We had our final vote on Friday, and we elected our own school-wide book champion: Divergent!
Our March Madness Book Bracket has been a very fun adventure. I have decided on my favorite outcome of this book bracket. I love that we could celebrate our reading culture at our middle school. Some ‘closet readers’ finally felt like they have a voice and that it is okay (and even fun!) to talk about books. Suddenly, the well-read students are the heroes in the classroom because they have the knowledge and opinions to contribute. I’ve just loved the past few weeks! I hope you can use this bracket to help compile your summer reading list!
You can scroll down to see how each of the votes turned out:
For a full list of the 16 most popular books at our school, click here to read the original post.
Well I am VERY excited to share a new school wide reading project with you. I created a March Madness Book Bracket for our middle school (grades 6-8). I figured – hey, the kids are really excited about their NCAA brackets. Why not capitalize on their excitement and direct some energy toward books and reading? Of course!
I began by asking our school librarian for a printout of the most popular (checked-out) books at our school. This is our list (in random order):
Summer Ball – Mike Lupica
13 Gifts – Wendy Mass
The Lightning Thief – Rick Riordan
Crank – Ellen Hopkins
The One and Only Ivan – Katherine Applegate
Legend – Marie Lu
The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
The Eleventh Plague – Jeff Hirsch
Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Jeff Kinney
Divergent – Veronica Roth
The Invention of Hugo Cabret – Brian Selznik
Okay For Now – Gary D. Schmidt
Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
Brian’s Hunt – Gary Paulsen
Framed – Gordon Korman
Holes – Louis Sachar
I then created a presentation to share with all of the Language Arts teachers that includes a picture and a brief synopsis of each book.
The plan is that we will vote on all of the same dates of the NCAA March Madness sweeps:
Sweet Sixteen – 3/24
Elite Eight – 3/27
Final Four – 3/31
Championships – 4/4
Students will vote in Language Arts class, and we will use an electronic survey (Google forms). They are asked to vote for either a) their favorite books or b) the most compelling books they would want to read. We will continue until we have one winner for our whole school.
I think this activity is going to generate a lot of interest in these books. I’ve asked the librarian to please use up any remaining budget to purchase a few more copies of this. I can’t wait to report back on the wonderful developments!
It’s been a while since I’ve given an update on my reading intervention crew. I work with a group of seven 8th graders on a weekly basis who can benefit from an extra reading boost.
We first began with Newsela, which is such a wonderful FREE tool. I’ve been able to track their progress and meet with them to discuss strategies. We read one article and completed the quiz together so that my students could see just how much effort it is to find the correct answer. You have to a) read carefully b) monitor your own comprehension, then c) make sure you understand the question d) [and this is SO important] actually go BACK into the text to find the answer e) use process of elimination to check your answer (make sure the others don’t make sense).
Now, we’ve also added a vocabulary element to our sessions. I started by locating a list of the Top 100 6th grade ‘need to know’ words. Since my 8th graders are each about 2 years behind in reading abilities, this seemed an appropriate place to start. First, I had them simply read the words out loud to me. I marked any they miscued – those would certainly become vocabulary flash cards. Later, I also had them go through the list again and prioritize a list of an additional 10 words they want to learn about.
As it turns out, each of my students had 4 miscues in common: notorious, ominous, melancholy, and unconscious. These 4 words would become our ‘group words’ that we would all study together. Beyond that, their lists became personalized based on individual needs.
I had my group all download the app StudyBlue, a free app for creating flashcards, review, and quizzes.
Next, I gave them a handout with each of the 4 group study words, a kid-friendly definition (retrieved from http://www.wordsmyth.com – set the side bar to ‘Intermediate’ or ‘Beginner’), and a list of synonyms. The lists looked like this on their iPads:
Next, the students had time to use the Flash Card feature on the right. The app gives you a choice of either term or definition. You tell the app if you recalled the term correctly or not, and the app tracks your progress.
Once the students are done studying the flash cards, it’s time for a quiz. There is an option for multiple choice:
…and True / False:
Obviously this will become more challenging as we add more words to our set.
I love that this app tracks your progress as well.
Once the students master the 6th grade words, we will move on to 7th grade words. We will also continue with Newsela, and I have plans to do some word study as well (such as this Word Tower Greek and Latin roots/prefixes/suffixes activity).
