Thanksgiving holiday

I hope everyone has enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday. The days off have been wonderful for me; I have been able to gather with family and friends, do some much needed cleaning around the house, and enjoy a good movie and a good book.

I've told the students about the movie I viewed, The Life of Pi, since it is also a book. I was fortunate enough to see the movie on Friday, while, as I have been told, lots of people went shopping for so-called "big" deals. In class, we watched the trailer to The Life of Pi as we took notes and learned about the seven fictional literary elements we've been studying. I will say that I really enjoyed the movie and feel that Ang Lee did a wonderful job interpreting it into a visual story. It's been at least seven years since I read the book, but if my memory serves me well, all the important elements of the book were treated well in the movie. I would have liked to have seen more elements of the spiritual within the movie, but I must admit that the ending was done exceptionally well, in my opinion. I first recommend that students read the book, even though it might be more challenging for some than others, but I further recommend students and families see the movie. It is rated PG, so I would argue that it is accessible to most, if not all, middle-schoolers.

On Saturday, I read Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert. I checked it out from the Pleasant View Library and highly recommend it as a moderate-length nonfiction text. I vividly remember watching as the miners, whose story is told in the book, were rescued. I can even remember leaving CNN on throughout the day in my classroom, watching as the rescue effort continued over many hours. The book is not terribly long, and sticks mostly to the facts, but at several points in the story I was almost overwhelmed with emotions--fear for the miners' lives, concern for the miner's families, hope once the first "doves" were drilled and contact was made. I saw the rescue and heard some of the stories, but this book goes into much greater depth, and provides insight that even the national media couldn't provide.

In my first year of teaching at Pleasant View, I helped chaperone a trip to Wichita, Kansas. On this trip we went to the Kansas Underground Salt Museum, where 650 feet below the surface we took a tour of the old salt mine, along with surveying some of the amazing Hollywood memorabilia stored in the mine. My greatest connection, while reading Trapped, was the absolute black darkness of the mine. At the Salt Museum, we had to take a short tutorial on how to wear and use the proper safety gear, in case anything should happen, and we had to ride one of the double-decker elevators to take us down into the salt mine. The elevator was packed tight, and it was darker than anywhere I have ever been in my life. I could not imagine being 2,000 feet down, in complete darkness, for days on end, not knowing whether I would be rescued or not. The whole story of Trapped, and the miner's ordeal, makes me want to continue reading about this story--either individual miner's stories or any other books available on the rescue.

On a school related topic:
In the coming weeks, prior to our winter holiday, we'll continue to study fictional literary elements. We'll read some more short stories and maybe even watch some short videos. Students will get another chance to deeply analyze a favorite book or movie. Before the holiday, students will complete a significant writing piece in response to some of their reading this quarter; students will either write a letter to an author using the Letters About Literature writing competition as a framework, or students will write a response to literature in which they journal as a character in a book.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

second quarter ideas

I haven’t written for the blog for a while, and there has been something on my mind for a while, so I figured it would be a nice way to dip my toe back into the writing waters. But before I do that, I’ll touch on some “school” stuff.

We’re now into the second quarter. Our reading focus is now on fiction. Students are to read six books this quarter, as with all quarters. The choice of genre is as follows: three different types of fiction, one nonfiction, and one poetry; the sixth book can be of any genre the students’ desire. Along with all this reading, we’ll be studying literary elements: plot, setting, character, conflict, theme, and mood. In response to the reading, students will either participate in the Letters About Literature writing contest or write a response to literature, journaling as if they were a character in a fiction book of their choice. Hopefully, should we find the time and seek the depth of learning, students will get to create their own fictional stories; I’m still seeking ideas and thinking about how this might take shape. 

As for writing, we’re moving beyond the “building blocks”—capitalization, parts of speech, end punctuation, internal punctuation—and looking to increase our sophistication as writers by continuing to practice diversifying our sentence structure through sentence combining. Along with growing more sophisticated in our sentence structure, we’re hoping to see variety and sophistication in the organization of our writing—moving beyond five paragraph essays or rigid story structures to something a bit more pleasing and a bit less predictable. It won’t be easy work; it will be challenging and hopefully push us beyond our comfort zones a bit, but this is necessary for us to grow as readers and writers and thinkers.

