December 1-5, 2014

Students who attended Hamlet are still talking about the experience and the fun we had.

One of the weakest areas identified on all grade levels' SOLs is summarizing, so we hit that skill hard this week. We worked together to identify the who, what, where, when, why/how of two news articles about the woman who brought an emotional support pig on board a plane the day before Thanksgiving. If the first attempt was incomplete, I returned it for a re-do. I next gave them a brief article in the Northern Virginia Daily about the repainting of the Mt. Jackson water tower, and they did a fabulous job summarizing it. For both assignments, I added an element of analysis by asking them to explain why the article was newsworthy at the end of the summary.Another weak area on the SOLs is identifying the main idea, so we had a lesson on identifying the topic, then figuring out the main idea from the topic.

I only had the computers one day this week--thank goodness! Because our Internet came under attack again, and it may not be resolved until the middle of next week. I was supposed to have the computers this upcoming Monday, but I'm not making another attempt until Wednesday. Cross your fingers!

We learned one new vocabulary word this week, qualm, and we took notes on direct and indirect characterization and began reading Truman Capote's "A Christmas Memory."

Encore did the main idea lesson, then began S. E. Hinton's That Was Then, This Is Now. ECO looked at exploring your passions, and we began with Jacob's wrestling and how to get into it as a career. On Friday, we began a self-appreciation list, which led to a lot of interesting discussion.

I am always looking for ways to better report student learning, which is why I volunteered to be on the superintendent's focus group on grading this year. In order to try to better report behaviors and grades, I created a weekly grade sheet to replace what I've been using; student feedback was overwhelmingly positive. I found the categories and descriptions from Ontario, Canada's, Ministry of Education; these categories are part of Ontario's report card. Of all the report cards I saw, I liked this one the best. Below, I've copied the categories and the rest of the sheet students had to complete on Thursday. You'll get a hard copy on Thursday when interims are sent out. I'm trying to get students to see how their behaviors impact their learning and therefore their grades.

Responsibility *Fulfills responsibilities and commitments within the learning environment *Completes and submits classwork homework, and assignments according to agreed upon deadlines *Takes responsibility for and manages own behavior

Collaboration *Accepts various roles and an equitable share of work and tasks *Responds positively to the ideas, opinions, values, and traditions of others *Builds healthy peer-to-peer relationships through personal and media-assisted interactions *Works with others to resolve conflicts and build consensus to achieve group goals *Shares information, resources, and expertise, and promotes critical thinking to solve problems and make decisions

Independent Work *Independently monitors, assesses, and revises plans to complete tasks and meet deadlines *Uses class time appropriately to complete tasks *Follows instructions with minimal supervision

Initiative *Looks for and acts on new ideas and opportunities for learning *Demonstrates the capacity for innovation and a willingness to take risks *Demonstrates curiosity and interest in learning *Approaches new attitudes with a positive attitude *Recognizes and advocates appropriately for the rights of self and others

Organization *Devises and follows a plan for completing work and tasks *Establishes priorities and manages time to complete tasks and achieve goals *Identifies, gathers, evaluates, and uses information, technology, and resources to complete tasks.

Self-Regulation *Sets own individual goals and monitors progress towards achieving them *Seeks clarification or assistance when needed *Assesses and reflects critically on own strengths, needs, and interests *Identifies learning opportunities, choices, and strategies to meet personal needs and achieve goals *Perseveres and makes an effort when responding to challenges

*If you aren’t reading at home at night, that would affect your score under Responsibility, Independent Work, Organization, and Self-Regulation. *If you talk excessively in class, that would affect your score under Responsibility, Independent Work, Collaboration and Self-Regulation. In which of these areas do you need to work the most next week? Why?

November 24 & 25, 2014

Encore asked if they could have a Thanksgiving Read-In during the last meeting before break. They had all checked out books from my room and wanted to dig in. I brought cookies, and they spent the meeting silently reading the whole time. ECO visited Triplett Tech on Monday, so we spent our meeting discussing the careers they'd seen and what they would do for a career if they could choose anything and how to make it happen in their lives, even if it didn't become a career.

All classes finished their work with the sixth graders on their turkey letters. My students received the letters and used our writing rubric to score them. Ms. Phillips said she planned to return the letters and let the students have one more opportunity to revise after my students' input. Late, missing, or sloppy work was a revelation to my students from the perspective of the teacher. We hope to do another cross-grade level assignment later, and other English teachers have expressed an interest in trying such cross-grade level tutoring.

