The Magic of Lit Circles

Years ago, I was brainwashed into believing that whole class novel study could not effectively teach literature to a group of students at various reading levels. I distinctly remember being told by a trusted colleague that I would never reach all of my learners by teaching the same book to an entire class of students. Even though I was skeptical of her words, I chose to believe her.

As I became a more seasoned teacher, I used short stories and passages from our grade level anthology to teach reading skills to my students.  I added poems, song lyrics, and nonfiction articles into the mix while differentiating instruction for the various learners in my classroom. Still, I refused to read an actual novel with my class. "They are reading books independently outside of class," I would convince myself. "Surely that is enough reading practice." But deep down, I knew that it was impossible to guarantee that all of my students were actually reading literature on their own.

Then one day, I had an interesting conversation with a mother or three children, all of whom graduated from my school. I told her about my views on why I do not teach novels in class and she said, "I loved it when my children read books in school because sometimes it was the only way to get them to read."

I often remember that parent, and I am grateful for her honesty. She truly helped me see the forest through the trees.

Once I was finally ready to attempt a novel study with my students, I decided to use a strategy known as literature circles. Lit circles are essentially mini book clubs where students are responsible for reading a book and meeting in small groups on a regular basis to discuss the reading.  In addition, students take turns completing specific lit circle roles which are shared during lit circle meetings to enhance the discussions about the book. Typically literature circles are not composed of teacher-selected groups of students all reading the same title, but since my intention of lit circles was purely to motivate all of my student to read the selected book, I did it anyway.

It did not take long for me to see how powerful lit circles can be in the classroom, even when students are all reading the same teacher-selected book. Maybe it was the book I chose. Maybe it was peer-pressure. Whatever the reason, lit circles got all of my students to read the book. How could I tell? Just listening to the depth of discussion taking place in the lit circles throughout my classroom was evidence enough to prove that everyone had been reading the book. Hallelujah!

Reading can be a very social experience, and lit circles truly helped me get all of my students to enjoy reading and discussing literature. Moving forward, I would like to redesign some of the lit circles roles to support the literature skills outlined by the Common Core State Standards. Next quarter, my students will also be participating in a 1:1 Chromebook pilot program, and they are very eager to use the new devices to complete all lit circle roles in a paperless fashion. Please check back soon to hear about our progress!

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Chromebooks are Coming

Guess what I just got today???

Chromebooks are coming to our team the first week in January. All students will have a device to use in and outside of school. There is so much in store for our students during second semester. We cannot wait!

The ART of Teaching?

Just this week, I stumbled upon a quote in an article that did not sit well with me.

"I . . . believe that teaching is a skill, not an art, and that, as with any skill, people get better at it with analysis and practice."

I have never thought of teaching as a skill.  In fact, I believe my credentials actually say "Master of Art in Education" and not "Master of Skill in Education." 

Whenever I describe my profession, I tell people that teaching is an art. We often think of art as the work produced by an artist to express thought and beauty, but art is also a "skill acquired by experience, study, or observation." (Merriam-Webster) 

I do not disagree that teaching is built upon skill, but in my opinion, it is not one single skill. Teaching is a set of many, many skills, with so many facets and angles that a teacher will spend her entire career practicing, examining and transforming her craft. Teachers must be creative, inventive, and imaginative - carefully cultivating individual human lives. Is that not as beautiful as the work of an artist that hangs upon a wall? Charged with the preeminent responsibility of engaging and inspiring dozens of young, developing minds, how can teaching NOT be considered an art? 

What do you think? Is teaching a skill? An art? Both? 

Discuss.

1:1 Chromebooks Coming this January

I am very excited to announce that my students will be participating in a 1:1 Chromebook pilot this January! Teachers from all over my district submitted Innovation Grants to bring the 1:1 pilot into their classrooms. Thanks to our incredibly supportive Board of Education, along with the leadership of our administration who truly values transformational learning and teaching, the grants will become a reality to all who submitted. There are not enough words for me to express how privileged, honored, and inspired I feel to be part of this important initiative.

