snazzy embedded podcast in my last post doesn’t work unless I am logged into my Edline account, because that’s where the link is imported from…so I’m still working on finding ways to embed podcasts into this blog because it’s a great way for students to take their work and make it public. 

Since I’ve last written we have wrapped up our reading units in both 7th and 8th grade and begun our writing units (children’s stories in 7th and poetry in 8th).  So far, the students are doing a fair job and I hope to kick it up a notch this week. 

Personally, I travelled to New York where I attended several sessions at the National Writing Project annual meeting and toured the city reminiscing about the six months I lived there during an internship my junior year in college and making new memories with fellow writing project colleagues.  I’ve purchased nearly all my Christmas presents and have decorated my house for the holidays.  I’ve also worked on a small collection of poetry that I too hope to publish with the students and keep as a gift for my son.

Last week we tried taking our literature discussions to the technological-level by using wikis, which didn’t turn out to be a user friendly for synchronous (at the same time) discussion.  Fortunately for both me and my students, I remembered learning about nicenet.org – an Internet Classroom Assistant.

For two days this week, students have engaged in online discussions and completed assignments which they submitted online using this interactive feature.  I think it’s been really beneficial in getting students to think and “talk” about the topics presented in our books.

I hope to utilize this tool for future books and projects, which will be nice because students can access their work from any computer with an Internet connection.  We’ll continue to learn more about the potential of this site.

Students completed a vocabulary quiz yesterday for the first few chapters of their texts and I have been busily grading all those quizzes, crossword review sheets and reading logs.  Speaking of reading logs, this week I’ve decided to completely throw out the form and have students record their reading in their planners!  Think of the trees we’re saving!  (silent cheer!).

I will have grades posted on Edline this afternoon (evening) just as soon as I get through the 125 DGP papers they submitted today!  (Is there an end to this insanity?!).  I hope you have a great first weekend in November – I think “Fall” has finally arrived!

it is to read with a pillow in our room, Hey!  Ok, so it’s a bit early for Christmas carols, but yes I am one of those put-your-fake tree-up-the-day-after-Thanksgiving people anyway.  But the point of this post is to report the resounding success we’ve had with our Teen Read Week celebration.

Sadly, my life has become so unbelievably filled with school and personal extra-curricular activities, that one of my favorite hobbies (writing/blogging) has been back-burned slightly.  I would have loved to report on this last week to let you know what we were planning, but I didn’t get around to it.

In any case, students have spent the past two days in comfy clothes, dragging their pillows and blankeys into our English classroom which has been temporarily transformed.  All the desks have been relocated and the floor is free game!  Surprisingly, students really prefer to perch around the periphery of the room instead of laying in the nice open space in the middle.  Yet wherever they’ve chosen to rest their heads, it’s been great to see them filling their minds with the wonderful stories housed between the covers of a book. 

Be sure to swing by our Edline page where I will post a picture on each class’ homepage.  (Can I be honest…I really had to check with a few people about the whole s-apostrophe thing and I still don’t know if we’re 100% right!).  In any case, I hope to get photos uploaded this evening so you can check them out.

My apologies for not getting this posted last week as intended, but with the crazy schedule, moving furniture in and out of our classroom, plus planning my husband’s surprise birthday party, time just got away from me. 

How about you? What has been vying for your time lately?  How do you balance work, family, hobbies, etc?  What’s the one thing that you always make time for and the one thing you wish you did?

I just found a really interesting article that talks about exactly the kind of learning that we’re doing here on my blog!  Looks like others have thought this was a pretty cool way to get parents, teachers, and students all on the same page too!  Maybe you can look forward to some literary interpretation homework in the future as well!

Check this out and then leave me a comment about your thoughts!!

Week 5 already….Wow!  This week, both 7th and 8th graders have been digging deep into their memory banks for those priceless jewels.  You know, those totally unplanned, yet completely memorable family activities, or some your “finest” parenting moments.  Actually, most students are recalling things like accidents, emergencies, and a few first crushes. 

Many of you have completed your portion of this assignment as well by creating your list of 10 memories of your precious child.  I’ve only been able to give these a passing glance at this point (still knee-deep in 7th grade comics and 8th grade descriptive paragraphs – oh yeah, and whatever it is that my adorable child keep hacking up at 3am!!) but they are turning out fabulous! 

