Big News!

Stacey and I are excited to share that we have signed a contract with Stenhouse Publishers to write our first book! 

 The working title of the book is Write 180 and is inspired by you, the readers of Two Writing Teachers.  The main gist of the book is we have defined six essential areas of Writing Workshop (assessment, choice, conferring, mentor texts, minilessons, and routines/procedures — with celebration/sharing woven in throughout each of the main areas).  Then within each area there are three ten day cycles to inspire and support teachers as they work to lift the level of their Writing Workshops.  To gain a sense of what the book will be, check out this Big Picture Series we wrote in February as we prepared a proposal for peer review. 

Last week at the All-Write Summer Institute, I presented on the main areas of our book.  Although the presentation is bare bones without the speaking part, it will still give you a sense of our book.

View this document on Scribd

">Embrace the Energy of the Essentials of Writing Workshop (ppt)

Thank you, blog readers, for making the dream of writing a book a reality to Stacey and me.  We would have never guessed when we started Two Writing Teachers that it would lead to this path.  We appreciate your support.

Happy Independence Day.

Enjoy your holiday — Two Writing Teachers will resume posting on Monday, July 6.

Mentor Text: Subway Ride

Every Thursday, this summer, we'll suggest a picture book you can use as a mentor in your classroom with your students.

A couple months ago I received an advance copy of Subway Ride, written by Heather Lynn Miller, in the mail from Charlesbridge Publishers.  It’s a new title from the Massachusetts-based publisher this year.  As I flipped through the book, I was impressed with the colorful illustrates, by Sue Rama, which accurately depict subway stations around the world.  However, after reading the book a few times, I realized this text could be used in a Writing Workshop to teach younger students about varying sentence lengths in their writing.

Miller wrote the text with a variety of sentence structures.  There are some sentence fragments and simple sentences.  There are also some longer sentences, which include prepositional phrases, in the text.  I can envision using this book in a primary grade classroom with children who need to break out of the simple sentence structure rhythm, which little kids often get accustom to using.

This book might be best-suited for a strategy lesson, in which you group children of the same writing ability, for students who need assistance using a variety of sentence lengths.  You can think aloud about what Miller did, as a writer.  For instance, for a slightly longer sentence, such as, “Subway whizzes down the track,” I might say:  I notice that the author wants me to make a picture in my mind about where the train is going.  She doesn’t just say that the subway whizzes, or passes, by.  Instead, she tells me that the subway is whizzing, or heading, down the track, which helps me picture how and where the train is moving. However, for fragments like “Rushing breeze,” I might say:  I think the author used an incomplete thought here in order to make me, the reader, stop and think about how the breeze was moving.  I can feel the train zooming by me, causing the air to turn to wind, rushing by my face.  By writing just a couple of words, and then putting a period at the end of them, I think the author wants me to stop and think about what that would feel like.

Interested to learn more about Subway Ride, which went on-sale yesterday?  Just click here!

Welcome Mark Overmeyer!

On tour through the blog--world.

Mark Overmeyer, author of When Writing Workshop Isn’t Working (Stenhouse, 2005) and What Student Writing Teaches Us (Stenhouse, 2009) has been on tour through the blog world.  Mark, who wrote both books in small 15 – 30 minutes chunks of time over many months, joins us today for his last stop.  I’m sure he has picked up many “groupies” as he’s traveled through cyberspace.  If you’ve not read his latest book on assessment, click here for a FREE preview of What Student Writing Teaches Us, as well as a writing contest where you could win a signed copy of the book.

A powerful message Mark highlights is:

I believe the more we think of writing as practice, the more we will help our students to grow. I do not know if I was as clear with this point when I wrote the book as I could have been.

When I was a Title I Reading teacher, I saw my job as helping students to practice every day, and I looked for steady progress as they improved in their abilities to become stronger, more confident readers. I celebrated small successes, and I didn’t view miscues as “errors”, but as opportunities to learn.  But when I taught these same students writing, I often resorted to error hunting, and I became frustrated.

Writers deserve time to apprentice, and to practice. The goal is not perfection, but improvement, and this improvement can come in so many forms. We must always remember that when we ask students to write, we are asking them to generate ideas and to communicate in a way that carries both meaning and intention.

