How to Work with Words Without a Workbook

How to Teach Vocabulary Effectively and Efficiently at the High School Level

In order for our students to succeed across subject areas, we must all acknowledge the critical importance of vocabulary instruction.   There are so many best practices out there, so many specialists, and so many approaches, it can feel daunting to choose a streamlined and effective strategy for your classroom.  No matter your favorite method or style, I have a thoughtful yet efficient strategy for you to try in your class this year.

Let’s start with the routine: bell work.  Most high school teachers have seen the merits of implementing bell work and I’d argue that this is the best and most consistent way to have daily vocabulary practice without having to give up tons of class time.  When the bell rings, you need something that students can do independently, quietly, and quickly.  Why not have them try using the Vocabulary Digital Interactive Notebook?  

Here’s how it works:  you provide students with your list of words at the beginning of the unit.  Then, daily, students take out their 1:1 devices (should be Google-ready), open their Vocabulary Digital Interactive Notebooks, they choose a vocabulary activity (there are eight of ‘em pre-loaded), they work on the selected activity for 4-5 minutes, and then you’re ready to move on with the rest of class!  

Here’s how to get started:

1.  Create your Vocabulary Units

The first thing you’ll need to do is decide on your word lists.  Some of you may already have pre-selected words for your units, and others of you might have more flexibility, but either way, you are the one responsible for deciding on the words and the length of each unit.  When you’ve got your word lists ready to go, we can introduce the Vocabulary Digital Interactive Notebook!

2.  Train Students on the Routine

To use this notebook effectively, students should be trained on the bell work routine that you have determined to be the most efficient.  In my room, that means when the bell rings, students are in their seats with Chromebooks open.  At the front of the room, I display (from my computer) whatever specific directions I have for the day and the students know to check there and then begin.  They open up their Vocabulary Digital Interactive Notebooks, follow the directions, and in 4-6 minutes, they’re done with that day’s vocabulary practice.

3.  Model and Practice Each Activity (and add your own!)

Inside the notebook, you’ll find eight different practice activities for students to use with one or multiple words from the word list.  At the beginning of the year (or when you implement this activity) it’s critical that you model and practice each of the graphic organizers and activities in the notebook.  Oftentimes, during Unit 1, teachers spend time teaching each of the activities one by one before making the bell ringers and independent activity in Unit 2.  Don’t forget:  since this notebook is completely editable, you can add any of your other favorite quick vocabulary activities that you want before you assign it to the students!  

4.  Add Your Own Assessments

Vocabulary study requires all different kinds of assessments, and this particular post and product don’t provide this part.  Make sure that you and your team decide on appropriate formative and summative assessments to use along the way.

5.  Keep it Fresh

There are lots of ways to keep this activity fresh throughout the year.  Here are just a few things teachers have tried:

• Pick a few days a week to have students work with a partner.  This gives students a chance to talk about the words and word meanings rather than always working solo.  Marzano (and other vocabulary experts) have made it abundantly clear that students need multiple exposures to words in order to fully learn them.  Partner and small group work make this possible!

• In a given week, divide the list into parts.  Ask students to focus on the same 3-4 words ONLY but go through every activity.  This ensures mastery of the words, not just practice.  The next week, students could rotate to the next grouping of words.

• If you’re assigning this notebook through Google Classroom, you will automatically have access in your Drive to each student’s notebook.  Occasionally, project a few notebooks from students that have done exemplary work.  This ensures students know what quality looks like and helps them to not get lazy with the routine.  You can also print out notable work directly from their Google slideshows!

Ready to get started?  Then what are you waiting for!  Pick up your own digital, edible copy of the Vocabulary Digital Interactive Notebook today!

The Pinterest Perfect Classroom: What's Missing?

As I’m writing this, you’ve probably already pinned 100 new ideas for your back to school decor on Pinterest.  You very well might be simultaneously stalking a corner of the Target Dollar Spot.  Maybe you’re even wish-listing things for your classroom on Amazon.  And if you’re not doing one of these two things, you’re almost certainly scrolling through Instagram with major “Insta-classroom envy” every other post you see.

It’s hard to not get caught up in all of the back to school hype and the visual overstimulation of the internet and stores that you go to every week.  Let’s face it - the marketing is on point.  They’ve got us figured out and everything coming out of our favorite stores is just SO STINKIN ADORABLE.

Here’s where things get real though.  I want to give you a reality check.  I can’t help but wonder, when I look at these Pinterest/Instagram perfect classrooms, what’s missing?  Not from the individual teachers who have crafted these gorgeous temples, but what’s missing from our back to school mindset?

Sometimes back to school reminds me of Christmas:  with so much distraction, decor, and festivity, it can be easy to lose the importance of the day in all the madness.  At Christmastime, we forget how important it is to celebrate family and to be grateful for what we have; at back to school time, we forget how important it is to connect with students and revisit last year’s mistakes with the intention of making each year a better experience for students.

So before you go spend another Dollar Tree dollar, here are FOUR things to do that are MORE IMPORTANT than your Pinterest-perfect classroom.

 1.  Authentically connect with students.

Every year I build a Meet Your Teacher presentation into the first week of classes.  And it’s a long presentation.  I tell my students my story - not to boast or to get too personal, but to give them a genuine look at my life and my passions.  I share with them some of my biggest trials (shattering my ACL, MCL, and meniscus junior year of high school during a soccer game where I was being recruited by Division 1 schools), my successes (athletically, professionally, and educationally), my worldly travels and adventures (I show as many pictures as possible - so many of them don’t even know travel is possible!), and my education story.  This presentation takes precious hours to put together and adjust year to year, but they’re so much more worth it to me than a new bulletin board.  After my presentation, the students write me a letter in response about their own stories and let me tell you - after I’ve just been so transparent about my life, I get the same thing back from them.  In these letters I’ve read about childhood abuse, pregnancies, divorces, and so many other intimate details of students’ lives that I wouldn’t have learned until much, much later in the semester.  Now, moving forward, I am learning how to better serve each and every one of my kiddos.

2.  Establish Routines and Systems

This part of back to school preparation might be linked to some shopping and/or decorating, but it’s the system that’s important.  Systems and routines make your classroom run:  they create the predictability that students need for their best behavior and attention.  Think about this year and see if you can answer these questions:

• How will students get their homework assignments for each day?

• Where do students see targets for each class period?

• How will I hand back graded work?

• How will class start and end each day?

• If students need to leave class for any reason, how will I handle it?

• Where in my room can I send a student that needs to relocate?

• How will my students be trained to bring their 1:1 devices every day?

• What will my assessment revision policy be?

• Where will students access supplies?  How will I keep it organized?

This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.  Make these decisions before you find bins and trays and start going nuts on your label maker.

3.  Connect with Colleagues

The teaching profession is getting lonelier all the time.  Teachers, annoyed with policies and administration, retreat into their classrooms and only come out when it’s time to gossip.  How can you prevent that from happening to you?  Your team?  Your department?  Find time (again, this is time away from obsessing over a HP themed classroom) to meet with your colleagues and build each other up for the school year ahead.  You might:

• Write a joint mission statement or motto for the upcoming school year

• Take a group picture and put the same one on every syllabus - send the message that WE are all your teachers and you are ALL our students

• Plan a monthly social event, gathering, or silly thing to do at school

Let’s build schools with community rather than competition.  Make it a point to not just be a classroom teacher, but a hallway teacher and a teacher the whole school knows has students as her priority.