Below is the video that my team submitted as a part of our Innovation Grant.  We look forward to sharing our experiences with others as we learn how 1:1 implementation impacts the learning taking place in our classrooms. Feel free to stop by to follow our journey right here at FaustFacts!

The Backchannel Debate

My class is in the midst of narrative writing. As they embark on the writing process, I felt a responsibility to expose my students to actual authors who write fiction on a regular basis. The professionals would be a wonderful resource for my budding authors!

I called upon some local talent in our community to share their expertise with my class.  I found three authors who agreed to come to my classroom to share their experiences with students and answer their questions. As I prepared for our visiting authors, I began thinking about ways to get each of my students engaged during their visits. I wanted to ensure that each student was an active participant, rather than a passive listener.

Thinking about my own experiences at workshops and conferences, I started considering the power of a tool like Twitter and how backchanneling is a way to encourage participating from the audience. A format such as TodaysMeet was my first choice to use with students, but that website is currently blocked in my district. Twitter was my second choice, but my students are under the age of 13, so that wasn't an option either. I was faced with a situation that required some creative problem-solving.

What I ultimately came up with turned out to be the perfect solution for my 6th grade students. I decided to create a "Tweet Form" using Google Forms, which had data validation enabled to restrict the number of characters students entered to 140 characters or less. I embedded the form onto my Google Site in one column, while the form's responses were embedded into the opposite column. This created a "chat room" feel for my class. Using individual Chromebooks, students participated by sharing their thoughts, questions and feedback about what they were learning during the authors' presentations. Before we began, I reminded students that all of the "tweets" were permanently documented since student usernames were collected each time the Google Form was submitted. Sneaky, right?

Critics will say that the students are not necessarily paying attention if they are on a computer throughout a presentation. This may be true. But who's to say that they are paying attention throughout an entire presentation when they're not on a computer. I'll tell you this much...I am really good at looking like I'm paying attention while my brain is on a mental vacation, and guess what? So are our kids! The one thing I can say is that the evidence on my Google Tweet Form showed engagement, enthusiasm and participation. Everyone was involved! Yes, they may have missed a few things while typing out their "Tweet," but so do adults. With practice, the students will improve at quickly developing concise Tweets during presentations, and their participation will take the learning to an entirely new level.

What do you think? Would you consider letting your students backchannel during a class presentation?

Tasting Our Way to Descriptive Writing

One of the Common Core sub-standards for sixth grade narrative writing states, "Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to convey experiences and events." (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.3d) Teaching descriptive writing can be challenging, but giving students a meaningful experience can help them find their creative voice.

To help my students practice using sensory language, I decided to give them a hands-on experience that would elicit their senses and allow them to practice writing descriptively. I picked up a tub of these "Soft Puffs" at my local drug store, which was a perfect treat for all of my students with allergies since the candy is nut/dairy/gluten-free. The product boasts, "a surprise whenever you grab one!" I liked the idea that students did not know which flavor they were getting for our sensory experiment. This forced students to slow down and call upon all of their senses to help their brains determine what it was that they were actually experiencing.

As students began selecting their piece of candy, I encouraged them to carefully observe the candy's color and smell of the aroma, before they ultimately tasted the flavor. Such a creative learning activity deserved an equally as creative format to demonstrate understanding, so students were given the task of showcasing their sensory language in the form of a Glog using Glogster.

From our Mystery Candy Experiment, students connected their experience to their writing in the form of sensory language using strong adjectives, metaphors, similes, and analogies. What a fun and delicious way to get kids writing descriptively!

Thanks to Lexie for allowing me to share her beautiful Glog!

A True Student-Led Discussion

Last week, I spent some time getting to know the Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching, which is the default model for evaluating teachers in the state in which I teach.  Beginning this year, my district will be using the Danielson Framework to evaluate teachers, and even though I am not on the evaluation cycle this year, I still feel that it is my responsibility to get comfortable with this valuable tool.