I learn so much from just talking with my students, and learning alongside them as we all seek to become stronger writers.

Writing is truly a journey, not a destination…

Thanks to Mrs. V for her question about getting young writers used to grades, as well as the issue of missing assignments (click here for the question).  Following is Mark’s response:

This is such an excellent question. I taught sixth grade for many years, and the tension many students and parents feel about grades definitely impacted my work.

I want to first of all clarify my stance on missing assignments, and also point you in the direction of some very interesting, current resources about grading practices. This is a tricky topic, by the way, so please know that these are my views, and they are in no way meant to judge any practices used by teachers as they consider how to grade students.

Most of my missing assignment issues came with homework. Some years, I literally spent hours each week tracking down students who did not turn in homework, calling parents (most of these years were in the “dark ages” before e mail), keeping students in at lunch or after school, and determining fair percentages to dock students if their assignments were not turned in on time.

Some of these issues were less difficult to deal with when I implemented the following strategies:

1.) Assign homework as practice only. For example, I may ask students to write down a few ideas for the personal essays to bring to class, but much of the drafting might take place in school. I often assign a few points for the idea assignment, but if a student does not complete the assignment, it will not impact their grade so negatively that they give up.

2.) Set up your grade book by standard rather than by assignment. Then, if a student is missing an assignment, he or she can still provide proof at a later time that a standard has been met. In a true, standards-based system, if you build in enough time prior to the end of a grading period, this can help you determine who is missing the standard vs. who is missing an assignment.

3.) Try to avoid the trap of assigning so much homework that students develop a pattern of missing assignments. The longer I teach, the less homework I assign, but the more meaningful the homework (I hope) and the more connected to standards (at least that is my goal). Many parents have spoken to me about not assigning enough homework. They worry because I do not have 30 or 40 or 50 grades per semester. I try to tell them that I want each assignment to be meaningful, and I feel very strongly that my job is to help each student achieve to his/her greatest potential. More homework is not necessarily the way to get there. Right now, when I work with a group of students over time, I may actually grade only 10 – 16 assignments per semester. Then, each assignment has  meaning, and each assignment has multiple parts that must be completed along the way. I have had less missing assignments using this method.

3.) When you read this suggestion, please know that this is based on some ideas I heard in a powerful workshop with Robert Marzano about grades. The suggestion is to never give students a “0″ for a missing assignment. The issue with a grade of “zero” is that it is nearly impossible to “dig out” of the hole if a student receives a zero. If we scale grades, the largest scale is the “F” range in most schools – from 0 – 59%. This unfairly weights the “F”. The other grade ranges are only 10 points each: 60 – 69, 70-79, 80-89, and 90-100 (I guess that is an 11 point range).

So, when a student receives a “0″, it is so difficult to make this up, and they know this, and many don’t try. Some schools I know give what is called a “50 F”. If an assignment is not turned in, then a student can still make up for the missing assignment by (hopefully) turning it in, or by doing better the next time. The philosophy behind this, for me, is that we all make mistakes. If our role as teachers is to help students learn from mistakes, then the “50 F” certainly seems to be a logical compromise. Having discussed this idea with many, many teachers, I know already what some may be thinking: “This will encourage laziness” and “Students have to learn sometime” and “Why would I give them something they have not earned?” I respect these points, but I am also suggesting that we must consider how we can use grades to support student achievement, and not just as a system of  rewards and punishments. Remember that if a student receives an “F” in an academic subject in middle school, this student is very, very likely to become disengaged in school and drop out before finishing high school. There are articles about this phenomenon – I apologize for not recalling where I have read these studies.

Is the student responsible for missing assignments? Of course.

But, teachers are responsible for creating fair grading systems, and my honest opinion is to agree with Marzano: a 59 point spread for an “F” and a 10 point spread for a “C” or a “B” does not seem fair. Just because it has been that way for more than a century does not mean we should continue with this method of grading.

For much, much more on fair grading systems, see the excellent book Fair Isn’t Always Equal by Rick Wormeli.

A final suggestion, and one that I am sure you employ already:
4.) Establish positive, problem-solving relationships up front with parents regarding missing assignments. Try to prevent a large problem by meeting face to face as soon as an issue arises. In other words, meet before it really is a difficult issue. I know this takes time (I often met with one third of my parents prior to conference time), but the payoff was huge.

