End of Year Reflection

We have actually been out of school for a week now, but as soon as I turned in grades and finished cleaning my room, I immediately headed up to Santa Barbara for a bachelorette party and a mini-vacation. Now home, I finally have some time to write a post to wrap up this school year and reflect on some of the tools I have tried this year. Here goes...

Top 5 (in no particular order)

1. Google Forms (1, 2, 3) - I love Forms. 
2. Focusing on "difficulties" while reading - I love this method because it really allowed me to remove the scaffolds I had been using all year with my students. I plan on introducing this earlier on next year, because it really helps to create a student-driven and student-centered classroom. 
3. Socratic Seminar - I know... it's kind of funny that I avoided this for so long, but I really enjoyed it. More importantly, my students really enjoyed it. On my end-of-year evaluations, one student wrote that I should do more activities that force the entire class to interact together (as opposed to just working in small groups); I think this is a perfect activity for doing just that. 
4. Doctopus and Goobric - Oh my goodness, the amount of time Doctopus and Goobric saved me in grading essays this semester! I can't even begin to express my love. 
5. Google Classroom - This one doesn't excite me that much, but since it is so easy to use AND it allows me to easily use Doctopus and Goobric, it is in my Top 5. 

Definitely Using/Trying Again

• TextHelp Study Skills
• Group Thesis Writing on Mini-Whiteboards
• Allowing students to choose their method of "active reading" - I like this a lot. However, I will not rely as heavily on it next year because I will move more quickly into focusing on "difficulties." BUT I think I will give students choice in marking/noting their individual difficulties, which is why I kept this in this particular list.
• In-class 1-page summaries to hold students accountable for their reading
• SparkNotes Reading Quiz
• Problem and Solution Projects
• Attending and maybe even presenting at the CATE Conference - We have all been through professional development that is not at all applicable to our classrooms. The beauty about CATE is that it is comprised of English teachers talking about the best things they are doing in their classrooms, so I was able to apply what I learned at CATE to my teaching almost immediately. Also, I think I eventually want to go into teacher training, so making sure I keep up my resume by presenting at these types of things is in my best interest. 
• Stand-Up Quiz
• Cognitive Strategy Snowballs
• The UCI Highlighter - Helping students SEE just how much they were relying on summarizing in their writing was a game-changer. I will use this with almost every writing assignment next year.
• Refocus Form
• Teaching students how to apologize
• The 20% Project
• TED Talks as a form of presentation

On the Fence

• Peardeck - I liked this a lot when I first used it, but then the second time, it didn't go as well. I think you just need to really know what you are doing and be sure that this is the best method of presentation to match your purpose. Also, this isn't something I would do all the time anyway, because part of its appeal to students is its novelty. 
• Newsela - Newsela has partnered with some big names in news, such as the Washington Post, which I like. I just have to figure out a better way to use this and present it to my students. 
• The rhetorical précis - I need to be honest: I absolutely hate the rhetorical précis as it has been stuffed down the throats of both high school educators and students. I hate it. I do. I am not against the real rhetorical précis as it has been used in higher ed institutions, and I understand that, in some disciplines, students are expected to frequently write them. For example, when my husband was in a Master's program at CSUSM in History, he had to write them weekly. However, what he wrote (and always earned A's on) never looked anything like the 4-sentence ridiculousness we feed to high school students. Now... since I undoubtedly will have to teach the précis in the future, I will use the method I used with my ELD 2 students. But I will still hate it. 
• Independent Reading Program - Don't throw virtual tomatoes at me. I like having an independent reading program. I just need to figure out how to better implement next year. That's all. That's why I'm on the fence. 
• Sentence Wall - I kept this up for a few weeks and then slowly started forgetting to highlight student sentences. I like this. I just need to make sure that, if I use it again, I implement it with fidelity from the beginning of the year.
• Fiction Jigsaw - Eh. I like this when in a bind, but I would much rather have students read the entire text.  
• Virtual Question Box - Only 2 students made use of this. I can't decide if I want to bother next year or not. It's not really hurting me to do it, but... I don't know... I need to decide.

Won't Bother

• Google Docs Websites - These were extremely easy. However, I mostly teach 11th grade, and my students are fairly proficient with other forms of technology. Next year, instead of allowing them to use Google Docs, I am going to force them to use something a little more complicated like Blogger or Tumblr. 
• Teacherspayteachers.com - Don't get me wrong. The lesson I got off of teacherspayteachers was awesome. My problem is that I don't really have time to peruse the website to find other resources I may want to use. They frequently send me emails about 10 free downloads, but I haven't taken advantage of any of them. I think it can be helpful, but... like I said, I won't bother using the site in the future. 
• Turnitin - This was the BIGGEST disappointment of the year! I had been rooting for my school to get Turnitin because I really wanted something that would catch plagiarism for me and save me time in Googling suspicious sentences. Unfortunately, it didn't catch everything (or even close to everything), and I still had to spend my time researching on my own. I had my online class use it throughout the semester, but I didn't bother having my English 11 classes use it after the initial assignment. 

