- What is your reading goal and what progress have you made towards achieving it?
- What have you learned about revising your writing? How is it different from editing?
- How does previewing a text help you?
- What strategy can you use to help you summarize a text?
- How they have used their blog so far and their plans for the blog.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Welcome to Conferences
Your student will be leading you through their progress so far this year. These are some points they should be discussing with you:
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Good is not Enough
A long, long, long time ago, I too was in Middle School. Around 7th and 8th grade, I was inspired to write poetry. This became what I would do in class when I was supposed to take notes, what I would do at home when I was supposed to do homework and, well, what I would do. I have several journals filled with poems from then until now.
Those journals are rarely cracked open. I use them to introduce myself to the kids at the beginning of the year, but I do not let students read them. I guess you would say I am a bit guarded. Well, the kids asked why, and I couldn't answer this. I've thought about it and thought about it. Recently, the answer hit me~ I've never revised my poems. As I was planning for our revision lesson, I was wishing I had some student work that hadn't been revised, so I began to look for some poems in my journals that we could use.
I have to admit I was a bit sick as I pulled that first poem up this morning. Twenty plus 12-13 year olds were not only about to read my work, but they were going to critique it. I could only imagine how similar each student must feel each time they share a piece of their writing.
I did not tell them that the writing was mine, but they figured it out when I did not tell them who the author was. They liked the poems and had a hard time at first looking at them critically. Once I reassured them that my feelings would not be hurt (and made the first change myself) the kids took off. You can check out their work by clicking here. The kids want to have a little contest, so please take the poll on our blog that will help us measure which block you think revised best.
After all of their hard work, the poems are no longer mine. It is now OUR poem and it is a hundred times better. I am proud of this writing now. Today we all learned. I learned to put myself out there a little, just like I ask the kids to and the kids learned to revise. They saw the value in their changes and discovered the fun in playing with words, organization, verb tense, repetition and rhythm. Now, they need to use these skills in all of their writing.
Our literary history paper guidelines will be finalized tomorrow and an official due date assigned. I expect that students will spend time with their writing, practicing their new revision skills. We will take class time on Monday to work on this, so they can get some help, but I still expect time on task at home. It took us an hour to revise one poem, and there were many of us working on it. Tuesday will be Tungsten and Wednesday is the field trip to the History Museum.
We hope to see you later next week for conferences. Please call the 7th grade office to set up your appointment time if you haven't already. The number is 953-7532.
Those journals are rarely cracked open. I use them to introduce myself to the kids at the beginning of the year, but I do not let students read them. I guess you would say I am a bit guarded. Well, the kids asked why, and I couldn't answer this. I've thought about it and thought about it. Recently, the answer hit me~ I've never revised my poems. As I was planning for our revision lesson, I was wishing I had some student work that hadn't been revised, so I began to look for some poems in my journals that we could use.
I have to admit I was a bit sick as I pulled that first poem up this morning. Twenty plus 12-13 year olds were not only about to read my work, but they were going to critique it. I could only imagine how similar each student must feel each time they share a piece of their writing.
I did not tell them that the writing was mine, but they figured it out when I did not tell them who the author was. They liked the poems and had a hard time at first looking at them critically. Once I reassured them that my feelings would not be hurt (and made the first change myself) the kids took off. You can check out their work by clicking here. The kids want to have a little contest, so please take the poll on our blog that will help us measure which block you think revised best.
After all of their hard work, the poems are no longer mine. It is now OUR poem and it is a hundred times better. I am proud of this writing now. Today we all learned. I learned to put myself out there a little, just like I ask the kids to and the kids learned to revise. They saw the value in their changes and discovered the fun in playing with words, organization, verb tense, repetition and rhythm. Now, they need to use these skills in all of their writing.
Our literary history paper guidelines will be finalized tomorrow and an official due date assigned. I expect that students will spend time with their writing, practicing their new revision skills. We will take class time on Monday to work on this, so they can get some help, but I still expect time on task at home. It took us an hour to revise one poem, and there were many of us working on it. Tuesday will be Tungsten and Wednesday is the field trip to the History Museum.
We hope to see you later next week for conferences. Please call the 7th grade office to set up your appointment time if you haven't already. The number is 953-7532.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
How it all begins...
This has been an exciting week. Challenging, but exciting. We have partnered with Ms. Heineman's Social Studies class since the students are writing essays in both classes to explore and attempt a variety of introductions. Yesterday, while my classes hosted Ms. Holland, the counselor, for one of her lessons, I taught with Ms. Heineman. Today, our classes went to the library together and had a combined seminar-like class. Both days we explored the value of essay beginnings, looked at several examples and then attempted several different kinds of beginnings on our own.
If you talk to your student about their essay beginning, I bet they will tell you it was hard to write. They should also be able to tell you why essay beginnings are so important. We discussed how some employers will ask applicants to write an essay as part of the interview process and as students apply for scholarships and to colleges, writing strong essays will be important too. Students seemed to know all of these facts, however the realization that their writing didn't just have to be good to be accepted did not appear to come as easily. We explained to the classes how their essays would have to stand out as exemplar so they would be accepted over the numerous other candidates applying for the same positions or scholarships.
Once this was realized, students understood why the development of their introduction paragraph was so important. In groups, we explored numerous examples of essays to study how the authors developed their beginnings. Students chose three or four of their favorite beginnings and modeled their essay beginnings after these. Once students had several different beginnings, they chose the one they liked the best, the one that made them want to write more.
