Creativity and Choice in Writers' Workshop

My principal has decided to focus on the "4 C's" this year. The 4 C's stand for Collaboration, Creativity, Communication, and Critical Thinking.

As I looked at this list of words, I thought, "Wow, it would be nice for creativity to be more important in our day, but...." I am a pretty literal person when it comes to making changes or setting goals. If you say we should increase creativity in the classroom, I see this huge goal of immediately trying to be more creative in every subject. However, you know as well as I do that creativity often gets pushed out of the classroom to focus on skills, mastery, content, etc. and to make sure we are moving along at a break-neck pace to hit all of our objectives. (All of that makes me feel like I sound like a bad teacher--I promise, I think I'm pretty awesome at this job, but let's be real.)

So, as I sat through our meeting, I thought, "How can I at least incorporate a little more creativity to make an effort towards this ambitious goal?" Writing stands out to me as the time of day where I could surely aim for more creativity (and choice, and student-centeredness). Writing is like art--a creative outlet and process--it's messy, it takes time, and it could definitely be more creative than we allow it to be when we teach students through genres all year. (I now feel like genre-based teaching in writing is what keeps me from allowing students to develop more creativity. Writer's have choices, not only in topic, but also in format, so why shouldn't my students? I'll get to more about this later:)

I came up with a scary idea, but now that I have launched it (about 3 days in), I am SOOOOOO excited about the potential I see for amazing writing and for inspiring students to see themselves as writers with worthwhile things to say.

What if students could choose their genre AND format for (almost) EVERY writing project? At my grade level, we have realized how super-awesome it is to have our reading and writing units connected, at least by a thread. You get so much bang for your buck with this approach (like we did last year with our Holocaust Book Clubs/Literature-Based Essays).

We really want our reading and writing to be highly connected. We are reading Wonder by RJ Palacio as our beginning of the year read aloud, so I started listing all of the ideas I could come up with for ways to write with Wonder as an umbrella. Then, I decided I needed a graphic organizer with categories to help me launch this with students. I came up with: questions, real-life connections, imagine, and reactions. I thought these categories would encompass just about every thought, genre, and topic we could come up with.

This is what we came up with when I introduced this format for "thinking" during a reading minilesson. As students provided ideas, I did my best to make sure I turned them into more generalized topics. (So, if someone said, "Auggie got made fun of and I have too," I turned it into "getting made fun of." (The only place this didn't work--and it's going to be okay--was in the IMAGINE category. I definitely wanted students to imagine re-writing and adding to the story with this category.) To lead the minilesson, we focused on one category at a time. I provided students with one example and then asked for their ideas.

Keep in mind that we are only on pg 80+ in the book and were able to come up with all of these ideas. After reading more of the story, I know students will have more ideas. (After today's lesson, I decided this would be our focus in writing for the quarter--SO EXCITING!)

On Friday, I moved the lessons into writer's workshop. I gave students the typed list of their ideas and asked them to highlight ones that really stood out to them as something they would be excited to "spend a little more time thinking about." Notice, I didn't say WRITING. I didn't want to focus them (or turn them off) just yet. I wanted them to be completely open to just identify topics they were interested in. Next, I had them put star their top topic...and it was time for writers' workshop to be over :)

Today, we created a poster listing "Ways Writers Can Choose to Write."

We then chose one idea from the brainstorming chart for Wonder and thought about all of the ways we could address that topic through writing.

I was BLOWN away at my students' ideas and creativity (and we only had 10 minutes to make this brainstorm). Remember my first chart (scroll to top :)? The one where I identified the types of writing each section would lend itself to? My students were able to totally see through that. (BTW, I never shared the kinds of writing I thought the category would lead too--I didn't want to limit their ideas).  I told them that with "Why is it challenging for most kids to accept someone who is different?" as the topic, most teachers would immediately choose essay as the format. They didn't include essay in their ideas at all! (Although, I know the skills of essay writing will come in handy if they choose to write a blog post or letter). I am totally getting buy-in for all the lessons I want to teach--making those lessons more necessary because students are CHOOSING their format and writing topic.

Why I love this new approach and why I think it will work is because I believe that almost all lessons we aim to teach in "writing class" can apply to all genres of writing. Nonfiction authors use narrative (I just wrote a blog post; I think I've also told you some story.). How to use commas, show-don't-tell, support your ideas with evidence and examples, use narrative to get your point across--I think I've got plenty of lessons to choose from that will be beneficial, no matter the type of writing students CHOOSE to work on.

CREATIVITY and CHOICE. What do you think? It feels great to slowly be chipping away at their list of when "WRITING is the WORST..." :)

Top 10 (or more!) Back to School Read Alouds: Love of Reading

For more on building a reading life, visit my past posts, including "Building a Reading Life~Tip Time."