Core 1 and 3 did a freewrite in preparation for reading Polonius's advice to his son Laertes in Hamlet, which they will do after we return this week. The topic was, "Do your parents ever give you advice? What is it? Do you take it?" The responses and discussion were so interesting that we may continue it later in an additional assignment. A writing assignment all three cores enjoyed was one I picked up about 15 years ago at an AP conference and that has become a regular Thanksgiving tradition. I ask students to write skit dialogue for 15-20 minutes of Mother, Father, Sister, and Brother at the Thanksgiving table. I then explain that Theater of the Absurd is a twentieth century theater form in which individuals feel there's no higher power or any other human who cares or listens. Knowing Theater of the Absurd is just an interesting aside and explains the outcome of their writing: I collect the papers, mix them up, call up four students for characters, and Mother reads the first line on her paper, then each character does the same, until the first page is read, then the next page, until we stop. It's very funny and surprisingly fits together. Since second core just finished Hamlet, I told them to use Hamlet, Ophelia, Gertrude, and Polonius. It's a wonderful exercise to give more practice in writing dialogue and also to see how dialogue fits together, even when it isn't intentional.

Happily--and sadly--Core 2 finished Hamlet. I told them the homework responses would stop as we neared the end so they could experience all of the story lines coming together as a surprise. The homework responses had given them a deep understanding of all the themes and characters. It was wonderful to see some tears as "flights of angels" sung Hamlet to his rest. I put them into Socratic Seminar groups with some starter questions at the conclusion, and the discussions were passionate. I have very, very much enjoyed seeing them take complete ownership of this play. I am looking forward to seeing them experience it this Wednesday at Blackfriars, and I'm sorry my other classes didn't have time to get through the play as well, but only start it.

In that spirit I end with a picture the American Shakespeare Center (Blackfriars) sent this week. I hope that all of your sons and daughters had a blessings-filled holiday and enjoyed the extra snow day on Wednesday.

November 10-14, 17-21

No post last week because I simply couldn't find a minute. Sorry about that!

Core 1 and 3 are almost finished with The Outsiders sequels, and I can't wait to read them. When all classes are finished, I plan to print the ones for which students give me permission so I can put together binders of them in hard copy for Mrs. Voigt's classes and other students to easily read them during SSR time.

Core 2 almost reached the end of Hamlet on Friday. I told them they would preread less at the end because I wanted them to experience the thrill of Shakespeare's plot twists as all the story lines came together. We got all the way to Hamlet's pouring the poisoned wine down Claudius's throat and the king's eyes closing in death before it was time to leave for lunch. We were watching Branagh's film version; they all burst into applause as I stopped the video. All the pieces will be tied up on Monday. While I had time to start the play with my other classes, I'm afraid they won't be have time to experience it as thoroughly as this class before our December 3 field trip to Blackfriars.

All core classes are also working on an essay and a current events research topic for which they had to gather articles on scoop.it. The objective is to continue honing research, note-taking, and MLA skills. We began working on those skills with the WeVideo project. When I scored those, I leaned more heavily on the side of learning the video-making skills than the writing, research, and MLA. I knew they were just learning those. Now, I'm going to push them a little harder with this project to learn good note-taking and synthesizing information. They already grasp that an MLA Works Cited page is merely following a formula, and I walked them through it the first time. This time they will work on it more independently. I provided a PowerPoint with all of the steps that I took them through for guidance--and told them not to delete it from their Drive!

I'd like to say something about due dates since students worry quite a bit about them (and they should--that's being responsible). I don't set a deadline at the start of projects and papers, especially when it's a new skill for this grade. (The exception is the advanced class; I do set deadlines for them because the expectation is more independent work at the advanced level.) Some students don't have access to technology at home, so I assume all work will be completed in class. What I'm looking for as they work is how long they will need to acquire the skills and complete the project. Some students take longer. That's why I have several projects, like an essay and a research project, going at the same time. When a student finishes, he moves to the next thing. If a student isn't staying on task, he needs to take that into account when giving himself the weekly grade. I also am as diligent as possible at monitoring them while working to make sure they stay on task. Several times, I've asked a student to repeat the process to master the skill before allowing her to be "finished." There's no purpose in assigning a failing grade and letting the student move on without skill mastery.

Our county is moving from bubble assessments that mimic the SOL to real-world performance assessments, like writing a sequel to a novel rather than taking a bubble test. The learning is more authentic and more enjoyable. I've been reading a book titled Deeper Learning that discusses eight schools following this model. The author discusses the benefit of thinking of the learning process as a learning loop. We traditionally assign a project, the student completes it, we move on. Maybe the student mastered the material, maybe they didn't, or maybe it was just in the short-term memory long enough to pass the test. Because authentic learning is ongoing, a student should enter the process of learning new material, then be moved back into the learning in a variety of ways that show the learning, reinforce it, and strengthen it. I'm "looping" them back into the research process with the current events project. I'll look for ways to loop them back into learning throughout the year.< A mini-lesson in writing was practice in eliminating the word "thing" from papers; another was adding appropriate transition words. We had another vocabulary quiz, which is not just knowing the word, but being able to use it in writing with context clues. A huge project we've completed in the last two weeks was inspired by the Deeper Learning book, and it's probably been one of the best experiences I've seen in school in years. The book said that schools with deeper learning have older students teaching younger students. Those schools have fewer behavior problems like bullying because students get to know each other better. I also knew it helps to have all the help we can get because budget cuts have meant less staff in the building to help out. Additionally, I've read research that students are more likely to listen to a peer tutor than an adult teacher.