I’ve added an open ended feedback form on the blog, so if you have any type of feedback, it could even be a question or a concern, please feel free to send it my way. Thanks!

And now, since I've been writing all weekend but am not quite "there" yet for sharing the other bit of writing that I've been doing, I'm only going to post this. Look back soon and hopefully you'll get a bit less school and a bit more "real world" writing.

first quarter reading reflection

We’ve now (almost) made it through the first quarter, and are (basically) one-fourth of the way through the school year. The students have turned in their first quarter reading records and used this document to complete a reflection that (hopefully) helped them process the information.

One of the main goals of all of the reading we do this year—other than developing skills to comprehend, analyze, and evaluate nonfiction, fiction, and poetry texts—is to develop life-long, passionate readers. Passionate readers, who continue to read for the rest of their lives, know themselves as readers: they know the authors they prefer, they know what genres they enjoy, they know the length and level of writing they can work with, and they know how long they can work with a book before they need to abandon the book and move on to something else. These aren’t necessary “skills” that I can teach the individual students, but these are discoveries the students can make for themselves, as they track their reading and process each quarter, looking for trends and information that can inform their future decisions. That is why we read lots of different types of books, and track our reading using the quarterly reading records, and reflect upon our reading.

So, here are some things that I noticed, when looking at all of the different student reported results from the reflection. *NOTE: this quarter, students were asked to read six books: three different nonfiction (one “informational” text, one “instructional” text, one autobiography/biography/memoir), one fiction of any subgenre, and one poetry of any type.

•       Students read a total of 730 books this quarter.
•       3^rd period read 205 total books, for an average per student of 7.59.
•       4^th period read 162 total books, for an average per student of 7.
•       5^th period read 179 total books, for an average per student of 7.78.
•       6^th period read 184 total books, for an average per student of 6.81.
•       The student that read the most books, read 22 books this quarter.
•       62 students chose fiction as their favorite genre this quarter
•       31 students chose nonfiction as their favorite genre this quarter
•       8 students chose poetry as their favorite genre this quarter
•       It’s great to see a lot of diversity in the choices for favorite books, but we did have two books chosen by two people: Slam by Walter Dean Myers and Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. No other books were selected multiple times as favorites.
•      The authors that had their books chosen the most, for favorite book, were: Rick Riordan and Margaret Peterson Haddix.

Students were also asked, “What did you learn about yourself as a reader, this quarter?” Here are some interesting responses. *NOTE: No corrections made to student writing.

