8 pARTS and Creative Writing with Research

Before I share today's 9th grade writing lesson with you all, I have to give a big, huge, ginormous SHOUT OUT to my edifying edu-buddy Cheryl Morris and the indomitable Jon Corippo. The evolution of this lesson and writing task begins with Corippo's 8 pARTS and Cheryl's sharing of her versions of said resources.


Here is a quick tour of Corippo's 8 pARTS: using imagery in art to teach grammar skills.

Teaching English Mastery with Imagery from CUE, Inc

Great stuff, right?!  
I think so too!

But, I'm a bit of a stickler for visual design and the layout of paper (dare I say the dreaded word) worksheets, I adapted Corippo's design and created my own template that included a space for the picture and grouped the parts of speech to designate relationships visually.

Click here to access the Google Doc. Go to FILE, MAKE A COPY, to create an editable version.

The talented Cheryl Morris created a rubric for the writing task, and I snagged this too, tweaking it for my class.

Click HERE to access the Google Doc version. Go to FILE, MAKE A COPY to create an editable version. 

For our first repetition of this assignment a week ago, students focused on a picture that could relate to our reading of Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game." The students wrote their paragraph on paper and I conferenced with each individual student, going over the worksheet and rubric and providing narrative feedback on the paragraph. Notice the rubric focuses on the application of grammar concepts, not necessarily the creativity of the writing. Don't worry, that will get added in later. At the end of each conference, students were told to write down a list of ideas for revision based on our conversation-- don't actually start revising (yet), just down a plan to revise.

After all conferences were complete (this took a few days), students were directed to revise and type their scene based on the picture, relying on their revision list. I told them at this point to stop thinking like students and to start thinking like authors: the picture was a starting point, now go in any direction that makes sense, as long as dialogue and description was included in the writing. Some wrote a continuation scene of "The Most Dangerous Game," others capitalized on the theme of the story and wrote a fanfiction piece using characters from the Hunger Games. To "publish" their work, students added the link to their Digital Writing Portfolio (more on that in another post!).

For our second repetition of the 8pARTS task, which took place today, I added a bit of a twist. See if you can spot it in today's agenda posted to our Edmodo class group:

We started the task same as before: close read the image and jot down a list of examples of each part of speech in the picture -- a picture which was also a connection to our reading of James Thurber's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

After our list was generated, I told the students this is a picture taken from real life, not a film, tv show, or one of Walter's daydreams, and I asked them what questions they had. Shouts of "How old is that plane?" "What kind of plane is that?"  "Did that come from the Bermuda Triangle?" "Is that Amelia Earhart's plane?" reverberated through the room.  

I replied, "I don't know. How about we try and find out?"

(Ok, so I really did know some things about this plane, but I learned so much MORE during the next step.)

Students grabbed their phones or borrowed a Chromebook. They started typing in keywords to search; I showed a few how to do a reverse Google Image search.

And an amazing thing started to happen: around the room, I heard exclamations of "I found it!"

Students visited the sites and started shouting out information: the plane is a FM-2 Wildcat; it was in Lake Michigan; it crashed during a training mission.

AND THEN they started digging deeper: they found the name of the pilot, the name of the ship the plane took off from, the story of the crash, how long it was underwater, what happened to the pilot, how many other planes are in Lake Michigan, how this plane was found and recovered, and where the plane is now.

As they found the information, the students were directed to keep a running list of notes in their composition book.

By the way, this whole research phase took less than 10 minutes. I didn't hammer them on sources and citations (yet) of their information. For now, I wanted them excited about what they found. Don't worry, we will cite our sources later.

Calling the class back together, we compiled our quick research and created a plot diagram of the story of this plane: The FM-2 Wildcat flown by Ensign William Forbes from the deck of the USS Sable that had engine trouble during a training mission and crashed into Lake Michigan. Forbes was rescued, and after 70 years, the plane was recovered where it was later transported to an aviation museum in Florida.

Students got a kick out of my puns, because there was literally rising action as the plane takes off, and literally falling action as the plane crashes.




And now comes the final (almost) step to this task.  I told my students to pick one event on this plot diagram and write the scene of this event. As if ripped from the pages of a larger novel, write the scene with characters, setting, dialogue, description pulled from the research, and (oh yeah, can't forget these) underlined and labeled examples of the 8 parts of speech.

Tomorrow, as I walk around the room quickly scoring their worksheet and draft completion using the same rubric above, I'll offer some narrative feedback, and they will type up their handwritten draft in Google Docs, publishing it by adding the link to their doc to their Digital Writing Portfolio (more on that in another post!). 

But seriously, I can't wait to read what they've written!

From one photograph, students practiced visual analysis, critical thinking, grammar, 8 parts of speech, research, and creative writing skills.

That in itself is a work of art.

Have You Done Your Summer Reading?

Whenever I run into students during the summer months, I always ask them, "Have you done your summer reading yet?"  As an English teacher, it is an obligatory question.  But summer reading doesn't have to be a chore or a snore.

