What Do Teacher’s Make???

Since it is Winter Break for many teachers (or will be soon for some) I thought that all the hard working teachers out there would appreciate  reading the poem below. It makes you remember why we spend all those hours planning lessons, worrying about the well being of our kids, working hard to get them to succeed, and having the lesson you thought would be the best ever- flop!

Here’s to all the teachers out there…. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

(I’ll be in Sunny Florida for break, so I won’t be posting as much-

but I will resume after break!)

WHAT TEACHERS MAKE

A poem by: Taylor Mali

The dinner guests were sitting around the table
discussing life. One man, a CEO, decided to explain
the problem with education. He argued:
“What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided
his best option in life was to become a teacher?”

He reminded the other dinner guests that it’s true
what they say about teachers: “Those who can…do.
Those who can’t … teach.”

To corroborate, he said to another guest: “You’re a
teacher, Susan,” he said. “Be honest. What do you
make?”

Susan, who had a reputation of honesty and frankness,
replied, “You want to know what I make?”

I make kids work harder than they ever thought they
could. I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional Medal
of Honor and an A- feel like a slap in the face if the
student did not do his or her very best.”

“I can make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence.”

“I can make parents tremble in fear when I call home”

“You want to know what I make?”

“I make kids wonder.”

“I make them question.”

“I make them criticize.”

“I make them apologize and mean it.”

“I make them write.”

“I make them read, read, read.”

“I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful, and definitely beautiful over and over and
over again, until they will never misspell either one
of those words again.”

“I make them show all their work in math and hide it
all on their final drafts in English.”

“I make them understand that if you have the brains,
then follow your heart…and if someone ever tries to
judge you by what you make, you pay them no
attention!”

“You want to know what I make?”

“I make a difference.”

“And you? What do you make?”

(The poet also has a video recording which is also powerful on you tube. I can’t get it downloaded to this page, so click on the link  here)

Why Do Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears? Writing and Discussion Activities

Why Do Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears?  is a clever West African Tale on cause and effect and inference. It is also a good book to look at taking responsibility for your actions. There is so much to discuss.

The book has really unique, rich pictures that capture the attention of many (it is a Caldecott Winner). I read this as a writing spark today and then had the students write. I gave them the following ideas to get them started:

–Have the mosquitoes go in front of the council and try to explain his actions. What do you think he would say?

–Write about why animals do certain things (why are bats out at night? What does a Salmon swim upstream? Why does the sun go away at night?)

–Throughout the story, one animal blamed another animal for their actions. Do you think this was right? What should each animal have said? Do you think that only the mosquito was to blame? Why or why not?

–What is the moral of the story?

–How does one misunderstanding become a big problem?

–What do you learn about the lion from the way he handled the problem?

–Have you and a friend ever had a misunderstanding? What happened?

Emotion Poems~Bring out the Emotions!

Today during writing workshop, I gave my students some sparks and they ran with it…. We brainstormed what courage is and made a list as a class.

Then we read, Courage by Bernard Waber. It is a really great book that asks the question- what is courage? This book shows the everyday kinds of courage that normal, ordinary people exhibit all the time, like “being the first to make up after an argument,” or “going to bed without a nightlight.” This books  explores the many varied kinds of courage and celebrates the moments, big and small, that bring out the hero in each of us.

I then showed them the poem “Fear” by Raymond Carver. This is a catalog- list type poem. We looked at the poem and discussed it. The students loved pulling out their favorite lines, and discussing lines that they would change. We had an interesting conversation on the last three lines. I then showed the students the Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion and we went through the various emotions besides the common love, fear, hate, joy etc….

I then let the students lose to choose an emotion and write a poem. I encourage them to write their poem with a twist at the end to follow the same format as the original poet. They really got into writing their emotions out on paper. When we did a quick share at the end of the period, we noticed and discussed that as the list got longer, then poem got deeper, because the writer had to think harder about what that emotion evokes. Some students took their writing notebooks home to work on their poems (I have to call that a success for the day! )

Wow~ Nominated For Best New Blog!!

I recently found out that I have been nominated for the best new blog at the edublog awards! I am quite honored. If you like what you see here, please vote at:

http://edublogawards.com/2009/best-new-edublog-2009/

Resources for Students and Parents

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I am trying to put together a list of resources for 8th grade parents and students that will help them with areas of need in regard to study skills, reading, writing, test taking etc…  Does anyone know of specific books that are good in this area, or that I must put on the list?  I will post the list when it is compiled. Your ideas would be really appreciated!

Moving Forward with Writing Groups

During writing workshop, I have found that my students are not giving each other good feedback when they are sharing their work with each other.  I find that they are just sharing their writing pieces, and not taking time to hear other people’s pieces, give or ask for advice to improve their work.

In writing group meetings during writing workshop:

I have my students tell their listeners to: Bless, Address, or Press with their writing.

Bless means to say only positive comments about the piece.

Address means that the writer picks one or two things that he/she specifically want help on.

Press means that the writer is in the publishing stage so give him/her everything you’ve got to make it great. The writer also tells the listeners what specifically he/she needs help on.

