Click, Clack, Moo and Follow-Up Questions

Today was step one towards a successful podcast about our nonfiction texts. It is time to have meaningful conversations about literature. I feel that this will help me in my quest to create lifelong readers.

The first step to meaningful coversations is to create meaningful questions. When students are dropped into a discussion setting, they don't know what to say to one another. They know how to share answers, but they don't necessarily know how to ask for help from a peer. They know how to say that they don't get it, but they don't know how to vocalize what it is that they don't get. They have to learn how to ask good questions about their reading in order to take them to the next level of understanding and analysis.

To do this, we started by discussing characteristics of good questions. I have to be honest here--I tried to have the students generate characteristics, but it fell totally flat. They didn't have a clue what I was asking for or what I wanted. They knew what a good question was when they saw one, but breaking one down and explaining why it was good was a bit too much.

So I listed characteristics of good and bad questions on chart paper and we started by looking at that list. We contrasted the two. We looked closely at the pros and cons. We cleared up any confusion as to what was expected. After our brief discussion, we created a six-celled chart using a piece of notebook paper. The left column was for the start questions and the right column was for the follow-up questions.

Now for application. I decided to start with a brief piece by Pat Conroy. His writing is so deep and it is something that I want my students to be familiar with. They might not come Conroy lovers today, but I want them to see the goldmine that is in their backyard. After reading a brief, controversial piece that looks at a situation of spousal abuse, I gave them think time. They had to write down a start question using the characteristics of good questions. After everyone had a chance to write down a start question, I asked for one volunteer to share. We took that question and added it to the first cell of our chart. We discussed possible answers and the created follow-up questions based on those answers. This went on a for a few minutes, and we repeated the process with a new starter question. I pointed out how the conversation could only continue with a good question. Failure to ask a good question would lead to a dead end. I demonstrated this by asking a few bad questions of my own and showing that the conversation could go nowhere.

That scaffolding led to Click, Clack, Moo. Students used the cute children's book to generate starter questions that met the characteristics of good questions. It was a nice lead up to individual work. Just a little more scaffolding and we'll be having powerful conversations about texts that are meaningful to us.

I hope.

Writing Workshops with Freshmen

I'm always looking for new ways to teach writing to young writers. I struggled with some of the formal writing assignments in college because I didn't have a strong background in high school. There's a fine line between teaching enough and teaching too much. Between giving them too little information and between giving them too much to handle.

My freshmen are working on literary analysis essays to end their reading of Romeo & Juliet. A ton of research went in to this lesson. I'm not sure that I've ever taught it well enough. Sure, graduates come back and tell me that I helped them, but I've never been sure of exactly what I did to be so helpful. I try to be reflective on my practice, so it frustrates me when I can't put my fingers on what I did.

After my tons of research, hours of frustration, and countless e-mails with no good responses, I came on a plan that just might work. We started with notes, of course. Probably too many notes. Definitely too many notes if you ask my kids. I know that I didn't give them enough time to think between each section. I fixed that with later groups, but my poor first period class kinda got the raw end of the deal.

After we took notes that defined a literary analysis, thesis, and textual evidence, we spent some time thinking about the topics for our essay. We wrote thesis statements together, we shared them, and then improved them. Again, this part got better as the day went on. I learned from my mistakes very quickly. We spent time creating topic sentences for the body paragraphs. We spent time looking at examples of textual evidence. I know without a doubt that we didn't spend enough time with shared writing. Shared writing would have made the whole thing easier, but then you have to deal with students who only want to take what you wrote and copy it. There has to be a better way to do shared writing, but I'm still looking for that part.

Today we are drafting. I didn't plan enough time in the classroom to get through everything, and I booked the library for today. Everything is booked for Monday so I can't even push it back for another day in the classroom. However, my hastiness is going to come to my rescue.

Students are often hesitant to come to a teacher's desk when they seem to be working. And they also sit in those tiny student desks all day long. So we are in the library. We are spread out and I am by myself. I laid out the rules before we came in. Students can sit no more than two to a table or can work on the computer. I have to be left at a table by myself. If I'm alone, then I am available to help and answer questions. If I'm with another student, we are not to be interrupted because that is there time.

It's working.

They are writing. They are coming over and getting help. I'm getting to do differentiated instruction by talking to each student as an individual instead of addressing the whole class. Everyone is getting what they need. Including me. I'm getting time to write.

This changes things for next week. But it's also feeding my instructional plans. We took notes on introductions (so very effective, I know) and we looked at some examples. But they have no clue where to start. It shows me that we need a mini-lesson on introductions next week. We all need it. What we're going to do, I don't know. But I have a weekend to figure it out.

An EOC Plan

So...I am in a state that gives End of Course Tests for certain subjects. And I teach one of those subjects--English I. Now. Please believe that I am on a personal crusade to end these tests. The legislature is talking about freezing the step raises for teachers, and I would much rather them do away with these ridiculous standardized tests. I have e-mailed several times. Needless to say, I haven't gotten a response. Yet.

But I have a plan to end the year. My colleagues do an EOC boot camp, but scores haven't exactly been stellar the last few years. (This isn't exactly a valid assessment.) So I'm trying out my own plan for the last three weeks before the test.

We are going to continue our vocabulary on Mondays. Only our vocabulary will consist of words from the standards that students need to know. I should have a lot of As on tests, don't you think? I mean, I've taught these things all year. Hmph.

Tuesdays will consist of a focus lesson--such as propaganda and bias and craft. These are still under construction. I only have a few days to perfect the first one.

Wednesdays and Thursdays will consist of literature circles activities. Students will use their novels to study author's craft.