What read alouds are your MUST READS during the first few weeks of school? In the next few weeks, I am going to share groups of read alouds that I use for various purposes at the beginning of the year.

One of the main focuses of my read alouds for the first few weeks of school is a "love of reading." Here are some of my favorite read alouds to use to provide students with a variety of perspectives on having a great reading life and developing (or continuing) an appreciation for and love of reading:

•Aunt Chip and the Triple Creek Dam Affair, Patricia Polacco
(All time favorite for Reading Life!) What happens to a town when a tv tower comes along? Books become furniture, props, pot-hole fillers. Can Aunt Chip, the town's old librarian bring Triple Creek back to life with a love of story, books, and the printed word? 

•Thank You, Mr. Falker, Patricia Polacco
I'm sure you are familiar with this one, but Patricia Polacco was a struggling reader herself. Mr. Faulker was a teacher who made a difference in her reading life.

•The Bee Tree, Patricia Polacco
When Mary-Ellen gets tired of reading, grandfather shows her how to follow the bees to a tree with honey. "Just like we ran after the bees to find their tree, so you must also chase these things adventure, knowledge, and wisdom through the pages of a book!"

•More than Anything Else, Marie Bradby
During Emancipation, Booker T Washington pursues learning to read. This reminds me of one of my favorite reading quotes, "Once you learn to read, you will forever be free!" (Frederick Douglass)

•That Book Woman, Heather Henson
That Book Woman makes her rounds throughout Appalachia and turns the most uninterested child into a reader.

•The Wretched Stone, Chris Van Allsburg
The Wretched Stone entrances everyone when it is found. The men on this ship turn into monkeys and have a hard time thinking and remembering anything after watching the wretched stone for hours. (This is great for making inferences and discussing figurative vs literal--the wretched stone is a figurative television. Re-read the book after figuring this out to show students all the things Chris Van Allsburg says about the "wretched" television.)

•Richard Wright and the Library Card, William Miller
What if you didn't have the right to get a library card? What if a love of reading was something you had to pursue with perseverance and at the risk of being caught? Our students don't know how blessed they are to have parents and teachers who try to instill in them a love of reading and who help them pursue reading, no matter their struggles. (set in the 1920's segregated south, Richard eventually learns to read and becomes a writer.)

•The Librarian of Basra, Jeanette Winter  and Alia’s Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq, Mark Alan Stamaty
When Alia, a librarian and lover of books, is caught in the war zone of Iraq, her love of reading transcends her fear of danger. She saves 30,000 books from being destroyed. These two books tell the same story, but Alia's Mission is more of a graphic novel.

•The Wednesday Surprise, Eve Bunting
This book has a twist. The granddaughter and grandmother read together every week. Throughout the book, you may be thinking the granddaughter is learning to read, but at the end you find out she has been teaching the grandmother how to read. Great for discussing illiteracy.

•Amber on the Mountain, Tony Johnston
Another story set in Appalachia. Anna comes along and teaches Amber how to read.

•The Library, Sarah Stewart
Elizabeth is a true bibliophile, so much so that her house is overflowing with books. Eventually, she has to figure out what to do with all of her books. This is a quick read in poetic form. Easy to squeeze in at some point during my back to school week!

• Please Bury Me in the Library, J Patrick Lewis (poetry)
Mix up your love of reading discussions and read alouds with a little poetry. Some of my favorites from this book are "Are You a Book Person?" and  "Please Bury Me in the Library."

This past week, I worked on polishing a "Reading Life" packet to help me with my first few weeks back to school. I created 15 reflection templates (in 1/2 page form) and 16 quotations about reading (these are in poster form and in a form that you can print for students to put into a reader response). This set of journal sheets and quotations are meant to initiate discussions and minilessons about a love of reading and to lead your students in carving out time for the best reading life they have ever had. I also like to participate in this reflection and share my own "reading life" goals with students (like trying to read more for myself, trying to read a book that one of them has recommended to me, etc.) IF YOU HAVE PURCHASED THIS PRODUCT, IT RECEIVED A BEAUTIFUL REVISION 6/26/2016, so please go re-download in your tpt account!

I made sheets of the quotations so that I can copy them and give them to students to analyze, to help us have discussions, and most importantly, to help me learn more about their reading lives so that I will have some ideas about how to help them have the best reading life ever!

I created 15 1/2 sheets to go into the "reading life" section of their journals. I will not use all of these at the beginning of the year, but I thought that the ones I do not use early in the year would be great for "boosters" when we need to revisit our reading life conversation (for example, when we return from our first break or as "New Year's" reflections for reading.

Last year, I called my Reading Life unit "Coaching Your Own Reading Life." I decided to divide students' reader response notebooks into four sections (these are included in my reading life product):

What is the purpose of each section?