Summertime is my opportunity to catch up on my reading.  As much as I like to read for entertainment, I can't squeeze it in during the school year. I've become a binge reader: devouring 100s of pages in a single sitting during holidays, breaks, and summer.  Two Christmases ago, I finished the first Game of Thrones book in 24 hours because I could not put it down.  This summer I'm binging on the escapism of historical fiction and sci-fi/fantasy.

So far this summer I've read...

• Ernest Cline's Ready Player One-- anyone who grew up in the 1980s and played video games will love this one!
• Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth
• Andy Weir's The Martian
• Robert Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky
• Consuelo Saah Baeher's Three Daughters
• MJ Fletcher's soon to be released novella, Knights of Electricty
• Elizabeth Chadwick's The Summer Queen
• David Blixt's Prince's Doom, the latest book in his Star Cross'd series on the historical fiction of the Montague and Capulet feud in Romeo and Juliet
• Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad which captures Odysseus' wife Penelope's perspective

On my list of texts to read...

• Sara Gruen's At the Water's Edge (just waiting for the Kindle price to drop!)
• Khaled Hossein's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns
• The Midwife's Revolt by Jodi Daynard
• Ursla LeGuin's Lavinia

When it comes to reading professional texts, on my list are...

• Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer
• Carol Dweck's Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
• Kate Messner's 59 Reasons to Write

If I keep up my current pace of finishing a book ever 2-3 days, I should be able to cross off the titles on my list during the last month of my summer break.  When I shared the titles I've read this summer via Facebook, my husband (who is not a reader) jokingly asked if I read, The Housekeeper.  I have not!  Nor have I read the other books in the series: The Laundress and Dishwasher Diaries. There isn't any time to clean when I have so many books to read! 

What books are on your list?  Please comment with your suggestions for fiction and nonfiction texts-- keep me reading so I can avoid cleaning!

All non-Honors track students are assigned to read the same book per grade during the summer.  The titles were selected based on budgetary constraints. We have some copies that can be checked out by students and all of the titles can be read online via a free digital text or thru Curriculet's platform. On the first full school day, all students take a test on their assigned title and the score goes in the gradebook. Over years of trying to find the best way to manage a summer reading program, this was the easiest and least painful method.  But, does summer reading have to be painful for students?

As the only 9th grade Honors English teacher in my district, I have complete control over the summer reading assignment and strategically assign texts and activities for completion.  I purposely chose texts that would engage the students and align with concepts taught throughout the upcoming school year (see my Writing Map and Reading Map). My students read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Clive Barker's Abarat, and the school-assigned reading of John Steinbeck's The Pearl. Students are given paperback copies of Hobbit and Abarat, but are tasked with accessing a digital version of The Pearl.  Abarat and Hobbit balance each other: both a long epic texts that follow Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey steps, one with a female protagonist and the other feature a male protagonist.  While reading, students are to keep a reader's response chart, noting their observations and connections to the text.  I do not give a set number or length of entries because I want to see what the students will give me.  When we return to school, students will take a quiz on each of the titles to check for understanding and I will award them completion points for the chart.  We use the summer reading titles as a basis for learning about literary analysis and mentor texts for creative writing throughout the first marking period.

In addition to the fiction texts, my Honors students are also taking part in Curriculet's and USA Today's Summer Reading Challenge.  Students are to select at least 10 articles (I assigned them at least 10, but they can read more than that number if they want to win prizes) and answer the questions embedded in the text.  Each article is tagged with one Common Core Curriculum Standard and contains 3-4 questions that check for understanding using the lens of the standard.  Before my students ever set foot in my classroom, I am getting to know them as they show me when, how, what they are reading in Curriculet.  I can track their progress, see what articles they selected, and monitor their performance. I can see who is a procrastinator and who is an overachiever. I can use the data to create lessons that will bolster their weaknesses and meet their interests.  Students are motivated to read can also win prizes: folks who read at least 3 articles in a day are entered into the daily drawing to win a pair of Beats Headphones; those who read 3 articles a day for a number of days during a week are entered in a weekly drawing for an Apple Watch.  And there are district prizes too! One of my incoming freshmen won one of the daily prizes last week:

Congrats to the daily winner of the #SummerReadingChallenge - a student from Southern Regional School District! @KtBkr4

— Curriculet (@curriculet) July 20, 2015

All of this makes me wonder about the value of summer reading.  Is it for pleasure? Is it for an assignment? Is it to win prizes? I'm curious to know how you or your district handles summer reading. Let us know in the comments!

Link to Posts in Edmodo

Every post in Edmodo has an unique URL.  Grabbing the link to a post in Edmodo is a simple process as shown in the video below.

Why would you want to grab a link to a post?  This is an easy way to track student participation in a group.  Rather than trying to tally up how many times a student posted or replied in a group, create an assignment where the student turns in the links to either the posts they created or replied to.  I use this method to keep track of participation in our Scribe City writing group.