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Next year, I will be at Fallbrook High School again. I plan to continue this blog, but I may introduce some changes. For now, I will be on a summer hiatus. I will see you back here in a couple of months. -Annie :)

Week 21: Refocusing on Appropriate Behavior

Every year, I have one class that, for whatever reason, seems to have all of the chatty students together in one class. This year, that class is my 2nd period. As the year has progressed, I've had to impose stricter behavior regulations than in my other English 11 class because they are very immature and irresponsible as a whole. A few weeks ago, in fact, I had to talk to them about being careful and cognizant of what they are saying after a student, who knew I had a miscarriage the month before, made a joke about a pile of dead babies. The next day, I used the activity "Two Truths and a Lie" to help drive home my point that they never know what is going on in the lives of those around them. I wrote down three statements about myself - two of them true and one a lie - on a sticky note which I projected on the document camera. The statements were:

1. I knew someone who was murdered.
2. My uncle is gay.
3. My brother-in-law committed suicide.

One student, who is one of my worst offenders, immediately claimed he knew which one it was; I looked at him skeptically before giving my instructions to the class. I had them discuss in groups for a minute or two, and then I had them raise their hands for which statement they thought was the lie. The class was almost evenly split over the three statements, but statement #2, the lie (and only a half-lie at that because both my husband's uncle is gay and my mom's cousin, who I call "uncle", is gay), got the fewest votes. The students who voted for #1 and #3, including the boy who originally claimed he immediately knew which was a lie, looked at me in disbelief, shock, and embarrassment. I explained to them the stories behind the "truths," and then I asked them why they thought I had them do this activity. We talked about how we have no idea what the people around us are going through, so we need to be conscious of what we say in order to avoid offending them or setting them off.

After this activity, they got better for a while, but they soon fell back into their routine of throwing insults at one another (because they are an absolutely lovely group of individuals...). On the day the 10th graders took the CAHSEE, two of the boys spoke loudly about how "you had to be an idiot if you couldn't pass the CAHSEE." Since I have a number of English Language Learners in the class who have had a lot of trouble passing the test, I immediately corrected the perpetrators; I informed them that some students had trouble passing the test, especially if English was not their first language. This shut the boys up pretty quickly, but I knew that if my goal was to get them to start thinking before speaking, then I would need to do more. 

This week, as part of a grammar activity, I showed them a few pictures to write about. When I showed them this picture...

https://twistedsifter.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/two-kids-under-a-banana-leaf-in-the-rain-indonesia.jpg

...one boy said, laughing, "They're so poor, they can't even afford an umbrella!" The class laughed, and I chided him because I know there are some students in the class who are, in fact, "so poor, they can't even afford an umbrella." Still not good enough, especially since the comment had managed to distract the class, and it took me a little while to get them back on track.

I was thinking about this when I was at home that evening. I realized that I needed to bring back my "refocus forms" that I used to use when I taught 9th graders. I thought through the logistics of this: I need to find the form, print it, make copies... I probably wouldn't be able to introduce them to the class until after Spring Break. Then it hit me: I could make a Form! Since I have a spare desk that I could turn to face the corner and Chromebooks that usually reside in my classroom, I decided to create a digital copy of the worksheet through Google Forms; this would allow me to introduce the new forms to my class the next day!

I found my original copy of my Refocus Form and quickly put it into a Google Form. When I came to the end of it, where I ask the student to write a four-sentence paragraph of apology, I paused. I remembered an article I read a month or two ago about teaching kids how to apologize; it is called "A Better Way to Say Sorry". When I read it, I was touched by how important it is to teach kids the proper way to apologize, and I immediately started using the method with my 2-year-old son. I decided I wanted to incorporate the ideas from the article into my Refocus Form as well. Here's what the finished form says (with the types of questions in italics):

• Last Name: Please type your last name. (text)
• First Name: Please type your first name. (text)
• Your Action(s): What did you do? (Check all that apply) (checkboxes)
• I was disrespectful toward Ms. Lewis, another teacher, and/or one of my classmates.
• I was talking while Ms. Lewis, another teacher, and/or one of my classmates was talking.
• I was not keeping my desk and/or the classroom clean.
• I did not get out my supplies when I was asked to.
• I was not working quietly and productively or staying on task.
• I was working on assignments from other classes.
• Other:
• Purpose: What did you want from your behavior? Why were you doing what you were doing? (paragraph text)
• Problem(s): What problem(s) did your behavior cause for Ms. Lewis and your classmates? (paragraph text)
• Acceptable Behavior: How will you behave when you rejoin the class? (paragraph text)
• Expectations: What does Ms. Lewis expect of you in class? (paragraph text)
• Consequence: If you do not behave again, what should your consequence be? (Choose one) (choose from a list)
• New seating arrangement
• Meet with Ms. Lewis to discuss the problem
• Call parents/guardians and tell them what you are doing
• Receive a class contract
• Sit in "jail" for the rest of the class
• Make up time wasted at Nutrition or lunch
• Conference with a counselor about your problem
• Apology: Please write a four-sentence paragraph apologizing to Ms. Lewis and/or whoever else you offended. (You will be expected to say this apology after you finish. Here are some sentence starters if you have trouble: "I'm sorry for..." "This is wrong because..." "In the future, I will..." "Will you forgive me for...?") (paragraph text)
• What next? (section header)
• Now that you are finished with the form, please sit quietly with your hand raised until Ms. Lewis acknowledges you. Do not submit your form until Ms. Lewis checks your answers and gives you permission to do so.