My Reading Life holds beginning of the year “Reading Life” journal prompts, responses to quotes, and can contain responses to the end of classroom read alouds. We use an “I remember” structure to celebrate and respond to a book when we finish it.

Coach’s Huddle: a place to put handouts from the teacher, record notes from mini-lessons,etc.

Practice Time!: In this section, students respond to the classroom read aloud; it is used as a space for active engagement during mini-lessons and for students to practice a concept with teacher support.

Game Time: When students respond to their own reading (or book club books,) it’s GAME TIME. This is when students take what they have learned about reading and apply it with their own responses.

Students started to run out of pages in their marble notebooks this year. Some students glued another marble notebook to their first, so this year, I am just going to have everyone glue two together from the beginning of the year. How exciting! (Maybe I will tell you more about how much I LOOOOOOVED reader response this year~we instituted a 10 minute write right after minilesson and it did WONDERS!)

I hope you LOVE LOVE LOVE reading as much as I do. And, I especially love to turn my struggling, apathetic readers into READERS for life. I hope I am ready for whatever challenges my students have in store for me this year...only 7 more days until the first day of school! :)

Reading Tests: Questioning Lessons

Earlier this week, I shared my Thinking Through Reading Tests materials, including Reading Question Sorts for Grades 3-8th based on the NC ELA Released Test. (Since the test questions are Common Core aligned, I believe the sorts will be useful to many other states as well).

What’s the purpose of having students sort questions independent of reading the text?
Allowing students to closely analyze questions helps them to make generalizations about the types of questions they can predict will be on the test and that they can expect for specific genres. Yes, you can do the sort for them and hand them a list of questions, but allowing them to come up with generalizations about the test questions takes your “test prep” from teacher-centered to student centered and considers testing a “genre” or “type of text” rather than an unpredictable “test.”

Today I wanted to share how our questioning lessons are going.
Day 1:  I had students work in partners to sort the questions into categories that made sense to them. It was interesting (and telling) to see what kind of categories students came up with on their own. I went around from group to group listening to their ideas and pushing them to reconsider some of the questions they had placed in different categories. (We completed this sort prior to the kids reading the text--based on my experience, you can decide what kind of question MOST of them are without reading the text yet.)

Day 2: I gave students a copy of my Question-Answer-Relationship handout. I went through each type of question (which was review from last year) and then had them meet with their partner again to sort the questions into these four categories. Now, not having read the text, there are a few questions that fall between two of the types of questions.

Day 3: During minilesson,  I gave each student two of the question cards and decided to start the lesson with the ones I had leftover. (Totally random, no strategic planning here). I called out one of my questions and we discussed where we would place it~"Right There/There and There," "Inferencing," "Overalls," or "Apply Prior Knowledge." Then, I asked students to raise their hands and share if they had a question like the one we had just categorized. Students read their questions one-by-one and we decided as a class if it fit the category. We continued until we had grouped and classified all questions. You can see our findings in the picture below. Each of these categories helps students tap into what skills and strategies they should use to answer the questions given. For example, if I have an overall question, I am going to pull from the beginning, middle, and end of the text (or a specific paragraph).

Here's how our questions fell into the categories:
"Right There/There and There"
* Literal Questions-We can go right back to the text and put our fingers on these.
Example: "Based on the selection, how did Roberto get to see the game?"
* Compare/Contrast Questions (need us to use information in two different places in the text)
Example: "How are butterflies and mosquitoes different?"; "Which statement shows a way some insects are similar to spiders?"

"Inferencing"
* Interpreting Figurative Language questions, using context clues for unknown words, and comprehension questions that go beyond the literal
Examples: "In paragraph 19, what is meant by 'Roberto's heart was in his stomach"?; "In the selection, what can be inferred about how the people viewed the old man?"; "What does the word shabbily mean as it is used in the text?"

"Overalls"
* Main idea, summary, theme, generalizing, author's point of view, etc.
Examples: "Which statement summarizes the theme of the selection?"; "What main ideas are supported by the selection?"

"Apply Prior Knowledge"
NONE!
***We talked about how none of the questions on our test would be true "prior knowledge" questions and that all of the questions were text-dependent. Now, when we take our SCIENCE EOG, ALLLLLLLLLLLL of the questions will fall under "prior knowledge." Interesting findings!

What are some ways I can use the questions for sorting?
• I think all sorts should be completed with partners or in small groups to encourage students to discuss what they are noticing and negotiate the categories.
• Allow students to sort the questions into any categories they see and then discuss as a group. (This would work well before you have introduced any of your Question-Answer-Relationship lessons and your “how to answer questions” lessons)
•After teaching your QAR lesson, have students re-sort the questions into the 4 categories (“Right There/There and There,” “Inferencing,” “Overall,” and “Apply Prior Knowledge.”) Within the 4 categories for QAR, see if you can come up with different types of each category. For example, “overall” questions include main idea, summarizing, theme, etc. while “inferencing” questions also include context clue questions because you use the text and your mind to infer word meaning.