The Danielson's framework has four domains of teaching responsibilities including planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction and professional responsibilities. I dove right into Domain 3 (Instruction) to see where I felt I could make some improvements in my teaching practice.  I had an "Aha!" moment when I investigated component 3b which is "Questioning and Discussion," and read what the Danielson Framework suggests.

"Some teachers confuse discussion with explanation of content; as important as that is, it’s not discussion. Rather, in a true discussion, a teacher poses a question and invites all students’ views to be heard, enabling students to engage in discussion directly with one another, not always mediated by the teacher." - The Framework for Teaching Evaluation Instrument 2011 Edition by Charlotte Danielson

That first part was me. I often said those exact words: "Yesterday we discussed..." But the truth is that we never discussed anything. I would talk, my students would respond, and that was that.  After reading the critical attributes of a distinguished teacher in this particular component of the Danielson Framework, I realized that my students were not having discussions at all, and I needed to make a change immediately.

I decided to begin with one of my classes that was already participating in literature circles.  The students had been practicing their discussion skills in a small group setting, so I simply asked students to apply their experience from the discussions in their literature circles and bring it to the large group.

"Today, let's try to have a discussion about how to improve our literature circles," I explained. "Don't worry about raising your hands. You know what is expected in order to have a meaningful discussion. Listen to each other. Take turns talking. Respond thoughtfully. Let's see how it goes."

What I witnessed was amazing. The students truly discussed how to have effective literature circles. They talked about what works and what doesn't. They shared strategies, gave suggestions, and offered ideas for improvement.  They listed to each other and responded back respectfully, and I was not mediating at all. It was exactly what my students had been missing.

After observing a true student-led discussion, I am eager to find more opportunities like this one where I can hand over the reins to my students, letting them lead discussions and make decisions about their own learning. Danielson's model shows teachers that to be a truly student-centered classroom, it is the students who must own the learning and not the teacher.

If you are familiar with Danielson's model, please share what are you doing to help students take a central role in the discussions being held in your classroom. How are you putting the learning in your students' hands?

Bringing Elementary Ways into the Middle School Classroom

I am an elementary teacher at heart.  Before teaching middle school, I spent nearly ten years at the elementary level, which gave me my foundation in best practice. There are so many powerful things that elementary teachers naturally do in their classrooms each and every day.  This post is in celebration of elementary teachers, with the hopes that a few middle school teachers out there will bring some of the elementary ways into their classrooms.

Here are three of my favorite elementary teaching practices and why I think they would work brilliantly in middle school too!

Flexible Grouping - One of the many wonderful things about elementary teachers is how they naturally differentiate instruction in the classroom so that they can reach a range of learners in all subject areas. Teachers at the elementary level achieve differentiation by working with small groups of students all the time. Small groups can and do work at the middle school level too! Personally, I use the information that I gather through pre- and formative assessments to learn exactly which students need help with which skill. Once I have this information, I group students into homogeneous groups so that I can help meet students' individual needs.  Using the 30 minutes per week that I have set aside for independent reading time, I can pull together small groups to work on various skills. Grouping students not only gives teachers the ability to help those who are struggling, it also gives students amazing self-confidence when they are given the extra time and attention that they need to be successful.  

Re-teaching - Elementary teachers know that it takes students different amounts of time to master new concepts and skills, so they often back up and re-teach their students. In my opinion, re-teaching should happen far more at the middle school level. Oftentimes middle school teachers are plowing through their content, keeping all of their classes together, but we leave kids behind that way.  I have found that exit slips or quick check-ins (informal assessment/quizzes) let me know when I need to stop and back up so that the majority of the students have the foundation that they need to move forward.  What about those outliers who aren't "getting it?" Think about pulling them into a small group as mentioned above.  

Parent Communication - My elementary teacher friends communicate with parents in a variety of ways such as sending newsletters through email, keeping a class blog, or updating their class website religiously. Parents seem to always know what is happening in the elementary classroom.  When kids go off to middle school, the attitude is often that students need to be responsible for communicating with parents about what is happening in school. Why is that? Don't parents of middle schoolers still deserve to know what is happening in their child's classrooms? There are lots of ways to communicate with parents is this day and age, thanks to social networking and other web-based tools.  (Read my post about my favorite way to communicate with parents through the app Remind101.)  If we want parents to be our partners, I think the communication needs to be maintained even when students reach middle school. 