Ms. Phillips in sixth grade agreed to be our guinea pig for this grand experiment. I wrote a lesson plan for writing a persuasive letter to President Obama to pardon the presidential turkey's life. I taught my students what they would be working on and how to teach the students. I gave them a hand-out on the assignment and three persuasive techniques they could use drawn from our eighth grade SOL (appealing to justice, love of family, or pity). I gave them a persuasion map graphic organizer and explained what they would do with their students to complete it.

On the second day, my students met their students. I debriefed when we returned through discussion and filling out an exit ticket. Many said, "I wished I'd paid more attention to what I was supposed to do!" Ms. Phillips's students rewrote the letter the next day, and we returned on the following to work on peer conferencing. I had adapted our school's scoring rubric so my students could circle yes or no for each writing domain, then give the student pointers on how to improve the "no." My students were much more focused and prepared this time. When we returned to class, we had a very rich discussion about their teaching experiences. I was gratified at how much learning took place for them while they were teaching a younger student. On Friday, my students prepared for scoring the finished letters by scoring three DEAW's from last week chosen from Mrs. Scotallero's students. They were very invested as they worked in their groups because they know they have to accurately score their student's paper on Monday. Their discussions about how to decide what was adequate and what was not was very detailed--and will hopefully show them in the future what they need to do in their own papers.

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I mentioned the DEAW: Drop Everything and Write. We use a two-hour delay schedule so can use those first two hours to go into testing mode that mimics the real writing SOL that eighth graders will take in March. The following day, all English teachers worked at scoring the papers. Our conversations help us English instructors to know where our school is in writing ability and teaches newer teachers to understand the SOL writing expectations. Most teachers choose to put the DEAW in as a grade. I put mine in as a formative grade since I chose to look at it as a learning experience, not a final summative evidence of learning. I will put their last DEAW before the real SOL in as a summative score. One thing I discovered from our scoring is that our eighth grade is the weakest in writing ability, so they have a lot of work before March.

On the day of the DEAW, I left an exercise choosing the correct word in context, synonyms, and antonyms. This exercise showed that many students need a LOT of practice in this area. They also wrote a persuasive letter which they will be revising later.

On student birthdays, I put the birthday hat on them, we sing "Happy Birthday," and I give them a choice of "birthday candy." On Matt's recent birthday, the students wanted to preserve the moment for posterity, so the picture below is one of our less academic moments:

ECO has been a time to learn about study skills, as well as talking briefly about interviewing. Mrs. Zimmon and I were concerned after we saw the quarter grades report come out, so we spent time talking about success at their current job as students. Encore finished Babe and Me and a vocabulary worksheet. We're going to have a Thanksgiving Read-In this Tuesday at their request, then start a new class novel after the holiday break.

Have a blessed holiday break with your families!

November 3-7, 2014

On Monday, teachers met across the county to look at our SOLS in detail. We then returned to our school, and our English department met all afternoon, discussing an alignment plan for writing across the three grade levels. I always enjoy talking about teaching writing.

On Tuesday, I had an opportunity to see many of you and share what your student is doing in class.

Back to a new quarter on Wednesday. So far, the technology seems to be cooperating better than last quarter, and students are rapidly finishing the MLA and video projects. I am completing grade change forms as they do, so those report cards with "assignment missing" will be issued the correct grade for the quarter.

Those who weren't working on those assignments in Core 1 and 3 worked on The Outsiders performance assessment of writing a sequel. The target due date for that is November 14, but we will see what we get accomplished in the upcoming week. They are also working on essay, but I wanted to do a few revision lessons before I asked them to turn those in. This week, I reviewed nouns and adjectives and how adding adjectives to their writing can make their writing more descriptive. We also returned to vocabulary study, and we should have a quiz sometime next week. We even managed to squeeze in some silent reading time this week. Next week, daily reading time starts for the whole school.

C2 has been continuing Hamlet. The other cores began it last week, but we haven't gotten far. The picture below is third core's "Polonius family" as we discussed the characters and opening action of the play. A student snapped some pictures at my request, but he's only sent me this one. Sorry if your student doesn't appear!

ECO only met once this week, and we continued our discussion about how to ace interview questions.

Encore is still reading Babe and Me, and they took an SOL reading check that showed many students are (not surprisingly) still having trouble remembering the difference between foreshadowing and flashback.

October 27-31, 2014

I expected our first quarter to end with a bang as all students finished their projects, but, thanks to technology issues, we ended, as T. S. Eliot would say, with a whimper. Not only were we dealing with our building's overloaded server, but Shentel experienced an attack. I kept alternate plans all week when the computers were unavailable.

I spoke to Mrs. Kline, who suggested that I post on this blog that all students who haven't finished the MLA and/or 1965 WeVideo will be issued a grade change in the next quarter as those are completed. If your student brings home a report card that says "assignment missing," that means one isn't complete and a grade change will be issued. IT DOESN'T MEAN THE STUDENT HAS NOT DONE REQUIRED WORK!!