My full Thinking Through Reading Questions Bulletin Board/Minilesson/Questioning Strategy Materials can be found here! 

~Writing Riddles for Mini-Research: Minilesson Magic

Common Core requires that students perform mini-research projects throughout the year. The part that I have trouble with is how something can be "mini" while also "meaningful." I tend to dig deep on our writing units. How can we write smaller and make our kids smarter writers at the same time?

Warning: This post is going to be long because my kids' writing riddles are too cute not to share! Check them out, then read about how we got to this point :) 

One of the intents of my plans with our Human Body Systems unit was to have students complete a research project on a disease of interest. My goal was to encourage healthy living as an outgrowth of our Human Body objectives. However, it is the end of the year and we have a LOT left to do. I felt a little lazy making this decision, but I decided not to launch a huge, in-depth research project. But, I did come up with what I think is an AMAZING idea for my classroom because of its ability to meet many common core objectives, to transfer fluidly to a 1-1 classroom environment next year, how it connects with my students' LOVE of celebrating and sharing their writing, and how it capitalizes on our love of task-card-like learning modes. What am I talking about? "Writing Riddles for Mini-Research." It will be ALL-the-RAGE! :) I promise! <3

How did I get my students started? I wanted to use their curiosity about the human body to my advantage. I created a simple "Wonder" sheet. I gave students 4 categories for generating topics: organs and other body parts, habits, diseases, and curiosities. (You can click to catch it for free from my google docs!)

 After brainstorming, students circled their top two choices (or wrote them in the bottom block on the worksheet). I then went through each one and approved their topics. I just wanted to make sure everyone studied something different. Next, we spent one day in the lab researching and one day in the lab typing. Here's a sample of my favorite Writing Riddle paragraphs:

What is "Progeria"? 

What are "the kidneys"?

What is "the brain"?

What is "ear wax"?

 What is "motion sickness"?

What is "eczema"?

What is "the appendix"?

What is a "muscle cramp"?

What is a "heart attack"?

What's a Writing Riddle? 

After reading those great examples, I'm sure you've got it, but basically, students write paragraphs  in a riddle-like format. (For once, I encouraged my students to be a little vague!) Once the paragraphs were drafted (we use a wikispace as a writing portfolio), I went into our wikispace and cut and pasted all of the paragraphs into powerpoint slides. Then I added cute frames to make the paragraphs a little more jazzy (but in a rush, you could just pick a cute font and move on!). I also included a number on each slide (you could also do this by just writing a number on each if you don't have time for a huge production).

How will we share our writing riddles? After printing all of the slides, I will set up an around-the-room task-card like reading/writing celebration. Students receive a worksheet with all of the questions listed. As students move around the room reading each card, they decide which question the riddle paragraph answers. For example, if I read #8 and know it is describing a heart attack, I would write #8 beside of the question "What is a 'heart attack'?"

Writing riddles...why I love it:
I was perplexed by the idea of "short research" called for by the common core. I mean, I get that it can be done and that what we often do in science or social studies (using our textbooks) can be considered "short research." However, I also interpret short research to mean short-term research projects that still culminate in some type of product created by the students. Short research should still be purposeful and have a sharing component. (See why I was perplexed? I can rarely do something small-scale and feel like it was meaningful to students). Wow! In our "Writing Riddles" project, I got all of that and more. In total, it took students about one day to research, one day to type, and it may take us two days to have enough time for everyone to read most of the riddle paragraphs. I can't wait to do this next year~~more often and with more topics. How much better will my students be at synthesizing researched information and turning it into interesting pieces of writing?!?!?! (You can already see some of the creativity coming out in some of the examples above.)


W5.2 Write informative/explanatory pieces to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
W5.2d Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
W5.6 With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills.
W5.7 Conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.
W5.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
L5.1-3 All Conventions of Standard English and Knowledge of Language Standards are included in this activity
L.5.6 Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal contrast, additoin, and other logical relationships (e.g., however, although, nevertheless, similarly, moreover, in addition.

Room to Grow Objectives (Future Minilessons): 
W.5.2b Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic.
W.5.2e Provide a concluding statement or section related to the information or explanation presented. (Some students concluded in interesting ways, like the one who wrote about car sickness).