If you notice in the above assignments, the students are posting their writing/replies publicly to the group AND turning in a 5-10 sentence reflection on the process which only I will read.  This step helps to build metacognitive thinking skills. Using this process of turning in a link to a post saves me time with assessing student participation and keeps the students writing.

Creating Student Community Writing Spaces

Using Kidblog, I tried blogging with my students during the 2013-14 school year, and while they did fine writing, we struggled with finding an authentic audience to comment on the 130 individual blogs.  I wanted to generate traffic with #comments4kids, but my district was very leery of having student writing set free in the wilds of the internet.  I understood the administrations skepticism and kept my students in a walled garden.  So our blogs became nothing more than online journals.

I know there are teachers and classes out there who are very successful at blogging, but for me it just could not continue outside of the classroom.  Quadblogging with other classes was out because I couldn't guarantee consistent access to computers for my students.  I entered the 2014-15 school year with PARCC looming and defeatist attitude towards blogging with my students.

But I did spy a certain kind of hope: my ELAFlip Voxer group is ever the wealth of ideas and support. And I asked the group if they would be willing to create an Edmodo writing group. Sticking with the theme of gamification for one of the teachers, we named the group Scribe City.  In this group, students post drafts of their work and receive feedback from students. The group is very organic. Teachers assign tasks as they align with their lesson plans. We don't have a set schedule for posting writing or giving feedback, and even when PARCC acquired all technology in my building, we could keep participating in Scribe City because students could access Edmodo on the phones or at home.

In Scribe City, students post writing as either part of the Edmodo Note or an attached Google Doc any time, and anyone in the group can comment. We encourage the students to comment on content, grammar, diction, style etc by providing constructive criticism--something that will make the writing better and not just confirm (ie "good job!")--even suggesting resources that would help. We also tell the writers that they are to provide an explanation of the task/assignment and state what they specifically would like feedback on or help with. We want students to engage in a conversation with the others about writing. General digital citizenship rules apply as students demonstrate collegial communication skills. Teachers monitor the group to make sure everyone is appropriate. To make sure the group is active, we let each other know when our students are posting assignments.

Scribe City has also become a haven for my artistic, introverted students, with one student making it her writing residence. Maddy was an Honors student in my 8th period 2013-14 freshmen class. Gifted writer, she was painfully shy and never spoke up in class. When I started Scribe City in 2014-15, I sought Maddy out in the halls and told her about the group. Giving her the join code, I encouraged her to jump in and share her writing even though she was no longer a freshmen. Without any additional prompting, Maddy posted her poetry and short stories.  She engage in conversations with the other students without trepidation.

Maddy's identity has been protected by a disguise. 

No matter what tools we share or strategies we devise, as educators we are constantly seeking out what works for our students and ourselves.  While blogging didn't quite work as well as I hoped, Scribe City has been success.  If you are interested in join the group, please contact me.  I also welcome any comments on how you've implemented blogging or created other places for students to write for an audience.

Manipulating Texts: Unmagnetic Poetry

Since reading Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, my 9th grade students have been focusing on the concept of the American Dream, analyzing companion texts such as Steve Jobs' 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford University, MLK's I Have a Dream, and Ashton Kutcher's  2013 Teen Choice Award Acceptance Speech. We close read them, answered comprehension questions, and made comparisons with how each text answers the question, "What is the American Dream, and how does one achieve it?" Wanting to provide them with a "fun" (ok English teacher's definition of fun) way to engage with the texts, I divided my students into groups and had them compose original poems from the words a la magnetic poetry. 

I'm sure we all remember the magnetic poetry kits.  I may still have a few hiding in a box somewhere from when we moved to our house four years ago.... Magnetic poetry kits are useful for sparking creativity, but there is no need to rush out to the store (or in my case, tear apart boxes in the attic).

To create the kits, I copy/pasted each speech into a Google Doc (Word works fine, too), played with the font and size of the text, and deleted common words, then cut the words out by hand and stashing them in their own envelope.  At first I tried creating word clouds of the speeches in Wordle, but the variation of font size and the way in which the words were laid out on the page made it difficult for cutting the words out. I was also running out of time and had to quickly devise a new method when I realized the word cloud wasn't working out as planned.  The Word doc worked fine and I varied the font per speech.

Students got into groups of 3 or 4, making a table top out of their desks. Each group received an unmarked envelope and got to work composing their poems and snapping pictures that were uploaded to our Edmodo class group. It was interesting to see how students initially maintained a linear structure for their unmagnetic poems, and it took prompting by me to try out other formations.

Towards the end of the period, I reconvened the class and we discussed their artistic choices and if they recognized the original text. Students easily figured out which speech was which, and we had a lively discussion about diction and theme.

Check out some of their poems below:

Mentor Texts & Writing

Recently, during my English department meeting, we discussed ways to incorporate more nonfiction writing, especially writing that is research based, in our classrooms. Many of us agree that the 8 week research paper unit in which skills are taught in isolation to the rest of the curriculum is not an effective strategy, and while I've done well with integrating research skills into daily tasks, I know my students are still weak at pulling it all together into a cohesive writing piece.