I honestly hope this helps, and at least provides a place for you to start. Grades, and missing assignments, are huge issues.

(all emphasis mine)

If Mark’s ideas impact you, please take a moment to leave a comment on this post for Mark.  Feedback fuels writers and I’m sure Mark would appreciate it.

Now that his “tour” is over, we could probably find Mark in Colorado, eating his favorite food, Xiaolong bao, a type of pork dumpling he ate nearly every day while living in China.  You can find Mark in the blog-o-sphere at: Mark Overmeyer’s Blog:  For Teachers Who Write and Writers Who Teach.

The Final SOLSC of the Month

Join us for the final Slice of Life Story Challenge by sharing a slice of your day with us by leaving a comment with a link to your post.

Memoir Monday.

Link your memory-related post to this one by leaving a comment on this post.

Link your Memoir Monday posts here.

Ruth’s Memoir Monday: Footprints in the Sand.

A week ago, I participated in a scrapbook challenge to document a part of my wedding that has yet to be recorded.  I lifted a line from a song sung during the ceremony and then reflected on it in the journaling below the photo. 

digi supplies: background paper -- serenity kit by m. fenwick designs; bracket paper -- bracketed die cut paper pack by k. pertiet; glitter zig zag -- october afternoon kit by c. silke; fonts -- old newspaper types; texas hero; georg

The song (07/99)

The photo (self-portrait, CA) (04/05)

The journaling (06/09):  Remember these words from “Where Our Road Leads” sung during our wedding?  Ten years ago I would have never guessed the footprints we would be leaving.  Footprints in our family and our community and our professional worlds.  I would have never guessed this would be the path our lives would forge.  And yet, it is so much better than I ever could have imagined.  This thing about traveling together, allowing the Lord to lead us, has ended up being an absolutely amazing adventure.  I’m so glad to be on it with you.

Updating Our Website

Have you been to the Two Writing Teachers Website yet?  If so, you’ll have noticed that it’s a place where we have some resources for quite a few units of study.  However, during the school year, things got hectic, and neither of us managed to update the companion to our blog very much!  Therefore, I was wondering what you’d like to see on the TWT Website.  Please take this poll and/or leave a comment with more information.

Reflections on the 2008 – 2009 School Year

On Monday, June 29^th, we will begin our summer posting schedule. Therefore, I wanted to take some time to reflect, publicly, on my school year, which ended yesterday at 11:00 a.m.

• Challenges
  
  • I’m delighted to have hosted the Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC) this past March. It was fantastic to “meet” so many new people. I continue to enjoy the weekly SOLSC and look forward to the Third Annual Slice of Life Story Challenge in March 2010.
    
    
  • After writing in my online writer’s notebook daily during the Challenge, I also realized that I enjoyed the physical act of writing my daily entries much more than writing online. (I’m a little different than the student you’ll read about in the reluctant writer reflection, which follows a few bullets down from here.)
    
• Leaving the Classroom
  
  • My colleagues who gave me farewell notes during the final week of the school year reassured me about my decision to leave the classroom to become a literacy consultant next year. While I’m extremely excited about helping other teachers implement Reading and Writing Workshops, it is still hard for me to believe that I won’t be putting together a classroom this fall!
    
• Notebooks
  
  • I no longer feel that kids should keep a five-subject notebook and a small idea notebook, which is how my students lived during from September 2007 – March 2009. By March of this year, I came to realize that it was too confusing to have two different notebooks. Hence, my students began using their “Idea Notebook” as their sole “Writer’s Notebook,” which meant that plan boxes, daily entries, and writing that helped to nurture their in-class assignments was all in the same place. At first it was hard for me to sift through what was what. However, I got over that (in about a week) and no longer cared if my kids were flying through Idea Notebooks since they-were-writing-a-lot!
    
    • I’ll be posting more about this once I muddle through this a bit more, in my mind, later this summer.
      
• Online Collaboration
  
  • I’ve continued to enjoy working with Ruth. The only thing I don’t love about our e-collaboration is the distance. 872 (and soon 565) miles apart is just too much! That being said, I am a better writer, teacher, and person because of Ruth.
    