I'd like to recap the skills students acquired in completing these two summative assignments. They learned to:

1. formulate keyword searches on the Internet to find the exact information they need
2. take notes from the Internet, saving the URL and date they viewed the website for an MLA Works Cited later
3. review research notes and choosE the appropriate information to create a presentation on a topic
4. create a video using a Google app, WeVideo
5. follow the formatting rules to create an MLA Works Cited page

Their skills aren't as honed as they will be in June, but every student has now been introduced to them and has put them into action. They can now put those skills into use for the rest of the year.

We also began or continued Hamlet, depending on which class you are looking at. C2 had a "killer" assignment this week in which they read a passage of Hamlet, a commentary on the term "quintessence," and an excerpt from Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Dying" (1651). There was much weeping and gnashing to teeth, and they were positive it couldn't be done. Then they came to class after the assignment was over, feeling very pleased with themselves for taking on the challenge and doing well with it. I explained to one student while working one on one that I try to push them into their ZPD on a regular basis to help them grow: the zone of proximal development is where the work is more challenging than usual and can be completed with appropriate assistance, but isn't so hard that it's too frustrating to complete. A short discussion of ZPD is here.

We dipped into vocabulary this week. Each class is at a different place, but everyone will finish with five new words when we return, then they will have their second vocabulary quiz.

C1 and C3 worked on their Outsiders sequel performance assessment, and all classes worked on the first essay on things that are important. Those two assignments will soon be finished. I taught everyone a mini-lesson on the Buch Revision Method, which is a very quick, easy way to add content to writing. It's a useful technique for taking an essay test or generating more content on an essay when the writer feels stuck. Quite a few said it was one of the most helpful tips they'd ever received for writing, so our time was well-spent.

In ECO, Mr. Shenk visited and talked about his 30+ years working for Shentel and the types of jobs they offer. We read about interviews and conducted some mock interviews. Students are eager to go back to planning their career games, but Mrs. Zimmon and I need to meet to discuss how we'll find the materials for them to make the games.

In Encore, we are reading Babe and Me, and I haven't wanted to stop our reading to do anything extra because we only meet on alternating days, and many of them have said they are very into the "zone" with the book and are eager to find out what happens next. They were surprised this week when reading how uncouth Babe Ruth's manners were. He is very different from Honus Wagner! They are volunteering predictions and comparisons after practicing them in the first book, so I don't need to teach those skills again; they have become habit.

October 20-24, 2014

Network overload issues impacted this week greatly. The plan was that everyone would be finished with the 1965 videos by Friday, as well as MLA citations, but we struggled to get online and access the Google Drive. After speaking to our technology people, I found that our network had reached capacity. We were scheduled for a network update this summer, but, because of budget cuts, the other two campuses got their updates, and we didn't. I chide the students when they are frustrated and want to throw their computers through the wall, but, by the end of the week, I actually felt the same way.

Incredibly, they were still able to get something done. The majority have finished the projects and are focusing on the first major essay on what's important in their lives. We spent one class talking about revising vs. editing, and then we looked at a model opening and closing from a National Geographic article and wrote an opening based on the model. I shared Betty Flowers's model of the writer as madman, architect, carpenter, and judge, and I was surprised and pleased when they began talking about themselves that way as they worked on their writing: "Mrs. Shrum, I think I need to be the madman for awhile because I have to create some more writing in this paragraph."

Everyone is officially finished reading and watching The Outsiders, and Core 1 and 3 are working on their sequel assignment. Not only are they showing their comprehension of the novel and the author's style, but they are wanting to know how to punctuate quotes and how to create a first-person narrative. They are touching on many of our eighth grade English SOLs without knowing it. I am asking students to allow me to print a hard copy of their sequel when they're finished so we can share them with Mrs. Voigt's students and between classes. All three classes also learned the word "plaintive" Friday as we began our next round of vocabulary study.

Core 2 is almost at the end of act II of Hamlet. Their comprehension of the play and Shakespeare's language has grown, and many said they no longer need to rely as much on reading online commentaries to understand their assignments. I've been assigning short passages with questions to reflect on, then we watch the various interpretations on film. On Friday, I showed them Ethan Hawke's for the first time, and they really disliked it. They didn't feel it translated well to the modern age.

Encore is still reading Babe and Me, and ECO read and discussed the job of fiber technician that's currently open at Shentel and watched some videos on becoming one. They are also working on creating career board games, but that's been difficult because of a number of absent students this week. We read a skit about a job interview, discussed what a resume is, and then read some terrible answers given during actual job interviews.

October 13-17, 2014

Sorry I'm a little late with the post this week--I was at the Cedar Creek Sesquicentennial all day on Saturday.

We're still tying up the videos and MLA citations, which was complicated this week by network/computer issues; we lost a full day on the computers. Everyone is now finished reading The Outsiders, and Core 1 and 3 are working on the five-page sequel as their performance assessment. We're also sneaking in the movie in bits and pieces; it's one of the few I show because students love the novel so much, and they enjoy comparing the two. They enjoyed seeing the author S. E. Hinton's cameo appearance; she's the nurse when Dally is lying in bed, and he's giving her a hard time, then he says, "You make me sick to my stomach."