In the beginning of the school year, I introduced my students to Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey concept and used the short stories read in class as mentor texts for fiction writing.  Rather than having my students write an original hero journey story (which would be a novel!), students drew a plot diagram for an original concept of a story and wrote one scene as if ripped from the pages of a book.  The students attempted to emulate the writing techniques of Richard Connell, Edgar Allan Poe, and Richard Peck in their original stories.  Using the short stories as mentor texts provided my students with models of effective writing techniques and the entire project was a success!  You can read some of their stories here, which we published on a website.

The mentor text strategy worked so well for fiction-based writing that I thought, "why not use this same strategy for nonfiction writing?" Students can read nonfiction pieces from acclaimed authors, identify the writing techniques used, and then write a nonfiction piece attempting to use the same techniques.  Sounds good, right?  Ok, well this is where I need YOUR HELP.

I think using mentor texts is a very viable strategy, but I don't know where to start!  There are so many texts to choose from!  I started this collaborative Google Doc in the hope that we can crowdsource some ideas for using mentor texts for nonfiction writing.  PLEASE, oh PLEASE, click on this link and add your resources, texts, and writing task ideas to this page. You can view the document below.

THANK YOU!

Connecting with Authors via Social Media

While many will vilify social media and focus only on the posts where folks are acting inappropriately or unprofessionally, social media is very powerful tool for connecting regular ol' folks like you and me with experts in a field.  I use Facebook to share photos of my girls with family who live elsewhere and to keep up to date on what some of my favorite authors are up to.  I've had a guest post by author MJ Fletcher, and I've written before about connecting with Shakespearean actor/director and author David Blixt via Facebook and this week I had the opportunity to converse briefly with Diana Gabaldon.

Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series is at the top of my must-read list if you like historical fiction/sci-fi/fantasy/timetravel books. Her work is really knows no bounds of genre, and it so wonderfully well researched and written. Much to the delight of her fans, Gabaldon's novels have recently been turned in to a TV show on the Starz network sparking a whole series of blogs and websites dedicated to all things Outlandish which Gabaldon frequently shares the links to such sites via Facebook. One such site, Outlander Anatomy, is a fascinating read about the science of anatomy using the characters and events in the TV series as inspiration for the posts.  Gabaldon also shares excerpts from her novels and current projects, and she will even share HOW she writes.

As an English teacher, I deconstruct and analyze texts with my students, and often I am (and every English teacher out there is) accused of close reading too far into the text. My students will question, "How do you KNOW that Poe is using irony in "Cask of Amontillado?"  "How do you KNOW Shakespeare intended to invert the gender roles in the balcony scene of Romeo & Juliet?" My defense often involves supporting my opinion with proof from the text and, if available from the author, researched explanations. We also have a discussion about who creates meaning in texts: the writer or the reader? The answer is both.

I also use literature as a means for modeling writing for students.  We examine the techniques used by acclaimed authors and students attempt to use the same technique in their own writing. We examine Richard Peck's use of literary devices and motif in "Priscilla and the Wimps," Poe's use of narration, verbal irony and dialogue in "Cask of Amontillado," and Richard Connell's use of ellipsis and characterization in "The Most Dangerous Game". We analyze each author's style, diction, sentence structure, and I challenge students to attempt using these same techniques in our Create a Hero project. The students draft a profile of a hero they create, map out the storyline following Joseph Campbell's monomyth/hero's journey, and write a scene as if ripped from the pages of a larger novel. Students are now sharing their scenes and talking about the choices they made in crafting the story. So not only have we discussed how an author writes, but the students take on the role as authors and showcase how/why they wrote the scene they way they did.

Thanks to Facebook and the power of social media, I can share with students an example of how one author crafts a story and makes intentional choices when writing.  Take a look at these screenshots of Diana Gabaldon sharing an excerpt from her novel, Written in My Own Heart's Blood, complete with annotations explaining the scene. The original post is much, much longer, so you will have to go to Facebook to read the rest.

And if I didn't think Diana Gabaldon sharing her work was cool enough, she also REPLIED to my comments on her post validating how I teach writing through literature. 

#CEL13: Connections

I couldn't afford the cost of attending the entire NCTE conference this year in Boston, but I was able to attend and present at the Conference on English Leadership, an intimate conference tied to the main NCTE event that was held November 24-26.

The 2013 CEL convention focused on the theme of Transformative Literary Leadership and Learning, and my session was STOP BLEEDING RED INK: Using Paper and Online tools to assist in evaluating student work. I'm very passionate about changing the perception of English teachers as red pen wielding warriors. English teachers should not be lugging home piles of papers to red pen and spending 20+ hours outside of school grading student work. Available technology AND teaching strategies can empower students to create better products better than any red mark on a paper. I'm very grateful to Heather Rocco and the CEL leadership for the opportunity to share my thoughts how on to transform literacy learning in the classroom with people who can effect change in their districts.