4.  Reflect and Set Goals

Teachers have the beautiful little luxury of getting the chance to start over.  Every single year, we get to hit the reset button and adjust the way things get done.  Before school starts, make a quick list of lessons, systems, routines, or other things that you didn’t really like the year before.  What was always an annoyance?  Next, make a similar list with ideas for solutions to those problems.  Finally, set some fun, creative, pedagogical goals for the upcoming year.  What are the new trends in education that seem worth trying?  Be an adventurous teacher!  What will you try next?  Gamification?  A digital breakout?  Digital interactive notebooks for bell ringers?  Pick just one or two things you want to try.  Keep your teaching fresh by at least attempting one new methodology per semester!

Focus on what matters, play later

Let me be REALLY CLEAR:  it is SO MUCH FUN to decorate our classrooms for back to school.  It might even be more fun to get lost on Pinterest and Instagram dreaming about the most neon-tastic classroom ever.  So many teachers are so artfully talented and their crafting is just off the charts, and to you I say WOW!  But to everyone out there stressin’ out about keeping up with the social media classroom decor hype, let me be clear:  what happens in your room far outweighs how beautifully decorated it is.  Prioritize your summer on these four things:  authentic connection, routines, collegial bonding, and reflection and goal setting.  Once these things feel established, feel free to resume your Dollar Spot stalking.

The Senior Sendoff: 6 Ways to Say Goodbye to Seniors

Do any of you remember this ICONIC graduation song that totally dominated the early 2000s radio?

If I'm being honest, I'm equal parts filled with embarrassment (this song was my JAM!) and truly sweet nostalgia.  Sometimes it's hard to remember what it felt like to be in high school.  This song and music video bring me back to that ultra vulnerable moment when we were all desperately trying to hold on to our high school days and pretend like we weren't shi*%ing our pants thinking about college (or lack of college plans!).

If you want to make this year special for your seniors, I've rounded up some great ideas, products, and projects that just might do the trick.  Let us know in the comments below what YOUR favorite Senior Sendoff idea is!

Turn On Vitamin C (sorry, girl):  Create a Parody

As much as I love/hate this song, it's so much fun to spoof :-)  Show students the Vitamin C "Graduation Song" music video and teach a mini-lesson on parody.  Divide your class into groups and make it a competition - the group to create the funniest parody of this video WINS!  If you have some time and want to step up the rigor, require students to create scripts, storyboards, or other written elements to showcase their planning process.  Either way, kids will get a kick out of poking fun at these cheesy graduation cliches.  

Help Your Students PLAN Their Senior Prank

Seriously!  Most pranks in this day and age end up getting students kicked out of walking at their graduation ceremony or pretty hefty tickets - why not step in with a few legal AND fun options?  I always try to remind my seniors that a really good senior prank should be memorable - it's like leaving a legacy.  Vandalism, theft, animal abuse, and super perverted pranks usually end up only living in short term memory.  Here are a few ideas that won't get your seniors arrested before graduation:

• Plan a FLASHMOB! Yes, they're a little dated, but how sweet would it be for an entire senior class to prank the school at the last pep assembly with a fully choreographed dance number? Don't know what a flash mob is? Check them out on YouTube...

• Fundraise enough cash to hire a mariachi band to play during lunch hours or even to follow your favorite administrator around school all day

• "Plan" a passing period where all of the seniors get to lay flat on the floor for nap time - they must be tired after four years of high school!

• Have a Silent DJ party during lunch hours. Seniors ONLY!

• On a day when seniors are out but underclassmen are still in classes, rent some blow-up slides/games and bouncy castles to play in while everyone else is still learning!

Have Your Own Awards Ceremony

Teachers Pay Teachers is an AMAZING resource for this - no matter the kind of end-of-the-year award you're looking for, these teacher sellers have got some great ones!  All you need to do is purchase, print, and hand out! (By the way, if you've made purchases on TpT before, leaving feedback from a purchase earns you credits -- the more credits, the more free stuff you get!)  Check out these awesome ideas:

• English Inside Joke Awards by B's Book Love

• End of Year Awards: Hyperbole by Literary Sherri

• Meme Awards by Nana's ESL Classroom

Create a Senior Goodbye Video

Most high schools have a time in the day when they play, watch, or read school announcements, so why not dedicate one of those days to a senior goodbye video?  We all love a good, sappy, cheesy video!   Organize recording times about three weeks before you want to publish the video.  I recommend getting a few teachers on board and making your classrooms available for recording during lunch hours.  Have students record a 15-30 second goodbye video (thank a teacher, what they've gained, where they're going, etc.).  Save all of the videos and then once all recording is finished, have your best video editor (student or staff member) put the clips together to make one final video as a gift to the senior class.

A Final Unit:  Project Based Service Learning

This idea takes us back to the more academic side of ending a course with seniors.  Yes, "senioritis" has kicked in, so what better time to do something active and focused on giving back to the community?  Try one of my favorite units:  Be the Change.  This project walks students through five stages of identifying a social justice issue they care about, researching it, sharing what they've learned on social media, completing a service project, and then finally presenting on their hard work.  This project will keep students busy with nonfiction reading and research while also giving back to their community - what a better way to leave a legacy?!

Create a Senior Class Mural

If there's a space in your school for everyone to participate in this huge idea, then go for it!  On a simpler, more personal scale, however, every year I like to get a giant piece of butcher paper and give my seniors about three days to create a mural on paper of the most important things they've learned in English.  I encourage them to collect the most memorable quotes from literature they can remember (so many of them remember things that I was certain they've forgotten!), they draw characters and scenes, they use symbolism, and even a few inside jokes here and there. I keep these in the room year after year showing sophomores a glimpse into their own futures :-)  When the mural is done, laminate it and hang it up in your room!

What other ideas do you have?

Share with us in the comments below what your favorite traditions are with your senior sendoffs!  

How to Design a Poetry Unit that Doesn't SUCK

Have you ever done a Google search for "poetry ideas" to teach in your high school English classroom?  Let me spoil those search results for you - THEY'RE LAME!  Poetry, especially at the high school level, it too important to be treated as a coloring activity, or worse, ignored completely.

So many of the poetry resources out on the internet and on Pinterest are, quite honestly, not rigorous at all.  If you're truly looking to teach poetry (like, more than just rhyme scheme and a few adorable forms), you're not going to be happy with the coloring-book, bubble-lettered poetry activities out there.  And maybe that's the problem:  studying poetry isn't an activity.  It's hard work that requires a lot of patience, confidence (on the part of the teacher), and clear teaching targets.  Don't get me wrong...poetry can and should be fun!  But we need to be very careful, as high school English teachers, to not oversimplify our poetry study.  If you need help designing your poetry curriculum for this year, I've got a few things for you to keep in mind...

Choose Your Targets

What will the goal of this unit be?  Do you want students to study a particular genre or school of poetry like the Harlem Renaissance or Romanticism?    Do you want a diverse array of poetry so that you can focus on the basic analytical skills needed to approach any poem?  Are you considering a mini-unit focusing on just one poet's works?  All of these approaches are very exciting and relatively easy to organize, so decide on the approach you like and the targets you hope to achieve.  This will help keep the unit focused on a skill or two that you can measure at the beginning and end (pretest/posttest).  If you're using Common Core to write your targets, you won't find a lot of poetry-friendly areas, but certainly consider the language standard:

“CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5
Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.”

— www.corestandards.org

If you have enough time in this unit, you might also consider adding in a few of the speaking and listening standards (have students perform and read their work for an audience) or even the writing standard about publication.  If you're lucky enough to not have to "prove" you're teaching "standards", still make sure you have a few focus goals for the unit:  what are the things you want students to be able to do once they're finished with the few weeks you've studied poetry?  

