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.