Mentor Texts for the American Revolution and Letting Your Students Take Ownership

I am a little late, but I thought I would link up Collaboration Cuties' Must Read Mentor Text linky for Social Studies.  I am glad they and Jivey are recommending some books for the American Revolution.  Most of my students are studying the American Revolution right now.

Mentor Texts

A couple texts we are reading the next couple week are:

Colonial Voices: Hear Them Speak

This book describes different points of view of different every day citizens around Boston leading up to the Boston Tea Party.  It is a great text to get students to discuss the events of the Boston Tea Party, but also how it affected different people.  After each person, we discuss if they were a Loyalist or Patriot and how we know from the details the person gave. After reading the book, I would have students write from the point of view a citizen in Boston or even write a skit from a patriot and a loyalist debating the events.

Let It Begin Here: Lexington and Concord

This book describes the events of Paul Revere's midnight ride and the events that got the Revolution started.  It is a great introductory text to the American Revolution.

George vs. George

This is a great book to explain the differences between the American and the British points of view.  This book will give your students an overview of the major concepts surrounding the Revolution.  This would be a good text to photocopy a short portion to do a close read.

A New Approach to Teaching Social Studies

I have been taking a little different approach in Social Studies and some other areas lately.  Instead of just teaching the material to my students or assigning them material to read, I have been giving them more ownership.  I have been creating study guides with essential questions and performance tasks.

This idea came about during a graduate school meeting in December. Every few weeks, some of the students and professors in my graduate program get together to discuss research ideas for gifted students. In our December Saturday morning, my advisor said something so simple and yet profound it jumpstarted a whole new approach to teaching for me. He said, "Students should always work harder than the teacher." They are the ones who should be learning and growing and struggling as part of that process.  He emphasized that in a blended learning environment like the one I work in, where the kids have access to technology, what the kids really need in order to learn are to be given good questions.

By giving them a set of essential questions to research and answer without me really teaching them much of the material they take ownership of their learning and also practice reading with a purpose.  They have to be move from passive learning to very active learning. I have given them access to different resources, and it is their job to research the essential questions and answer them.  Then, they have been completing different performance tasks to demonstrate their understanding.  We just finished studying the Causes of the American Revolution.  My students made dioramas, made posters, and made Power Point presentations to show they understood events like the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.  Some of the students work on the study guides by themselves and some work with a partner. At the end of the unit, we are discussing it all together. This is part of why we are reading the mentor texts to discuss what they have already researched.  Now though, they are very familiar with the events in the stories as I read them.

Here is an example of the Causes of the American Revolution Study Guide I gave my students.  

It has been fun the last few weeks to watch them.  They actually are very excited to do Social Studies at the end of the day, and they often have been asking to get started on it during Language Arts. How do you encourage student ownership?

Word Mapping for Vocabulary Instruction

Well, I really do want to get back to blogging more than once a week.  The last week I really got back in the routine of being full-time teacher and part-time doctoral student.  I had a cold this past week as well, so it took all my energy to work and do homework in the evenings. Overall though, I felt I had a very successful week. I was very productive.  I spent at least an hour each night on my own homework and studying.  I am trying to build consistent habits and avoid procrastination. I got my lessons plans done Thursday night and many of my copies done on Friday for next week.  I absolutely love www.planbook.com.  I played around for the first time with actually tagging the standards in my plans. I love it!  They have pre-made drop-down menus of standards for each state, the Common Core Standards, the Next Generation Science Standards, and even the NAGC programming standards.  I really want to get more familiar with the gifted standards since I am getting my PhD in Gifted Education.

I made myself a weekly checklist so I can keep my tasks for the week straight. I really want to be more proactive.  I find it much easier to concentrate on graduate school in the evenings the more prepared and organized I feel at work. You can get a copy here of the Word document if interested.

I have been doing guided reading the last few weeks since coming back from Christmas. We have been focusing on biographies, as a way to discuss what makes people successful.  I felt biographies were a great unit for a new year as you think about goals and reflect on what makes other people successful. Since I hadn't taught guided reading in a couple years, I am always looking for helpful strategies to really guide my students as readers.  In my reading for grad school this week, someone gave me an interesting article to read about vocabulary instruction.  The article mentioned a really interesting way to teach word-mapping.  I am excited to try it out this week.  You can see the example from the article below. I love how they used the vocabulary to make connections about the person they were studying.  I can see so many uses for this strategy.  Often just introducing the words before reading seems very flat to me with older students.  Word-mapping gives the vocabulary more context and utilizes higher-order thinking skills.