We will revisit these “neighborhood maps” later in the school year when students begin to work on their memoir.  You may have heard them talk about writing personal narratives in previous years, and a memoir is much the same.  One slight difference is that we try to guide students toward the events in their past that have evoked some kind of change in their lives.  Often these pieces are very meaningful to the students and reflect a great deal of time and energy.

Okay.  Here’s the nitty gritty part of this post.  Next week, starting Monday, October 8th, students will be taking their ELA MEAP test in their ELA classes.  This will continue all through next week and the ELA portion of the test will wrap up on Monday the 15th.  We spent the first couple weeks of this school year talking about the various portions of the test and different strategies they could employ to make it more manageable.

Lastly, students have received their weekly reading logs which I will collect on Monday, October 8th.  Students are asked to complete 60 minutes of reading time and obtain verification of said reading in the form of intials or a signature on their reading log.  We will not be doing a log next week in lieu of the MEAP. 

Have a fabulous weekend!

As I sit to write this beautiful Saturday evening, I can’t help but think back over the course of the past month.  How is it that the first month of school has already vanished?  We’ve already completed several assignments, we’re about to begin our first novel, start MEAP-ing and fall weather is finally rolling in.  I suppose that juggling the roles of wife and mother would make even my time as a teacher seem to go faster, so adding cross country assistant, writing project fellow and church worship team singer probably adds the detail necessary to understand my surprise.

In any case, this first month has reminded me why I love what I do and why I feel that it’s so important to keep doing my job.  Just as I’m learning by working with the middle school runners, it’s so important to set and maintain a comfortable pace.  As a novice runner, I’m starting to find my “groove” – the speed at which I feel like I could run forever.  Once I find it, I settle in and enjoy the adventure. 

Even with a steady pace, there are crucial moments when a runner needs to step up and devour more ground.  Starting strong.  Finishing hard.  Taking advantage of the downhill.  These are all strategies I’m learning and sharing with these young runners.  And it’s amazing the parallel I’m finding within the classroom.  There are times when we need buckle down and cover some ground; other days we’re loose and laid back, considering our surroundings.  And still others, our muscles ache, we feel the pain and we have to decide whether to push through the pain, round that next corner to see the fans cheering us on toward the finish line, or give in to the frustration, succomb to the difficulty and give up.

I’m in it for the long haul.  Slow and steady or fast and furious, we’ve set an adequate pace to sustain us in our learning this year!  For my student readers…..are you in it with me?

I’ve been purposely avoiding this post, but I feel that the time has come.  Having worked through a pretty intense first unit, I was structuring this next two-week timeframe with a few more light-hearted activities that accomplished the same tasks.  Seventh grade students are working on writing comics to illustrate the importance of text and image interplay, while Eighth grade students are engaging in descriptively writing about a topic of their choice. 

Where we’d originally been in the high 90’s or even 100% return on homework, a few of my classes have fallen to around the mid-to-low 50’s.  Trying to seek out the reason behind the sudden drop, students reported that forgetfulness was the main culprit.  I really hope that the talks we’ve had in class will be effective.

As parents (or students) what do you find to be helpful strategies to increase motivation? 

I can hardly believe we’re already wrapping up the third week of school!  Some days, the newness of the school year still lingers in the air.  Other days, it seems that students are as comfortable as they were by the end of last year.  Either way, it feels good to be getting into the groove of the new school year and hectic schedule. 

Today we wrapped up our first unit with both the seventh and eighth graders.  These past two weeks, students have been good reading and writing skills and test-taking strategies.  In this unit, students have completed the following tasks:

• read two selections and completed comprehension questions
• crafted a written response where they used evidence from the reading selections to support their position on a topic
• written a brief story based on their knowledge and/or experience
• provided feedback on student writing and identified qualities of the writing that both enhanced and diminished the overall success of the piece.

This unit also contain embedded lessons that allowed students to discover the value of working together as a team.  Students were also introduced to the process of formal writing, where specific details from the text are used to support an opinion. 

In other news this week, I am continuing to assist with the middle school cross country team, and am thrilled to have completed my first 5k run last Saturday.  I accomplished both of my goals, which were to run the entire course and not come in last. 

Students received their first reading logs this week as we visited the library for the first time on Thursday.  I plan to upload a copy of the reading log to Edline as well.  I’ve explained to students that the format of the log might vary as we learn the best ways to make use of the paper.

Thanks for reading and I hope that you find time to relax this weekend.  How will you be celebrating the first day of Autumn?