  • I’m delighted that we’ve had the same “Disclosure Policy” ever since the beginning of our e-collaboration. The bottom line is this: We don’t accept any form of advertising. This key element has allowed us to write without feeling beholden to anyone. We haven’t made a dime off from writing our blog. We never have and never will accept any form of advertising since that doesn’t align with the mission we created when we started blogging two years ago. It feels good to work Ruth, who also believes in blogging for the sake of being a more reflective teacher and to connect with other educators across the globe.
    
• Poetry: The Missing Genre
  
  • This was the first year I didn’t teach poetry in Writing Workshop. At first the idea horrified me – for weeks! However, the decision was not one I made alone. The reason I didn’t teach poetry this year was because my colleagues and I felt it was important to teach a unit, which turned out to be about four weeks long, on conventions. When I graded my students’ research-based essays this past Tuesday morning, I realized the unit of study on conventions was well worth it. Their writing is stronger now that they have a greater hold on when, where, and how to write with proper conventions. It was exciting to see this kind of growth.
    
  • Originally poetry was slated to be a unit of study. We retooled, mid-year, to include a unit of study on conventions. Had we initially planned for this unit, I think it would have been possible to teach poetry. However, hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it? Thankfully, my students and I read a lot of poetry (e.g., a “shared poem” each week, 42 Miles, and Locomotion), so at least the children were exposed to a variety of poems.
    
• Probability & a Former Reluctant Writer
  
  • Student D (Click here to see who “Student D” is.) wasn’t into writing AT ALL at the beginning of the school year.  As you know, I dubbed him a “reluctant writer” and pulled him into the weekly Writing Circle.  By March I told him, “If you can write for an entire month straight, then I’ll help you set up a blog.”  He did and therefore, at parent-teacher conferences, I set up a blog for him, with his mom’s permission.  I taught him about online safety, which is why I’m not linking to his blog, and figured that the novelty of having an electronic writer’s notebook would wear off in about a week.  BUT IT HASN’T.  He posts a piece of writing every night, except for the nights Edublogs is down, which is a rare occasion.
    Student D turned-down the notebooks I gave out on the last day of school because he prefers writing on the computer. This online forum gives me a way to communicate with him by using the comments feature.  We often go back-and-forth in comments, which led to deeper conversations in school.  To that end, once I leave Rhode Island, his blog will be a fantastic way to continue our teacher-student relationship.
    

    Last week, I talked about likelihood within the context of probability.  I was trying to teach the kids the difference between impossible and unlikely.  For unlikely, which I said had about a 0.25 chance of happening, I stated, “It’s unlikely that Student D will not write a blog post tonight.”
    He piped up immediately and said, “No, it’s impossible!”
    I said, “What if you have a computer problem?”
    He replied, “I don’t care if my computer crashes, then I’ll go to my uncle’s house and write it there.  It’s not unlikely, it’s impossible!”
    “C’mon,” I said.  “What if your uncle isn’t home or there’s a blackout?”
    “Then I’ll write it in my notebook!” he said with a duh tone to it.
    “I see your point, but honestly, it’s not impossible.  It’s just very, very, very unlikely that you’re going to not write on your blog tonight, okay?” I said trying to get him to realize that there is a fine line between the highly unlikely and the impossible.
    “Fine,” Student D said, “I can live with very, very, very unlikely.”
    

    A reluctant writer withered away this year. A writer was born.
    

• Record (of Sorts)
  
  • I read Maribeth Boelts’ When It’s the Last Day of School to my students as soon as we finished watching “Akeelah and the Bee” yesterday morning. Once I finished the final page, I prompted my students to turn and talk about what they were looking forward to once the school day ended. We were scheduled to have a cake party right after the turn and talk, but once we came back together, one of my students raised her hand and said, “Congratulations!”
    

    “On what?” I asked, seeing as the kids were just talking about the things they’d do once they left school at 11:00 a.m.
    

    “Congratulations! You’ve gone five years without anyone throwing up in your classroom!” she declared with a huge smile.
    

    “You’re right!” [I have this unofficial rule that the kids should bolt from the classroom, with their hand over their mouth, if they feel like they have to throw up. In my mind, I've never understood why a child should ask permission to leave the room when they need to throw up. (Additionally, I get nauseous when someone else throws up. Blood I can handle, but vomit is another story!) Therefore, I tell this to my kids on the first day of school each year. So far, in five years of full-time teaching, no one has ever thrown up in the classroom. At the threshold of the door? Yes! In the hallway outside of the classroom? Yes! But never inside of the classroom!]
    