•        I learned that i enjoy fiction and poetry books alot more than nonfiction, which caused me to read fiction and poerty alot quicker than it took me to read nonfiction.
•        I still like mythology and Rick Riordan
•        I learned that I like reading about Engineering, and that nonfiction isn't as bad as I thought it was.
•        That reading can and is fun so im going to read more.
•        I learned that i hate non-fiction and that i'd prefer a world of magic and mystery over the rea world (Fantasy > Non-fiction).
•        I like sports books the best
•         I learned that just because I like Fiction, probaly more than anyother gerne, I can still enjoy books of genres, like nonfiction. This quarter also chanellenged me to read more genres.
•        I learned that i can read any book i want to if i put myself upto the challenge.
•        i learned that i am not as fast of a read that i thought iwas and if you speed through a book at the end you wont understand what happend in it
•        That I need to read more and not abandon as many books this quarter.
•        I like books about Tornadoes, Titanic and the Holocaust because I guess they're just really interesting to me . But, if a book is pretty lengthy I'll probably lose interest soon . I like having a short read , sometimes . Also , I like a challenge so if a book has a high reading level I'll more than likely try to read it 
•     I like reading books about science and historical things , whether it be non-fiction or fiction . 
•     I learned that I love reading books about music or musicians or about someones life , in their own words .
•        i learned that i really like science fiction books. i mean i argued with my sister that i didnt and it turns out she was right.
•        I learned that I actually like to read poetry and nonfiction a lot more than I thought I did.
•        I learned that I am very interested in instructional non-fiction and dislike informational non-fictions. I also learned I am not likely to stay interested in a very lengthy book for very long.
•        I learned that I am attracted to fictional books about magic and other unrealistic things. I love characters with strong wills (expecially if they are girls). I hate nonfiction books, because I believe that history is really deppressing.
•        I need to actually take the time to read the books instead of rushing through them
•        Before, I wasn't really sure what genre I enjoyed reading. But after having to read different types of books, I realized that I lean towards fictional books, especially mysteries, much more than I do nonfiction. But I also like reading some nonfiction, but only informational books about the brain.
•        That it's not so bad to just sit down & read for 30 minutes. 30 minutes isn't going to kill you, you'll never get better if you never try. ( :
•        I didn't know that i liked Realistic Fiction so well until i realized that after i finished the reading requirements that, that was all i was reading.
•        I learned about myself this quarter, that I can read longer books. They just have to be in my intrest, and Side Effects was! I've always been pressured into books I had no interest in, and I will be honest... I just "read them", cause youre not gonna read something you don't wanna read, right? The only time I'll read something I don't want to, is when it's for like a HUGE grade! Haha!
•        I learned that I really enjoy memoirs. I think if I hadn't been required to read nonfiction books, I never would have found this out.
•        That I should've tried new genres earlier. Take non-fiction for example: as I mentioned earlier, I've never really liked non-fiction, so it was - all at the same time - a great way and an awful way to start of the year when you made one of the requirements reading 3 non-fiction in a quarter. I knew I could READ the books, that wasn't my problem, it was LIKING them that was it. As I started reading, I realized I actually enjoy non-fiction and am going to read more of it.
•        I learned that while I still enjoy fiction a lot, I also like biographies, because they are more touching, as well as informational.

These are some exciting results! I can't wait to launch in to the second quarter, and see what we accomplish and learn together.

practicing for the big game

As my last post detailed, I’ve been reading Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better, by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and Katie Yezzi. Reading this book, along with continual discussions with other teachers at school, has helped me make some changes to my teaching this year that I believe are already reaping some pretty neat rewards. This week though, we will see if the changes have taken root.

I titled the post, “practicing for the big game” because, that’s essentially what we’ve been doing for the past several weeks. On the second week of school, we began freewriting as a class. At that time, it was a low-stakes opportunity to increase the quantity of writing and to work towards a more thorough and specific understanding of revision, rather than editing. Since then, we’ve studied parts of speech, types of sentences by purpose along with end punctuation, internal punctuation, and types of sentences by structure. I emphasized that good writers learn from other good writers by reading good writing and imitating good writing. (Often, “good writers” came to be defined as the published writers that the students were reading on a regular basis, and “good writing” came to be defined as grammatically correct writing that held the reader’s attention over time and offered some sense of ending or resolution.)

In practice, we found examples of how parts of speech were used in sentences, and different types of sentences and different internal punctuation, and we discovered and explained how each of those grammatical elements were used for effect (or to the writer’s advantage). We also noticed that elements of each of those seemingly separate skills—parts of speech, punctuation, and sentence structure—were intertwined. If we wanted to identify a compound sentence (sentence structure), we needed to first identify two independent clauses, which in turn required us to identify subjects and verbs (parts of speech), and then we could move on to the internal punctuation used for the sentence to be a compound rather than a run-on.

Building upon the identifying and imitating practice, we challenged ourselves during our freewriting in different but intentional ways: to use certain parts of speech while avoiding others, to try out internal punctuation that we don’t normally use, and to include different sentence structures throughout our freewriting. All in a limited time and space.