Next year when we are 1-1, it might make sense to have students post their Writing Riddles on our classroom blog. This would allow them to include other aspects in their research, like multi-media components, images, and diagrams from a web-based source. I'm thinking, students could have the Writing Riddle Post set up with their paragraph, the reader could make their guess, then have a video and/or image link to click on in order to reveal the answer and learn more.
* SL5.5 Include multimedia components (e.g. graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.

Anyone else SUPER EXCITED about the possibilities of this little idea? (I can't wait to use it a million times next year and see how it evolves!)

Since this is a new idea that I have tried with my class, I am linking up with Tried  it Tuesday. Hop on over to check out more new ideas from other great teacher blogs.

PS: Those super cute polka-dot frames are from. Graphics From the Pond: http://frompond.blogspot.com

Minilesson Magic: Helmet Law Debate (Interpreting and Comprehending Data in an Article)

Back to reality! And boy was it a great day! I was prepared (did you catch yesterday's post of my week's plans?) Monday is also my day that my team covers recess and lunch for my kiddos, so I got triple planning time with that and my after school time~no meetings, yay! Needless to say, I still have things to think about...remember my "I'm a 3-day planner" confession. I have a problem with OVER-THINKING things, especially in science and social studies. Maybe it's because we have so little time for these subjects but sooooooo many ideas that we could do. It's hard to weed it all out and make decisions (and then have time cut even shorter and have to re-adjust).

ANY-who. I decided to check in today to share my reading minilesson. Since I shared my plans with, I spent the whole day thinking, man, I should take a picture of that or blog about that to share what exactly I did and how it went. So, this week we are focusing on the human body systems during reading and writing (research, science, nonfiction reading, all rolled into one topic). Then, in our regular science time, we are studying Force and Motion, but I didn't just want to jump right in with that on our first day back, so I planned something that connects all of this, but my little babes barely knew it today. (They will see the connections throughout the rest of our week). Let's call today an ENGAGE. :)

We spent ALL--ALL--ALL last quarter working on opinion based essays and while we are not going to have TONS of time this quarter for a large writing project, I want to continue developing students' ability to write about their opinions and to structure an essay paragraph using PEEL (free download from Tracee Orman--we have used this method to the max this year!). They have grown so much, but ya know, "Ya use it or lose it."

In walks the NC Helmet Law Repeal Debate. Should motorcyclists be forced to wear helmets? Should our state (or yours) repeal their helmet requirements? (I used the word 'forced' instead of required because it's a strong sounding opinion-e word.) Some states require motorcyclists to wear helmets, others do not. Now, I am not a motorcyclists and do not plan to be. I may never be on one in my entire life (although I would have LOVED a helmet while at Carowinds last week :) But, this topic might just stir up some excitement for my kiddos and they can connect to wearing a helmet (or not) while riding a bicycle (meanwhile, I can teach them the importance of protecting their craniums and their brain--a key part of the nervous system).

Long story short, I quickly chose three articles for them to read today, made copies, etc. Then, I read them Sunday and thought WHOA buddy. I cannot send them loose on this article, "North Carolina Motorcycle Helmet Repeal Bill Passes First Mile Marker."  So, I quickly decided to turn this into a guided lesson where we interpret the information in the article. I decided not to give students the article at all (yet) and just work from the 6 excerpts I pulled out. For each snippet of the text, I wrote a question or two.

Most of the questions focus on interpreting what point the person quoted is trying to make or "talking back" to the text. Talking back to the text is something we learned to do last quarter. (When you are reading an opinion-based text, you often want to talk back to the text with your ideas. Critical readers should be talking back to opinion based texts because we know the author is trying to get us to agree with them and may be leaving out important information).

To get their little minds engaged,  I started with a bicycling questionnaire just to see where their thinking was before we talked about the issue.

After a quick sharing of our survey answers, I explained the issue at hand and then we went through the excerpts from the article one at a time. I read aloud from the smartboard and then had students try to interpret the info or talk back. Next, we shared, I helped interpret/explain when necessary, then we moved on to the next excerpt. It sounds boring or too teacher directed, but they actually seemed to get a lot out of it and wanted to talk about their opinions the WHOLE time! My~smart~little~thinkers :)

If you would like to do this lesson, I am linking the google presentation I made, the questionnaire and worksheet, and the article so that you can implement it PRESTO! Magic! :)

In my students article packet, I also included two others articles that have a heavy opinion that motorcyclists should have the freedom to choose, but we didn't get to those today.
Helmet Law Hypocrisy from ncrider.com (I only pulled a few paragraphs from this; while I don't agree, I thought it was a good example of strong opinion and something students could "talk back" to)
The Twisting of Data in Helmet Safety Studies from bikersrights.com

If you would like the packet I made (straight copy and pasted the articles above into a packet for the kids, shoot me an email and I will send it to you. I just don't feel comfy sharing that on the web). Also, these are not 'pretty,' but they are down and dirty minilesson materials that get the job done.