Decide on an Analysis Tool

There are lots of approaches to teaching poetic analysis.  If you've been teaching for a while, you might be familiar with TPCASTT.  I can remember being a student hating TPCASTT (who knows why), but I do have an alternative analysis tool that I can share with you.  As a senior in college, poetry instruction in the high school classroom became my focal point in my seminar research.  Here I began the process of creating The Big 6, and I have since refined it over many more years of teaching.  Essentially, The Big Six is an open circle that invites students into a dialogue with each other and with the poem.  We tackle each poem with The Big Six in a variety of ways.  Sometimes I have students move around the room stopping at each Big Six Station to talk and annotate about each element.  Other times, we vote on the top two we want to examine for a particular poem.  If you want to know more,  I have some free lesson ideas, graphics, and handouts here.

Select Your Poems Carefully

This is a task taken too lightly by many teachers.  Here is where you hold great power - are you going to keep stuffing the old, white, dead, male cannon down students' throats?  I suggest you make every effort to diversify your unit's anthology of poems.  Keeping in mind the targets of your unit (do not abandon these!), consider a global map of poets from many places.  Teach female poets.  It's OKAY if you don't teach Frost.  He'll be fine with it.  Have the chutzpah to try some lesser known poets, even some LIVING poets, to teach your students.  The poems you teach shape your students' perception and attitudes about poetry.  Here are some tips to help with this monumental task:

• Try pairing contemporary and old school poetry together:

  • Willie Perdomo "Where I'm From" and Carl Sandburg "Chicago" (both about where the poets are from, both urban landscapes)

  • Poetry & New York Times nonfiction

  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and Juanes (Columbian music superstar) "A Dios Le Pido" (both poems about senseless death, both have a prayer-like feel)

• Consider some of these rockstar contemporary poets:

  • Billy Collins

  • Denise Duhamel

  • 2Pac

  • Matthew Graham

  • Lamar Jorden

  • Patricia Smith

• Check out these female poets you know, but probably don't already have in the curriculum:

  • Emily Dickinson

  • Sylvia Plath

  • Maya Angelou

  • Elizabeth Bishop

  • Gwendolyn Brooks

  • Margaret Atwood

  • Nikki Giovanni

Make Sure Your Students Write

No matter what you do in your unit, make sure there is room set aside for students to try their hand at their own poetry.  You don't need to organize any formal instruction for this -- seriously!  The best way to teach students how to write poetry is to show them great mentors.  Your directions can be as simple as "Now, try your own version of "Phenomenal Woman".  What is "Phenomenal" about you that you'd like to celebrate?  Experiment with your own version for homework tonight".   It's that simple.  

If you'd like to spend more time with students writing, you might consider this 30 Poems in 30 Days challenge in my shop.  I have 30 types of poems ready for students to try as well as a simple digital interactive notebook for the students to use.  If you want help with SLAM POETRY or some POETRY PROJECT IDEAS, I've got you hooked up there, too.

Need help getting started with slam poetry?

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That about wraps it up here, folks.  Remember, the fact that you're here reading this post means that you care about poetry instruction.  We must be powerful forces in our English departments - for so many students, high school is the place where poetry goes to DIE.  We can't let that happen.  It's just too important.  Teaching poetry helps students be more analytical across so many other kids of literature, it stimulates creativity, and it brings them in touch with so many more writers and great moments in our world's history.  Let me know in the comments below what you're teaching in your poetry units!

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SHOP THE MUD & INK STORE

Can your class write 30 poems in 30 days?

If you love poetry, and you're a little bit competitive (like me!) then I have just the challenge for you!  How about jumping on the #30poems30days Challenge!

This year in creative writing, I've decided that I want my students to have access to as many different styles of poetry as possible.  That's why I've narrowed down my 30 favorite types of poems to teach - and I'm going to teach them all in just 30 days!  It's going to be crazy, and I won't be able to get into great depth with each poetic form or style, but what I will be able to do is expose my students to a huge variety of poems so that they can decide for themselves what kind of poets they want to be.  Here's everything you need to know about Write 30 Poems in 30 Days...

Poem Types

I've broken down my selection into three major categories:  form poetry, free verse poetry, and found poetry.  Form poetry consists of the kinds of poems that require adherence to a very strict rhyme scheme or syllable pattern.  Free verse poetry is just that - free to the stylistic discretion of each poet!  I've provided a few themes and topics and "kinds" of poems to help jumpstart student writing.  Finally, found poetry is the type of poetry that is a gathering of language in the world around the poet, then composed and arranged in a brand new, unique way!  Click through some examples below...

Setting Up the Challenge

In my classroom, I've laminated 30 pieces of scrapbook cardstock and numbered them 1-30.  I then printed off my Write 30 Poems in 30 Days handouts, and one by one, I'll be posting those up on the wall in the order that I teach each poem (see image gallery for an idea!).  Next, I will be assigning students their digital poetry interactive notebooks (included with the product!) and each day they write, they will add to their notebooks.  Everything is neatly organized through Google Classroom, so no crazy notebook lugging back and forth from home for me!!

Are You READY for the CHALLENGE?

I sure hope so!  Follow along using #30poems30days and catch my students on Instagram @mudandinkteaching.

I want to do poetry in April, but this sounds too intense for me...

Never fear!  I have a really simple Poetry Teacher's Ultimate Survival Guide handbook for teachers just like you!  Grab your free copy right now!

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SHOP THE MUD & INK STORE

Teacher Truth or Dare: Show us your morning routine!

My Morning Routine:  

The True Diary of a Workaholic, Trying-to-have-it-all English Teacher

I have to admit...I’ve watched my fair share of “morning routine” videos on YouTube.  They crack me up:  so many of the teenage girls making them could be my students and the things the YouTubers include in the videos are both endearing and totally random!

I certainly don’t have it all together when it comes to my morning routine.  Actually, I’d hesitate to even call it a routine, but the masses called for my TRUTH and my truth I shall share!  And to do so, I’ve enlisted the help of Adobe Spark.

Adobe Spark Pages:  For Teachers

The videos of these morning routine videos are gorgeous.  I did not have the time or even the knowhow to create one of these, but what I do know how to do is create a gorgeous Adobe Spark Page.  Take a look at my morning routine page here!

Nice, isn’t it?   There are so many things I enjoy about pages:  primarily, I love the simplicity of the technology and the beauty of the design.  I did no coding, minimal font choosing, and was just relieved to just insert my pictures and go.

I’ve used Adobe Spark pages for a few other situations:  my family Christmas card and a webquest for gaining background knowledge before reading the novel In the Time of the Butterflies.  My next project?  I plan to try using Spark Pages to create virtual field trips!

Adobe Spark Pages:  For Students

As you can imagine, Spark Pages has amazing potential for student learning and publishing in the classroom.  With pages, students could do so many things:

• Publish a photo essay

• Create a character profile

• Create a mock website for a business/product

• Create an introduction of themselves

• Present research on virtually any topic

Using Adobe Spark Pages in the Classroom:  A Tutorial

Want to try Adobe Spark pages in your own classrooms?  I made a tutorial video for you!  Check it out below and be sure to share with other teachers that would love using this tech tool!

About the Author:

My name is Amanda Cardenas and I’m the author behind the website mudandinkteaching.org I love blogging and participating in the Secondary Series Facebook Live crew on Thursdays!  You can also find me on Instagram @mudandinkteaching, Twitter @mudandink_, or directly via email mudandinktpt@gmail.com.

The YouTube Scavenger Hunt

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Right about now, everyone's turned to the "leggings only" mentality:  not only have we decided to stop putting together Instagram-worthy outfits and Pinterest-perfect lessons and procedures, but we're starting to cut corners and cover them all up with a nice, flowy dress. This is teaching in the doldrums of winter.

Have you reached the elastic-waistband version of yourself as a teacher?  If so, I'm with you.  All. the. WAY!  For these last few days before break, I want to do right by my kids, teach great content, but the above and beyond-ness of my normal school gig will just have to wait until after the holidays.