Here is the link to the sent form; here is a link to my copy of the form. (Remember, if you would like to use the form, you need to make a copy of it in order to save it into your drive. Do this by going to "File" and then select "Make a copy...") I made the list under "Actions" based off of the behavior expectations included in my course syllabus. If you have some sort of established class rules or norms, I highly recommend that you base your form off of what you expect of students in your classroom.

After making the form, I decided that I would also make a poster, similar to the one pictured in the article, that I could hang on my front whiteboard. When a student makes an offensive comment or does something else annoying, my plan of attack would be:

1. Have the student immediately apologize to me, the person targeted, and/or the entire class (depending upon the offense) using the 4-step system from the article. This is his/her warning.
2. If the student commits another offense, send him/her to the back corner to "refocus." There, he/she will work facing the back wall, so I can watch the Chromebook screen and make sure he/she is working on the form and nothing else. 
3. If the student commits a third offense, follow through on the action decided upon in the Refocus Form. 

The next morning in zero period, I made my poster. I tweaked the original version slightly to include good and bad examples for each of the sentences, which I took directly from the article. So, under the drawing of the "sorry" face, I wrote:

1. "I'm sorry for..."
1. Wrong: "I'm sorry for being mean."
2. Right: "I'm sorry for saying that nobody likes you."
2. "This is wrong because..."
1. Wrong: "This is wrong because I got in trouble."
2. Right: "This is wrong because it hurt your feelings."
3. "In the future, I will..." (use positive language)
1. Wrong: "In the future, I will not say that."
2. Right: "In the future, I will keep unkind words in my head."
4. "Will you forgive me?"

When I introduced both the poster and the refocus form on Wednesday morning, the kids laughed, but they all said it was a good idea. Immediately, a girl pointed to another student and said, "How much you wanna bet you are going to have to fill one of those out today?" The rest of the class laughed, but I stopped her and asked her to apologize. She said, "But I'm only stating facts!" To which I replied, "But you are implying that he is going to get in trouble, which is insulting. Please apologize." 

She sighed and started by saying, "I'm sorry for saying the truth." 

"Nope," I said, "try again."

"I'm sorry for... implying that you are going to get in trouble."

"Good... keep going."

"This is wrong because... you might not get in trouble. In the future, I will... keep these thoughts to myself. Will you forgive me?"

The boy said, "I'll think about it." And we moved on. I was glad I got to use her as an example right off the bat. 

Unfortunately, later on in the period, the boy she accused did have to complete a refocus form, but I was actually glad for that as well because this boy needs to do some serious reflecting on the things he does and says. Most students will shape up simply after apologizing, but the refocus form is there for the few students in the glass who just don't get it... the students who just can't seem to understand that they are actually responsible for the words that come flying out of their mouths. The refocus form also only causes a minimal disruption to the class because it allows me to quickly remove the student from the rest of the class and quiet him/her down. Now that the system is in place, all I have to say to a student is, "Refocus please," and he/she knows to go grab a Chromebook, head to the back corner, and complete a refocus form. Furthermore, I am forcing students to take a "time out" and actually reflect on what they said. And the best part? I am already seeing an improvement in their behavior.

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Ease of use: This is a very easy system to use, once you have it established. It only took about 5 minutes at the start of class on Wednesday for me to introduce it and go over it with my students. Now, they know; it is just another one of our routines. If you want to use this, but you want to go the old-fashioned route of paper and pencil, you can make up a handout and just have printed copies set in a designated area of your room. You can set up a desk in the corner, or you can work with a teacher close by who doesn't mind if you send a student in to work silently in the back of the room. You just need to figure out what you are the most comfortable with and what makes the most sense for you and your kids. Personally, I like having the "jail" in my own classroom, because then the other kids see how awkward it is for the student who has to "refocus," but, in the past, I've sent kids outside of my class, especially if I just really needed to remove them from my classroom.
Would I use this again: Yes; this is now one of our routines. I am planning on introducing it to my other periods after the break.
Downsides: Some students are very resistant to apologizing and admitting that they did anything wrong. For example, the student who I made complete the form on Wednesday tried to convince me that all he said to the girl was, "You're cool." We all knew what he really said was, "You're gay." He wrote an apology, but he still maintained the argument that he had done nothing wrong. And here is where I must make an appeal to all parents in the world: This student is an only child, and it is so obvious that he gets away with everything and anything he wants at home. Due to his egotism and narcissism, it is also obvious that his parents have told him that he is special. Please, please, please don't do this to your child! Yes, you can praise your child for doing a good job, for being courteous and polite, for being responsible, etc., but please do not say something like, "You are so smart! You must be the smartest boy on the entire planet!" If you want more information on this, please check out this article from the New York Daily News.
Applications: Classroom management

Week 18: Fiction Jigsaw

At CATE 2015, I attended a session presented by Daniel Reynolds on postmodernism. Reynolds gave us a number of strategies and resources for not only reading postmodern texts but also for teaching in a postmodern way. One of the strategies he mentioned was the jigsaw. (For information on how to "jigsaw" your classroom, go here.) He asked the crowd what types of texts we traditionally use with jigsaws; we mentioned nonfiction texts, texts that we just need to "get through," texts that help provide background knowledge for our students, etc. Reynolds explained that we typically jigsaw pieces of nonfiction because there isn't usually a story line those texts follow, and since there's no story line, we don't have to worry about our students missing something or not understanding something by only reading the piece that they are assigned. If we jigsaw a fictional piece, we are playing with the order of the narrative, much in the same way that many postmodernist authors play with the order of their narratives. (In fact, Reynolds told us about a book called The Unfortunates by B.S. Johnson, which was published in 1969. It is a "book in a box" - all of the pages come, unbound, in a box, and you can essentially read them in any order you want.) On the handout he gave us, Reynolds noted, "This approach pushes into stark awareness for students how meaning is constructed, and how we understand plot, characterization, and other literary elements as steps in a process of meaning making." While I was sitting in the session, I immediately decided to use the jigsaw with The Awakening.