There you have it. Three ways to bring a little elementary into the middle school classroom.  Kids are kids, no matter what their grade level in school. If you are a middle school teacher and you have never taught at the elementary level, ask if your administrators would allow you to visit a neighboring elementary school for a few hours some day. You'll be amazed at what they do and how good it is for kids! 

If you have experience as an elementary school teacher, please share some elementary practices that you feel would be beneficial in a middle school classroom.

Great Teachers Wear Orange

Teaching is hard. It's incredibly rewarding and fulfilling and exciting, but it is downright hard. Sometimes it is also hard to stay positive. As teachers, we want so badly to be the best that we can be, but teaching today is remarkably challenging. On top of our work in the classroom, there's planning, assessing, grading, and meetings. It's just. so. hard.

BUT...

I want to stay positive, and I believe it is my choice. Although teaching will never be easy, I can choose to hold my head up high and be proud of what I do each day because I love what I do. I love being a teacher. So today, along with many of my amazing colleagues, we decided to show our commitment to our work, to our students, and to each other by wearing the color orange.

Why orange, you ask?


Orange stands for enthusiasm - something teachers must show to motivate, encourage and engage their students.

Orange stands for warmth - something teachers must spread to let students know that they have a heart, they are human and they care.

Orange stands for energy - something teachers must embody to share their positivity and passion with others.

Orange stands for success - something for which teachers continually strive to ensure that all students are learning and growing.


Orange stands for what all great teachers stand for.  If you agree, perhaps you will stand with us and wear orange too.

Jot Dots - A New Approach to Summarizing

As a 6th grade language arts teacher, one of the learning targets that I am responsible for teaching my students from the ELA literature strand of the Common Core states, "provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments." (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.6.2 ) To introduce summaries for narrative text, I began by having students read picture books which allowed students to practice essential reading skills in a non-threatening way.

Easy enough, I figured. I offered students a graphic organizer with a very popular summarization strategy known as the 5 W's + 1 H. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? 

It was an epic fail, as the kids say.  

One of the reasons the students struggled with their picture book summaries was because their topic sentence had a very narrow focus.  They would begin the summary with the "who" of the story, but that did not help them introduce the main idea of the story at all.  Luckily, my wonderful literacy coach mentioned a strategy to me called "Jot Dots" taken from the Write Tools.  I must say that after teaching it to my students, I am hooked!

The strategy begins by asking students to "Name it, Verb it, Give the Big Idea." Essentially, this is a formula for building a strong topic sentence. They name the book, choose an active verb and then write the big idea or theme for the story. (See the presentation below for a specific example of what this looks like for students.) What a simple, yet effective way to begin a summary! It was a hit with all of my classes when they realized how easily they could generate a well-written, focused topic sentence for their summaries.  

Next, I had the class write five "Jot Dots" which were notes of five words or less about the sequence of events in the story. Students practiced writing their Jot Dots so that they could organize the rest of the summary that would follow their topic sentence. Again, success!  Everyone had a plan of what they were going to write about, which built the students' confidence.  

Finally, students stretched the Jot Dots out into individual sentences so that they could elaborate upon each idea. Before long, the students had beautifully written summaries without breaking a sweat. The difference between using the 5 W's + 1 H and the Jot Dots was night and day!  
Below is the presentation that I used with my class.  If you teach summarizing, I urge you to try out this approach with your students.  I was blown away and I am sure you will be too!

Summarizing from Marcie Faust

Remind101: A New Approach to Parent Communication

When I started teaching over 10 years ago, just about every teacher I knew wrote a classroom newsletter that came home in the form of a piece of paper.  I am fairly certain that a good percentage of those newsletters ended up in a crumpled wad of recyclable material at the bottom of most kids’ backpacks.  To ensure that I was reaching my entire audience, I decided to use a smarter and far more revolutionary way of communicating with all of my students’ parents: email.  I mean, what parent doesn’t have an extra 5-10 minutes in their day to read an email lovingly crafted by that brand new, 20-something teacher who wants to tell you every single detail about what is happening during your child’s school day?