How do you teach vocabulary as part of your literacy instruction?  How do you teach vocabulary in a way that is relevant and helps them make connections?

Using Biographies to Discuss Nonfiction, Achievement, and Martin Luther King (freebie included)

Remember me...I used to blog.  It has been over a month.  That is the longest I have ever gone without blogging.  December was crazy.  I was finishing up finals for my first semester as a doctoral student, along with the normal hustle and bustle of December.  Then, I used the holiday break to unplug.  I avoided my laptop all together.  I used my iPad and read 8 books on my Kindle.  I love Young Adult Fiction!!!  I am going to do some more posts to tell you about the books I read.

I knew I wanted to get my students to think this month about goal-setting and achievement in the month of January.  I decided we would look at biographies this month.  Reading biographies is a great way to practice a lot of those nonfiction Common Core Reading skills. I had researched read alouds to discuss goal-setting months ago and came across  this recommendation somewhere. I purchased the book on Amazon.



Dare to Dream! is a nonfiction book with twenty-five short biographies about people with great stories.  We are reading one biography each day.  Each chapter is about 3-4 pages, so it is a great length for a nonfiction read aloud.   As we read, we discuss each person's accomplishments and traits to describe that person. We also are keeping an anschor chart where we track "big idea" questions that we can ask about society or history based on the concepts each person stood for.



At the end, I am going to have each student choose one "big idea" question to do more research on.

I also started finally really doing guided reading this month.  I have wanted to do more small group reading instruction the last year and a half, but sometimes you can only tackle so many things at one time. We have a www.raz-kids.com subscription.  This month, I am assigning biographies for their guided reading texts from Raz-kids.  They listen to the story first on their own.  Then, we meet to discuss.  They read a story a second time on their own, but I have them fill out a graphic organizer while they read the second time.  Some of them chose to read and fill out the organizer with a partner. Then, we meet again to discuss what they wrote down.  At the end of the week, they take the quiz and I give them a writing assignment as a response to the reading. This week, we had a field trip planned and some guest speaskers for Thursday and Friday, making it a short week for instruction time.  So this week, we all read the same text on Raz-kids and discussed as a group since we were short on time. I chose a higher level text, since we were discussing as a group.  We read "Historical Peacemakers" (a level Z text) because it mentioned Martin Luther King.  We discussed what makes someone a peacemaker.

For our quote of the week this week for our journal writing, we used a quote from Martin Luther King from my Activities for Martin Luther King Day packet. 

Next week, we will listen to his "I Have a Dream" speech, and they will get sections of the speech to rewrite in their own words.  We will do this as part of our guided reading time.

We will discuss what social injustice is, and how people choose causes to fight for.  The idea of social injustice came up when we read about Nellie Bly as well. We are going to look at what social injustice has looked like at different periods in history.  We are studying the Causes of the American Revolution right now, so I want us to discuss social injustice for this time period as well. 

My students are going to be choosing a biography of their own choice to read.  I am going to be handing out this Biography Study Guide this week that outlines what they need to do.  You can get a copy here.

I have been using this study guide format for a lot of our units for the last month to help them take more ownership of their learning in a unit.  I really want to be a facilator of learning and put more of the work back on them.  I will blog more about the study guides in another post.

On a side note, since I have been talking about social injustice I want to ask you to consider reading and signing a petition. I try to not to blog about personal things too much. This petition is about getting the government to review how foster and adoptive parents are treated by state agencies. I am aware of this petition because my mom adopted my younger siblings. Often parents adopt children hoping to finally have their happy ending after experiencing years of infertility.  They want to provide a good home to kids that need one.  They hope that love and a good home will be enough for that child.  However, often it is not.  Children who experience early childhood trauma often end up having attachment disorders, which can result in a lack of empathy and even violence.  As teachers, we have probably had children with attachment disorders in our classrooms. Adoptive parents trying to find the right mental health resources for their children with attachment disorders often end up having no other choice but to put their children back into foster care due to safety concerns.  Some mental health resources are only available to children as wards of the state.   These adoptive parents often end up being treated as abusive parents by state agencies (which only adds to the trauma they have already experienced themselves).  It is a sad and very complicated situation that needs awareness raised, so that ultimately these children who have experienced early childhood trauma can get they help they need and find long-term loving homes where everyone feels loved and safe. Thank you for considering signing. They are trying to raise 1,000 signatures by February 1st.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/316/169/413/investigate-the-epidemic-and-systemic-abuse-of-foster-and-adoptive-parents-throughout-the-us/#sign

Have a great weekend!