I'll be honest ... I have actually used the jigsaw with fiction during my student teaching with The Crucible; it didn't go very well, and I felt guilty when other teachers espoused strong opinions about how students need to read texts in their entirety and not in bits and pieces. Now, however, I have a new rationale behind the method - it is a postmodernist approach! It's perfect, especially since I am having them read "A Rose for Emily" soon after finishing the novel, and my students always have difficulty with the fact that the story isn't told in chronological order. Also... and, again, I will be honest... I am getting really bored with The Awakening because we have been reading it for so long! It is just over 100 pages, and we have been reading it since the beginning of February! If I am bored, there is no doubt in my mind that my students are bored. We need to finish this book, and we need to do so as quickly as possible.

I introduced the strategy Monday right after the conference. In groups of four, each student read a different chapter and then was responsible for teaching that chapter to the rest of the group. At the end, the groups were to write a one-sentence summary on what happened in all four chapters. By coincidence, my student teacher used the strategy again this past Tuesday and Wednesday in much the same way for a lesson she needed to videotape for her school. Her jigsaw got the students through chapter 28 out of 39. Toward the end of 2nd period on Wednesday, one of my students told me that he really liked doing the jigsaw because meeting in the "expert" group to hash out the details of his chapter helped him to really understand what happened in that chapter.

Wednesday afternoon, I had a decision to make: we could keep plowing ahead and take another week and a half to finish the novel, or I could use the jigsaw on a larger scale to finish the novel by the beginning of this coming week. I opted for the latter.

At the start of class on Thursday, before I even explained what we were doing, one of my students asked, "Ms. Lewis, why do we keep doing that jigsaw thing? Is it because we need to finish the book?" I smiled and, as always, answered honestly, "Yes, we are doing it to help us finish the book. However, it is also a postmodernist approach to reading because it forces you to read the plot out of order. Do you remember how in your project on postmodernism you learned that postmodern authors often play with the sequence of events?" He did. "Well, the jigsaw does that same thing. Also, it will help prepare you for a story we are going to read called 'A Rose for Emily,' in which the events are not told in order." He nodded. The rest of the class nodded. I introduced how we were going to jigsaw the rest of the book.

In my classroom, my students are sitting in groups of three or four because I often have them work in groups. In 1st period, I have ten groups, so I assigned each table group a chapter between 29 and 38; these table groups would become the expert groups on their assigned chapter and would report on their chapter to the rest of the class. I told the groups to read silently. Then, when they finished reading, they were to begin working on a poster, in the form of a Frayer Model, that should include the following information:


On Thursday, students read and began working on the posters. Yesterday, after their vocabulary quiz, they told me they wanted to keep working on their posters. (!) I will give them about five minutes to finish on Monday, and then they will "teach" their chapters to the class. During the presentations, I am going to force my students to practice their listening skills by telling them that they are not allowed to write anything down while the expert group is presenting. However, after each presentation, the students will be responsible for writing down notes on the chapter. (I don't want them writing during the presentations, because then they will just copy what's on the poster, which doesn't help them internalize the information.) At the end of all the presentations, they will write a 3-5 sentence summary of what happened in chapters 29-38. Then, on Tuesday, we will finish the book together.
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Ease of use: Honestly, the jigsaw is very easy to implement once you have a text you want to use, especially if that text is already "chunked" for you. The most important thing is to make sure students understand what they are responsible for.
Would I use this again: Yes. This isn't a strategy to use all the time, but in certain scenarios, it can be very valuable, especially in getting the students to work together.
Downsides: The students don't actually read the entire text. (Not all of them got to read the part in which Edna finally kisses Robert!!! I still feel a little bad about this...)
Applications: As Daniel Reynolds explained and as I've illustrated, you can do a jigsaw with fiction as well as nonfiction. The website I linked at the top of this post - The Jigsaw Classroom - gives detailed instructions on how to use the jigsaw in your classroom.

Week 17: Sentence Wall and Cognitive Strategy Snowballs

Sentence Wall

On February 19th, I attended an all-day professional development workshop at Cal State San Marcos, as part of an on-going grant that Fallbrook High School is involved with. The second half of the day focused on grammar instruction, and as a side note to the strategies she was walking us through, the woman presenting (whose name I can't remember!) mentioned that, when she worked in high school, she had a "sentence wall" in her classroom. She explained that, while students were writing, she would walk around the room with a purple highlighter. When she saw a really well-written sentence, she would highlight it. Her students knew that if she highlighted one of their sentences, sometime during the period, they were supposed to go write the sentence and their name on a strip of paper and post it on the sentence wall. 