    Everyone laughed.
    

    “Wait!” I said. “It’s 10:15 a.m. I’m about to serve you cookies, cake, and juice. Do you think we can really make this a five year record?”
    

    The kids said yes.
    

    No one got sick.
    

    The five year streak remained in-tact!
    

• Writing Projects of My Own
  
  • I’ve done some freelance writing this past year, of which I’m proud. I’m in the midst of writing another article for Instructor, which is due next week. Additionally, I published my first journal article this year. I look forward to continuing to take on these kinds of writing projects in the year to-come. (I have a big writing project in the hopper, which I’ll announce soon.)

Grace

“How you climb up the mountain is just as important as how… More you get down the mountain. And so it is with life, which for many of us becomes one big gigantic test followed by one big gigantic lesson. In the end, it all comes down to one word: grace. It’s how you accept winning and losing, good luck and bad luck, the darkness and the light.”

–Philosophy’s “Amazing Grace”

My colleagues, Leana and Giselle, and their fifth graders did something that exuded grace on Tuesday afternoon. I simply had to blog about it today since I’ve never received something like this after inviting another class to a publishing party.

On Tuesday, after our Celebration was over, Leana and Giselle’s Class went back to their classroom and discussed the research-based, “This I Believe” Essays my students wrote about the Holocaust.  Apparently, they had an interesting discussion and wanted to share additional feedback with my students.  Hence, they created a card and every student included some thoughts about the students’ essays for me to read.  This is what the card looked like, inside and out:

What an amazing gesture! How kind of these students to provide me, and my students, with feedback about their writing!

A Writing Send-Off

Everyone received one last notebook!

Originally uploaded by teachergal

I began cleaning out my classroom supply cabinet yesterday. I found 16 leftover notebooks that were donated to my classroom from DonorsChoose. Since items donated need to remain in the school if the teacher leaves, I had to either leave the notebooks for the next teacher or give them out to the kids. I decided to do the latter since I wanted to instill the love of writing in my kids with one last gesture.

I threw in two more notebooks I bought myself and placed notebooks in each child’s mailbox yesterday afternoon. This was the response:

“Can we send them to you once we’re finished writing in it?”
“Why?” I asked.
“So you can read it!” (That response was said with a little end-of-fourth-grade-attitude!)
“But I won’t be your teacher anymore,” I replied.
“So?”

So? So, it made me feel good that quite a few students want me to still have a part in their writing lives after they leave my class.

What are your questions about assessment?

Mark Overmeyer’s new book is available early for your reading pleasure!  Just click here to go to the Stenhouse link for full access to the book, as well as a cool writing challenge (complete with a prize).

However, the really rockin’ part of it all is that Mark is “on tour.”  He’s making appearances around the blog-o-sphere, answering your deep-dark assessment questions.  Yesterday he was at Creative Literacy, talking about things like standing up for authentic assessment (even when we feel alone), DOL, and communicating the importance of formative assessment to parents.  Head on over and read some of his responses.

On July 1, Two Writing Teachers has the honor to host Mark.  He’d be happy to answer your questions, but we need to know them.  Please add a comment to this post with any assessment question that you have, a follow up question to his interview on Creative Literacy, or questions that you have in response to part of his book that you can read here.

We’re looking forward to helping you get your assessment questions answered, and even more forward to hosting Mark on July 1.

Poetry for the Summer Birthday Kiddos

Yesterday afternoon, I was fishing around for permanent markers in my classroom supply closet when I noticed the birthday pencils.  I ordered a gross of pencils from a teacher supply company five years ago and there are still quite a few left?  Why? Well, until 2007, I only gave birthday poem cards to kids whose birthdays fell on a weekday during the school year.  In 2007, I branched out to include the pencils with the cards for any child whose birthday fell during the school year.  But this year, I promised all four of the summer birthday students that they’d get a birthday card, with a poem, at the end of the school year (to be opened on their birthday).  Hence, last night, I created the cards.  Here’s what they look like:

Summer Birthday Wishes for My Students

Embrace the Energy of the Essentials.