RI.5.1 Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
RI.5.2 Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.
RI5.3 Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more (ideas) based on information in the text.
RI5.8 Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point(s). 
Hope you can use this, if not now, next year!

lifeloveliteracy@gmail.com

Reading and Viewing with a Critical Lens: Monday's Minilesson Magic

This quarter in readers' workshop, we have been working on reading informational texts (specifically opinion-based informational texts). We have focused on previewing, knowing whether a text is for, against, or neutral, summarizing, previewing to try to figure out the structure of the text, note-taking, and talking back to the text. Last week, we worked on reading and viewing texts with a critical lens. We learned to analyze the text with a number of critical questions in mind.

For our minilesson models, we have been focusing on the "chocolate milk in schools" debate. For my lessons on critical literacy, we analyzed two texts that we had previously used in other minilessons that have two opposing views on chocolate milk in schools,  an ad from the National Dairy Council and the Jamie Oliver Foundation.

We chose to read our Jamie Oliver article critically first because it would push us to think critically since we are leaning towards limiting chocolate milk in schools for our opinion essay. Next we analyzed an advertisement from the National Dairy Council titled "Five Reasons Why Flavored Milk Matters." We had previously used this text in our "talking back" to the text lesson. We realized that Jamie Oliver was biased (he says "chocolate milk does not belong in schools" AT ALL) because he is trying to fight the obesity epidemic and sees processed foods and extra sugar as a contributor to the obesity epidemic. The National Dairy Council is biased because their main goal is to get people to consume more milk and have specifically targeted increasing consumption of flavored milk. We discussed how the NDC uses fear to try to manipulate parents and schools into thinking that the main way to help kids get their nutrients is through flavored milk. ("Kids like the taste!") We discussed how this is the easy way out and does not require schools and parents to TEACH kids to like the taste of white milk and other foods that will provide them with the same nutrients.

For more practice, we used a commercial recently put out by Coca-Cola. I prompted students to think about what messages the Coke company was trying to send us and what they were trying to get us to believe. Next, I showed the video again and asked students to look for visual and auditory methods the authors of the text used to send us their messages. Through these lessons, I hope my students are getting more critically intelligent. I also shared with students the recent Fooducate blog post that brought this video to my attention. Fooducate is well-known by my students as we used the fooducate app in our science/nutrition unit last year. I explained to students that Fooducate typically does a great job with critical literacy. They are trying to help us navigate the world of food where food companies are trying to convince us that the products they make are healthy and nutritional for us.

I just found this video where someone has taken the Coca Cola commercial and put in the "real" information that we need to know in order to critically understand this video. Can't wait to show this to my kiddos this coming week to show them critical literacy IN ACTION!

For our unit, students have been reading opinion-based articles and blog posts on debatable topics (like athlete salaries, school uniforms, technology money spent in schools, e-readers versus books, single-gender schools, competitive sports for young children, etc.). Basically, they are doing the research for an opinion-based essay during our reading time so that writing time can be spent learning the techniques of essay writing and using evidence based terms within a researched piece of writing.

 I found a lot of the texts we are using through the Teacher's College Reading and Writing projects website if you are looking for Opinion-based articles. As students have honed in on their topics, we have also had to search for more articles on their specific topic through our handy-dandy friend named google.

For me, the whole point of critical literacy is to teach students to consider whether or not a text is trying to send them an ulterior message and to think about the goals of the author, company, or organization that has created the text. While I don't think critical literacy will stop us from having chocolate milk or soda now and then, I hope my students do not let the media convince them that these are HEALTHY choices.

By the way, you can download the chart above at my TPT store. It is in a one page format and 1/2 page format for student journals/reader response notebooks.

Smorgasbord--There's a lot going on!

Wow! I have so much I want to share with you all.

It's a smorgasbord of what's been going on in the classroom, new teacherspayteachers products, classroom community and character ideas and updates, SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! on Friday (well, a dusting, but a day off!), stress about paying taxes on TPT earnings, excitement about the 2013 Clutter-Free Classroom Challenge, and a special announcement tomorrow's Top 2 For Tuesday that you WON'T want to miss! Yes, I have slacked off on Monday's Minilesson Magic and Top 2 for Tuesday, but I will get them rolling again, now that we are two weeks into our 3rd quarter.

For this post, I will focus on an update of Building a Classroom Community and Building Character. Read here if you missed my post about having my teaching heart split wide open. I spent the first week back focusing each morning of our reading time on building our classroom community and discussing kindness. I used three read alouds to create opportunities for discussions about having an open heart and sharing kindness.