Common Core Math Websites

I thought I would share some of my favorite Common Core Math websites and how I use them.  I teach math grades 4-6 in one room at the same time, so access to easy differentiated practice is awesome.  My students work on lessons through our curriculum, but I supplement with a lot of websites and paper practice.

IXL

IXL is amazing for practice from pre-K to Algebra.  The students can click on the exact links they need.  It works really well because it tells students what they did wrong, and they can find exactly what they need. I also can send specific links to students via edmodo. The only downside is that I cannot assign links to kids. They just added grammar for grades 2-4 as well.  They are supposed to be adding the grammar for grade 5 in January.

Sumdog

Sumdog is a great website that is common core aligned with math practice up to grades 6.  They can play games, so it makes spiral review fun.  Sometimes my students act like they don't like Sumdog as much anymore, but it seems like it would be more fun as a game.  They have grammar practice as well.

Prodigy

Jen Runde mentioned this website on Facebook last night.  I checked it out.  I couldn't figure it out after like 5 minutes, so I gave up but it seems like it could be a more involved game instead of just small games.

Scootpad

I love Scootpad because for the $5 a month subscription you can assign specific skills to specific students.  I am going to use Scootpad as more of an assessment and IXL as more practice.  I love that Scootpad is one of the few with reading practice by standard as well!

Xtramath

Xtramath is great for math fact practice, and it is free.

BuzzMath

Buzzmath is a website for Common Core practice for grades 6-8.  They have missions and little tutorials.  My grade 6 math class likes this website. It is all led by a little mad scientist.

What are your favorite common core math websites?

Christmas Writing Ideas and Figurative Language

So we started our December essays today.  I printed the December Essay Menu on cardstock and taped it to the board. I explained that we are going to start doing one essay per month, but they would have choices. I went over the 20 choices on the menu.  They were pretty excited.  Many asked if they could do more than one essay.  My student who was my most reluctant writer last year asked if he could finish his essay tonight at home. It really is amazing to see what choice can do!

Today they picked a topic and started planning their essays with graphic organizers.  A few started writing. I explained we were going to go through the whole writing process.  The pack on TpT includes lots of handouts for rough drafts and publishing. Most of my students wanted to type their essays, so we are going to type ours. I was excited to see my students excited about essay writing.  Who gets excited about five paragraph essays, right?  I think the choice menu each month is going to work really well. We will spend about an hour on Wednesdays working on it.  The rest of the week they can fit it in as they have time. We actually may even turn our essays and stories into a multimedia presentation when we finish just for some fun.

This month we also are going to talk about figurative language.  We will do some figurative language lessons from Lovin Lit's Reading Notebook and Figurative Language Close Reading Stories.  We will use the close reading stories in reading groups. Of course, we have to do Jen Runde's craftivity for Figurative Language.

Now, this last resource I am super excited about. We will analyze Christmas Carols for Figurative Language.  

A few years ago, I had my students get in groups and rewrite the words to Christmas carols to be about themselves.  They came out so cute! We will type up the new lyrics and frame them in an inexpensive frame as our parent gift this year.

Planning for Choice and Time in the Language Arts block for Student Engagement and Ownership

I'll forewarn you - this is a long post but lots of good ideas. Sometimes you just have to work through your thoughts...

This is my second year of working in a blended learning environment.  By utilizing online curriculum and student-teacher interaction, students are able to work at different paces and levels. It adds a whole new level to time and resource management as an elementary teacher.  I have a small-class size, but my students still cover a wide variety of reading levels just like with any class. In the past, I taught at a charter school and we used a Reading/Writing Workshop model with Guided Reading. Over the past two years at a private school with a blended learning model, I have worked more on getting adjusted to the Common Core Standards and figuring out the best way to leverage technology for elementary students.  I have done a lot of whole-group reading instruction based on the Common Core Standards to supplement my student's online lessons. 

I have found fitting in guided reading or small-group reading lessons a lot more difficult as I have also worked through what classroom management looks like when you add in a lot of technology and students working highly independently. I have found while technology is great, it also provides more ways to be off-task.  I have found that some students need a lot of re-directing to stay on task.  When students are used to all students working on the same task at the same time, they sometimes struggle to transition to an environment where everyone may be doing something slightly different.  They worry more about what others are doing then focusing on their own tasks. At the same time, as part of the 21st century learning skills students need to work on communication and collaboration.  I think learning to work in groups is important, but learning to focus and tune out distraction is also an important life-skill.