I’d like to send a big thank you to all those who attended my session today at the All-Write Summer Institute.  I’d love to hear the essential area that you are planning to focus on in the 2009 – 2010 school year — just leave a comment to this post.  For more information on the topic of today’s presentation, check out The Big Picture Series:  Getting Back to  Basics from earlier this year.

The Truth Matters!

My students published their research-based essays on the Holocaust this morning, which was not a small feat! I was so incredibly proud of their diligence and desire to produce a quality piece of writing during the final month of the school year.  After their celebration, they went to recess and lunch.  When they returned, I had a press release waiting in their mailboxes with some not-so-good news that I learned about last night (and didn’t have the heart to tell them about until after the Publishing Party) about one of the texts we read that turned out to be a fabrication.  The first question (I’m not making this up) out of one of my student’s mouths, as soon as I finished reading the release was, “What happens if you included information about him in your essay?  If it’s not true, what do you do now?”  I smiled, delighted by the fact that she realized that the truth matters when you’re writing a research-based essay.  I explained to my students that it was not their fault if they included fabricated information from this book in their essay for me; they would not be penalized.  However, since several of them are planning to submit their essays to “This I Believe,” I told them they’d have to eradicate the sentences that talked about that book from their writing since they were untrue.

There was quite a discussion that took place after that initial question was posed to me.  There was one follow-up about removing sentences from the essay before publishing it online.  Again, this made me realize that my kids truly understand the fact that when you write an essay, it needs to include the facts.  NOTHING can be made up!  While I’m saddened that this book* does not portray the happy ending I thought it did, I am glad my students learned the lesson that you have to question and research everything, even when something claims to be “a true story” on the dust jacket.

It was difficult to share the news of the fabrication with my students.  However, not telling them wasn’t an option since they’re entitled to know the truth.  After all, the truth matters!

* = I purposely didn’t mention the name of the book my students and I read in this post since it has been pulled from bookstores.  If you’d like to know what book I’m referring to, then please click here.

Slice of Life.

Our Weekly Tuesday Challenge

Looking forward to reading your slices from today.  Looking for inspiration for today’s slice?  Why not pay attention to the places that are important to your everyday life.  Please link your posts in the comment section of this post.

Ruth’s Slice of Life: Indiana.

When I was in Stacey’s classroom, they opened their day with the poem “This is Indiana” by Rebecca Kai Dotlich.  This bit of the poem inspires my slice of life today:

This is Indiana,

veined with fields and farms.

Scored with rivers and lakes,

paved with bridges and barns.

Embroidered with churches

on rich, fertile land –

in a homeland of Hoosiers

This is Indiana

Green fields

Peppered with black cows.

Endless blue sky

Filled with white puffs.

This is Indiana

The Heartland that I love

The place I’m content

And hope to always live.

It’s taken me a long time to be comfortable with being a Hoosier.  However, after many years, I’m grateful to call the Heartland my home.  Hoping that as I linger with this poem, I will be able to craft a stronger ending.  Any ideas?

The Final Publishing Celebration of the School Year

Cookies?

Check!

Chips?

Check!

Juice Boxes

Check!

Comment Sheet!

Check!

I’ve often been asked “What do the other students and guests do at your celebrations?”  Well, I hold them accountable for commenting on my students’ work.  Tomorrow I’m having my former fourth graders come to our research-based essay Publishing Celebration.  Here’s a look at the comment sheet they’ll be filling out after they listen to one of my present students read their essay aloud.

View this document on Scribd

Memoir Monday

Link your memory-related post to this one by leaving a comment on this post.

This week I’m thinking about the importance of place.  So for my Memoir Monday, I captured some memories from one of my very favorite places of my past.  If you are looking for some inspiration to guide your writing today, perhaps you could also collect some snippets from an important place of your past.  I’m looking forward to reading your posts, please share your links here.

Ruth’s Memoir Monday: Geneva Center

One of my favorite places in this world is Geneva Center.  Here are pieces from my memory that will someday lead to more writing.

