Although I know the idea is controversial for some, my students wrote research-based argument papers as the first part of their 2016 Genius Hour projects. I was on the fence about this. Would I really be holding up the idea of Genius Hour with this kind of assignment? Would students really feel the passion about the project if they were required to cite sources using MLA?
While I'm still not sure about the answers to those two questions, I am sure about one thing.
The argument papers I'm reading are among some of the best I have ever gotten from students.
I do realize there could be any number of variables in play here. However, I have to believe that having students select topics that they care about and giving them the time and space in school to explore those topics had to have contributed to this product in some way.
Between the quality of this work and the quality of their reflections after writing the paper, I already feel the project this far was a valuable use of our time.
I cannot wait to see what they come up with for our Genius Hour Expo in May!
Showing posts with label ELA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ELA. Show all posts
Monday, March 7, 2016
Monday, February 22, 2016
Literature Circles - Updated for Middle School
For our January novel study, I wanted to test out a new type of literature circle activity. For 8th graders, the "jobs" version of literature circles never worked quite as well as I would have liked it to. Plus, it's a lot of work to set up, and the kids never seemed to know what they were supposed to do when.
After hearing Kelly Gallagher speak this summer, I tested out a new version of literature circles. I think that this would work well with all ages of middle school and up through high school. I don't have much experience with elementary, but I don't see why it wouldn't work for them too.
To begin, I sorted through the books available to me through my school's library. I selected eight that had themes loosely around the topic of prejudice.
After finding this super valuable resource from Daniels and Stieneke on literature circle mini-lessons, I used the "Book Pass" activity to have students select the books they were interested in. Essentially, they read all 8 options for 2 minutes, then selected the two or three books they would like to continue reading. There were no first or second choices, only choices they would read.
I then sifted through the options grouping students according to their selections, my understanding of their reading levels and group dynamics. We ended up with six different novel choices.
Students then got together to divide their book and decide which pages they would read for each meeting. Kelly Gallagher suggested that students should be able to read a book over the course of four weeks, but in retrospect, I should have gone with five or six for my students.
Students then completed "reading notebook" activities for each meeting. Based loosely off of this handout from Kelly Gallagher, students were supposed to track their thinking over time. With the goal of getting to the author's big idea(s). I assessed each reading notebook on five criteria:
1. They used one of the three "track your thinking" stems
2. They included their thinking about the book.
3. They included how their thinking had changed over time.
4. They included a "lit circle moment" that they wanted to share at the meeting. Something that was funny, interesting, confusing etc.
5. They included details in a way that showed they read the assigned pages.
I didn't require any specific amount of writing, and students completed their journals in a variety of ways. I had some students included sketches, but mot students wrote in sentences.
When the students met in their lit circle groups, they shared their "moments" as well as analyzed the character development through their novel.
In the last few meetings, they also used the "Save the Last Word for Me" strategy from the Daniels and Stieneke book. That was really successful in ensuring they had an actual conversation about the moments and didn't just take turns reading from their notebooks. Check it out if your students are struggling with this part of literary discussions!
In the end, students did a theme analysis activity for their novels. They analyzed the central conflicts to determine any possible messages the author might be trying to get across, and selected one that they could support its development throughout their novel with text evidence. They then had to create a symbolic representation of this theme to take the message beyond the pages of their novel. Students gave short presentations to share their themes with the class.
These presentations enabled students to see the shared themes between the novels. Many of the books had similar theme statements in the end, and we'll be able to come back to these during our Holocaust unit study later this year. I would have liked to have students record the themes of their classmates, then decide if this theme could also apply to their novel, but I didn't get that part off the ground. There's always next year!
All in all, it was a successful implementation of literature circles.
Next time, I will have students practice the reading notebook technique with a short story before we begin the lit circles.
In the end, I did have several students tell me they really enjoyed their books - so that in itself is a success!
The books we read were
A Wrinkle in Time
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Across Five Aprils
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Dragonwings
Please share any ideas or questions you have about literature circles!
After hearing Kelly Gallagher speak this summer, I tested out a new version of literature circles. I think that this would work well with all ages of middle school and up through high school. I don't have much experience with elementary, but I don't see why it wouldn't work for them too.
To begin, I sorted through the books available to me through my school's library. I selected eight that had themes loosely around the topic of prejudice.
After finding this super valuable resource from Daniels and Stieneke on literature circle mini-lessons, I used the "Book Pass" activity to have students select the books they were interested in. Essentially, they read all 8 options for 2 minutes, then selected the two or three books they would like to continue reading. There were no first or second choices, only choices they would read.