Celebrity Sightings & Twitter

Twitter has become such an integrated part of my professional learning. Sharing resources, working out issues, and conversing on Twitter with like minded individuals has propelled my teaching practices.  On more than one occasion, I was called "prolific" in reference to my tweeting habits during the conference-- if they only knew. One of the highlights for connecting via Twitter is being able to meet tweeps in person, face to face. 

#CEL13 love that so many of those I follow on twitter are here in person!
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 25, 2013

There were quite a few people at the conference who I did not recognize until they mentioned their Twitter handle.  One such moment occurred with Colette Benett:  it wasn't until I saw her Twitter handle @teachcmb56 that I realized I follow her on Twitter and regularly read her blog. "OH! You're Used Books in Class! I love your blog!"  was my immediate response when I connected with her and fellow teacher Stephanie Pixley during #CEL's social hour.  Nothing beats discussing Odysseus, Frankenstein, and Pygmalion over a class of Cabernet. 

Amazing geeky awesomeness. Talking abt The Odyssey over wine. #cel13
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 25, 2013

Colette made an interesting point in one of the sessions (please forgive my paraphrasing): Teachers are always doing dress rehearsals; we are never actually performing a final show. Every period we teach is just a dress rehearsal at best, and if we are lucky to teach the same prep, we can perform it multiple times with the 3rd showing probably the most successful. I think she is right! I wonder, how can teachers be on stage for a final performance? Evaluating teachers' performances via the Danielson model isn't the answer. I also wonder, why do teachers need to be on stage? Why not let the students "steal the show"? Let the teacher be the stage director or set designer-- more thoughts on this for another blog post.



Another moment was during the lunch keynote session, where I sat at a table with fellow educators Meenoo Rami, Amy Baskin, Kate Roberts, Maggie Roberts, Chris Lehman, and others: catching sight of @teachkate written on a name badge, I exclaimed, "OH! YOU'RE @TEACHKATE! I follow you! I'm @KtBkr4!" Once our Twitter handles were shared, we realized that we already "knew" each other. 

#CEL's keynote line-up was jammed packed with Twitter-celebs, amazing educators who cut the edge. Eric Sheninger touted the importance of being connected in his conference opening keynote. Troy Hick's keynote on digital writing resonated with me for it focused on what I am trying to do with my students: get them writing more and for an authentic audience. I carted around my copy of Hick's Crafting Digital Writing hoping to catch an autograph.  Donalyn Miller's keynote on fostering life-long readers was funny, smart, engaging. Meenoo Rami's keynote on connecting with her students and empowering their learning through relevant projects. I want to be in class with all of these people!

Tough decision: tweet or eat during @meenoorami 's keynote .... Actually not tough decision.... #cel13
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 26, 2013

One of many highlights for the conference was sitting with Meenoo Rami, Kate Roberts, Maggie Roberts, and Chris Lehman during lunch and unintentionally twitter-bombing Donalyn Miller's keynote. We realized rather quickly that the noise we heard emanating from the podium was her phone vibrating every time she received a tweet. We couldn't stop tweeting because her speech was relevant and inspiring, and needed to be shared.

@KtBkr4 @meenoorami @donalynbooks I thought that was so funny and a good reminder of how rich the conversation is around the speakers!
— Christopher Lehman (@iChrisLehman) November 26, 2013

#cel13 @donalynbooks HERE IS DONALYN'S SLIDESHARE: http://t.co/r7JzUyNDhk
— Christopher Lehman (@iChrisLehman) November 25, 2013

One session really got me thinking about writing instruction. Erika Bogdany's Breaking Down Walls: how to break down the walls of a classroom for inclusive learning among staff and students.  By changing the mindset and having staff model independent reading and participate in an Educator's Editing Workshop, student accountability, connections, and performance are increased.

AH-MAZ-ING Educator Editing Workshop breaking down walls. Ts & Ss see/learn more abt process of learning & selves. #cel13 @ErikaBogdany
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 25, 2013

Interesting concept: Educator's Editing Workshop. Other subject area Ts read/edit Ss work. Strategic, Deliberate & structured #cel13
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 25, 2013

The Educator's Editing Workshop is simple: invite other staff members from other subject areas to sit with students and conference about their writing.  Amazing concept. Erika is to be commended on her ability to pull this off. She really got me thinking about how I could bring this to my school.

If you've read my other blog posts about grading writing, I harp on this issue: writing is never finished.  Erika made this point in session.

change language: "final draft" needs to be "BEST Draft (for now)" Can always make writing better later. #cel13 #engchat #flipclass
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 25, 2013

So why do we mislead students by labeling it as "final"?

Another highlight was bumping into Penny Kittle and getting her to follow me on Twitter. 

Yay! @pennykittle follows me! Gushing blushing goodness! Love twitter for connections & #cel13 for opportunity to meet f2f
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 26, 2013

I have some reading to do: I picked up copies of Penny Kittle's Book Love, Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer and Reading in the Wild.  While I have had a hand in crafting the curriculum, I'd like to see what else I can do with my students besides whole novel instruction for reading. While I didn't grab it YET, I'm also enamored with Chris Lehman and Kate and Maggie Roberts' concept of Falling in Love with Close Reading. Their session got me thinking about how much close reading I do with my students (A LOT). Really, we don't need to close read everything in class. It does take up a lot of time and I can always sense the moments when my students have had enough. So putting Kittle's and Miller's ideas into practice with this notion of selective close reading, I wonder how I can restructure my class so that reading is more student centered and authentic.