All classes continued to review using participial phrases for writing, and I gave them some mentor paragraphs. When we use a mentor text, we use the basic structure of the original to create a new work. Their new pieces are awesome, and I'm hoping to pull some "golden lines" from them to post around the room. I've explained to them that studying parts of speech and grammar has to be joint with writing, or the grammar study is pointless, and they are beginning to understand as they are creating sophisticated pieces of writing with their new knowledge. They also had the option of working on their essay about the important things in their lives.

Core 3 read "The Gift of Cochise," which Core 2 has already read, and they began some CRISS exercises to better understand the story. Core 2 has begun Hamlet. I've assigned very brief passages of the play as homework and encouraged them read simplified versions and commentaries online, if they wish. They then write a reflection to show they understand what it says and how it's progressing the story. They are doing a magnificent job with it, and it's been very exciting to work on the play with them. We're going to see it at Blackfriars in Staunton on December 3, and it's much more interesting if you know the story. I'm using four different film versions and showing different scenes based on what I'd like them to see about directors' choices in portraying the story. I want them see that drama is very much an interpretation of the director, not just the playwright's intention. They've been intrigued to see how different some of the directorial choices are.

Encore finished Honus and Me and comparing it to the Twilight Zone episode, "Extra Innings," then began Babe and Me. They quickly devoured a chunk of the book and made predictions about the story and discussed plot possibilities. It's wonderful to see them independently initiating those activities now after being led to do them with the first novel. They're already asking what the next book will be, but I'm keeping it a secret.

ECO finished the article on LFCC's grant to help the local workforce and began looking at the local businesses who would be hiring through the grant. We looked at Valley Healthlink first because I wanted them to see that there are non-health worker jobs at hospitals, like cooking and housekeeping. We next watched videos about jobs at Shentel and focused on a current job opening in Edinburg for fiber optic technician. It's a job requiring only a high school education that keeps the worker busy and outdoors, pays well, and has good benefits. Some of the guys were excited to see that they could qualify and apply for such a local job. Credit belongs where credit is due--Kobe asked if they could create a game based on job searching, and Mrs. Zimmon and I thought it was a marvelous idea, so they are now planning how to create such a board game. They've split into three teams. When the games are finished, Mrs. Brinkley and Mrs. Voigt said the CSYW would give them a test-play to see if they work and to judge how much fun they are and how educational.

October 6-10, 2014

More and more students are finished with the 1965 video project, including the MLA citations page. On Friday Core 2 turned in their Outsiders sequels. It was a good day to see some short clips of music from 1965 mentioned in the novel and learn two very easy, very popular dances from 1965, the Twist and the Monkey. Those blurry pics are them in action (I found my new phone isn't good at capturing movement).

Monday began with our first test on their first group of vocabulary words. This was a summative grade (80%), so the handful that didn't study discovered what an impact one poor summative grade makes in the middle of all those formative grades (20%). We read a poem called "Loving Red" by the award-winning poet Amaul Amaud Johnson. They had some questions only the poet could answer. I located him, e-mailed, and had a response by lunch! The poem was rich in symbolism.

We learned what participial phrases are and how they can enrich writing. They are working on their first essay on what's important in life. Core 3 finished The Outsiders on Friday and Core 1 is almost there. Core 2 began watching the movie; many kept their computers on and worked on their sequels at the same time. Some students were so far ahead that they were able to begin planning their next project. They're required to use reading and writing and choose a product to deliver their research. I've given them a planning sheet, which they have to complete, that helps them narrow the topic and plan the steps to complete it. A few so far: creating a portfolio to becoming a certified teacher, improving a volleyball serve through video, coaching, and researching professional advice, a duo researching Vladimir Putin's Ukraine activities, writing a skit, and acting it for the class (including learning some basic Russian phrases), reading selected novels by an author and comparing and contrasting them, researching the deer population of Shenandoah County. We've only started on project planning, so I'm looking forward to hearing more proposals.

Core 2 had a very quick introduction to Hamlet on Friday, a play I haven't taught since I had seniors at SJ. We're going to see in December at Blackfriars Playhouse, so I wanted them to have a background in it. The Lion King is based on Hamlet, so it should seem familiar.

ECO only met once this week because of Aimsweb screening. We began reading an article from The Northern Virginia Daily about a grant they received to improve Valley job skills. Encore finished reading Honus and Me, completed a ten question SOL-style quiz on it, then watched a Twilight Zone episode that was remarkably similar called "Extra Innings." Next week, they'll complete a Venn diagram comparing the two works. (Since The Twilight Zone episode aired in 1988 and Honus and Me was published in 1997, the author clearly took some major inspiration from the episode.)

September 29-October 3, 2014

This week, I showed students how to play Kahoot. I create a game and project it on the front screen. They log in on their computers or phones and click the correct color and shape associated with the correct answer. Kahoot shows who answered first and got the most points and the class rank in answering correct answers. They didn't just like it; they went a little insane over it. I told them I wanted to give it a try with a 10 question "quiz" on keyword searches as an introduction and that I would also give them opportunities later to create Kahoots for the class to play.