I watched as students went from confused, to trying, to frustrated and ready to quit and then to persistence. With a little encouragement and feedback, students kept writing and rewriting until...THEY GOT IT! They were so happy and proud of themselves. It truly has been two days of repeated confirmation of why my job is so amazing.
I realize that some students may still be struggling with the concept or exactly how to write a strong and interesting beginning. I will continue to work with them on the essay for my class as we revise and edit. I fully expect that one to be much easier because the writing piece is about themselves. Please ask your child about the essay beginning they have for Social Studies. I am sure they would love to talk about the experience they had today.
I wanted to give a few shout outs: Calah S., I know you were frustrated and ready to give up. I am so proud of your effort. I think you came up with some good writing today. Nakayla, I was very impressed and could tell just how hard you worked when you asked me to read your introduction and told me, "I'm kinda loving it." Jordan D., your intro was so strong that I want a copy of it for an example for next year. There are so many more of you who impressed me with your efforts and hard work today. Hold your heads high...you guys did something great today.
If you talk to your student about their essay beginning, I bet they will tell you it was hard to write. They should also be able to tell you why essay beginnings are so important. We discussed how some employers will ask applicants to write an essay as part of the interview process and as students apply for scholarships and to colleges, writing strong essays will be important too. Students seemed to know all of these facts, however the realization that their writing didn't just have to be good to be accepted did not appear to come as easily. We explained to the classes how their essays would have to stand out as exemplar so they would be accepted over the numerous other candidates applying for the same positions or scholarships.
Once this was realized, students understood why the development of their introduction paragraph was so important. In groups, we explored numerous examples of essays to study how the authors developed their beginnings. Students chose three or four of their favorite beginnings and modeled their essay beginnings after these. Once students had several different beginnings, they chose the one they liked the best, the one that made them want to write more.
I watched as students went from confused, to trying, to frustrated and ready to quit and then to persistence. With a little encouragement and feedback, students kept writing and rewriting until...THEY GOT IT! They were so happy and proud of themselves. It truly has been two days of repeated confirmation of why my job is so amazing.
I realize that some students may still be struggling with the concept or exactly how to write a strong and interesting beginning. I will continue to work with them on the essay for my class as we revise and edit. I fully expect that one to be much easier because the writing piece is about themselves. Please ask your child about the essay beginning they have for Social Studies. I am sure they would love to talk about the experience they had today.
I wanted to give a few shout outs: Calah S., I know you were frustrated and ready to give up. I am so proud of your effort. I think you came up with some good writing today. Nakayla, I was very impressed and could tell just how hard you worked when you asked me to read your introduction and told me, "I'm kinda loving it." Jordan D., your intro was so strong that I want a copy of it for an example for next year. There are so many more of you who impressed me with your efforts and hard work today. Hold your heads high...you guys did something great today.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
We Changed Directions
Technology is a wonderful thing when it works, but when it doesn't, well you have to do your best. We were going to go on to non-fiction summarization and post reading strategies, but our Promethean board has decided to take a mini-vacation, so we are changing plans slightly until it can be repaired.
I moved up our personal narrative/writing process unit so we could move forward. We will come back around to the summarization lessons once we can use the Promethean and all of the activities I had already planned that utilize the technology available to us. (In other words, I worked hard on the lessons we were going to do and I am excited to see how the kids like them and the technology played a big role in those lessons.) So, that means that students should be talking about their past experiences with reading and writing instead of summarizing things they have read.
They may appreciate a few reminders of what they were like as beginning readers, so they have more material to work with. Tomorrow I will be checking to see if they have made some progress on their rough draft as Mrs. Holland, the counselor is in doing her lesson. I will also make sure that everyone is caught up with everything. Later this week students may ask to interview you about their progress as a reader and writer has been from a parent's perspective. This will help them add more specific details to their writing. for a good example of what students will be writing, please check out the amazing short selection written by Alexis on her blog, Alexis soccer girl 15. Her piece is titled, "The First Time I Wrote my Name".
Homework:
Read 30 minutes and work on the literary history rough draft.
Parents:
Don't forget to sign up for parent/teacher conferences October 13th-15th. Call Mrs. Kroll in the 7th grade office at 953-7532 to schedule.
I moved up our personal narrative/writing process unit so we could move forward. We will come back around to the summarization lessons once we can use the Promethean and all of the activities I had already planned that utilize the technology available to us. (In other words, I worked hard on the lessons we were going to do and I am excited to see how the kids like them and the technology played a big role in those lessons.) So, that means that students should be talking about their past experiences with reading and writing instead of summarizing things they have read.
They may appreciate a few reminders of what they were like as beginning readers, so they have more material to work with. Tomorrow I will be checking to see if they have made some progress on their rough draft as Mrs. Holland, the counselor is in doing her lesson. I will also make sure that everyone is caught up with everything. Later this week students may ask to interview you about their progress as a reader and writer has been from a parent's perspective. This will help them add more specific details to their writing. for a good example of what students will be writing, please check out the amazing short selection written by Alexis on her blog, Alexis soccer girl 15. Her piece is titled, "The First Time I Wrote my Name".
Homework:
Read 30 minutes and work on the literary history rough draft.
Parents:
Don't forget to sign up for parent/teacher conferences October 13th-15th. Call Mrs. Kroll in the 7th grade office at 953-7532 to schedule.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
SchoolTube - Wish You Were Dead by Todd Strasser
This is a very cool, very current book that highlights web safety and the various impacts of current social technology.
SchoolTube - Wish You Were Dead by Todd Strasser
SchoolTube - Wish You Were Dead by Todd Strasser
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