I want to close read every text I teach w my Ss. Good to put in perspective! It is ok to only do parts, not whole. #cel13
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 25, 2013

Really, CEL could be renamed Connecting English Leaders because this conference was more than just sharing ideas about the future of ELA in schools or sharing progressive projects in conference session.  This conference promotes collaboration and connections. I have so much more to process and write about this conference-- probably another 10 blog posts, but to sum it up for now, take a look at these two tweets:

"at end of day we want to feel like we are energizing our colleagues" @MaggieBRoberts #cel13 Lift each other up, not be beaten down
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 25, 2013

"Our work can't happen in isolation" #cel13 @meenoorami here! Here!
— Kate Baker (@KtBkr4) November 26, 2013

To see ALL of the tweets from #CEL13 search Twitter or try drinking from this firehose of a stream.

Happy Birthday Blog!

My blog turns one-year old today!

21,263 page views

Thank you to all who have read my blog this year!

I know I haven't posted much lately, but I have a list of topics to write about once I get through the end of the school year. Please continue reading and sharing my posts!

Coming Attractions:

• Gobstopper
• Edcanvas
• Voice Comments & 121 Writing
• Thinglink
• Padlet
• Class blogging

And in case you missed them, here are some of my favorite posts...

• Showcasing Student Work with #OdysseyExperts 
• If We Could Write 10,000 Words
• Idioms, Not Idiots, for Promoting Speaking Skills
• The Dog in BYOD
• Writing About Grading Writing (Again)

Talking Squirrels & Ninjas: Silly Technology Use

While browsing through the Language Arts community on Edmodo, I came across a post by Kalina Noelle, who shared a simple and easy newspaper clipping generator, and Mrs. Osborne who replied with another site with even more newspaper templates. Cool!

While the newspaper clipping tool is very useful for creating story starters or fake articles about content studied in class, I also came across something even cooler on the site and generator blog:

Talking Squirrels. Really?!

Who doesn't love talking, googly-eyed squirrels, owls, tomatoes, cats or flowers!? Not me!

And it gets even better! Shut up!  

How about some ninjas and wizards writing messages?! No way!

Use them for eye-catching quick reminders for class or just plain ol' silliness to jazz up boring content on a class webpage. Awesome!

Voice Comments on Google Docs!

Check out this video, fellow teacher Carolyn P. and I made introducing Voice Comments as a cool tool for the 21st Century. Primarily used for the teacher to record voice comments on a student's Google doc, I anticipate that the capabilities will expand to include use for peer editing with classmates, and, as you will hear, use for classes that require audio.  Major props to Sam Patterson for sharing this tool with me! Just search the Chrome Web Store for Voice Comments, connect the app to your Drive, and begin using.

I am very excited to use this tool for providing students feedback on their writing.  The process is much quicker than red penning or creating screencasts of each doc, and I like that comments are linked directly to the document instead of using an MP3 voice recorder app to email a voice message to a student.

This tool is ridiculously easy to use and set up, and as an English teacher who has lots of writing to grade and critique, I'm ecstatic to use it.... wait, did I just say I'm ecstatic to grade?! This must be a cool tool!

Enjoy!

#OdysseyExperts & Showcasing Student Work

In my last post, I discussed that academic writing needs to be put on display and showcased to motivate students to write well. Writing is meant to be read, not to be locked up in a folder in a file cabinet or later tossed in the trash after the grade received.  Students think that when they turn in the assignment and meet the teacher's due date, the writing is good & done.  My other posts address my frustrations with grading the "got it done" academic writing:

• Confessions of a HS English Teacher
• The War on Writing Without Red Pens: Winning?

But what if teachers steered students in another direction and away from the impending due date? By telling students that their work will be published, instead of graded, they will (hopefully, fingers crossed) write a better final product than the "good enough, got it done" essay, and then once the essay has been written, peer edited, and then published, the teacher can go through the work and assess if the objectives of the assignment were met. While I'm not a fan of putting grades on student writing, I get it: teachers need to follow the rules or expectations of school districts and have grades in their grade book.  With the red-pen system students only see the negative and the grade, but by using a showcase approach, teachers can arrive at the same destination but in a more positive manner.  In a way, it is tricking the students to write better the first time than waiting for the grade on the paper.

Student Showcase: #OdysseyExperts

The Design

One of the Topic Pages with Links to Student Essays

Teaming up with Sam Patterson and using Google Sites, I created a place for my students to showcase their Odyssey essays and receive feedback from Sam's classes and anyone else who visits the site.  The process was fairly easy:

1. Create the site.
2. Organize the essays by topic.
3. Embed each essays on subpages to the topic page.
4. Create a Google Form for comments and embed the form on each essay page.
5. Embed the spreadsheet on the comment page.
6. Create a page for comments from Sam's classes and embed a shared folder.
7. Share, share, share with my PLN.