Her mention of the "sentence wall" was probably no more than 1 minute during her 90 minute presentation, but it stood out to me more than anything else she said that afternoon. It wasn't that the other strategies she gave us weren't good (they were actually extremely useful, and I look forward to implementing them in my classroom over the next few weeks); it's just that this was something I could do immediately, without much planning, especially since I had some unused bulletin board space in my classroom. Also, I really liked the idea of doing this with my ELD 2 kids because they work so hard to write complete sentences in English that it would be nice to do something to publicly recognize and display their hard work. 

So, at the beginning of the week, I tasked one of my TAs with cutting strips of paper, and I stole about 20 pushpins from another teacher. (I left her a note telling her I would repay her, but she emailed me to let me know I didn't need to.) I made a sign that says, "Super Sentences," and I stapled it up between 2 medium-sized bulletin boards; I labeled one of the bulletin boards for ELD 2 and the other bulletin board for English 11. When I got home that afternoon, I raided my desk for highlighters. (I didn't have any good highlighters at school, and we aren't allowed to order any supplies right now...) I found 3 green highlighters and 3 blue highlighters that were virtually brand-new, so I packed them into my school bag. I was set. 

I decided to start the strategy with ELD 2, and then I will roll it out with English 11 next week. Why? I don't know; it's just working out that way. Anyway... I told my ELD 2 students about it one day while they were working on writing their vocabulary sentences. I just explained to them that I would walk around with a highlighter, and if I saw a sentence that I really, really liked, then I would highlight it. Then, they would be responsible for writing it on a strip of paper and putting it on the wall. I demonstrated this with a sentence a student had written the day before - "At the sea, there is a considerable number of fish." ("Considerable" was the vocabulary word.) Is this sentence absolutely perfect? Not quite. It would be better if it said "in" instead of "at;" however, the student wrote it completely on his own after I explained what "considerable" meant, and he used the word perfectly. 

For the most part, the students seemed to like the idea. One student said, "Aw, Ms. Lewis, why are you doing this? Now we will feel bad if we don't write sentences you highlight." Another student, throughout class, kept asking me when he was supposed to write his sentence on the wall; I had to explain to him that I would let him know. I told them that all of their sentences were good, but the ones on the wall are just ones that I really, really like. He understood and went back to his work.

Here are a couple pictures of the bulletin boards:

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Ease of use: Since I already had the wall space, this was really easy to implement. It doesn't take very much thought or instruction to get the students used to the idea either.
Would I use this again: I am going to continue to use this throughout the year. My goal is for each of my ELD 2 kids to get a sentence up on the wall at least once (which shouldn't be difficult since I only have 13 students in that class).
Downsides: As my one student said, the students whose sentences you don't use may feel sad, that's why I'm going to make an effort to highlight a sentence by each student sometime during the remainder of the year. The woman who presented the strategy said that you could even highlight a sentence that you help a lower-level student construct as a form of scaffolding; the important thing is that each student eventually gets a sentence on the wall that has his/her name on it. Another downside... I am going to have make sure that I actually remember to keep doing this! Sometimes, that is the hardest part...
Applications: You could do a "sentence wall" in almost any subject area, especially now that with the new ELD standards, students are supposed to be getting language instruction in all subject areas. However, you could also tweak the strategy and call it a "problem wall" or "formula wall" or etc. and have students write down math problems that they were able to solve. The point is just to get good examples of student work up on the walls.
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Cognitive Strategy Snowballs

Ok... so since I used to train teachers in Advanced SDAIE, the snowball is not a new strategy for me. In fact, I used to use it All. The. Time. In fact, it used to be one of my go-to strategies. However, I realized that I have not used it at all this year, and I can't remember if I used it at all last year either. :( My poor students. 

To be honest, I didn't create this activity so that my students would get to make snowballs; I created it because I was getting bored with out reading routine. I've been having my students practice using different cognitive strategies (like making predictions, asking questions, etc.) to help them understand the texts we are reading. Sometimes, I would read out loud to them, stopping at different points in the text and asking questions that they would answer following the "think-write-pair-share" model. Other times, my students would read in groups, and at the end of a chapter, one student in the group would choose a cognitive strategy and ask a question, and everyone in the group would discuss the question and write down the answer in their notebooks. It was working well, but, as I said, I was getting bored. 

While they were reading in their groups on Wednesday, I went over to my computer and created a simple graphic organizer that looks like this:

I had the graphic organizers copied on two different colored papers - yellow and purple. On Thursday, after I read Chapter XXI of The Awakening out loud to the class, I passed out the graphic organizers, alternating between the two colors. I told them to fill out the first 2 boxes of the graphic organizer. Then, I asked them to crumple up their paper and throw it toward the front of the classroom. After everyone had thrown their papers, I told them to get up and pick up a "snowball" that was the opposite color than they had originally. They unfolded the snowballs and answered the questions. 

I didn't let them have an actual "snowball" fight this first time around, because I usually graduate them to this once I know that they aren't going to abuse the snowball fight and try to get away with throwing other items around the classroom. (I also usually play the intro to Van Halen's "Jump" while they are having their snowball fight; it is high-energy and about 30 seconds long.)

After the activity, there were exclamations from the class: "That was so fun!" "Can we do that again?" "Ms. Lewis, you're so creative!" So, again, to be clear, all I had them do was write a question, crumple up the paper, throw it at the front of the room, and then go pick up another paper. 

When 2nd period started, one of my students, who is notoriously pessimistic and sarcastic, said something along the lines of, "Can we please do something fun today?" I told him that 1st period really liked what we did, but he was still skeptical. After the activity, he said, "That was fun!" I'll admit that I did not stop myself from saying, "See? I told you so!" 