Fridays will be reserved for vocabulary tests and articles of the week. I've been inundating my freshmen with nonfiction texts recently and now it is time to step it up a notch. In addition to the nonfiction text, they will have a poem to compare it to in their reflection.

This is my plan. Foolproof? Heavens, I hope so. But only time will tell. We are taking the tests on computers this year. My children have no experience with computerized tests, but we'll do anything to save a buck and save a test. We'll see how things go the next three weeks.

Looking for a Few Good Lines

Grammar is one of the hardest things to teach high school students and there are differing opinions on what is effective. I don't know much, but I know that worksheets and rote memorization are not what works. If it did, then high school freshmen would come to us knowing their parts of speech and we wouldn't need to reteach a thing.

But they don't, so we do.

So I'm taking a note from Jeff Anderson's playbook. He was in South Carolina recently and spoke to the teachers of a neighboring district. I didn't get to hear him speak, but I have a copy of Mechanically Inclined and I have friends that had front row seats. So I am incorporating his strategies into my freshmen English class. Please remember that I'm looking for anything and everything to help prepare them for the End of Course exam.

We started incorporating a sentence of the day today. In order to teach sentence structure and punctuation, I'm using mentor texts. My first one was not all that great, but I have every intention of improving. Today, we discussed commas in a series. I used a mentor sentence on the SmartBoard and simply asked students what they noticed. I got some good answers. I got some rotten answers. But I did get the words "commas" and "list." After we talked about the mentor sentence, we wrote a sentence together as a class following the example that the mentor sentence set. Then students wrote their own sentences incorporating the same techniques. They shared their sentences with their neighbor to check for accuracy. I circulated the room to check sentences and all students were 100% right on.

We didn't discuss rules. We didn't label sentence parts or parts of speech. We just looked at a good sentence, albeit not all that creative, and examined what the writer did.

So now I'm on the hunt for good sentences from good writers. I have a little Pat Conroy, a little Sharon Draper...I just need, oh, about 175 more sentences. That's not too much to ask, right?

Two days down, three to go

11:30 a.m. will mark the middle of the first week back after Christmas break. And since my teacher cadets are going out into the field for research, my day will technically be over. You can color me excited.

This week has been better than I expected, and just as hard as I expected. I am immersed in Shakespeare and Elizabethan England. Lovely, ain't it? The ninth graders are starting Romeo and Juliet and the seniors are starting the English Renaissance in order to move into Macbeth. The lessons have gone well, but every spare second has been spent trying to decide where to go next.

Romeo and Juliet has been my challenge. I haven't taught the play in eight years and I didn't know ANYTHING eight years ago. I thought you taught things like Shakespeare because it was what was taught to you. I thought kids HAD to read Shakespeare, like it was law or something.

The truth is, it's not. There is no law that kids have to read Shakespeare. However, they do need to learn how to struggle with a text and come out the other side successfully. And that is was we are going to do. That is what is feeding my plans for this play. I need for my students to experience the Prologue in it's original language. I need for them to study the balcony scene and recognize it's beauty. I may even want them to study the death scene and understand the conclusion. Other than that, what do they really need? There's a lot to R&J that is extraneous and causes excess pain. So, we'll read certain sections and then study other texts that represent the universal theme of the play. They will have their Shakespearean experience. They will deal with a difficult text and be successful.

I hope.

That's the plan anyway.

All I want for Christmas is a working plan of action!

It is three days before Christmas. Exams are done and scanned. My computer and Smart Board are unplugged and safe from surges. The desks have been rearranged and the floors should be waxed by now. I'm enjoying my break and reading The House of Night series (totally awesome and kinda hot, fyi).

My presents are wrapped (for the most part) and my yearly Christmas gathering last night was a huge hit (as is usual). There's just one thing on my Christmas list and I'm hoping Santa will help me out with--I need a working plan of action.

Test scores for the freshmen babies were not good. They said that they tried. They looked like they were trying. But it was more of a holy-crap-what-is-all-this-text-look that crossed their faces at sight of the benchmark exam. I think I had six or seven pass the test. That is pretty much on par for how our students have done on this benchmark the last several years. This is, of course, not good enough for me. So I need a plan.

I started working on my POA before I checked out for the holidays. We'll be starting Shakespeare when we come back (both in freshmen AND senior English) but this is not where the POA lies. No, it lies in the day to day activities that will lead to stronger reading and writing skills. Here's what I have so far...

We already read daily. And my kids are pretty good, for the most part, about reading, really reading every day. But that is the extent right now. So, for the New Year, we'll add in a reading response log. On Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, students will work on making connections to what they've read. This will require a brief mini-lesson on making connections and the different type of connections. On Thursdays, students will respond to their reading in the voice of a character. And Fridays will be all about summarization. (Oh by the way, I need about 50 folders with prongs to keep all this good stuff in--expecting them to keep up with something is like expecting South Carolina to have a white Christmas.)

So, I'm adding in a reading response log. This will be followed by a daily poem. Our poet laureate has a wonderful website that features 180 poems aimed at high school students (please infer, easy to understand). We will follow our reading response logs with a brief discussion around the poem of the day. This should expose them to more poetry, and give them a chance to dissect without pressure.

The last leg of my POA, right now, is an article of the week. Kelly Gallagher has his students read and respond to an article each week. He also puts these on his website (kellygallagher.org) and lucky for me, he has freshmen this year. So we'll have exposure to informational text and a chance to practice reflective writing.

Right now, that's my plan of action. In addition to our daily and weekly activities, we'll be reading Romeo and Juliet and maybe doing literature circles. Consider my English classes a science lab...I'm looking for something that will work magic.