This post, however, will not get you to the break.  You're on your own.  What I'm here today to give you is your POST break solution.  Once you've made it to break, relaxed on your break, there's something else that you still need to do:  GO BACK TO SCHOOL AGAIN!  And as exciting as it is to start fresh in the new year, it can be a bit of an adjustment getting back into the swing of things.  So, from my classroom to yours, here is the only lesson you need to get you through the first one to three class periods when you return from break.

 

The YouTube Scavenger Hunt

1.  Decide on content and topic

Are you in the midst of a novel unit right now?  Starting?  Finishing?  Are you working on a research project?  Would you like to introduce your students to poetry?  Once you've chosen your topic, read on!

2.  Choose your outcome

What do you want your students to be able to do by the end of the scavenger hunt?  To answer a synthesis question?  To present their findings?  To discuss their revelations Socratic seminar style?

3.  Create your handout

Keep it simple or just use mine and modify to your liking.  The handout should be a simple, open guide for students to take notes as they scour through your YouTube playlist.  Ask a few pointed, but strategically open-ended questions and leave room for ideas, scribbles, notes, textual evidence, etc.  You might include (at the end) the finished product or activity they will do or participate in the following day so that students are prepared.

4.  Create your YouTube Playlist

Here is the beautiful part.  No matter your topic or current unit of study, there are hundreds of connected and relevant YouTube videos that will help students understand your objectives more clearly.  For example, when my students are in their Slam Poetry unit, guess what kinds of videos I stash on the YouTube playlist?  My (and student's) absolute favorite slam poems.  Reading a novel with some complicated history?  Add it to the playlist.  Exploring a controversial issue?  Add videos from both sides of the argument to the playlist (and a few in between!)   Working on rhetorical analysis?  Get some commercials ready to go! 

A YouTube Playlist Scavenger Hunt might sound like a cop-out, but consider these delightful details:

• It's completely student-centered

• It offers student choice

• The questions can be scaffolded for an appropriate amount of rigor

• The activity expands background knowledge

• Students are actually working on LISTENING skills

• Students are hardly distracted on YouTube when their assignment is to watch YouTube.

Here's one of my favorite playlists to use for this kind of activity:  it's a Social Justice Poetry Slam playlist!  Feel free to take it and use it with the handout attached above.

Let me know how it goes in the comments below!  

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Holly Jolly Snow Days: ELearning Ideas for ELA Teachers

Hi there, teacher friends!

A few awesome secondary bloggers have gathered together to bring you some laughs, fun ideas, and creative ways to maneuver through this crazy holiday season.  Be sure to check out everyone else's posts when you finish with this one!  Oh...and we are also raffling off a pretty sweet prize you should check out as well!

For more information, check out http://languageartsclassroom.com!

Last year, our school became one of three schools in the entire state of Illinois to be approved for a pilot run of what's called an "E-Learning Day".  This new system gives superintendents the option to call school an "e-learning day" instead of a snow day:  no days are added to the end of the school year, no one goes to school, but teachers and students are expected to host class that day ONLINE!  Basically, kids need to check in via Google Classroom for attendance and complete an assignment for each of his or her classes.

As I'm sure you can imagine, it had some people cheering and others writhing in apocalyptic fear and panic.  Wanna know what's funny?  After all the cheering AND the panic, Chicago didn't have a cold enough or snowy enough day to even pilot our first "e-learning day" anyway! 

But, as the seasons do, another winter has rolled around and we are already talking about getting ready for the snow.   I wonder, are you too?  Has your school tried something like this?

Whether you have or haven't, I wanted to share some fun e-learning day type lessons that can work in any 1:1 classroom.  These lessons are fun, quick check-ins to make sure that students are fulfilling their classroom requirements for the day, but also have time to go sledding (do teenagers still do that?) and curl up on the couch with some hot cocoa.  

1.  Summary and a Selfie

No matter when a snow day or e-learning day may fall, it's almost a guarantee that we will be in the beginning, middle, or finishing a novel together or independently in class.  So, the quickest and most efficient assignment we give kids is to post on Google Classroom (or Padlet) a summary of the assigned reading and a selfie with their books.  These are always so much fun to see!  Sometimes I even throw in a photo contest with different prizes:  best book selfie in the snow, best selfie with the book in a warm place, etc. Have fun with this!

2.  Let's Recap...

You may have seen their ads on Facebook (that's where I discovered this awesome tool!), but if you haven't yet tried Recap, it's time to get on that!  Recap is a website where students are placed in a virtual classroom (just like pretty much every other education website/program out there) and then you, the teacher, can push out questions to the students.  Their job?  To respond.  What's different here, though, is that their response will be video taped and recorded and immediately sent back to you.  Students will need Chromebooks or another webcam enabled device, and if you have access to this tech, Recap will be both a time saver and a hysterical change of pace of you and your students.  Ask your students to do their best character voice impressions, to dress up like a character, to show you a drawing they made of the Hollywood celebrity they would choose to play Romeo...you name it, they record it and it gets sent right back to you!  Videos can be as short as 15 seconds or as long as 60 second

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There you have it, folks!  Two quick, easy, and fun lessons that not only qualify for e-learning, but can also keep kids moving forward with technology and in touch with you no matter how many inches of snow are on the ground!

An InLinkz Link-up

Secondary ELA Seasonal Blog Hop: Mud and Ink Teaching's Tips & Tricks

Without a doubt, the fall is my favorite time of year.  Here in the Midwest, we have L.L.Bean picture-perfect-catalog days:  decadent leaves scattered in swirling piles, families in matching vests picking apples and pumpkins at the farm, and of course, pumpkin spice everything.

In my classroom, however, another favorite seasonal dream is coming true.  October, in my classroom, is synonymous with Gothic fiction.

From Poe to the Brontee sisters, I love everything about the mysteries and madness that unravel in gothic fiction.  Let's dig in to a few tips, tricks and suggestions for making your fall rich with discussion over important works of literature that are especially delicious this time of year. 

Tip #1:  If you can't decide, JIGSAW!

When it comes to Gothic fiction, sometimes it can be overwhelming to choose which story to use in class.  So, I say, why choose?  Assign as many as you like and have your students JIGSAW!  For a refresher on jigsaw, check out this great explainer video from none other than the master herself, Jennifer Gonzalez.  Basically, the goal of a jigsaw is to create two experiences for students:  one, students become and expert in their assigned text (a Gothic narrative in this case), then two, students "jigsaw" (mixup) so that their new group contains one member from each "expert" group.  Now, students can teach the others in their group about the story that they got to experience.  

Tip #2:  Explore non-fiction connections

Gothic fiction is deeply interested in exploring the human condition.  Although it is fictional, many Gothic narratives at their core are trying to explain something about our desires, our greed, our obsessions, and our deepest darkest secrets.  Check out this fascinating read: "Here's Why We Love Serial Killers" by Psychology Today or even take a listen to this rad podcast Sword and Scale that explores true crime and how "the worst monsters are real".  Can you see a lesson that draws parallels between Frankenstein's monster and Ted Bundy?!  Hello, contemporary, relevant, and awesome discussion!  Yes, please!

Tip #3:  Craft a sexy essential question

Yep, I said it.  Make your questions sexy!  Essential questions that are alluring, complicated, challenging and even "playing hard to get" will provide discussion and analysis that gets deeper and deeper with each and every text you keep adding to the arsenal.  Consider some of these to help you start crafting your Gothic unit:

• To what extent does Gothic fiction capture the human condition?

• How does one define a "monster"?

• At what point does obsession turn to madness?