We used:

 

First, I used Somebody Loves you Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli (how exciting to read a book from Jerry's wife :). We mainly talked about how Mr. Hatch could choose to have an open heart or a closed heart. In receiving the box of chocolates, he had opened his heart to the world and was more aware and conscious of other people's needs. I talked about how we can choose to be conscious of other people's needs and that if we just pay attention, we will see places where we can choose to extend kindness. 

Next, I read Each Kindness by Jacquleine Woodson (author of The Other Side). This book was destiny! It was sitting on a shelf in the library when I went to pick up Mr. Hatch, and I thought, hmmm...kindness. Let me read this! If you have ever read The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes, this is along the same lines, but in picture book form. From amazon.com:

"Each kindness makes the world a little better.

Chloe and her friends won't play with the new girl, Maya. Maya is different--she wears hand-me-downs and plays with old-fashioned toys. Every time Maya tries to join Chloe and her gang, they reject her. Eventually, Maya plays alone, and then stops coming to school altogether. When Chloe's teacher gives a lesson about how even small acts of kindness can change the world, Chloe is stung by the lost opportunity for friendship, and thinks about how much better it could have been if she'd shown a little kindness toward Maya."

After our read aloud, I talked about how Chloe wishes she would have done things differently and said a lot to Maya. We talked about apologies and forgiveness. Chloe doesn't have the opportunity to apologize to Maya, but we do. Then I did something AMAZING! I had students create a list of apologies for their classmates. They had to write them down on a sheet of paper. I gave everyone a list of classmates and they worked through it to think about anything they needed to apologize for. I also made a list of specific apologies for students (hey, I AM NOT PERFECT!) 

As students worked and thought, I voiced over. "You might need to apologize for something the person doesn't even know you did!" "Think about this year and last year." "The things we need to apologize for sometimes keep us up at night. As soon as we apologize, we can stop thinking about it." "You might need to apologize for something even if that person is your best friend." "If anyone feels like they need to apologize for something to the whole group, feel free to say it now." After about 25 minutes, I told students they would now have the chance to apologize to one another privately. I explained that they were not allowed to stand near someone who was apologizing and wait. This would be rude. I explained that it was important to give everyone who is apologizing space to feel comfortable to say what they needed to say and get it out. While I was going around saying my apologies, I also was being the teacher (and trying to overhear some of them). It warmed my heart to hear kids say things like "I'm sorry for when I talked about you behind your back." "I'm sorry for not always being a good friend to you."

It was AHHH-Mazing! 

AHHH-MAZING! A lesson I will NEVER forget. And, I don't think many of my students will either. I think I taught them something that a lot of grown-ups don't even know how to do right. I even explained to them that as soon as you say "but I did it because..." you have stopped apologizing and started excusing. Keep the excuses out of your apology and remember that you can't change another person, you can only change how you act and respond to them.

The next day, I gave each student a plastic heart from the dollar store. I told them, this represents love and kindness. Each of you gets to choose whether or not you hold it tight or whether you pass it on to another person. I told them that if they choose to pass it on to another person, they must tell them why and then explain 

"This heart represents love and kindness. You can choose to hold it tight and keep it for yourself, or you can choose to pass it on to someone else. If you pass it on, you have to tell them the same."

I explained to students that by holding on to the heart and not letting it go, we actually had less love. The heart is symbolic of what we have to pass on and by passing it on (with the plastic heart or in other ways), we are actually increasing the love and kindness in the world. By the time we got together the next day, one of our hearts had already made it through the after school teachers, to another two students, and back to a student in our classroom. How awesome!

Towards the end of the week, I read Oh, the Places You Will Go. This was my book to remind them of how tough life can be, and that sometimes we might find ourselves on a dark road where we can't even remember who we are (who we used to be). I told them, "you might not even know how you got on the dark road or how to get off of it. You might find yourself on the dark road and not even realize you were on your way down it." I told them it was hard for me to give them any advice about the dark road, because everyone's dark road will be different, but I had a few strategies for them. 

1) When you realize you are on the dark road, find those people who remember the YOU that you are right now. The people who see the good in you will be able to remind you of who you are. These people might be best friends, teachers, parents, preachers, grandparents. Decide who those people are right now. 

2) Read Oh, the Places You will Go for some advice. It might help you when you are in your dark place. 

On Friday, I introduced Spy Reports. (I'll post more about how this went and show some examples in a future post). But, let's just say they were SUPER DUPER EXCITED! We have had two Spy Report sessions since, and I can already tell they will be looking forward to it each week! 

At some point in the week, I told my students "Who you are is "good people." (I know this is not grammatically correct). The phrase "good people" is common around our town. You hear "They're 'good people'" or "They come from 'good people." "They's some good people." I told them, in my mind and memory they will always fall into the category of "good people." I know who they will grow up to be will be "good people," but we need to work on bringing out who we are on a regular basis. We need to let the "who we are" on the inside SHINE OUT on the outside every second, moment, hour of every day. Now, this is a TALL order (for me too, not just my kiddos), but our continued conversations and reminders or our goal to be who we are in the most positive sense will continue to help us all grow in how we treat the people we encounter inside the classroom and out.