• The smell of the campfire that glows on the faces of campers.
• The sound of good stories, bible passages, and singing voices.
• Laughter. More laughter. The kind of laughter that can only happen in a place where everyone is at ease.
• Realizing the simplicity of life and seeing the things that really matter.
• Finding my place in the world.
• Finding myself.
• Taking a nap in the Blue Spruce Secret Forest, under the Old Apple Tree, and under the Communion Trees.
• Rolling down Marshmallow Hill with the white flowers tickling my nose.
• Better friendships than I ever expected.
• Experiences that would carry me through the rest of my life, making me who I am twenty years later.

It’s Hard to Believe the School Year Is Winding-Down!

I made my final News & Announcements Charts of the school year this morning.  It’s hard to believe that I won’t be making these next year (since I’ll be consulting).  I calculated how many of these I’ve made in the past three years, which is how long I’ve been doing Morning Meeting, part of Responsive Classroom, in my classroom.  I’ve made 540 of these charts — WOW!

Rubric Creation for “This I Believe” Essays

I was at the computer this morning when my students created a pretty basic rubric for their final unit of study’s essays. The following is what they created. They’ll use it to self-assess their essays and I’ll use it to give them their final grade of the school year.

View this document on Scribd

End of Year Letters BACK TO My Students

My Hope and Dream Letter

Originally uploaded by teachergal

I can hardly believe there’s only five school days left even though I’ve been going through my students’ end of the year reflection letters, and responding to each of them in writing, this past week. It takes awhile to do it well. Therefore, this is the third night I’m working on them (I’m hoping to finish this evening!).

I’ve found my responses (written on handmade note cards) to be a bit lengthier this year since I’m tying my notes back to them in with my “hope and dream” for each of my students. Seeing as I had them reflect on whether or not they’ve accomplished their hopes and dreams this year, I thought it would be nice for ME to not only reflect on what they have accomplished, but on what I hope they’ll accomplish in their school careers and in their lives.

Submission

After three – four weeks of crafting, drafting, revising, and editing my “This I Believe” Essay, I finally submitted it for publication tonight! 

The screen shot of the 'thanks for submitting' message.

It felt great to finally submit the essay, which is something I hope my students will do once they publish theirs in Writing Workshop next week.

Timelining Helps Kids Write Factual and Moving Concluding Paragraphs

I attended Beth Moore’s Session on Social Studies in the Writing Classroom at the March 2009 Saturday Reunion. It was an exceedingly useful session with tips I’ve been using in the past month ever since my class began writing their research-based essays. I realized, even though my kids could mathematically figure out how long ago the Holocaust happened, they really didn’t comprehend just how long ago it was. Therefore, I used Beth’s idea of creating a timeline on a classroom clothesline with my kids last week. Here’s what the entire line looks like:

From 50 States Challenge Bags and Timeline

So, how did this come to be? Well, here’s what we did:

1. Each student received a blank index card on which s/he wrote his/her name and birthday.  Then, we put their birthdays in order and hung them up at the far right edge (pictured above) of the classroom.
2. Next, we condensed their birthdays by month.
3. I wrote my birthday, and my husband’s birthday, which is over 20 years prior to their births, on index cards and hung them an arm’s length away.
4. Then, we went back in time a little more, putting my parents’ birthdays on index cards (and about 1.5 arms’ lengths to the left of mine and my husband’s).
5. We placed the end of the Second World War on an index card a bit behind my parents’ birthdays.  Then, we thought about important dates that we knew about/studied as a class.  We wrote a variety of dates down on index cards and then placed them chronologically on the line with clothespins as well (see zoomed-in photo below).

From 50 States Challenge Bags and Timeline

This visual representation really helped my students gain a better working knowledge of just how long ago this was, which helped them as they drafted the concluding paragraphs for their research-based essays.  It was easier for many of them write about why the Holocaust was important and should be studied since they finally realized just how long ago it happened.  I noticed lines like the following creeping into their concluding paragraphs:

• This is important because if something like the Holocaust happens again you know what cooperation can do to help people escape horrible situations.
• Other people should care about my topic because there were courageous men and women who respected others and therefore  helped a lot of people get their lives saved.

Some final thoughts:

It’s June.  We have six more school days left.  We’re a couple days away from publishing their essays.  They’ve become better writers this past month.  They’ve become more aware of time and place.  They’ve become more articulate.  I’m so impressed with my students’ work ethic and willingness to work diligently on a project like this in the final weeks of school.  I am amazed.