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The First Week of School: 3 Things to Remember

One of the most frustrating fights I ever had with my husband was about the first day of school.  For at least a week before my group of kiddos walked into my classroom to begin year eight of teaching (at the time), I kept telling my (then) fiance, "I'm soooo nervous!"  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't shut up about school.  And he just didn't get it.  He pointed out, very logically, that I had been going to the first day of school for two decades and that I was no newbie on the teaching scene - why on earth was I overreacting?  

You get it, though, don't you?  No matter how many years you've been teaching, there's this electric energy that pulses through your body every hour that gets closer to the first day.  And there's a good reason for that.  Those first days are really important.  

There are too many things to do, always, but these are the three most important things that I keep in mind when planning and preparing for the first days of school:

ONE:  ATMOSPHERE

I used to spend days (sometimes weeks!) in my classroom organizing, playing with seating charts, updating bulletin boards, and all kinds of things to make sure the physical space was perfect:  inviting, warm, and communicated my love for reading and writing.  Time has taught me, however, that the  content of the lessons planned for each day and the intentional structure of that lesson are so much more important.  My goal in those first few days is to set a tone that I care deeply about my students and that we are going to work hard in this class together.

TWO:  ROUTINE

If there is any routine that I want my students to do successfully in February, they need to learn it and practice it until it's annoying during that first week.  I like to call this week "training week" because that's what I need to do:  train my students in the behaviors and structures that need to be carried out flawlessly for the remainder of the school year.  One of these routines is how we start class (if you're a new teacher and haven't thought about this, you need to).  In my room the start of class is the same EVERY DAY and the same behaviors are expected during that time EVERY DAY.  Here's what it looks like:

• Enter calmly
• Be seated when the bell rings
• Silently begin work on bell ringer
• If you have extra time, take out planner and start writing the agenda/targets, update vocab notebook, etc.

My job during the first week is to practice this routine with my students until it's perfect.  And guess what?  The first day that they come in the room CRAZY or are not SILENT during bell work, we stand up, go back out in the hall, and try it all over again.  Yep.  We do.  They hate it.  But, guess what?  IT WORKS.  Putting excessive energy into practicing this routine until we're exhausted saves me so much come October.  By October, class has started without me.  When I greet students at the door and stay out there past the bell to talk to an individual, I can come into a room full of students typing away on their Chromebooks without me having to tell them what they should be doing.  Do this for all of the routines that you need to work well -- lots of practice will have a huge reward in the end.

THREE:  BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

I have a confession to make:  in the first week of school, I spend an entire day sharing my story.  For an entire period, I stand in front of my class and do what I won't do again for the rest of the year; I talk.  I tell the story of how I came to be this stranger in front of them.  I tell them about being born in New Jersey and moving to Chicago where I grew up.  I tell them about my privileged and how grateful I am that I didn't have to struggle.  I tell them about my passion for soccer and about the one time I tore three ligaments in my knee and my dad had to (temporarily) steal a golf cart to get me off the field.  I tell them about my favorite teachers.  I tell them why I wanted to become a teacher.  I tell them that I love my job and that every day they see me standing in front of them that I am literally living my dream.  

This is the best day of the school year.

And it's not because I'm vain or really love hearing myself talk.  It's because I am at my most vulnerable; I am a person first, and a teacher second.  Throughout this storytelling period, my goal is to share with my students a real person that really cares about them, and ultimately, when I ask them to work for me and to do things that are difficult, it's because I care.  

And this lesson doesn't end with me talking - it ends with a request.  I ask my students to write me a letter telling me their story.  The students have a few days to craft their letter to me and I take the first month reading through the stories of their lives.  This is the best way that I've found to build our classroom on the foundation of relationships.  Through these letters, students tell me things that would have taken months to find out:  the name of their baby, the tragic passing of a parent, their love for animae, or even their recent move to the district.  It is these relationships that fuel the learning and motivation for learning all year long.

Odd One Out - A New Formative Assessment Tool

Assessment is a critical component to quality teaching and learning, but often we only talk about it in the most high-stakes terms.  If you're new to formative assessment or if you've been adding tools to your arsenal all along, I think you'll find that "Odd One Out" could be a great addition to your classroom.  Take a look at what we shared this week on Periscope as part of the Back to School:  Secondary Scope Series.  

NOTE** This video is a {PERISCOPE REPLAY}, not a normal video! You are watching a previously recorded live broadcast on the platform Periscope. You will hear me talking to other "viewers" who were in the room at the time. For the official video, subscribe and sit tight until I have that made!

I hope everyone who was there live was able to learn so much from our time together.  If you're just watching this now, head on over to our Facebook group where we always continue the discussion together and you can grab a copy of the Google Slide show that I shared during the scope:  bit.ly/secondaryseries

A Request

After the scope, many of you requested the rubric I use to grade these "Odd One Out" questions.  Here's a screen shot from one of my quizzes for In the Time of the Butterflies.

Since we don't use points in our gradebook, this is the scale that we developed.  The "5" response is the best because it demonstrates a complex connection (a significant relationship) and the observations that are stated are grounded firmly in the text.  Grading these can certainly be tricky, and, as I stated in the video, one of the struggles with this kind of assignment.

What are your thoughts?  How are you implementing this strategy in your classroom this year?

Creating Culturally Responsive and Caring Classrooms: A New EBook

Download a copy of the ebook for free right here.

I'm so excited to share this post with you all today.  The following post is taken from the foreword to a brand new ebook:  Creating Culturally Responsive and Caring Classrooms.  This ebook is a collaborative effort of 25 Teachers Pay Teachers authors and you can download it for FREE here.  Read on for a taste of what our book is all about...

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The world is changing and now, more than ever, we are afraid.  We’re not talking about the exciting kind of change, the innovative and positive growth kind of change.  The global media narrative is keeping us vigilantly aware of the violence and terror that surrounds us, or could surround us, at any given time.  We are grieving the loss of innocent victims of terror and shutting our doors in an effort to stay safe.  Behind those doors, many of us are clinging to a #hashtagbeliefsystem that allows us to participate in this controversial world without necessarily stepping out into the streets.  From Syria, to Orlando, to Dallas, to Baton Rouge, to Brussels, to Nice, and beyond, we are stunned by oppressive hatred and destruction to our fellow human race: all of this in the year 2016 alone.  

Our world is broken, hurting, and desperate for healing.  So where does that leave us, the secondary educator?  How can we, or should we, attempt to address the pain that is so palpable in our world with our students?

The team of teachers in this ebook agree:  the answer is to create a culturally responsive and caring classroom.  We can’t singlehandedly change the course of terrorism or reach out a hand an instantly heal a family torn apart by war, but we can make our classrooms a safe space to learn, be challenged, and to develop into responsible citizens that will, someday, make our world a better place.

This ebook is a collection of suggestions, ideas, and responses to our changing world.  Each author has contributed his or her own page responding to the question:  how can we create culturally responsive and caring classrooms starting on the first day of school?  As you (as we all do) get caught up shopping back to school sales and putting up new bulletin boards, we urge you to spend equal energy carefully considering and planning ways to ensure that your classroom is a culturally responsive and caring place for students.

Thank you for downloading this incredible resource.  Each of the teacher authors are listed in the table of contents and have provided links to their social media connections.  Please feel free to follow us and reach out to connect on this incredible journey we call teaching.

Sincerely,

Amanda Cardenas

Mud and Ink Teaching

Editor and Contributor

Why I'm Using GOOGLE for Bell Work (and going digital for good!)

I'm DONE collecting notebooks.  Are you dying to know why?

If you're like me, you have tried a thousand options for bell ringers/bell work.  No matter what, the bell work needs a home, and for a long time, the bell work "home" has been in a notebook.  Then, what do we have to do to grade it?  COLLECT 125 SPIRAL BOUND NOTEBOOKS.  I won't do it any more!