They began working on their first formal essay this week: What are the things that matter most in your life right now? I talked about how to preplan and outline essays and why they need to get into that habit. They told me about what they had learned about writing in seventh grade. I told them one of our big objectives this year is to build the stamina to write an essay in one sitting since they will need to do it on the writing SOL in March. We will be working on the essay more this week. They also completed a fifth vocabulary word, succulent, so they are now ready for a vocab quiz on Monday (I generally have them on Fridays, but we had the field trip to JMU, and students chose Monday as the alternate day). There are three sections on the quiz: fill in the blank, write a sentence for the word with strong context clues that show meaning, and match the word to the correct picture. For the second section they can study the exercises we did in class and memorize the sentence for the text because it must not only be correct usage, but also punctuated correctly with all words spelled correctly.

Core 1 and 3 continued reading The Outsiders in class, while Core 2 worked on writing the first five pages of the sequel, which is due this Friday, October 10.

The most exciting activity has been the 1965 research projects, which are drawing to a close. Many students have completed the research, the movie, and the MLA citation page for sources. I won't accept them unless they are A or B quality, so I'm spending a lot of time looking at their work by way of Google, then e-mailing with what needs to be fixed. The video and research will be their first 80% summative grade, so they are important. The pictures I'm showing this week are of students helping and teaching other students how to do different required tasks associated with the project. Teaching reinforces their knowledge, and being taught by a peer is sometimes more effective than getting the information from the teacher. It gives me goosebumps when I see students reach that point in learning. I've sent all students information to plan their next topic: they must use reading and writing to learn a topic or skill and decide a final product, such as a video, skit, e-portfolio, etc.

ECO did an activity from Sir Kenneth Robinson's Finding Your Element to see how their time is currently spent to consider how the want to spend time in future jobs. They also completed a short job predictor and read about jobs.

Encore is almost finished with Honus and Me. Their discussions of the book have become very targeted. It's not unusual for someone to raise a hand and say, I'd like to make a prediction. . ."

September 22-26, 2014

The predictions for a harsh winter seem to be foreshadowed (an 8th grade SOL word!) by the cold weather that's settling in and all the colds causing sniffling around the school.

We only had the computers for two days this week to continue the 1965 research project and video production. You may wonder why this seems to be taking awhile to complete, but, as I said before, they are learning to research, evaluate sources, and use WeVideo. These are skills they will use all year, but they are very new to some students. It was so exciting this week to see one of the students who at the start said there was NO WAY she would ever learn how use a complicated video production app say on Thursday, "I'm a whiz at this!" and begin to help other students who weren't picking it up as easily.

It's also been revealing to me to see students learning to do research by approaching it hands-on first and then having me point out mistakes and successes. For example, they need to complete an MLA-formatted Works Cited page of their sources after they finish their videos. I shared a sample document to show them how to format and complete it. One of my students said, "But I never actually went to any websites." I was stunned, then asked how she'd gathered her information. She had searched the terms, then collected the information she saw on the search results page and never went to the sites! It would never have crossed my mind that anyone would try that, so we were able to discuss why that was inadequate research. Another student swore only Wikipedia contained the necessary information. I sat down with him and found out his keyword searches weren't very targeted (another SOL that will be tested on the writing SOL in March). He started targeting his keyword searches more and began finding what he needed. I also reminded them of how to use Wikipedia to find other information: the links for the Wikipedia articles are at the bottom, and the student can click on those to go straight to the sources.

In addition to continuing the projects, they were busy in other areas:

All classes were introduced to how to complete analogies, another 8th grade SOL, which is introduced in 7th grade. It's one of the most missed on the exam, so I wanted to make sure we began early on it. I used EDI (explicit direct instruction) to introduce the definition and review the concept, then I put up a Powerpoint with analogies that each student had to complete, and I called randomly on several to answer each one. If they disagreed on the correct answer, I polled the class.

C1 and C3 learned another new word this week, plausible/implausible/plausibility. We continued reading and discussing The Outsiders.

C2 completed a "quiz" on The Outsiders containing ten questions based on the VDOE's format from the Reading Practice SOL Tool. When they finished it, we went over it, and they had to write on any question they missed what they were thinking when they chose the incorrect answer. This was a quick check for me to see how on track they were with our standards, and I discovered nothing surprising: the most missed question was related to vocabulary and the second was identifying theme, two that are weak nationally. I extended their performance assessment on The Outsiders (writing the first five pages of a sequel to the novel) to October 10. They said they wanted to do a marvelous job and some of them want to go beyond five pages, so I thought the extra time would allow them to do a better job.