The Feedback Display

Sam's classes had two options for submitting their feedback:

• complete the form on a chosen essay page or 
• save their comments document in a shared folder.  

Public Comments Spreadsheet

Only owners and collaborators on a Google Site may comment on the pages, so as a work around, I embedded the same form on each student subpage and created a public comment page where all the comments will appear.  I was initially going to do a comment form and spreadsheet for each student, but that meant 65 separate forms for each essay on the site, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made to have a public comments page where the students would have to read through the comments to
find their own. The point of this project was to make student writing and feedback visible, so I want all students to see all essays and all comments.

Shared Folder of Collection of Comments

While the shared folder doesn't allow for complete visibility of feedback because my students will have to open each document in the shared folder to see all comments, students would still be able to see 1 or 2 other comments for other students because each of Sam's students wrote comments for more than 1 student on the document. In addition, some of Sam's students made videos and screencasts of commentary for my students. #EduAwesome!



After 14 years of teaching, I'm just tired of student writing being hidden and dying a death in a dusty folder in a locked file cabinet, and students thinking that the only relevant audience for their work is the teacher. I want the writing to breathe and live. By putting academic writing on display and allowing for interaction, students will see their work and the work of others and gain a better understanding of their potential and abilities for writing.

Please visit the #OdysseyExperts site, read, comment, and share. The students need to see that their writing is alive. 

Writing about Grading Writing (Again)

I'm constantly writing about the dilemmas of student writing and how to grade student academic writing in an efficient and effective manner. This is probably borderline obsessive... but, I am the type of learner who when faced with an issue/problem/question, obsesses until ... ...  ....

Options for Grading Writing:

1. Traditional: teacher does all the grading and marking up of students' writing. 
2. Progressive:  students peer edit and self assess using guided structure provided by teacher
3. Techie Traditional: teacher uses Google forms with the Autocrat, Doctopus, and  Goobric scripts, as well as other online rubric tools to assess student work.
4. Techie Progressive:  teacher designs the rubric and assessment process on a Google form using the Autocrat script and the students peer edit each other.
5. Ungraded: the teacher does not grade the writing.

Options #1-3 require time and effort in class and by the teacher.  I have happily peer edited on paper with my students, but there was just too much paper and it took up time in class.

Option #4 can be completed in and out of class, but it takes time to set up the forms, feedback docs, and scripts. BIG HUGE THANKS to Cheryl, Karl, Troy & all the Twitter peeps (Again & AGAIN) for walking me through creating this process, and the creator of the Autocrat script, Andrew Stillman, for answering my gazillion questions. I'm working on ways to better streamline the process (and not split my infinitives), but trust me, it is well worth the effort to guide students through troubleshooting their writing.

But, Option #5 I'm stealing (again) from Cheryl Morris. :-)

Un-grading Student Writing

In our #ElaFlip Hangout talking about assessing writing, Cheryl stated that she tries to detach grades from student writing. I forgot to ask if she was talking about creative writing or academic writing, but should it matter? 

Art & Academic Writing

Picture from J. Kronenber'g's Blog Post "I Can't Explain  It"

I completely agree with not scoring creative writing. I have never been comfortable putting a grade on creativity and therefore have never sought out teaching a creative writing course-- it is art and art is subjective: one critic might give Ellsworth Kelly's Blue Panel an A+ and another might give it an F. The simplest question in assessing the art is, "Does it hold meaning for me as the viewer?" The same subjective scoring can be used on student creative pieces.

I know, I know, some will say, rubrics make the scoring objective, but really? Rubrics turn writing into objects that sit on shelves. Rubrics are limiting!   Students only strive to hit the points on the rubric and not beyond.  They become complacent when they get the grade, and whose grade is it when the teacher designed the rubric?

I know, I know, I could get my ninth grade students to design the rubric with me, but they are just learning how to write, so do they know what to even put on the rubric? And me leading them for what to put on the rubric is still me, the teacher, controlling the rubric. I could use my O-S-U rubric (again) or use standards based grading and score for mastery, but does the grade on the paper push the student to continue writing? No! As Cheryl and the other ELA flippers (Andrew, Katie, Dave, & many more) will agree, as soon as a student receives the grade, he/she thinks the process is done. The point should be about keeping students writing until ...  ... ...

I fondly remember the yearly high school trip to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, and every time we flew through the exhibits just to sit in front of that blue panel and "critique" it.  My naive teenage friends and I would mimic high brow folks and comment in horrendously fake British accents on the composition, scale, and other fancy art terms, nicknaming it, "The Blue Rhombus of Life". Granted, our obsession with this painting was seemingly in a joking manner, but the fact remains that painting is still hanging in Gallery 915.