Things seem to be going very well with my group. This is due in large part to the fact that they are great kids and all very motivated to improve. It also doesn’t hurt that I maaaaaaybe bribe them with candy. Hey – it’s a teacher’s best kept secret! I will continue to monitor their progress and find new ways to challenge them and help them boost their confidence and soar in the classroom!
I recently attended the Wisconsin State Reading Association in Milwaukee. I had such a great time meeting wonderful educators and literary heroes. At the end of the first day, there was an awards ceremony for the important, influential people that help promote high literacy standards in Wisconsin. One story brought me to tears. A school bus driver started a program on his bus called “Books for the Bus.” He brought in his daughter’s outgrown books and shared them with the students on their hour commute to and from school. He told them if they liked the book, they could keep it, and if they wanted to donate, they could bring their book to share on the bus. The idea was a hit, and soon spread to all of the busses in that school district. I was so touched! You can read more about this heart-warming story by clicking here.
I was also there to celebrate my friend and colleague, Lynda, who received the “Friends of Literacy” lifetime achievement award. She is completing her doctorate (her topic is helping teachers use rubrics to evaluate iPad apps for the classroom), she is a professor, she is an amazing cheerleader and supporter, and an all-around amazing person who can make friends with anyone, anywhere.
I met other important legislators, authors, professors, student teachers, and inspiring educators. Everyone I met was passionate about literacy and student learning. I remember thinking to myself, “These. These are my people.” I can’t wait for WSRA 2015!
This week, we are reading “Battleground” by Stephen King (a short story from his novel Night Shift). After we do a close reading and discussion of the story, identifying elements of literature and analyzing the author’s craft, we will also watch the video adaptation from Nightmares & Dreamscapes. Comparing the short story to the movie adaptation helps us to reach several Common Core State Standards, such as:
RL.8.3 Key Ideas and Details: Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.
RL.8.5 Craft and Structure: Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.
RL.8.7 Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.
To prepare my students for comparing and contrasting the short story / movie, I give them the following handout. This usually sparks a very lively discussion about books versus movies. I love when students come to the rescue of books 🙂
After watching the movie, they need to answer 4 simple questions:
1. Identify one significant way in which the director ‘stayed true’ to King’s version.
2. Explain why you think the director chose to ‘stay true’ to the short story for this.
3. Identify one significant way in which the director departed from King’s version.
4. Explain why you think the director chose to depart from the short story for this.
If you would like to download the picture above as a FREE PDF, click here.
Do you do a book / movie comparison unit? I’d love to hear how you tackle this!
Wow, the last day of January AND the last day of week 21! Here are the highlights as we say hello to February! Food Drive, Review Quotes, Spreading Sunshine, Polar Vortex Closet Cleanout, Paleo Bread and Meatloaf. Plus a Bonus of Rocket & Ruffy!
1. Food Drive – Okay the BIG news this week is that it is our annual Middle School Food Drive for Hunger Task Force. Every year, we have a homeroom competition for 1 week to see who can bring in the most food. Each day, there is a special item worth double points (pasta, peanut butter, juice / water, canned fruits / vegetables), and on Friday, the special item is canned soup, worth 5 points. Lemme tell ya, the competition is palpable. Teachers and students alike are strategizing and scheming to win the coveted SOUPerbowl trophy on Friday. In fact, I can’t even tell you who won yet because I’m waiting with bated breath to find out! It is so touching to see how much the students really care about this project – I know it hits home for so many of them. Going without food is something you would never wish on another human being. This is especially poignant this time of year when cold weather and rising costs of electricity compound the problem for many families. So my students all happily participate in this project, and many get creative to raise funds and/or collect food. In my homeroom, I ask that even if we don’t win, we must have 100% participation. Everyone donates at least 1 can of food or some change so I can go out and buy food. Well so far my students have donated over $165! I took the money to Aldi to purchase soup for SOUPerbowl Friday, and that’s what you see above. $165 worth of soup! I sure do hope my kiddos win, but even if they don’t, they win a valuable lesson about empathy, values, and the joy of giving.