Well, I am a parent now myself, and I’ve got news for you…I do not have time to read all of the newsletters that I receive via email.  Because not only do I get newsletters from my kids’ schools - I get them from the religious school, sports teams and enrichment classes too.  Sound familiar?  Of course,  I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the communication.  I am SO grateful.  I just do not have the extra time in my day to read them all!  

Enter Remind101.  Where have you been all of my teaching career!?  This is a brilliant, web-based service with an extremely functional smart-phone app that allows me to text my students' parents, without ever exchanging a phone number.  Now  I can keep the lines of communication open with  bite-sized updates about what is happening in my classroom.  Quick to send - quick to read. Now I can be sure that my message is being read because it's only 140 characters, and even the busiest of people can find the time to read that!

If you are still sending email newsletters, I highly recommend making the switch. Busy parents like me will thank you!  

#ReadyToLearn

Last spring, middle school teachers from our district were introduced to the amazing Jack Berckemeyer, a high energy, hilarious educational consultant who taught our teachers a tremendous amount about student engagement and how to build effective middle school teams.

This year, our school adopted the phrase "Ready To Learn," which we are borrowing from Jack.  The first day of school, our middle school teams shared what it means to be ready to learn with our students, and we are working hard at reinforcing the importance of this phrase each and every day so that it becomes a part of the culture at our school.

Prior to this year's Open House, the 6th grade students and teachers on my team put together a bulletin board inspired by Twitter and our new motto of "Ready To Learn." We gave students cards with pseudo-Twitter handles (@StudentName) and asked them to create tweets (messages of 140 characters or less) to show what it means for students to be #ReadyToLearn.  The responses were awesome and our students loved the idea of getting to tweet, even if it was just on paper.

The feedback I received from students was so overwhelmingly positive as they began generating their tweets that I immediately knew we had to continue using paper tweets with students in the future. Right now I am toying with the idea of students writing Exit Tweets to reflect on what they learned in class as well as writing Celebration Tweets for when something great is happening in class. I am curious to hear of other suggestions, so if you have any ideas of ways we can use "paper tweets" with our students, please leave a comment below.

Implementing the Common Core: Getting Started

This year, with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards and a new middle school schedule that reduced language arts classes from 80 minutes down to 60 minutes, I have a lot to cover in a (relatively) short amount of time.  Here are my top three goals for how I plan to implement the Common Core into my teaching this year.

1. Start with the Standards
This year, I must remind myself that my responsibility is not to teach any particular unit, theme, or story.  My responsibility is to teach the standards using the materials that I have available to me.

2. Experiment with Standards-based Assessment
This week, my literacy coach helped me design a pre-assessment to assesses the standards that I plan to teach during the first quarter of the school year.  We wrote questions that align to the common core so that I have some baseline data that I can use to inform my instruction.  I expect that the data will give me rich information about my students so that I can tailor lessons around their specific needs. After I have explicitly taught these standards, I can use the same assessment as a post-assessment to measure growth among my students.

3. Keep Moving Forward
Our kids deserve a standards-based education, and I plan to focus on the future to ensure a quality, meaningful, and effective education for all of my students.  Even though the road will be long, I plan to keep moving forward by staying committed to the changes being made in how we educate today's children.

I am really looking forward to the year ahead. If you are beginning to implement the Common Core into your teaching, what are some of your personal goals?

The View from a Google Classroom

The other day, I overheard a student refer to my classroom as a Google Classroom, which is a fairly accurate name for it these days.  I can hardly remember what life was like before Google became part of my life as a teacher. To honor my district's recent adoption of Google Apps for Education, here are my top three favorite ways that Google Apps has improved my teaching and enhanced student learning in my classroom.