And all of this practice was for the big game. Last Wednesday and Friday we played several practice games incorporating many of these grammatical elements of writing. Questions were asked and hopefully answered, and examples were found and parsed and imitated. It was pretty fun too. But now one of the big games of the year is upon us.

Monday we will begin working on a Book Review assignment that will be due on Friday. Some students will type their book review and some will hand write, but hopefully all will utilize the skills that they have acquired in understanding how to use grammatical elements for effect, or to their advantage. Students will use much more than grammatical skills, though, to write their book review. Students will summarize the book with a bias; from the beginning the students should be intentionally arguing on the book’s behalf or against the book—for any number of reasons, including: writing style—word choice and sentence structure, narrative structure--organization, presentation. Students will attempt to describe the type of reader who might be interested in this book, based on the cover, title, and content. Students will provide at least two quotes from the book, again with the intent of arguing on the book’s behalf or against the book, for we know and have known long before the CCSS came along that evidence is essential to any argument. And then, in the end, the students can make their personal claims regarding their opinions of the books they have read and are reviewing.

It’s a lot to accomplish, but all the practice has led us to this point. The end of the first quarter is nearly here, and so is the “big game.” We won’t stray far from nonfiction structures just yet, but in the second quarter we will dip into fiction elements, and all the while, I have a feeling that the methods of our practice will be influenced by Practice Perfect, especially my top five rules so far: rule 4, “Unlock creativity … with repetition,” rule 5, “Replace your purpose (with an objective),” rule 8, “correct instead of critique,” rule 10, “isolate the skill,” and rule 12, “integrate the skills.”

processing Practice Perfect by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and Katie Yezzi

Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better by Doug Lemov, Erica Woolway, and Katie Yezzi

Foreward by Dan Heath

•  “The mere fact of doing something repeatedly does not help us improve.” (xii)
•  “The enemies of practice are pride and fear and self-satisfaction. To practice requires humility. It forces us to admit that we don’t know everything. It forces us to submit to feedback from people who can teach us. But surely practice isn’t a sign of weakness—after all, some of the people most famously disciplined about practice are Michael Jordan, Jerry Rice, Roger Federer, Mia Hamm, and Tiger Woods. To practice isn’t to declare, I’m bad. To practice is to declare, I can be better. “(xiii)

My thoughts:

Action does not mean getting better. I know this from observing ugly, ugly soccer practices during which all the wrong things were brought out in scrimmages.

So often practice is applied to sports, or music, or dance, or some performance skill. But as an English teacher, I think of practice for me and for my students.

For me, I want to practice connecting our learning activity to the objective. I knew going in to the year that I wanted to do this better. I guess I should have known that the only way I would do this better would be to practice, but I never thought of practicing it. I guess I’ll have to start doing this when I write my lesson plans.

For my students, my mind immediately turns to the emphasis on reading and writing. I know I’m not a wonderful reading teacher; I emphasize volume of reading, consistency of reading, but also diversifying the types of books read and identifying preferences. I know it’s my own theory, but if I believe part of my goal as a reading teacher is to develop “life-long readers,” then some of the things I want to help my students do is to identify and understand what they like reading and why they like reading it, and to easily identify those types of books based on genre, author, and reading level. I believe that helping my students understand why they like reading a book will lead to deep and rich conversations about narrative style, character development, plot analysis, themes, role of setting, etc.—all the stuff a “good” reading teacher would teach. Further, if I can help my students understand the genre, author, and reading level of a book they like, I believe I have given them the ability to self-select other books that they will similarly enjoy reading. Maybe I’m wrong; I don’t know.

So where does practice enter in my reading instruction? Well, that’s a little less specific. Discussions on Tuesdays and Thursdays about our reading books, including addressing specific questions, could be viewed as practice in identifying “why I like/don’t like this book.” I do think keeping the reading record, and the reflection at the end of each quarter on that reading record, as practice for identifying “what types of books I enjoy/don’t enjoy.” Hopefully those actions—discussion, record keeping, and reflection—lead to better readers. I don’t know if I’ve answered the initial question.