We have fully entered a digital world in our school systems. Whether we are in live classrooms or teaching virtually, blending digital teaching methods with our other tried and true in-person teaching practices is a necessity. As education evolves, there are certain pillars of good teaching that will always remain:

• Students need teachers that work to build relationships

• Students need high quality content from their teachers that pushes them to enter critical thinking daily

• Students need structure in the form of daily routines and expectations that create a predictable, safe learning environment

• Students need fun, engaging ways to interact with their content.

Now this might sound like a stretch, but I promise it’s been true for my whole career: a strong, daily bell work routine has laid the foundation for all four of these timeless components of an exceptional classroom.

Here's how my bell ringers work every day in my classroom:

An example of one of my crazy bell ringer ideas..

• Enter the classroom. Feel warmth, energy, and usually an air of mystery...

• On the screen (and saved in Google classroom for reference): the day's bell ringer. My bell ringers tend to be writing heavy: students answer a question that anticipates the day's learning or even reflects on a current event happening in the news. Either way, the prompt and directions are up on the screen ready to go. I make these one week in advance, usually, because I want them to be fresh and relevant to what’s happening in my room. Typically, each bell ringer coincides with vocabulary practice connected to the unit’s Essential Question, but since I make them fresh every week, I can always keep them updated with current videos, articles, etc.

• On the student's computers:

  • Each student has their own "presentation" which I will now be calling Bell Ringer Interactive Notebook (but remember, it's just a Google slide presentation!) and for each day that we have a bell ringer, the students hit CONTROL + M and BAM! - new page!

  • On that new page, the student responds to the bell ringer for that day, dates the slide and it's done.

• Grading? Oh wait. It's shared via Google Classroom, so I can peek at this presentation/document ANY TIME I WANT TO. And it's already stored in my Google Drive.

• BONUS: If a student writes a particularly hilarious, astute, or discussion worthy response, it's as simple as finding their doc in your folder, opening, and then projecting it on the screen. A whole class discussion can be launched from a student's writing in just a few clicks.

There are a lot of advantages to using Google for this part of the day that I didn't even realize until I started using digital notebooks.  First and foremost, you must ask yourself:  does the technology enhance the learning, or is it just extra?  For me, it streamlines an important classroom routine and procedure (entering the room and starting on work), increases student participation and accountability (usually around October they figured out that when I collected those damn spiral notebooks, I was way too tired to really grade them all!), and has created new opportunities for engagement during that time.  When students were writing an answer to a prompt in a notebook , that was it.  They could only write or doodle.  Now, a response to a bell ringer can look A LOT different: my students create memes, find videos, insert music and write a defense for lyrics, etc.  I'm telling you, when a bell ringer says "Write about your weekend", there's a decent response.  But when you can ask them, "Write about your weekend and include two pictures and a song that capture the tone of Saturday  night", engagement spikes just a tad.

If this sounds intimidating to create, don't worry.  I made one for you.  If you're feeling creative, they're really easy to make on your own as well!  Just make a template then assign it on Classroom.  Let me know in the comments below if you're going to try it this year!

I'm always looking for ways to help you take back your weekend, so let me know what else you need help with streamlining in your classroom.

**UPDATE**  

I've now added a Digital VOCABULARY Notebook to my store!  If you love the idea of a digital notebook for students to create day after day for Bell Ringers, check out the vocabulary version.  Here, students are given a Google slideshow full of vocabulary activity templates.  After you've given them the words, then students can choose a template to use and practice on their words little by little each day.

Style 1

Here is a quick sneak peek at the three different styles offered in the product. If you are making your own, you can use any style that you like! Students can even choose their own!

Style 2

Style 3

shop resources

Creative Writing Summer Camp for Teachers - ENROLLMENT OPEN NOW!

When is the last time YOU got to sit down with a fresh new notebook, pen in hand, and write something beautiful?  Something other than a lesson plan?  Something other than notes all over a bleeding red essay that seems beyond repair?

I'm with you.

Sometimes I feel like the only creative writing I do anymore is the "creative" commentary I leave on student's papers to identify ways to make them less terrible.

BUT NOW IT'S SUMMER!  It's time for you - time for you to relax and enjoy yourself and while you're at it, spend a little time doing professional development that you actually ENJOY.  Here's your chance!

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Creative Writing Summer Camp for Teachers:

Reignite your Creative Self

• Class will run from July 6th - 27th
• Takes place online - anytime you're on your phone or laptop, you can be with us!
• Explore three genres as a WRITER:  creative nonfiction, short fiction, and poetry
• Network with other teachers that love writing and grow from one another
• Pick up a few lesson and tech ideas along the way
• Enrollment fee: $25.00 per student

Get your classroom summer ready in just 5 days!

Crap.

School has been chuging along on what seems like an endless, antique, coal-powered train, and now as I look into the week ahead (amazingly organized and planned, somehow), I realize that there IS something I forgot.

Packing up my room.

So, here it is folks:  the five day get your classroom summer ready plan.  I have five weekdays ahead of me and my goal is to get my room totally cleaned and packed (minus what's absolutley needed for finals) in just five days.

MONDAY:  On the first day, divide the room into quadrants.  The key is to make this managable!  Plan to tackle one quadrant per day.  So, I'm taking Quadrant 1 - the back corner.  Everything's coming down and getting sorted or thrown away.

TUESDAY:  Up next, Quadrant 2 - the other back corner.  This is mostly my classroom library.  By the end of day two, the whole back of the room should be packed and cleaned up!

WEDNESDAY: On to Quadrant 3 - the front quadrant by the entry door.  This section has a lot of bulliten board cleaning to do!

THURSDAY:  At last, the most disorganized and terrifying corner of the room, Quadrant 4:  my teaching/computer desk!  Time to make sure everything is passed back, thrown out, recycled and completely done!

FRIDAY:  This is the last day in the five day plan - I'm reserving this day for wiping, sweeping, and any last tidying needed from the completed week at school.

If all goes to plan, this leaves me with three days of finals in a clean, packed room and no lingering stress!  Stay tuned on Instagram @mudandinkteaching to keep me accountable!  Good luck getting your rooms packed up and getting on your way to a relaxing and rejuvenating summer break - you deserve it!

The Next Poetry Challenge: The SESTINA

Have you ever asked your students to write a SESTINA?

If you haven't, you definitely should.  Asking my kids to write this incredibly old-school, complicated form is always an excellent exercise in careful diction choice and inventive ways of demonstrating their understanding of connotation.

For those of you who don't know what a SESTINA is - we're working with the number six, here.   Six stanzas, six lines, and each of those lines is ended with six prescribed words in a different order for each stanza.  

Today, at the beginning of my class, I had students write down their FAVORITE word on a piece of paper.  The only caviot?  I told them no inappropriate language or purposefully disgusting words:  "fart", as innocent as it is, can be really annoying to use in a poem six times in six different ways.  Then, I collected their words in a hat and set them aside.  I introduced the form to them, read a few examples, and then, finally, it was time to choose our six words.  I pulled them one at a time out of the hat - A) intriguing  B) toast  C) future  D) gaze  E) Patrick  F) obstinate.  Our job?  Everyone writes a sestina using these words that we chose together!

The next day in class is always hysterical - all students wrote the same poem using the same words, yet, the poems are so extraordinarily different - and usually, hilarious.  

Give it a try - grab my lesson here!  Then, tweet me about how it goes @mudandink_!

Have fun and

Happy National Poetry Month!

Teaching Shakespeare: Cooperative Learning

Everyone struggles to teach Shakespeare - no matter how strong your readers are. 