I hope some of these ideas will help you to build a classroom community. This is just a taste of what we did for a week. Lots more is going on, but these lessons (in January of teaching kids for a year and a half already) have set a foundation for the rest of the year that we have together and hopefully for my students' transition to middle school.

Don't forget to tune in tomorrow for a special Top 2 for Tuesday announcement! 

Incorporate more Music into your Readers' Workshop

How often do you incorporate music and lyric analysis into your reader's workshop?

This year, I have tried to utilize lyrics at least once during each of our reading units. The kiddos LOVE it when we have a workshop that focuses on connecting to the lyrics, analyzing them, and discussing our ideas with each other. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it because no matter what connections I have in mind as I share the song with students, our discussions together always deepen my connections to the text and understanding of the lyrics. I also LOVE LOVE LOVE utilizing song lyrics  because it immediately pushes students to DEEPER THINKING.

Rather than trying to remember all of the songs I have ever incorporated or hoping that I will think of them next time I need them, I decided to dedicate a pinterest board to "Songs for Literary Analysis". I also thought this board might benefit other teachers. I always pull the songs up on youtube and play through the smartboard, so I pinned the youtube lyric videos to be most helpful. Follow this board if you would like to see the songs I pin--I think most of them will be relevant for 5th grade-high school, but lower grades may find some relevant songs too!

In the descriptions, I have included some of the lines that made me choose the song, some of the themes I think the songs address, and some of the texts that connect.

Why song lyrics?

* Shake it up for students--songs are so engaging and add some variety to the readers' workshop
* Text-text connections can be made much QUICKER than when trying to connect novel to novel (songs are fast, immediate, and students can make global connections or smaller connections to one or two lines of the song)
* Writing about thoughts (responding in writing) usually improves during these lessons and is one of the main purposes of my use of lyrics in the classroom

What are my goals and objectives? 

-connecting themes
-connecting figurative language in the song to events in a story
-quoting accurately and explaining thinking with support
-oral discussion
-pushing students to respond more deeply
-allowing students to see MORE in the read aloud or book club novel because of the connections they made with the lyrics

General Steps of a Lyric-Based Reader's Workshop Lesson:

-Explain to students that you are going to play a song that you feel connects with the current unit of study/read aloud/book club books
-Play song and ask students to simply listen
-Hand out copy of lyrics to students, ask students to think about how the song connects to texts in your reading unit, play song again (students may underline parts that they are making connections with)
-Depending on the difficulty of the song lyrics and vocabulary, I may go over a few of the poetic devices, vocabulary words, etc. Sometimes I choose to save this discussion for later, but with some songs, students will get more out of the thinking/writing part if they have a little more information
-Ask students to write about their connections for a set amount of time (usually 10 to start and students often want me to add more time). Since some students will have a hard time generating ideas for that long, I will play the song again to encourage them to develop more thoughts. I often scaffold for some students by focusing them on a specific line and how it connects to their book.
-Discussion/Share- this can take many forms--1) small group discussions if everyone wrote about the same book, 2) if you are using the song to connect to book club books, have book club members find another member's written response, read it, and respond with sticky notes, rotate until they have read all members' responses or until time is up, 3) whole group discussion-can go stanza by stanza discussing connections
-Wrap Up-direct all students to find a line that really stood out to them, go around the room having them say their line--no discussion, no explanation--this is like "found-poetry" and creates a poetic atmosphere in the room; OR have students choose a sentence from their written response that they think is a good idea and share around the room in the same way

During our Historical Fiction book club focused on the Holocaust, I used "Your Guardian Angel" by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. I was able to connect the lyrics of this song to every book club book my students were reading (Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Yellow Star, Milkweed, and Number the Stars). The song talks about being there for someone forever and has the line "even if saving you sends me to heaven." In each of our books, someone played the role of the hero or father figure and might have been saying this to another character. With Boy in the Striped Pajamas, we decided that Bruno should have been singing this song to Shmuel, but he was too weak and naive to sacrifice everything for someone else. Or, he might sing the chorus, but not have the strength to follow through once faced with needing to stand up for Shmuel.

I hope I have inspired you to start using song lyrics with your students. Do you have any favorite songs that you already incorporate in this way? I LOVE using lyrics as a form of text and the days we use a song as a text always feel special!

Here are some of the common core connections I see with using song lyrics in this way:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.2 Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.3 Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.5.9 Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.5.2 Summarize a written text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.5.5 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.