2. Review Quotes – We have begun our short story unit for Quarter 3. After each short story, I have my students write a “Review Quote.” They wind up writing about 10 of these, and they get very good at them through the process. It is a combination of creative and expository writing. They must be very selective about their word choice as they attempt to ‘sell’ the book, but they must also cover all the material required in a thorough review / critique. The image above is just a teaser of this mini unit, which I am working on getting up on TPT soon. It is currently 9 pages of ideas and instructions that the students find very helpful to guide them through the process. I get excited to see how much they grow through this unit! They carefully pick and choose their words, deliberating every detail. It’s a fun unit!
3. Spreading Sunshine – I had so much fun this week spreading ‘sunshine.’ Florida sunshine, that is! This is a crate of oranges imported directly from Florida. Before school, I went from classroom to classroom delivering oranges to our hardworking, deserving, and oh-so-exhausted teachers. I hope it made them smile!
4. Polar Vortex Project – We had 2 Cold Days this week, which meant I didn’t leave my home (or my pajamas!) on Monday or Tuesday. I got a little bit of cabin fever. What? I just don’t sit still well. Most teachers don’t – we like to keep moving. So I kept busy by cleaning out my entire closet and dresser. Now, it’s an organized masterpiece! The second picture is a pile of clothes I donated. Most of them went to my students who asked for or needed warm sweaters and other clothing. So I got a jump start on my Spring Cleaning!
5. Mmmmm – Another way I kept busy during the Polar Vortex Cold Days was baking and cooking! I made Against All Grain’s Paleo Bread and Nom Nom Paleo’s Super Porktastic Bacon-Topped Spinach Meatloaf. Y’all, these things CHANGED. MY. LIFE. Seriously. I can eat ‘bread’ again! It was so great to smear it with almond butter! And the meatloaf? I’m never NOT topping meatloaf with bacon ever again. Adding the spinach made the meatloaf so juicy and delicious. These women are geniuses, and I hope they make millions off of their cookbooks.
BONUS
6. The boys got their hairs cut. They are so cute. I just love them so!
We are beginning our new fiction unit this week, which will take us through 3rd quarter. I always like to kick-start the unit by first watching WALL*E to identify elements of fiction and figurative language, then reading a favorite short story “Love” by William Maxwell.
The story is not a happy one, but rather bittersweet. The narrator reminisces about his 5th grade teacher who died at an early age of tuberculosis. He learns hard lessons about love and the ephemeral nature of life.
This is a perfect short story for introducing your students to figurative language and foreshadowing. First, we read the story as a class. Then, there are 8 comprehension questions that require some inferencing and evidence from the text, as well as analyzing quotes for imagery and mood. Finally, I have my students go back to the story and look for figurative language and foreshadowing of Miss Brown’s early departure from this world.
Oh to see the looks on their faces when they start finding all of the hidden clues. Honestly, they were having FUN. Yes, it was like a giant game of iSpy with words instead of pictures. It became a challenge of who could find the most clues.
Then, I project the story on the SMARTBoard and invite students up to the board to underline the examples of figurative language and foreshadowing, as well as explain the 2 layers of meaning for each phrase. All of my students can do this, and some even surprise themselves. Even though the story is a sad one, they are laughing and smiling with confidence as they realize that they can find complexity and meaning in a seemingly simple story.
If you’d like to purchase your own copy of this 2-day activity, click here!
Can you believe it’s almost February? I’ve seen Valentine’s Day items popping up at stores around town, and I suddenly realized it’s only one month away! I have 2 great Valentine’s Day reading activities to share with you.
First, I will share with you a close-reading activity on The History of Saint Valentine’s Day. This 10-page activity includes a 3-page handout about the mysterious history of St. Valentine the martyr, and the evolution of today’s Valentine’s Day holiday. It gives 2 different historical accounts of the Christian martyr’s life and death, plus an explanation of Pagan influence on this celebrated holiday. There is also an explanation of Valentine’s Day as it is celebrated today, and the symbols and traditions around this special day.
This is a close-reading or text-based reading activity because the text is divided into smaller, manageable chunks with follow-up questions after each section. The student must find evidence within the text to answer the questions (following Common Core Standards and language) by highlighting or underlining.
This would be an excellent activity to do with your entire class, or with an intervention group of struggling readers. It would easily align to your Language Arts / English, Social Studies / History, or Religious Studies curriculum as a cross-curricular lesson. You can use this text any time, not just for Valentine’s Day! If you would like to purchase this activity, you can click here.