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Ease of use: The snowball strategy is really easy to implement, which is part of the reason why I used to use it all the time. I don't know why I stopped... maybe because we do so much in notebooks now, that the kids don't have papers they can easily "snowball."
Would I use this again: Yes. It's a great strategy, and, as I mentioned, the kids loved it even though I didn't let them have a real "snowball" fight.
Downsides: I actually printed 3 of those graphic organizers on each paper. We read 2 chapters, so we only did the activity twice. However, that was a good thing. If the kids had crumpled up those papers one more time, they probably would've started falling apart. It turns out you really shouldn't snowball the same paper more than twice. Also, some of the students were slightly appalled when I told them to staple the pages in their notebooks ("But... they're all crumpled up!"). I told them it was okay, but they were still annoyed by it.
Applications: What I really love about this is that I can use this same graphic organizer in a number of different ways. I can snowball it; I can have students trade with a partner; I can use it as a reading quiz; I can use it with fictional or expository texts; and the list goes on...
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Week 13: Teaching Grammar Through Writing

Some of you who know me know that I am not the ... um ... most thorough when it comes to teaching grammar. Why? Mainly, because I hate teaching grammar. Also, because I was never actually taught grammar. I remember doing the occasional grammar activity while in high school, but, for the most part, we just read, talked, and wrote. In fact, when I interviewed to be a writing tutor at Santa Barbara City College, I had to take a written test which, in part, involved identifying grammatical errors. After the test, the interviewers mentioned that while it was clear that I didn't know exactly what some grammatical terms referred to, it was obvious from my writing that I had a strong command of grammar usage; I got the job.

I wholeheartedly agree with all the research out there indicating that the best way to improve one's grammar and vocabulary is through reading and writing. Furthermore, in one of my English classes during my Teacher Education Program at UCSB, the professor (Sheridan Blau) made some comment about the absurdity of teaching grammar that I have never been able to shake; he said something along the lines of, "To think that students' writing will get better by using those grammar worksheets and handbooks that show students examples of poorly written sentences using incorrect grammar is ridiculous." I'm sure he said it much more eloquently than that, but that was the gist of his point. It struck a chord with me, and, as I said, I've carried the idea with me ever since.

This was all well and good when I was primarily teaching English 11. Even though I taught (teach) English Language Learners in my English 11 class, by the time they get to me, they have already been in the United States, speaking and learning English, for at least 3-4 years; therefore, I could get away with not spending a whole lot of time on explicit grammar instruction and focusing more on reading and writing.

And then I was assigned to teach ELD 2...

I assumed, going into it, that I would need to do a better job in terms of teaching grammar since I had absolutely no idea what my students would come in knowing and not knowing. However, I was also teaching an entirely new prep with a brand new textbook, which meant there was no incumbent teacher who could tell me exactly what to do and when to do it.

At the beginning of first semester, I copied a bunch of pages from the textbook's accompanying grammar handbook, and I would pass one out any time we had a spare 10 or 15 minutes that I needed to fill. I would do a mini-grammar lesson, have the kids complete the worksheet, and that was about it. I know it sounds horrible, but if that's all I was doing, I can only assume there are quite a few other English/ELD teachers out there who are doing the same thing. Since the kids came to me with a strong foundation of skills, especially in regards to verb tense, and they were writing pretty good sentences whenever I had them write, I wasn't too worried about the damage I was doing by not teaching them more grammar. I was a little concerned by the fact that the worksheets did sometimes have the students fix mistakes in poorly written sentences, but, since I didn't have anything else to use, I decided I didn't have much of choice but to keep on keeping on.

When Winter Break rolled around, and I was buried under mounds of papers that needed grading before the start of the new semester, I came across another problem. Every Tuesday and Thursday, my ELD 2 kids have to turn in a "Watching Television" assignment and a current event, respectively. (I based both assignments off the "Noticias del Momento" they have to do in their Spanish Language Development classes.) As you can imagine, a good chunk of the work I had to grade during Winter Break was made up of the yellow current event papers and the pink "Watching Television" papers. (I like to color code different handouts, hence the yellow and pink.)

This frustrated me for a couple of reasons. First, why hadn't I just graded those assignments right away? They were relatively easy to grade, but I had let them pile up and had about a month and a half's worth to grade during the break. Second, since I had let them pile up, I hadn't been checking to make sure that my students were actually doing them well. (I did spend some time at the beginning of the year teaching my students how to write summaries in their own words, but I hadn't followed up on this during the last month and a half of the semester.) And since I hadn't been checking the assignments, I hadn't been using them to help the students improve their writing. What a lost opportunity...

And then it hit me! That's what I would do during the second semester! I would check their work immediately and on a weekly basis, have the students revise their own writing to fix their mistakes. I had actually started doing something very similar in my English 11 classes at the beginning of the year, and the students reported that it was helping them improve their writing. In those classes, I would have the students write 1/2 a page, skipping lines, on a given topic during the first few minutes of class on Wednesday. Then, I would go through and make corrections; I started by actually making the corrections for the students and then began just underlining mistakes for the students to figure out and fix on their own. I would then pass the same papers back out and make the students rewrite their original few sentences, fixing all of their mistakes. This allowed me to tailor my grammar instruction to my students' individual needs, it helped them see the mistakes in their own writing, and it pushed them to revise and improve their writing. Since it worked so well in English 11, I decided it would probably also help my ELD 2 students.