"I have worked to free shape from its ground, and then to work the shape so that it has a definite relationship to the space around it; so that it has a clarity and a measure within itself of its parts (angles, curves, edges and mass); and so that, with color and tonality, the shape finds its own space and always demands its freedom and separateness."- Ellsworth Kelly

But, this got me thinking: is this why I've had so much trouble scoring student academic writing? Every method I have used, revolves around my expectations: how well did the student follow my directions, display the knowledge I taught, and use the conventions the students have been taught throughout their academic career? I can lead the students through trouble shooting and revising their essays. I can score them on participation  meeting checkpoints, and being held accountable for the process, but do I, the teacher, really have to put a final grade on the essay?

During the #ELAFlip hangout, Katie Reagan explained that her students peer edit with other classes and students not at her school.  Getting students out of their comfort zone certainly motivated them to perform. What about an even greater audience on the web?  What about publishing their work for a bigger audience than my two hazel eyes to see? Wouldn't that "grade" the piece? It is so simple:  Is the writing ready for publication and to be "hung in a gallery"? And wouldn't that prospect motivate the student to perform well? Isn't that better than any grade I could put on the page or in my gradebook?

To adapt Kelly's words, writing is also about playing with the "color and tonality" of words so that words take shape and have a "definite relationship" that has "clarity and measure". Creative writing is an obvious form of art, and academic writing should also be considered no less an art, but many teachers and students drown in the red ink and forget the art of academic writing.

So, stop grading and focus on crafting, molding, and painting with words. 

Turn your student writers into artists.

Post Script:  Check out my next post, #OdysseyExperts, because I put into practice my ideas about showcasing writing.

A Gaggle of Google Docs

My district has enabled students and teachers to begin using Google Apps for Education. HURRAY!!!! I know GAFE is old news for many of you, but this is a big deal for my district. The roll out process has been slow and methodical so that issues can be prevented and addressed.  I've been given the privilege of testing GAFE out with my 9th and 12th grade students, and I'm figuring out how to best keep the Google Drive organized.

If you, dear reader, have any additional tips or tricks PLEASE, oh PLEASE, share them!

Creating Class Lists

The first step in getting organized is creating class lists in my Google contacts. We use Genesis as our online grade book system, and by creating a student email report, I made a spreadsheet of students in my class, copy/pasted their email addresses into the groups I created in Google contacts. No need to search through the school directory: a  very quick copy/paste and my classes are listed in my Google contacts in less than 30 seconds. This is very helpful for sharing documents and folders: I just type in the name of the group and all the students are sent the document/folder.

Shared Folders

I created a shared folder for each of my classes for delivering collaborative class or group documents that are to be used during period. The shared folder is just for documents that I create and deliver to the students, not individual documents that they will turn in to me. Think of the class folder as a one way street. I also post the link to the document on the class page in Edmodo.  With multiple ways of finding the document, students have no reason not to get the task completed.

Following the instructions provided, shared folders can be customized to create class and student folders that have viewing and editing permissions automatically enabled.  While I like having the ability to do this, I am afraid of being inundated with folders.  Also, I use Edmodo for turning in all assignments and by having the students link their Google Drive account to their Edmodo backpack, I don't need the various drop box folders for students since Edmodo organizes assignments for me.

Google Doc Assignment Delivery

Using the Autocrat script in a Google spreadsheet, students can fill out a Google form that will delivery a Google doc that has the file name, heading, and sharing permissions already configured (Thanks Cheryl for helping me with the set up!).  For all the years we have been using word processing, my students have never internalized how to appropriately name a file. I have drilled and drilled them on using file naming conventions and there are always a few students who send me files named "Essay" or "English."  The Autocrat script prevents this from happening. Yes, I want students to learn how to properly name files and I'm hopeful that by seeing the process modeled using the Autocrat script that eventually they will internalize the file naming conventions. 

I'm am using Autocrat for two things:

1. Delivering a general blank Google doc that student can type the assignment on. The Google form that delivers the document can be used infinitely ad nauseum. All student files will be organized in the same folder following the naming convention I specify: Pd Last First Assignment.
2. Delivering a specific Google doc that includes a template (for example a chart) for the student to complete. A new form/spreadsheet will have to be created and the autocrat script configured for each specific Google doc. All student documents will be in a folder for each assignment and the naming convention is again completed for the students.

At first, I was very worried about having too many files in a folder when it came time to grade the assignment, but having the students link their Google account to Edmodo and then turning in the assignment through Edmodo keeps things organized for me when it comes time to grade.  I can insert comments and make changes on the Google Docs as I can in Drive, but I don't have to worry about searching the Drive folders for the specific assignment.

I'm also exploring how to use the same Autocrat script to provide individualized feedback on student assignments (Thanks Troy for sharing this!). I haven't played with this yet, but I am just realizing the possibilities!

What About Archiving?

What I haven't figured out yet is how to archive all the student files at the end of the year, and do I need to archive them?  I know I can just un-share the folder or delete the assignments within a folder at the end of the year, but the packrat in me is leery of just deleting all the students' work.

What do you, Sir and Madame Reader, recommend when the school year concludes?