1.  Google Sites - My students' learning hub
Instead of a one-dimensional website, a Google Site can be completely interactive once you embed Google docs such as forms, slides or sheets.  The interactivity has given my students a place to contribute and learn from one another.  Learning objectives, rubrics, and assignments are all posted on the site so that students have one place to go for anything related to my class.  Oh and it looks pretty too, so that's an added bonus.

2.  Google Drive - Live document sharing
It is hard to imagine what life was like before Google Drive.  Students can collaborate on the same working document and automatic saving means that their work is never lost. I am especially grateful for the incredible script written by Andrew Stillman named Doctopus, which interacts with a Chrome extension called Goobric.  I can now assess students' writing in record time and use it as formative data to help students improve their writing.  It. is. amazing.

3. Blogger - A stage for teacher and student voices
Not only do I blog as a way to share my thoughts with others, but I am encouraging my students to do the same.  Journaling in a notebook has become rather archaic.  Why not blog about your views and opinions where an authentic audience awaits?  My students love to blog whenever they are given the opportunity. Wait, boys begging me to write!? With Blogger, they actually do!

Obviously, Google Apps are only possible with access to technology, which can be tricky at times when I have to share devices with other teachers.  (Here's the part where I beg my district to bring a one-to-one computing initiative to our school.)  Even so, Google has transformed my classroom and I am never looking back.

Have you noticed any changes in teaching and learning since Google came to town?  Please share them.

Persuasion OUT Argumentation IN

Historically, teachers in upper elementary and middle schools have focused on teaching students three types of writing: expository, narrative, and persuasive.  With the adoption of Common Core State Standards, teachers will be making some major changes in how we teach writing to students.  One of those changes for me was to forget about teaching persuasion and to start teaching argumentation.

This week, my students delved into their first piece of argumentative writing.  Augmentative writing requires logic and reasoning as opposed to persuasive writing which relies on an emotional appeal.  In order to get my students to understand this distinction, I gave them a writing assignment on an authentic and relevant topic.  Students wrote about the impact of learning a second language.  (The foreign language teachers at my school can thank me later.)  Students were not writing to persuade the reader to think a certain way about learning a second language.  Instead, they were writing to inform the reader about the impact that learning a second language has on students.  

What I witnessed was amazing!  Students were elbow-deep in articles about modern foreign language education, digging for evidence to support their claims.  Students began the assignment by analyzing a variety of texts so that they could evaluate whether or not the information would be useful in their writing.   Some students even tossed out articles littered by opinions and unsupported facts because they were taught to include concrete evidence to support their claims.  Students were actually excited about their research!

Writing research-based arguments is exactly what these students will be expected to do in college, and I have really enjoyed introducing this important skill to my students. This is just one example of the many shifts that will take place as a result of the Common Core.  What are your thoughts about how the Common Core State Standards will affect teaching and learning in our schools?

The Lost Art of Letter-Writing

Last week, my students spent some time learning about letter-writing.  While many of my students have experience writing friendly letters home from summer camp or writing emails to their friends, it should come as no surprise to us that their experience in letter writing is quite limited.  That's what you would expect of our digital natives, right?

What began as a simple review of "how to write a letter" turned into lessons that may stick with some of my students for years to come.  (I can only hope!)  As they began to write their letters, many of my students learned the following:

• How to write a letter of appreciation to a friend, family member or teacher
• How to write a letter of complaint when you are disappointed by a product or service 
• How to write a letter of sympathy to someone struggling with an illness or loss
• How to write a letter of thanks to an individual who has helped you, your community or your country 
• How to write a letter to your teacher to give feedback in a respectful, tactful manner 
• How to address an envelope  (Apparently, there are many 6th graders who have never addressed their own envelopes  until now.)

I was astonished by all of the lessons that grew from a little lesson on letter-writing. It reminded me that letter-writing truly is a lost art, and even though we have electronic means to communicate, we always need to know how to write a letter for a variety of purposes.

What do you think about the value of letter-writing with today's generation of learners?