Now, instead of just collecting the weekly assignments from my students, I read through their writing within a few days of collecting the assignments. I underline and fix mistakes. (I am much more explicit about how to fix mistakes with my ELD 2 students than I am with my English 11 students, due to their level of comfort with and knowledge of the rules of English grammar.) Then I give the assignments back to the students before the end of the week (usually Friday after their vocabulary quiz) and have the students rewrite their summaries and personal reactions, fixing all of the mistakes they originally made. I told the students we would be doing this every week, which holds me accountable and forces me to actually read through them in a timely manner; otherwise, I would simply procrastinate as I did in the previous semester.

I know that, in a way, I am doing what those grammar worksheets do - I am having the students look at poorly written sentences and asking them to fix the sentences. However, since those poorly written sentences are actually their poorly written sentences, the task becomes useful and informative. The students understand that the activity actually helps them to directly improve their writing (especially since they try to not make the same mistakes on the next assignment, so they won't have as much to rewrite), as opposed to those grammar worksheets which often seem disconnected from their actual writing.

Don't get me wrong - I think it is very important for students, especially English Language Learners, to understand how to construct complete sentences. I am in no way advocating for an abandonment of teaching grammar altogether; however, I feel we need to create more authentic ways in which we teach grammar to our students to help them internalize what we are teaching into their writing and speaking.

Week 11: A Paperless Week with Google Classroom and Google Drive

This week, I was extremely thankful for technology, because, due to unforeseen circumstances which lead me to being in and out of doctor's offices every day either before or after school (a story worthy of its own blog entirely), I had very little time outside of class to do very much planning and absolutely no time to submit papers for copies. Luckily, my 11th graders were wrapping up the project on the different American literary movements that they started last week. I had already planned on having them share their presentations digitally with each other, as opposed to giving a live presentation to the class, but I knew that I needed to create something in order to hold them accountable. The projects were due on Tuesday, so on Monday, I began making a note-taking guide that the students would fill out as they went through each presentation. I created a chart with rows for each of the movements and columns with the questions I wanted the students to answer. With the requirements for the project open in another window, I began creating the questions. Those requirements were:

• The name of your literary movement (5 pts)

• The dates of your literary movement (5 pts)
• Any important historical events that influenced your literary movement and an explanation of how they influenced your literary movement (10 pts)
• The defining characteristics of your literary movement (10 pts)
• The names and brief biographies of the most important and well-known American authors of your literary movement (10 pts)
• An example of at least one text (a poem, short story, or excerpt from a longer text) from your movement, with annotations pointing out the characteristics of the literary movement (20 pts)
• Pictures and/or any other relevant information (10 pts)
• Ex. Artists and musicians who were also part of the movement; pictures and paintings that represent the movement; texts we’ve read in this class (or you’ve read in other classes) that are part of the movement; etc.
• In-text citations for anything you quote or summarize (15 pts)
• A works cited at the end including every website you referenced while conducting your research (15 pts)

My questions started out quite basic:

• When did this movement take place?
• What is one historical event that influenced this movement?
• Who is one famous author from the time period?

I stopped there. I wasn't happy. Essentially, I was just asking my students to copy down information, but I wanted them to think. So I did a little thinking of my own, and then went back to work. I wound up with this note-taking guide, including these questions:

• When did this movement take place?
• What is one historical event that influenced this movement? How/why did it influence this movement?
• Which of the famous authors from this time period stands out the most to you? Why?
• How is the literature from this movement either similar or different from the literature in your movement?

In creating these new questions, I ensured that my students would be forced to actually think about the information they were reading because the questions cover all steps of Bloom's taxonomy. Here's how:

• When did this movement take place? 
• This is level 1 on Bloom's taxonomy, "Knowledge," because the students simply have to find the information the the presentation and copy it down. They aren't doing anything with it.
• Why include a question like this at all? Some teachers like to just jump into the higher-level thinking, but I like to guide my students there. I usually find that by starting with an "easy" question and gradually building the difficulty, the students are more likely to complete an assignment. If I just immediately started with a "hard" question, some of the students would just give up and not bother doing the assignment at all.
• What is one historical event that influenced this movement? How/why did it influence this movement? 
• This is level 2 on Bloom's taxonomy, "Comprehension," because the students should be able to find all of this information in the presentations, but they need to understand it in order to complete the box in the note-taking guide.
• Which of the famous authors from this time period stands out the most to you? Why? 
• The first part of this question is level 3, "Analysis," because the students are reading through the information and analyzing the information and determining which author stands out the most. The second part of the question - the "Why?" - is level 5, "Evaluation," because students are being asked to explain and support their opinion.
• How is the literature from this movement either similar or different from the literature in your movement? 
• This question is level 4, "Synthesis," because students are asked to either compare or contrast two of the movements.

The point is that I created a basic graphic organizer which asks the students to do more than just copy down information. A lot of time handouts and worksheets get a bad rap because some teachers argue that they are all just "kill and drill" and don't require students to think at all. However, it really depends on what the worksheet is asking the students to do. Could I have made this worksheet completely pointless and mind-numbing for my students? Yes, and I almost did. But instead, I created a worksheet that forced the students to think on multiple levels multiple times. (Was it still mind-numbing for some of my students? Probably, but not in the same way.)