Even though I have the students do bless, address, press- I think I need to revisit it and remind the students to move to the address or press step.

What we have done in writing groups so far:

• At the beginning of the year, I had my students get into writing groups and gave them written pieces (written by published authors). I had the students mine for gold and share their thoughts.
• I also gave each group a selection of poems to read through, mine for gold and then give the writer advice on what they would change and why.
• Once we got to the students sharing their own work I had them start by saying positive feedback only, then having them move to press.

A possible solution I am going to try:

I am going to read my own work to the class,  and go through the critique process (bless-address-press) with the students so that they can see that even my writing is not perfect and go through many steps before becoming polished. I know that students love to read stuff that the teacher writes because it is so personal. I have found that Students are more willing to share, when the teacher “exposes” him/herself.

Quotation Mark Fun!

Teaching quotation marks may sometimes need a little spice. When teaching quotation marks, I had my students look through picture books that I selected and had them try to figure out what the quotation marks rules are. They brainstormed what they through were the rules of quotation marks based on the writing in the books they perused. Then we went over the rules.

I read to the students, If You Were Quotation Marks by Molly Blaisdell. It is a cute, very short picture book that shows students the various ways to correctly use quotation marks. It is definitely for a younger audience than 8th grade, but it still works. As their writing spark for the day that I read the quotation mark book I had them write a short dialogue about their topic of choice.

I wanted my students to write something using quotation marks, and I wanted them to be into it… enter comic strips on the computer! I realize that comic strips don’t have quotation marks, but they do have talking so I thought it would work ( I did explain my realization to the kids too!) At the beginning of the unit, I showed them a sample comic strip I made and showed them the various characters and scenes they can select. I then gave them some ideas to write a comic strip and had them write their draft on paper. Then we went to the lab to create their comics. I felt this was a quick, fun way to practice quotation marks.

Comic Strip Sites:

I used:  www.bitstrips.com

http://www.stripcreator.com/

http://www.readwritethink.org/MATERIALS/comic/

What is Good Writing?

An important lesson I want my students to take away from my class is to look more closely at writing and to appreciate writing. To start having my students think about good writing, I have them bring in their own examples of what they think is good writing. I then have students write in their writing notebooks their ideas of good writing. They get into groups and share their ideas and create one list. I then have each group share their ideas and we make a list on chart paper. I took a picture of our chart this year:

I then have the students share their examples of good writing with each other. I come back to this lesson and we look at what we feel are good writing samples throughout the year. I find it helps the students to appreciate writing when they read, and I find that they  write content with more meaning. I am always reminding them of what we agreed on was good writing, and encourage them to use these ideas in their own writing.

More Sparks For Our Young Writers

I know that I recently posted about writing ideas, or sparks as I like to call them but I found another great resource that I use on my shelf today. I love re-reading or looking over resources that I know are good and forget about them…. for a while.

The Pocket Muse, and The Pocket Muse #2 are great sources for inspiration for writers. It has writing ideas, mini-writing lessons, quirky word lists,  prompts for kids, and thought provoking photographs.  I know that I will be using it tomorrow morning for our warm up. According to the book, “Every page of this pretty little book is devoted to helping you “jumpstart a writing session, inspire confidence, or strengthen your resolve.”

Examples from the book:

“Write about a noise–or a silence–that won’t go away,”

“Someone has left a note on a car windshield” students write the rest.

Out with the Prompts, in with the Sparks!

Over the past few years of teaching, I have noticed that students want choice, choice in what they read and what they write. I completely agree with them. As adults, we don’t like being told what to read. If we start reading a book and don’t like it, we put it down. I encourage my students to do the same thing- if you don’t like a book, choose something else. There are too many good books out there to read one you don’t like. I also believe that there is a book for everyone, if people don’t like to read, they haven’t found a book genre they enjoy yet.

To get back to my original point of this post, I found that having students write to a prompt, doesn’t work. They create pieces that are manufactured to fit what we want to read, not necessarily what they care about. Instead of giving my student’s prompts, I ry to give them sparks- or ideas to get them started writing about what they know and care.

I also have found that students sometimes need a spark to ignite their fire when writing. When I do my warm it up at the beginning of class. I usually show the students an object, quote, or picture. Sometimes we listen to a song and write and I even show some video clips to spark ideas. I have found or thought of  too many ideas to actually use them all in one year. I thought I would share some of the places that I get my inspiration for writing “sparks”

When I show them these sparks, I tell them they can always write about what comes to mind, what the picture, song, object, video clip is about or anything else they want.

Writing Spark ideas:

Time Picture of the Week: http://www.time.com/time/potw/

MSNBC  Week in Pictures: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3842331/

You Tube Video La Chance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD19Os5oUTg – I had my students write about being lucky, or a time when they had luck etc.. Some of my students wrote about one of the events they saw on this video.

You Tube video :  it is a story of two Cleveland high schoolers featured one sunday on ESPN a few months ago- get the tissues.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O04L0XboS8c

The Beatles Song- We Can Work It Out- I told my students they could write about a time when they had a disagreement,or how they worked out differences.