The next activity I will share with you is Author’s Purpose Guided Practice for Grades 6-10 a FREE activity. In this activity, students will learn about PIE: Persuade, Inform, and Entertain. Then, they will read 3 sample texts and discuss how each is an example of persuasive, informative, or entertaining writing.
If you enjoy this FREE mini activity and want to purchase a full lesson plan on Author’s Purpose, I also have the Identifying Author’s Purpose full lesson plan.
The Identifying Author’s Purpose activity includes 15 writing samples that students will first identify as either persuasive, informative, or entertaining. Then, they will decide what the author is trying to convince them of (persuasion), inform them of (informative), or entertain them with (entertain). It includes a handout explaining the key features and genres of persuasive, informative, and entertaining (PIE) texts, model/sample writing for each category (3 total). Read and discuss as a class, and guided practice sample writing for each category (3 total). Students can read, discuss, and identify the sample texts in small groups, while they also engage in close reading to determine the type of writing (PIE) and the author’s specific goal.
I hope these activities can help you and your students to engage in some close reading strategies and techniques throughout February!
Have you read the novel Spite Fences? I didn’t think so. It is a wonderful novel for 8th through *9th graders, but it is so often overlooked! (*Note: Scholastic says that this novel is geared for 6-8th grade interest levels, but I disagree based on the content and figurative language). I have been teaching this novel unit for the past 7 years, and I always see a tremendous amount of growth in my students – I just love this unit, and it is the perfect way to end our 8th grade year! We find so many ways to make cross-curricular connections between Language Arts and Social Studies with this unit.
The novel is about a 13-year old girl named Maggie Pugh who lives in a small Georgian town in the 1960s. She is poor, white, and the victim of abuse from her mother and next-door neighbor. She is at the age where she begins to notice things – facilitated by the gift of a camera to help her ‘see the world’ – and she questions the segregation and customs in her town. Because this novel is historical fiction, it is filled with references to important Civil Rights Era people and events. Since Maggie is a very bright young girl, and also a bit of a tomboy, my students don’t view this as a ‘girl’ book – in fact, my boys really love it and demonstrate much growth in their critical evaluation skills while reading/discussing this novel.
The magic of this novel is that it is the perfect piece to help students begin to discover figurative language. Spite Fences is rife with challenging language and thought-provoking questions about morals and real-world conflicts. It investigates important themes of human rights, dignity, faith, coming of age, and staying true to one’s beliefs. My students become outraged by many of the events, and we have very lively classroom discussions. There are so many subtle hints and hidden treasures that only a discerning, critical reader will catch. When I point out that the ‘fence’ represents oh-so-much-more than just a wooden structure, and that it is 6 feet tall, made of pine (::cough:: casket ::cough::) the students are mesmerized by the layers of depth and meaning.
My only lament is that this novel is no longer in print, but can be purchased second-hand or as an ebook. I still have paperback copies that I plan to use until they fall apart!
I have posted this unit in my Teachers pay Teachers store to share, since I firmly believe it is the perfect novel to use with your 8th and 9th grade students to prepare them for more challenging contemporary literature. I’ve made the reading response worksheets so that a student could even guide themselves through the novel – it would be a great option for an independent reader or a homeschooler as well. The unit spans 2 months, which is an entire quarter in my curriculum. The unit includes a prior knowledge activity – a movie guide for the film “A Time for Justice.”
This powerful 1994 documentary brings the Civil Rights movement to life and helps set the stage for this historical fiction. The best part is – you can order this kit (DVD + Lesson Plans) for FREE!
The Spite Fences Unit also includes a chapter-by-chapter reading guide with questions that range in type and complexity from inference to critical thinking, multiple choice, true/false, fill-in-the-blank, matching, and open-ended short answer questions. This unit is great for end of the year test prep by providing students with a wide range of possible reading response questions. An answer key is included.
While reading the novel, my students also complete a fun reading response project. They create an Altered Book (or Scrapbook) that includes 9 ‘pages’ or installations. What we do is find some old hardcover books to repurpose by glueing or writing new things into the pages.