As for writing, I think I’m a decent writing teacher. My goal is to first help the students write a lot—10,000 words this year, at least. If the students have a decent volume of writing, then we can work on fine-tuning the skills the students use as writers. Some of those skills are what might be considered basic: capitalization, end punctuation, pronoun-antecedent agreement/cohesion, verb tense, comma usage. But some of those skills are more complex: introductory adverbial clauses, appositive phrases, parallel structure, combining sentences through diverse ways. Freewriting is our method of practicing these skills. First, we explicitly study these skills in isolation. I want the students to develop a shared, academic vocabulary so that when we practice each skill in context, the question is not, “what is a pronoun and its antecedent?” I want the question to be, “where are my pronouns and their antecedents?” If the student is answering the second question, rather than the first, then during freewriting, we can, in the context of a larger passage of writing, practice ensuring that all of our pronouns have clear and direct antecedents. That will immediately improve student writing. And that’s really, really important.

I think I have a pretty clear idea of how practice is used in freewriting, and then extended to every other writing situation. I think maybe I need to verbalize that to my students, to be more transparent with them. I think doing this will also help me as a teacher to reference the objective more, because if the objective is clear and specific, and the students know that our practice is directly going to lead us to that, then they are more likely to know exactly when they have met the objective and how they were able to meet the objective.

I haven’t done any process writing like this in a long time, and it’s been really fun. I’m really enjoying this book. I’m on page 55, so some of the things I wrote about occur in later pages/chapters, but I only got through quoting my favorite parts of the Foreward. Later, as I read more, I’ll include more favorite quotes and hopefully get to process more as well. 

Letters About Literature

Letters About Literature is a writing contest for young readers, ranging from fourth grade all the way up to tenth grade. Students in eighth grade are placed in the Level Two category, along with seventh graders.

Here's the deal, straight from the flyer:
"Take the Letters About Literature writing challenge! Write a personal letter to an author you admire, an author of a book (fiction or nonfiction) that inspired you. Your letter must be personal but persuasive, explaining just how the author's work changed your view of yourself or your world."

Here's how to enter:

• First, determine your competition level. As eighth graders, we're in Level 2.
• Second, select and reflect. Choose a book that has impacted you in some way. Consider specific ways that the book helped to change the way you think or view the world.
• Third, write a persuasive letter stating your opinion and supporting that opinion with specific details. Don't write a fan letter, and don't summarize the book. Tell the author how the book affected you and why it did so.
• Fourth, submit your letter by Friday, January 11, 2013, using the required entry coupon.

"Are there awards?" you ask. Yes, there are. Again, straight from their flyer: "Each participating state center has its own panel of judges who select the top letters in the state. State winners will receive a cash award and advance to the national level judging. A panel of national judges for the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress will select one national winner per competition level to receive a $1000 cash award. The judges will also select one second place winner on each competition level to receive a $150 cash award."

If you're interested in this letter writing contest, then I'm excited. You should be. We read so much, that every eighth grade student should be able to write a letter to an author. If you do write a letter, I'll give you extra credit! And, more importantly, I'll help you submit the letter into the contest, so we can work towards you winning $1000! I have further information about the contest, and the website has tons of information, so ask if you have any questions or if you want help.

go to the source

Well, we've almost all made it completely through all of our beginning of year testing. The Performance Series resulted in scores in Reading and Language Arts, and the students have been given their results in Reading, along with completing a goal-setting and reflection form. It’s important to commit ourselves to the important work of reading each and every day, and being intentional as we read to focus our minds and be aware of our practices. In order to see growth through the course of the school year, we must push ourselves to improve and recognize the steps necessary to achieve it. The Writing Assessment, which several will complete on Tuesday, will provide information regarding skills in writing, especially argumentative writing. It will take some time to gather those scores, but the information will be helpful in providing a direction and the steps necessary to achieve growth.