One of my goals for the rest of this school year is to do more differentiated small-group reading instruction, so finding ways to increase student motivation is important to freeing me up to have time to work for a block of time with specific students on reading skills.  It is also important to help my students balance out working independently, working together, and learning to use one another as a resource.

In the last month, I attended the iNACOL conference and the NAGC conference. At both conferences, I came away re-convicted on how important choice, rigor, and depth are for student engagement.  In the past, I have used a lot of choice menus for student assignments and projects. I have always been intrigued by the idea of doing project based learning for opportunities for depth and rigor.  I also always really enjoy reading blog posts from teachers who use stations or rotation models to differentiate for their math and reading workshop blocks.

I decided for now to work on the choice element of student engagement for my Language Arts block.  Because my students work more independently and may vary in the amount of time they need to spend on a task, a rotation model does not work as well for me. I decided to make a chart to plan out my Language Arts block in 15-20 minute increments.  I then designated times for certain whole-group lessons/activities and small-group reading meeting times. Wednesdays I marked off as Writing Wednesday where we will spend an hour on a more in-depth writing assignment (such as our monthly essay writing I mentioned yesterday).

 The rest of the blocks I left blank where they can work independently or maybe in partners or groups depending on the task.  My students will each get a chart where it lists the tasks at the top they need to complete for the week.  Some weeks it may even be broken into more of a must do and may do list of tasks.  Using the chart each week will give us a sense of consistency, while allowing for flexibility to make changes to time allotments and tasks/activities.

They then will be able to fill in those blank "Independent Work" boxes in the chart for which tasks they want to do when.  I made my chart for the week and a template for each reading group in PowerPoint.  I decided to call them reading meetings instead of reading groups, and I think I will change the names for different themes throughout the year. You can get a copy of the PowerPoint file here if you would like to make changes for you.

For now, I was playing with naming my groups seasonal names.  Another teacher today said she liked the idea of naming her groups by color and then color coding their handouts by group name.  I really like the idea of using color paper and color-coding the handouts, so I may change the names to my groups.

My hope is that if students have more choice of when they complete certain tasks, this will help them take more ownership to stay on task.  As we have been talking about getting ready for middle school and SMART goals, this also goes along well with taking ownership of setting and meeting goals.  This process will hopefully allow me to focus more on my goal of doing more differentiated small-group instruction.

As they get better at working independently and taking ownership for their time, we can add in more  group-work opportunities for depth.  I am intrigued by Jen Runde's blog posts on Genius Hour and passion projects.  I think this would be a great way to add in some inquiry-based learning. I need to do more research.  It seems like the projects may be more independent, but by encouraging students to do them in groups of 2-3 you could definitely work on communication and collaboration.

How do you allocate time in your Language Arts block? 

Weekly Writing Inspiration and December Essay Writing

I hope you are getting some great shopping in at the TpT Cyber Monday sale. I spent my fair share today, but I got so many great things!

I wanted to share some writing resources I am really excited about right now.  When I first start blogging almost two years ago, I did a weekly series called "Weekly Writing Inspiration." This is something I started in my classroom several years ago. Each week for our journal writing we used inspiration instead of prompts. We had a quote of the week, a poem of the week, and a picture of the week.  We discussed what we observed, the meanings, and how they could inspire our writing.  It really got the kids to think critically and creatively. As creativity and critical thinking are two of the four 21st century skills, they are something I want to continue to emphasize.

Weekly writing inspiration is something I have done in my class every year, but it usually falls off somewhere during the year because I start running out of time to find a quote, poem, and picture each week.  I have always meant to sit down and compile 40 poems, 40 quotes, and 40 pictures. It never happened as many great teaching ideas find themselves.

Well, the other day I found some resources on TpT that helped me fulfill my weekly writing inspiration goal.

Panicked Teacher's Quote of the Week

Panicked Teacher's Idiom of the Week

Picture of the Day (We just may not do it every day).

We started doing one of these each day before Thanksgiving. We discuss the meanings and use the handouts from the packs. Then, each day we use the quote, idiom, or picture to inspire our journal writing. I just will have to pick out a poem then each week. My goal is to get a monthly poetry pack made with poems to analyze. I made one for March last year. Hopefully, I can get one made for December in next couple days. :)

To help my kids get better at multi-paragraph essays, I want to make sure we do at least one essay per month for the rest of the year.  I decided to start making a monthly essay menu with four choices for each of the writing types: informational, opinion, narrative, and research. They will be able to choose, but in 3 essays they need to do an opinion, a narrative, and an informative.  I am excited to share my essay menu for December with my students on Wednesday. 

What are your favorite resources for writing and the Common Core?