I then sifted through the options grouping students according to their selections, my understanding of their reading levels and group dynamics. We ended up with six different novel choices.
Students then got together to divide their book and decide which pages they would read for each meeting. Kelly Gallagher suggested that students should be able to read a book over the course of four weeks, but in retrospect, I should have gone with five or six for my students.
Students then completed "reading notebook" activities for each meeting. Based loosely off of this handout from Kelly Gallagher, students were supposed to track their thinking over time. With the goal of getting to the author's big idea(s). I assessed each reading notebook on five criteria:
1. They used one of the three "track your thinking" stems
2. They included their thinking about the book.
3. They included how their thinking had changed over time.
4. They included a "lit circle moment" that they wanted to share at the meeting. Something that was funny, interesting, confusing etc.
5. They included details in a way that showed they read the assigned pages.
I didn't require any specific amount of writing, and students completed their journals in a variety of ways. I had some students included sketches, but mot students wrote in sentences.
When the students met in their lit circle groups, they shared their "moments" as well as analyzed the character development through their novel.
In the last few meetings, they also used the "Save the Last Word for Me" strategy from the Daniels and Stieneke book. That was really successful in ensuring they had an actual conversation about the moments and didn't just take turns reading from their notebooks. Check it out if your students are struggling with this part of literary discussions!
In the end, students did a theme analysis activity for their novels. They analyzed the central conflicts to determine any possible messages the author might be trying to get across, and selected one that they could support its development throughout their novel with text evidence. They then had to create a symbolic representation of this theme to take the message beyond the pages of their novel. Students gave short presentations to share their themes with the class.
These presentations enabled students to see the shared themes between the novels. Many of the books had similar theme statements in the end, and we'll be able to come back to these during our Holocaust unit study later this year. I would have liked to have students record the themes of their classmates, then decide if this theme could also apply to their novel, but I didn't get that part off the ground. There's always next year!
All in all, it was a successful implementation of literature circles.
Next time, I will have students practice the reading notebook technique with a short story before we begin the lit circles.
In the end, I did have several students tell me they really enjoyed their books - so that in itself is a success!
The books we read were
A Wrinkle in Time
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Across Five Aprils
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Dragonwings
Please share any ideas or questions you have about literature circles!
Monday, July 22, 2013
My Epic Nonfiction Project
One of my goals this summer was to completely align my lessons and activities with the Common Core Standards. It's been quite an undertaking, and I don't think I'll get everything done I wanted to.
As part of that, I made the orgnizational tool I posted about earlier.
I've been busy adding in lessons and activities and slowly but surely becoming overwhelmed with the amount of standards I'm going to have to be responsible for this year.
As a result, I'm going to try to get my teammates on board helping with some of the nonfiction instruction. That was certainly the intent when the standards were written, but I think in practice - it's not quite happening yet.
To make this a little less scary (and work) for them, I'm making template like worksheets that can be used with almost any nonfiction article. My hope is that they'll actually use them, and the students will get exposure to the nonfiction standards outside of my language arts classroom.
My goal is to have something for each of the standards, but I'm not realizing that that is going to take quite some time to produce. I was going to create a bundle, but I'm just going to release them one standard at a time.
So, here's the sheet for CC RI 8.1.
My idea with this lesson is that you would come up with two or three articles about the same topic. The articles would need to present different viewpoints or just contain different facts. You could easily modify this by using one article or make the articles longer or more difficult.
So, as an example - I went to CNN.com to look for a current event. Just for fun, I selected the one about the giant tuna that capsized a boat.
I then went to my friend Google and entered "nonfiction article about tuna".
I found this article from Scholastic Scope magazine. The article is really about dolphins, but does contain a section about tuna. Something like this would be good to show how to decide what information is really important to your argument.
I also found this article from Discovery News about over-fishing of tuna.
If I were doing this activity in my class, I would also use one of the databases my library has access to like EBSCO or NetTrekker to find another article. I would probably look for something to present the other side of the dolphin story, rather than focus on tuna.
There is a short interview at the end of the article with the marine park association. I would look for a longer article to present the benefits of the dolphin interactive programs.
I would then pose a question like "Using information presented in the articles for support, do you think interactive dolphin programs are a good idea?" or "Using information presented for support, would you participate in an interactive dolphin program?" It's important to make sure that there is adequate information to support either side of the argument before you ask the question.
Students can then be guided through the activity using the Text Support worksheet.