This class also read "The Gift of Cochise" by Louis L'Amour and discussed it as we read it aloud. Each student randomly was called upon to go to the podium and read a page. I recently discovered this story and was impressed by how the story was put together with changing point of view, symbolism, characterization, etc. We finished it on Friday and next week will begin pulling its elements apart. We did start to discuss the characters and whether there was a gender bias, which was a heated discussion! They said they really enjoyed it and were inspired to write sequels or plot twists to it later! Looking forward to those if they do happen! (You can read the entire story here--click on the book, and it's the first story.) Because they were busy with the story, we didn't do the vocab word, but they'll pick that up next week.

ECO finished the angry customers, read a real Food Lion job application from Timberville and completed the online application on paper. We then introduced our community colleges as sources of job training through two introductory videos and began looking at LFCC's Workforce Solutions website.

Encore continued Honus and Me. We were almost up to the part where Stosh is able to visit the 1909 World Series, so I found a short newspaper article from a 1909 newspaper that talked about the rivalry between Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner. We discussed if it's good or poor readers who re-read, and one student was able to exactly identify that poor readers DON'T re-read and why. We then took turns reading the newspaper article aloud three times, then learned the meaning of two words in it (prowess, supremacy) and wrote a sentence for each using good context clues. Before returning to the novel Friday, we re-read the article one more time. They could see that their comprehension was much better by the fourth time while it was almost nonexistent on the first.

Week of September 15-19, 2014
Cores 1 & 3 learned the word "plausible" this week. Core 2 didn't do that word yet, because they've been reading The Outsiders for homework and writing reflections, and we had a discussion instead of vocabulary. C2 finished The Outsiders by Friday and are now ready to begin the assessment project, the five-page beginning of the sequel to The Outsiders. Core 1 & 3 are reading the book in class.

For three days, all classes had the computer cart, and they jumped into some big learning: they researched topics about culture in 1965, saving notes and sources in a Google Doc. They roughed out storyboards for a video created in WeVideo, a free online movie-maker app through Google. They learned to find and save pictures to use in their projects and started the video in WeVideo, which will teach them how to use the app.

On day one, there were a few yelps of fear and outright screams of fright, but, by day three, everyone was working at their own pace and had reached some level of comfort with searching, saving, and video creation. I kept reminding them that what they were doing is indeed very difficult, but that the best way to learn is hands-on and through their own mistakes. As some picked up faster than others, I encouraged them to help students around them, because they are able to help each other very well--and there's only one of me! They will use all of these skills during the year and will be old pros by June. (The two first pictures above are core 2 working on research.)

We ended on Friday without the cart (all brains, including mine, were feeling a little bruised after three intense days of work learning three tough skills), and I handed out packets that contained a copy of the first page of four websites and a worksheet to evaluate them. I explained that the average reader on the Internet decides within two seconds to keep reading a page or click away. The exercise was to determine what about the website made them decide immediately if it looked genuine and worthwhile or not. I know students want to find good information in one click, save it, and be done. Deciding if the information is true or good isn't something they WANT to do.

I asked them to get into groups of three and in ten minutes go through the sites using the criteria on the worksheet to decide which was the one fake site. The sites were www.flightradar24.com (in the post-9/11 world, do we really show all the airplane flights in the world as they happen?), mulletpassions.com (a dating site based on having a mullet), alexchiu.com (a site selling that products that are too good to be true), and dhmo.org (a site warning of the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide). The last site was the fake one, because dihydrogen monoxide is water. Alex Chiu's products may be a scam, but it's a real site that will be glad to take your money. We had very interesting and informative discussions about what was behind their decisions. (I don't like mentioning SOLs, but evaluating websites for information is part of the writing SOL in March.)

ECO: We focused on angry customers this week. If the students get their employment certificates and find a job, they will definitely encounter unhappy or angry customers. We watched a training video on how to deal with the customers, then role-played being the Walmart employee and being the angry customer using complaints from the Walmart complaint site. We also watched a video someone had captured at a GameStop of an annoyed customer confronting the manager. The manager then escalated the situation through a series of bad choices. The students identified how and why the situation went downhill.

Encore: We continued Honus and Me using discussion and a graphic organizer for cause and effect. The bottom picture is Encore's working in partners to complete the graphic organizer.

REMINDER: SCHOOL PICTURES ON SEPTEMBER 23.

September 8-12, 2004

When you're feeling sad, learn something.~~T. H. White in The Once and Future King

This is the week that all classes were required to give pretests. English is unlike any other class, because we have to give two pretests: one for writing and one for reading. I also had to give the STAR, which is very short and tells me the student's independent reading level, and a 31-word spelling inventory, which also doesn't take very long and tells me how to help a student with spelling. The students and I were all very sad, however, to stop the excitement of learning to collect required data. The next big data collection event is on October 9, when we will spend a large portion of the day prescreening with Aimsweb. For that assessment, students read a one-minute passage and read a three-minute passage and circle the correct word. Most of these assessments were on the computers, so we had to stop the research we began last week, because there were no available computers.