Skype Me Maybe

As the winter months press on, students are constantly getting sick and missing school.  Even when students are only out of school for one day, catching up on schoolwork can be a nightmare.  Not only will the students need to make up what they missed in all of their classes while they were out, but they will have to complete all of their daily homework assignments as well.  Just typing that last sentence gave me heart palpitations, so I can only imagine how stressed out my poor students feel when they are faced with this situation.

It dawned on me last week that I could easily Skype with any of my students who were home from school.  When I had my daughter six years ago, I regularly Skyped into my graduate class for several weeks until I felt ready to return to class.  Skype truly saved me from falling behind. Today, the technology is even better, and with the ability to share my screen during a Skype call, students could literally watch the same lesson that I am teaching at the Promethean Board and hear my voice, all in real time.  They could ask questions and get them answered right then and there, which means they would not have to play catch up when they get back to school.

Obviously, this is optional, but according to many of my students, they think it's a great option.  If any of my students want to Skype in for class, I am happy to arrange the call.  They just need to email me their Skype name before school starts so that I can be prepared for the call during their class period.  I am really looking forward to giving this a shot with my sickie students.  What do you think?  Should students be able to Skype into class when they are home from school?

Please Subscribe

I am very passionate about integrating technology into my teaching, which directly impacts the way in which I communicate with my students' parents.  It has come to my attention, however, that not everyone is ready to make the leap to Twitter, so I have established this blog as a communication tool to keep parents in the loop about the happenings of our language arts classroom.  Feel free to subscribe to this blog to get up-to-date information right into your email inbox.

Blogging with Students

This week, all of my students were given the opportunity to start their own blog using Blogger, a free blog-publishing service, which is part of Google Apps for Education (GAFE).  I wanted to give my students a venue for writing that extends beyond the typical spiral notebook, with the hopes that these blogs serve as portfolios of the students' writing for the remainder of the school year.

A blog allows students to put their writing out into the world and get feedback from others.  You can't get that type of an audience when you write in a notebook, which is what one of my Twitter followers suggested to me this morning when she tweeted, "Give students a voice...you open their world."

Right now the students' attitudes run the gamut from excited and motived to annoyed and confused.  I had a group of boys in my classroom just after 7:30am this morning, crowding around a computer to take a look at their classmate' new blog.  The enthusiasm was glorious.  Then later this afternoon, I overheard a few different students groaning about how "stupid" it is to have a blog.

We'll see if I can get those attitudes to change by June.  In the meantime, I have realized a couple of things.  First, you cannot please all of your students all of the time. And second, students who complain that something is stupid are usually afraid that it will be too hard or that they won't do well at the assigned task.

I am hopeful that blogging about literature and other topics will help motivate my students.  Having an audience beyond just me, the teacher, is definitely a way to keep students engaged and serious about their writing.  To any parents reading, I would recommend asking your child to share their blog's URL (web address) with you so that you can take a look at it from time to time.  It might be nice for them to know that you are interested and supportive of the work they are doing in 6th grade.

I'm Back...7 years later

I technically began this blog back in 2006 before blogging in education had become very popular.  At the time, I was a fourth grade teacher, and I was trying to figure out how to do this 21st century teaching thing.  A lot has happened since 2006.  To start, I no longer teach at the elementary school.  In between my years as a fourth grade teacher until now I have taught fifth grade and then served as a building technology coordinator from 2008-2012.  This year, I wanted a change so I took a position as a sixth grade language arts teacher at the middle school level.

My decision to return to the classroom stemmed from a desire to be more involved with students and less involved with fixing everyone else's technology.  I wanted to get back in the trenches, so to speak.  I was tired of talking the talk without walking the walk.  I loved the idea of being a technology coordinator, but I started to feel like I was getting out of touch.  (You can read about my life as a technology coordinator on another old blog here.)

So, now I am back in my very own classroom where technology integration is a way of life for me.  Thankfully my district has FINALLY adopted Google Apps for Education so that I can do my thing without jumping through a million hoops.  (Thanks DPS!)

I'm going to do my best to post often in an effort to document my great return to the classroom.  Thanks for reading!  Come back soon!