After they come up with three examples of textual evidence and explain them, I would probably create a mini-debate situation. I would have students pair up with someone who is on the same side of the argument as then. I would put those pairs with pairs from the other side. They would then take turns reading their text examples and explanations.
After everyone has shared, I would have the pairs go back to find a fourth piece of evidence to counter one of the arguments presented by the other side. Their explanation should have a direct reference to how this counters the argument.
At the conclusion of this activity, students would have met the standard for sure, as well as several others in the reading and speaking/listening standards.
I'm looking forward to using this activity this year! Or at least helping my teammates make use of it!
If you'd like to purchase the text support worksheet - please check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Common-Core-Citing-Textual-Evidence-783648
As part of that, I made the orgnizational tool I posted about earlier.
I've been busy adding in lessons and activities and slowly but surely becoming overwhelmed with the amount of standards I'm going to have to be responsible for this year.
As a result, I'm going to try to get my teammates on board helping with some of the nonfiction instruction. That was certainly the intent when the standards were written, but I think in practice - it's not quite happening yet.
To make this a little less scary (and work) for them, I'm making template like worksheets that can be used with almost any nonfiction article. My hope is that they'll actually use them, and the students will get exposure to the nonfiction standards outside of my language arts classroom.
My goal is to have something for each of the standards, but I'm not realizing that that is going to take quite some time to produce. I was going to create a bundle, but I'm just going to release them one standard at a time.
So, here's the sheet for CC RI 8.1.
So, as an example - I went to CNN.com to look for a current event. Just for fun, I selected the one about the giant tuna that capsized a boat.
I then went to my friend Google and entered "nonfiction article about tuna".
I found this article from Scholastic Scope magazine. The article is really about dolphins, but does contain a section about tuna. Something like this would be good to show how to decide what information is really important to your argument.
I also found this article from Discovery News about over-fishing of tuna.
If I were doing this activity in my class, I would also use one of the databases my library has access to like EBSCO or NetTrekker to find another article. I would probably look for something to present the other side of the dolphin story, rather than focus on tuna.
There is a short interview at the end of the article with the marine park association. I would look for a longer article to present the benefits of the dolphin interactive programs.
I would then pose a question like "Using information presented in the articles for support, do you think interactive dolphin programs are a good idea?" or "Using information presented for support, would you participate in an interactive dolphin program?" It's important to make sure that there is adequate information to support either side of the argument before you ask the question.
Students can then be guided through the activity using the Text Support worksheet.
After they come up with three examples of textual evidence and explain them, I would probably create a mini-debate situation. I would have students pair up with someone who is on the same side of the argument as then. I would put those pairs with pairs from the other side. They would then take turns reading their text examples and explanations.
After everyone has shared, I would have the pairs go back to find a fourth piece of evidence to counter one of the arguments presented by the other side. Their explanation should have a direct reference to how this counters the argument.
At the conclusion of this activity, students would have met the standard for sure, as well as several others in the reading and speaking/listening standards.
I'm looking forward to using this activity this year! Or at least helping my teammates make use of it!
If you'd like to purchase the text support worksheet - please check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Common-Core-Citing-Textual-Evidence-783648
Thursday, July 11, 2013
8th Grade ELA Common Core Planning
So, one of my major undertakings this summer has been to prepare myself to teach the Common Core standards. I don't want to completely re-invent the wheel, but I also want to make sure that I'm teaching everything I'm supposed to.
As a result, I've created this planning document!
One of my goals for the upcoming year is to post a stated objective using the "I can" format given by the Common Core. So, what I've done here is pretty simple (but was sort of time consuming to set up).
I just listed out each 'I Can' statement with space underneath to list out what lessons and activities I plan to use to meet each area. I hoping that I can create a balanced curriculum devoting as even as time as possible across the standards.
I just want to make sure that I teach everything at least once!
Check out the document at my TpT store!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/8th-Grade-Common-Core-I-Can-Statements-ELA-Planning-Guide-767447
As a result, I've created this planning document!
One of my goals for the upcoming year is to post a stated objective using the "I can" format given by the Common Core. So, what I've done here is pretty simple (but was sort of time consuming to set up).
I just listed out each 'I Can' statement with space underneath to list out what lessons and activities I plan to use to meet each area. I hoping that I can create a balanced curriculum devoting as even as time as possible across the standards.
I just want to make sure that I teach everything at least once!
Check out the document at my TpT store!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/8th-Grade-Common-Core-I-Can-Statements-ELA-Planning-Guide-767447
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