Cores 1 and 3 We briefly read Thomas Hardy's poem "The Convergence of the Twain" about the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, because a British poet, Simon Armitage, wrote a poem three months after 9/11 that was inspired by Hardy's poem, "The Convergence of the Twain." (The title means "the coming together of the two," by the way.) Our main focus was alliteration and other sound patterning and seeing how one work of art can inspire another, as well as discussing the main idea. (Summary: while the Titanic was being built, the iceberg was forming, and one day they met, and the world was shaken. While the Twin Towers were being built, the force of hatred that would drive the planes was forming, and one day they met, and the world was changed.)

We read the poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost and discussed sound patterning, meaning, and author's purpose for writing a poem that reminds you that all good things disappear. Before they read the poem, I asked them to do a freewrite about things that had changed in their lives and how they dealt with change, and I got to read some fascinating pieces of writing.

We began reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and learned the word "vacillate" in a Wordplay. A Wordplay is a vocabulary exercise I create, which is based on the massive amounts of reading I've done on how students best learn new vocabulary. I find two brief real passages, usually from the news, that use the target word. Next, I give the definition choices, and then I give four sentences, one or two of which use the word incorrectly. After identifying the incorrect ones, we discuss what made the usage incorrect. We next identify the parts of speech for all uses of the word, then they have to write a sentence with strong context clues, which I check, and then they draw a picture to illustrate the word, which visually reinforces the meaning. Whenever I test vocabulary, we cover five words and they are tested three ways: fill in the blank, write a sentence using strong context clues, and match the correct word to the illustration. We also learn words in our readings. I stop and explain the word, use it in a variety of sentences, then ask students for meaning. This year, I've been putting these new vocab words up on the walls of the room as they learn them, so every now and then I stop and ask them what they mean.

The students also added the app WeVideo on their Google accounts and had a brief time to play around with it at the end of last week. They will be using the app to create projects this year. It's similar to Windows Moviemaker and Adobe Premiere.

Core 2 English Unfortunately, they didn't have time to explore the "Convergence of the Twain" poems, although they completed all of the other activities listed above for the other English classes. They are reading The Outsiders independently outside of class, and they are turning in reflective responses, which get better and better every time. Since they were into the novel already, we reviewed conflict in literature, and they then began a creative writing exercise in which they used three pictures of people I found on Flickr to create three characters in conflict at a dinner table. They had to write a brief skit with their dialogue. We have not finished this yet, and the students are impatient to return to it. They were giggling like mad things while they were writing. We also found some time to have an oral discussion of the book up to chapter six.

Encore We are reading Honus and Me aloud and using a graphic organizer to make predictions about events in the book. They seem to really be enjoying this story about a boy who finds a valuable Honus Wagner baseball card in an attic, and we are moving quickly through the book. I've never had a class before that fights about who gets to read next!

ECO Mrs. Zimmon explained how to get an employment certificate (the new name for the worker's permit) to get a job and where to find jobs locally. We also watched brief videos about the careers of small engine repair and auto body mechanic.

September 2-5, 2014

Researching 1965

No one should have as much fun at work as I did this week.

A new crew of students arrived, full of energy and excitement for learning and ready to roll. And they kept rolling right up until 3:10 on Friday when they burst out of the school doors, still full of energy. How can we bottle that and sell it????

English Class: We brainstormed what the culture of 2014 is like in music, technology, television, etc., then what they thought they knew about 1965. It's the start of a PBL unit I designed to introduce the novel The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, which is set in 1965 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It also introduces research techniques. By the end of the week, they were ready to start finding out how correct they were about 1965 and first looked at online--which was when I found out how little they knew about doing effective keyword searches to find good information. That lesson couldn't wait, so we ended the week with it, and they picked up the skill quickly. They also seemed to find it very enjoyable, because who wouldn't want to know the best way to find exactly what they want on the Internet?

Core 2 actually began the book and had some homework assignments. We hit the brakes on Thursday because I could see we needed to hone in on what makes for a quality assignment, so as a class we brainstormed what they needed to do and what they needed from me. I then gave an opportunity to redo the assignments and turn them in Monday. I told them on Monday we'd be reboarding the bullet train and heading quickly down the track.

Among other things we did in the first week was learning new procedures, locating classes and signing up for I/E, and just settling in to being eighth graders. They got a book to read the first day and we managed to find a little time to actually read. I can tell these are students who won't need to be whipped to read--they beg for more time to do it! Yes!!

Encore: We jumped right back into their Google Drives, created a Doc, and I asked them to write about a collection they had or, if they didn't collect anything, some item that was valuable to them. I wanted to see where they were in writing, introduce the book we are going to read, Honus and Me, and also start their using Google Docs with me. I am able to ask them to share the document, then I can open all of them on my computer and watch their progress and make comments within the document to assist them. I discovered last year how much more that increases my ability to help them as they're writing.

Exploring Career Options (ECO) I'll be co-teaching this class with our school guidance counselor Andrea Zimmon. She was tied up the first day, so I took them through Virginia View's checklist of career interests, then asked them to start writing about other ideas they had for careers. On the second day, Mrs. Zimmon led a round table discussion to discover what they wanted from the class. It was exciting to hear all of their ideas and start to think about the possibilities.