These Altered Book page assignments are designed to illicit deep thinking and writing that require students to find evidence and dig deeper into the topics and themes of the novel (following Common Core language for text-based discussion). Each ‘page’ has a pre-writing, brainstorming page to help students collect their thoughts. Here are some examples of their work:
This entire Spite Fences Unit includes:
* Welcome letter with lesson plan outline
* Enduring Understandings and Common Core State Standards
* “A Time for Justice” documentary movie guide with answer key to help build prior knowledge
* Reading Guide with answer key
* Altered Book Project with samples, rubric, and planning pages
If you are interested in purchasing this unit, click here!
I can’t wait for 4th quarter to start our final unit of the year – my favorite!
As semester 1 comes to a close, I am gearing up for a new intervention group. I will get a group of about 7 students who are below grade level in reading (based on the MAP Measures of Academic Progress score). I will work with them twice a week for a half hour. As a small group, we will focus on improving our reading strategies and skills, as well as confidence with reading (a key component, in my opinion).
We will begin by having a frank discussion of why we are meeting as an intervention group. I want to empower my students, not make them feel like they are being ‘punished’ for an extra hour per week. I let them know that they have many strengths and skills, but sometimes we may need to brush up on one skill in particular or practice a skill until it become easier or more automatic. I make them feel special like we are in a top secret testing research group trying to figure out all of the tricks of the standardized tests (we discuss test-taking language and strategies as well). It’s important to me that they feel like part of a team when we meet, and that everyone enjoys working together. Let’s just say there is a lot of candy and bribery involved in the beginning.
An analogy I like to use with my struggling readers is that becoming a strong reader is sometimes like baking cookies – you can have all the best ingredients, but if you are missing one tiny item (like salt), the cookies just won’t work. It’s my job to help them realize that they have all those wonderful ingredients ready to go, and I help them find the missing ‘salt’ so that everything comes together. We aren’t starting from scratch, we’re just identifying and filling a tiny gap here or there.
On our first day, I will introduce them to this awesome new website I came across called Newsela. Newsela is self-described as, “an innovative way for students to build reading comprehension with non-fiction that’s always relevant: daily news.” Essentially, it is a news website that allows you to change the reading level of an article at the click of a button. I can upload my class roster and assign readings to my students, complete with a comprehension quiz at the end! And since we have iPads, the students can even annotate or take notes as they read the articles. If you peruse the website, you will see that they are all very high-interest stories. We are beginning with “Making a robot that flies like a jellyfish swims.”
The Lexile levels of the articles range from 630 to 1130. Below is a Lexile to grade level conversion chart reported on the Lexile website.
I can assign any student a different Lexile level based on his/her individual needs. I am going to start all of my students at the 630 level as we build rapport, confidence, and momentum. My goal is to have them reading independently at the 800 level before they are dismissed from interventions.
First, we will activate any prior knowledge students might have about jellyfish and/or robots, and we try to predict what they might have in common. Next, I will pre-teach only one important vocabulary word: imitate. We will scan the article and notice that it is divided into sections. We will read it out loud together as a group, and then decide what the main idea or key idea of the entire article was.
The next part of the lesson combines text-based reading strategies and the SQ3R method. It involves 2 different highlighter colors, let’s say pink (color #1) and blue (color #2). First, I will have the students highlight in pink (color #1) any sentences that they believe supports our main idea of the paragraph – supporting details. If our main idea is, ‘scientists are trying to invent flying robots that imitate jellyfish,’ then we will highlight in color #1 any ideas that help to explain how and/or why scientists are planning to accomplish this.
Next, we will turn each of the subsection titles into a question. For example, instead of “Very Simple Creatures,” we might ask, “Why are jellyfish considered very simple creatures?” Students will use their second color to highlight any sentences or key details in that subsection that helps them answer the question. The key here is that they are always looking for evidence in the text – it’s not just pulled out of nowhere. This plan also helps students to visually chunk the text into smaller manageable parts – a strategy they can easy enact with all of their reading.
So that is our plan to tackle non-fiction for a few weeks. I will slowly increase the Lexile level to test the waters and see how students fair with less and less guided support from me. I want to see these skills of activating prior knowledge, chunking text, and looking for main ideas with supporting evidence FROM the text, to become automatic. I have high hopes for these students, and I can’t wait to report back with their progress!