Now, I know what you're thinking. "You said this was a paperless week! Why are you making worksheets???" I made this worksheet because I wanted to take advantage of a particular feature in Google Classroom which automatically creates a new copy for each student who opens the document and links it back to classroom. This allows the students to start typing immediately in the document, without having to "Make a copy," AND it puts a "Turn in" button in the top right-hand corner of their document, right next to where it says "Comments" and "Share." All the students have to do is type in the information and then click "Turn in" - they don't have to worry about changing the sharing options, getting the shareable link, or anything like that. For students who don't always remember to do all the steps involved with sharing a document with their teacher, this is wonderful! Also, once the students turn in the assignment, it becomes "view only" on their end, meaning they can't make changes after submitting the assignment. In the past with Google Docs, I always wondered when the students would figure out that they didn't really have to be done with an assignment before they turned it in since they were always able to go in and edit it after sending me the link or turning it in through Edmodo; now, they don't have that option.

The students finished reviewing the other groups' projects on Wednesday. On Thursday, I introduced www.turnitin.com to my English 11 classes, since I hadn't done so yet, and I had my students write a one-paragraph comparison of their literary movement to one of the other movements of their choice. I had already planned on doing this, which was the reason for the last question on my note-taking guide; I am a big believer in backward-mapping. The reason I had already planned on having them write this one paragraph was because I know that we are going to start a unit on The Awakening in the next week or two, and at the end of The Awakening, I like to have my students write a comparative analysis on the novel and either the short story "The Feather Pillow" by Horacio Quiroga or "Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson. (On a total side-note: another reason why I love Google - because I just accidentally closed this tab, and when I opened it back up, Blogger had automatically saved my work. Love.) Why do I have my students write a comparative analysis? Common Core doesn't say our students should be writing comparative analyses! Well... as I pointed out earlier, asking students to compare and contrast is asking them to think critically about more than one subject. It helps students make connections... (Hmmm... I'm getting an idea for something new... you can expect to read about it in probably about a month or two...) Plus, the essays my students turn out on these topics are usually really good! I don't know... there's something about a person who has everything and yet has nothing at the same time that they can connect to and are drawn to. Or they just wind up really hating Edna and like to tell me why.

Anyway, after the writing on Thursday, that left me with Friday. We had just wrapped up what we were doing, and I didn't want to start the new unit the Friday right before a holiday weekend; therefore, I decided to take the opportunity to introduce our new reading program. Now, I will be perfectly honest - I had every intention of not going digital on Friday, but, as I mentioned earlier, I found myself planning on Thursday night without any copies ready to go for Friday morning. "No problem..." I thought, "I'll just walk them through the information with a Google Slides presentation..." No. I quickly realized that that was a terrible idea because what student wants to be talked at on the Friday before a holiday weekend (or ever, for that matter)? No. No Google Slides. I knew I could use Peardeck to do whatever I wanted with Google Slides, but I didn't really like that idea for this. Instead, I decided to make a couple of linked forms to present the information.

The first form included a letter I wrote to my students explaining the new program and asked them to check a box stating: "I have read and understand the independent reading assignment." After students completed this form, they were automatically given the link to the next form. However, in between both forms, I asked them to stop while I explained the program in more detail and answered some of their questions.

I developed the program based on the article I shared last week - "Seven ways schools kill the love of reading in kids - and 4 principles to help restore it." Basically, I wanted to encourage my students to read by imposing as few restrictions on them as possible and creating a culture in which independent reading is a thing everyone does and talks about in the classroom.

First, I decided that I could not tell my students they had to read for a certain amount of time or read a certain number of pages every day. As Alfie Kohn explains, when teachers do this, students will often set a timer, read for that much time, and then stop. Furthermore, when I started thinking about it, if I am able to help my students find books that they really want to read, I don't think there is any way that they can only read for 5 minutes a night; anyone who has ever found a really good book knows that this is true.

Instead of telling my students how much to read, I simply told them that I want them to read every night. Am I going to hold them strictly accountable to this? No, because that, again, would make the reading seem like a chore. Therefore, I developed a reading log that I am going to let my students use as they best see fit - they can fill it out daily or weekly - and I will check for a parent signature at the end of each week. Will my students be able to "fake it?" Yes. I'm sure they will, which is why I am not the only one who is going to be holding them accountable.

As I mentioned, I will involve their parents. I am going to send a letter home next week informing parents of the new program. Also, I am going to have students meet with a partner every Friday to discuss what they've been reading. (The purpose of the second form was for students to tell me who they want to work with and what types of books they enjoy reading.) On Fridays, a few students will also share out with the entire class. I told students that they will be able to share with the class on a voluntary basis, but I expect each person in the class to volunteer at least once throughout the semester. Furthermore, I told them that I will be participating in the program with them, because, as a teacher, I often get so involved in my work that I don't make time for my own reading (unless you count reading One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to a 2-year-old a million times a day); just as they will, I will share with them what I'm reading and why I'm excited about it. I am hoping that by including these opportunities to talk about what we're reading, that the students who aren't as enthusiastic about the program will start to get hooked and drawn in by the other students. We will see. As I wrote at the end of the letter to the kids, "This could be the most awesome thing we do all year, but it could also be a horrible, terrible, failure. It is really all up to you. Please make it awesome."