This year, my goal was to bring the fun back into teaching Julius Caesar.  The past few years, we've been really focused on writing rigorous, challenging rhetoric lessons for the play, and had kind of lost sight of the play itself. 

In order to frame the play, I've developed a quick, free lesson for you that organizes the students into collaborative groups that they work with throughout the play.  In their "Acting Troupes", students complete reading jigsaws together, quiz one another, and compete against the other acting troupes in the room for the glorious Dollar Tree tiara that serves as our traveling trophy.

Check out my latest scope that takes you inside my classroom to see how my students are putting this into action.

Come on over here to grab the lesson!  Don't forget to leave some feedback and share your Instagram pictures with me @teacherfitjourney.

In all things Shakespeare,
Amanda

#TeacherTruth - An Interview with Hannah Leib

Welcome to our weekly series of #TeacherTruth Thursdays!  Every Thursday, check back here for the latest interview with teachers from across the globe.  This Thursday, I was able to interview Hannah Leib, first grade teacher at Geff Grade School in rural, southern Illinois.  Hannah is a first year teacher (oh man, do I remember the struggle!) and she is known as Miss Leib to her kiddos, but as she says, "there’s always a day when I get 'Mom', 'Leiv, or 'Miss Leaf'".

Describe your teaching journey.  What major (or minor) events have led you to where you are today? 

It all started in the 4th grade when I had an amazing teacher by the name of Sue Burt.  At the first of the school year I was very hesitant to be in her classroom because she’s a very vocal and vibrant person, unlike myself at that point in my life.  I grew to realize she truly cared for me and my future while I was in her classroom.  She taught me how to be a kind and caring person while also teaching me very valuable life lessons.  One lesson I vividly remember is when I was taking a science test that I hadn’t studied for.  I decided that I could be sly and keep my study guide in my desk to look off of while “trading erasers and pencils.”  Being a fourth grader  and not very sneaky, I was busted.  Instead of Mrs. Burt taking my test away and not giving me another chance to take the test, she offered another solution.  She had me right an apology letter to my parents explaining what I had done and why I was sorry for cheating.  Not only did Mrs. Burt show me grace in that situation, she also taught me a valuable lesson that I strive to instill in my students.

Throughout my school years, I had many other wonderful teachers who taught me to love learning but more importantly to keep trying no matter how tough it may be.   Fast Forward to my Senior year of high school when I somehow received a brochure about the Golden Apple Scholars of Illinois program in the mail.  I decided to put off filling out the scholarship application until a couple days before the due date.  Never in my dreams would I have known how much of an impact the Scholars program had on my teaching career and my personal life.  During one of my four summer institutes I was placed in a classroom with a teacher  who taught me what I should NEVER do in a classroom.  This woman did some things that would make a person cringe and I would leave at lunch every day worrying about what she would do while I was gone.  During my time in that classroom I learned that a teacher has an enormous impact of how a student feels about him/herself.  From that point on, I knew I wanted to be the teacher that made every child feel like he/she was the most important child in my classroom.  It has been a long journey to get me to where I am today but I wouldn’t change it for the fact that I learned so many life lessons along the way.

What are the biggest obstacles that you’ve faced this year of teaching?

With this being my first year of teaching, there have been many different obstacles throughout this year.  One of the biggest obstacles I’ve faced is finding the balance between work and home.  It’s been difficult to take time in the evenings to just spend time doing something that I enjoy and isn’t related to school.  I truly do enjoying planning engaging and fun lessons for my students so most nights I don’t mind putting in the extra hour to plan and prepare for the next day.

Another obstacle that I’ve found challenging is how to establish a good communication avenue between myself and my students’ parents.  This is something that I’ve set as a personal goal during the second half of the school year.  I’ve tried to contact every parent at least once a month telling them a positive thing that their student has done in the classroom.  Parent communication is something that I aim to grow in every year during my teaching career.

What are the greatest joys that you’ve experienced this year of teaching?

I absolutely love going to school everyday and seeing my first graders so excited and ready to learn!  In my classroom we do a morning meeting before our calendar time.  I’ve recently started a “morning greeting” before our morning meeting in which I greet every student.  The fun part about the morning greeting is that the students get to choose how they want to be greeted whether it’s a hug, high five, or handshake.  It makes my morning much more enjoyable when I receive 8 or 9 hugs!  Another joy that I’ve experienced this year is seeing my students look out and care for each other.  At the beginning of the school year I told the students that we are a family in this class and it has truly been a joy to see them love and care for each other.  This past week the students brought in a box to decorate for our Valentine’s day party and I saw the students really bond and help each other create adorable boxes all on their own.  It was a heartwarming moment to step back and watch them work together.  Overall, I love watching kids be kids and hearing the hilarious things they say!

Why did you want to become a teacher?  Do those reasons still resonate with you?  Are you still inspired by those ideas?

As I mentioned earlier, I had a teacher who had such a large impact on my life and ultimately I wanted to do the same for my students.  Young children are so impressionable and I want to leave a positive mark on their life.  I always wanted to inspire children to be the person they never thought they could be.  Teaching is a great way to inspire kids to learn something they never knew about before.  From there, they branch out and find something that they will love for a lifetime whether it's researching new medicine, creating masterpieces, or becoming another teacher. Another reason I wanted to become a teacher was to teach kids to love learning.  I want my students to find something they love learning about and continue to grow in knowledge throughout their lifetime.  Some days I forget why I wanted to teach because every day isn’t always the best.  But there are always moments when one of my students looks at me and says they don’t want to go home because they love school.  It’s moments like those that still inspire me to teach.

What is your favorite lesson plan that you’ve taught this year? 

I did a thematic unit at Christmas time about holidays around the world and I had so much fun learning alongside my students about a variety of countries and how they celebrate Christmas or another winter holiday.  We took several trips around the world to various countries such as Italy, France, Mexico, Germany, Sweden, and England.  We learned what the children do during the holidays and how families celebrate together.  The most fun was learning what the Santa figure is in those countries and how he delivers gifts.  I had an absolute blast bringing in other cultures and learning how to say Merry Christmas in six other languages!  It really made me step back and smile when I saw my kids attempting to say “Merry Christmas” in another language and watching them tell the other classes how other people celebrate Christmas around the world.  Overall that was by far my favorite lesson from this year!

I used the Christmas Around the World Scrapbook by Sarah Cooley from Teachers Pay Teachers.

How are you handling your work/life balance?

This has by far been the most difficult part of being a first year teacher.  I have been so swamped with school stuff that most days I don’t stop working until my head hits the pillow at night.  On top of school, I’ve also been planning my wedding which is so much fun but a huge undertaking.  Most days I feel like I’m acrobat trying to balance school, wedding planning, and life.  I’ve made it a point to take a little time in the morning or at night to have some quiet time and really just spend time reading my Bible and being still.  My faith in our everloving God is the reason that keeps me going.  I know that no matter how tough and stressed I get, I know that God is always there to hear my concerns and loves me so deeply through it all.  I give him all the glory for this first year of teaching!

What advice do you have for other teachers?  

One piece of advice that I have for other teachers especially at the elementary level is to keep your kids active in the classroom.  I’ve found a website that my students and I LOVE!!! It’s called GoNoodle and it has a variety of videos to help get the wiggles out and to also have fun.  I love using the stretching in the mornings to get the kids calm and focused.  Some of the dancing videos are our favorites if we’ve been sitting for quite some time. All in all, its an awesome FREE website that I highly recommend. 