I've created and added the above picture to illustrate a habit of mind that is very important for all students to develop. GO TO THE SOURCE! It's basically an answer to many questions, or a response to many situations. If you have a question, GO TO THE SOURCE! The source could be a textbook for a class, a reading book, a website, an instructional manual, or even a person who is an expert. Specifically, if you're being asked a question about something you've read, GO TO THE SOURCE! There's no reason to memorize a passage of what you've read; use the source to answer the question you're being asked. So, if you have a question, GO TO THE SOURCE! Don't guess at an answer, and don't be satisfied without an answer; find someone or something with the answer.

And that leads me to the final thought, and the logical result--cite the source. Find an answer. Come to a conclusion. Learn something. But don't take credit from someone else. Especially when in school, and especially when writing, always give credit where credit is due. The source provides the answer, the information, the knowledge. Give credit to the source; cite the source.

Missouri Peace Officers Foundation 8th Grade Essay Contest

A short post about an essay contest about which I just received information:

The 21st Annual "Why I will say NO to alcohol, drugs, and tobacco!" 8th grade essay contest, sponsored by the Missouri Peace Officers Foundation has begun. The contest is open to all eighth-grade public or private school students in Missouri enrolled during the 2012-2013 school year.

• Entries should be a minimum of 500 and a maximum of 750 words, and should address the theme: "Why I will say NO to alcohol, drugs, and tobacco!"
• All entries must be submitted with an entry form (you can get a copy from Mr. Maerke) and must be signed by the student.
• All entries must be received no later than March 1, 2013. All winners will be notified through their schools, by phone or by mail.
• PRIZES: First place - $500, Second place - $200, Third place - $100. Five cash prizes will be awarded in each of the Eastern and Western halves of the state, for a total of ten prizes.

Unfortunately, the Missouri Peace Officers Foundation does not offer online entry forms or submissions, so everything must be done on paper and through the mail. If you would like to participate, I will be more than happy to help you work through the development of the essay, and each step along the way throughout the writing process. Just ask, and I'll make the time.

coming assessments

This week begins the all important district and state mandated assessments that 8th graders at Pleasant View will be subject to. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, and Monday of next week, we will be taking the Performance Series Assessments in Reading and Language Arts.

The Reading assessment will determine the skills each student employs as a reader, providing important feedback to teachers regarding reading level. The score can be used to recommend students for an Extended Learning Program outside of the English Language Arts classroom, and importantly, can be used to help support and direct the students as they learn self-regulation and discernment in self-selecting texts to read and interact with. In concrete terms, the assessment will result in the students being notified of a Lexile level and a Grade Level Estimate, from which their classroom score will be determined.

The Language Arts assessment will determine the skills each student exploys within the strict confines of usage of formal English. Because the Language Arts assessment does not allow or ask for the students to write even one sentence, it cannot, in my humble opinion, serve as a trustworthy indicator of writing ability, although it does indicate the knowledge of a student on the basic word and sentence formation level. In concrete terms, the assessment will provide a Grade Level Estimate, from which the students' classroom scores will be determined.

Following these important Performance Series Assessments in Reading and Language Arts, students will get to experience the district Writing assessment. With an effort to get through the Beginning of Year assessments and on to the teaching and learning, I may schedule the writing assessment next week. It could turn into a long two weeks for the students, but with the number of assessments scheduled this year for 8th graders, we must get through as many as we can, as early as we can.

Speaking of the number of assessments scheduled for 8th graders this year, the number is as many as 21. That breaks down to three every month, or, with 39 weeks in the school year, one assessment every 1.85 weeks. If you would like to look at the entire district assessment calendar, click here. If you have any questions or concerns regarding these assessments, please feel free to email me.

Elect 2 Read

Quick post about something going on around town:

Elect 2 Read - 32nd Annual Children's Literature Festival
October 19, 2012
Open to 4th-8th graders
On the Missouri State University Campus

Authors attending:
Tracy Barrett
J.B. Cheaney
Shane Evans
Cheryl Harness
David Harrison
Kate Klise
Obert Skye
Marie Smith
Roland Smith
Brad Sneed
June Rae Wood
Judy Young