I would say to the veteran teachers to remember why you wanted to teach and keep that in the front of your thoughts when you hear about all the changes that are taking place during this day and age.  Another thing that older teachers should remember is how to step out of their comfort zone and try something new like incorporating more technology into their everyday lessons or having the students be more creative with their projects and how they present.  Technology can be such a scary thing for most veteran teachers but I know that there are plenty of teachers like myself who would be more than willing to lend a hand to teach them how to use it in the classroom. 

All in all, I would have to say to any aspiring teacher or veteran teacher is that teaching is such a rewarding and prestigious profession but we have to make the effort to find the good in the little things every day in order to see the long term outcomes in the future.

Thanks for reading!  

You can connect with Hannah on social media here:

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5 Reasons I Love Teaching

This Valentine's Day weekend has been delightful so far.  My honey sent me a DELICIOUS Edible Arrangement to school for a surprise on Friday and we celebrated at our favorite BBQ joint down in the city - Rub's Backcountry Smokehouse.  If you're ever in Chicago, trust me, this is a must-eat.  Not, it's not downtown in the hubbub of the touristy things, but it's worth a little drive north!

But today I wanted to jump on the blog to share the love I have for teaching.  Honestly, this time of year can get really tiring and downright depressing, so I'm challenging myself to reflect on why I love this job (even though seriously, it's so cold every morning I wake up, all I want to do is STAY UNDER THE COVERS FOREVER).

1.  The Kids

This one is probably obvious, but they are always the ones that make my day.  Even when they're being a huge pain!  As most of you know, I teach 10th and 12th grade and at this stage in their lives, I feel like there are so many shaping, poignant moments that they endure and I love being someone that is either there for them personally or simply providing classwork that is inspiring, engaging, and challenging them to really think about the decisions they are making day in and day out.

2.  I'm My Own Boss

Let's ignore, for a moment, our principals, division heads, and the powers that be at Common Core and other institutions - most days, I relish the autonomy of my profession.  This is something that I need to remind myself of because I can take it for granted.  I get to be creative all the time and I think I'd die without that.  In so many other jobs, employees have their days scheduled by other people.  Teachers?  We decide how our lessons run and how our days are structured.  The more I remind myself of this the more I realize how important it is to use that power positively.  With the power to structure, I also have the power to shape the tone of the day - for better or for worse.

3.  My Team

I have to give a huge shout out here to my team!  I have the most amazing group of teachers that I get to work with, and they make my job even better.  These guys are so open to my crazy ideas and we are so good at supporting one another through the tough times with kids.  Our team invents and reinvents new lessons and units every year and refuses to settle for what worked last year.  Our kids are always different and we are always trying to make our content relevant and challenging for each new group of students.

4.  Building Community

Being part of a school is like being part of a family.  I've only worked at one school, so I guess I'm not sure if this applies everywhere, but my school treats me as one of their own.  I've taught siblings and sat through parent conferences with entire families through all of their children.  I get invited to quinceaneras and baby showers.  When I go to football games, there are hundreds of students and alumni that I know.  It's amazing how small the job can feel in my living room grading papers, and then how enormous it is when I count how many lives I've been able to be a small part of.

5.  The Stuff I Teach!

Finally, I have to celebrate my content.  I love teaching English.  In a given year, I get to cover everything from creative writing (fiction, poetry, screenwriting) to dystopian literature to service learning research projects vested in social justice and even a little Shakespeare.  And the icing on the cake?  Getting to use creative problem solving to make it allllll fit together.  It's a delicious journey and I'm so glad that I found my calling.

What do you love about teaching?  I hope to hear from you!

Amanda

"Being Human" : A Lesson for Writer's Workshop

This weekend, the Creative Writing Club hosted the 2nd annual Regional Slammin the Sun Down competition.  Eight teams competed in a slam showdown of rhymes, passion, and courage.  We were THRILLED when we found out that our very own CHS -  THE INK took 1st place in their bout!  Julia, Maria, and Zandra performed beautifully and advanced us to the finals.  

In the finals, Ashley Anderson totally brought it with her poem "Mirror", however, the poet from Merriville, IN brought it to.  We took 2nd place - Ashley with a 29.3 out of 30, and her competitor with a 29.6.  It was a well fought battle and the audience got to experience some pretty rad poetry along the way!!

In between the first bout and the final found, Mrs. Deleon and I had the pleasure of sitting in on a writing workshop with one of our favorite Chicago poets, Adam Gottlieb.  Adam is a former LTAB competitor and, quite possibly, Deleon's long lost hippie-child :-).  He brought us a gorgeous poem from the duo Climbing Poetree called "Being Human".  My brain is spinning with ideas for using this poem in class, but below is how Adam shared it with us.

"Being Human" Writing Workshop Lesson

CCSS (provided by me, not Adam):

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.9-10.5a Interpret figures of speech (e.g., euphemism, oxymoron) in context and analyze their role in the text.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.

Materials:

• Writing utensils
• Copies for all students of "Being Human" by Naima (below)
• Writing notebook/journal
• OPTIONAL:  projector to share the YouTube video of the duo performance

Procedure:

1. PREWRITING:  Ask students to create two columns on their page.  In the first column, students should brainstorm a massive list of things they think of when they consider nature:  elements, animals, etc.  They should write for 2-3 minutes.  Next, ask if the students remember the definition of personification.  In the next column, students should make a list of ways that the nature elements could be personified - specifically, ask students questions like, "What problems could these elements have?  What fears?  What dreams?  If these elements could feel, what feeling would they have?  What opinions?"
2. READING:  Pass out copies of the poem to the students.  In our workshop, Adam performed the poem to us as we followed along.  We briefly discussed the poem - what we noticed, what we liked, what surprised us.
3. WRITING:  Next, Adam directed us to write!  We were to take inspiration from the poem and from our lists and create something.  Adam gave great advice to the kids - he told them that the purpose of this writing time is not necessicarily to write the next great poem, but just to write.  Students might find one great line in the time provided, or maybe even a few stanzas, but what's most important is that the students write.  
4. SHARING:  At the end of the provided writing time, Adam asked students to share what they came up with.  This time is incredibly important!

BEING HUMAN

by Naima

I wonder if the sun debates dawn

some mornings

not wanting to rise

out of bed

from under the down-feather horizon

If the sky grows tired

of being everywhere at once

adapting to the mood swings of the weather

If the clouds drift off

trying to hold themselves together

make deals with gravity

to loiter a little longer

I wonder if rain is scared

of falling

if it has trouble letting go

If snow flakes get sick

of being perfect all the time

each one trying to be one-of-a-kind

I wonder if stars wish

upon themselves before the die

if they need to teach their young to shine

I wonder if shadows long

to once feel the sun

if they get lost in the shuffle

not knowing where they’re from

I wonder if sunrise and sunset

respect each other

even though they’ve never met

If volcanoes get stressed

If storms have regrets

If compost believes in life after death

I wonder if breath ever thinks

about suicide

I wonder if the wind just wants to sit

still sometimes

and watch the world pass by

If smoke was born knowing how to rise

If rainbows get shy back stage

not sure if their colors match right

I wonder if lightning sets an alarm clock

to know when to crack

If rivers ever stop

and think of turning back

If streams meet the wrong sea

and their whole lives run off-track

I wonder if the snow wants to be black

If the soil thinks she’s too dark

If butterflies want to cover up their marks

If rocks are self-conscious of their weight

If mountains are insecure of their strength

I wonder if waves get discouraged

crawling up the sand

only to be pulled back again

to where they began

I wonder if land feels stepped upon

If sand feels insignificant

If trees need to question their lovers

to know where they stand

If branches waver in the crossroads

unsure of which way to grow

If the leaves understand they’re replaceable

and still dance when the wind blows

I wonder where the moon goes

when she is hiding

I want to find her there

and watch the ocean

spin from a distance

Listen to her

stir in her sleep

effort give way to existence