it's monday!

This is my first It's Monday post!  Don't know why I haven't joined up before, but am looking forward to keeping it up now!  So, what am I reading?

Today I finished up two books I'd been reading off & on for the past week.  The first was Aliens on Vacation by Clete Barrett Smith.  I thought it would have a little more action in it, but really liked how Scrub ended up solving a huge problem.  I know several of my students will really enjoy this book.  Next, I finished The Fourth Stall by Chris Rylander.  I had read the sample on my kindle app when this first came out, but just now got around to actually reading the entire book.  I loved it!  I think there are some really strong characters, especially Mac & Vince.  I want an entire book of nothing but Vince's grandma's hysterical sayings!

This past weekend I finished two books Cheryl let me borrow, one I requested, one was strongly suggested.  Do you have a friend that strongly suggests books to you?  If you don't, find one!  She knows books I will like, even if I'm questioning the choice!  I had requested The Maze Runner by James Dashner.  I was really pulled into this story almost immediately.  I couldn't quit trying to figure out the Glade while I was reading it!  So many questions just kept coming.  I can't wait to read the sequel.  The suggested book was Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury.  Seriously, I wasn't so sure about it.  But, I should know by now not to doubt what Cheryl tells me to read.  I loved it.  Totally not what I was expecting.  It's probably the book I've read the fastest this summer, because I couldn't wait to see what would be revealed!

The professional book I'm reading is Choice Words by Peter H. Johnson.  Like others have said I thought this would be a quick read full of great thinking.  Well, it's full of great thinking, but I'm really having to make myself slow down & let it all soak in!

I'm rereading Wonder by R. J. Palacio to get ready for the Twitter book club next week.

Next up?  Well, for sure...
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
Hazel Green by Odo Hirsch
Northward to the Moon by Polly Horvath.  I love Polly Horvath!  Really looking forward to this one.

A Visit with Robert Burleigh

"Writing is a way of attending to the world around you."  This was just one of many bits of advice our visiting author, Robert Burleigh, shared with our students last week.  We were very excited to host this award winning children's book author in our classrooms.  Burleigh has published over 40 books including such titles as: Home Run: The Story of Babe Ruth, The Secret of the Great Houdini, Night Flight: Amelia Earhart Crosses the Atlantic, Pandora, One Giant Leap, and Stealing Home: Jackie Robinson Against All Odds.

Sixth and seventh grade students worked on publishing a piece of writing to be on display for a free community author's night. Most of them chose to write some form of poetry (found poems, 100%, fortunately/unfortunately, etc.) During this time, Mr. Burleigh spoke with families and community members about "One Writer's Journey."

  

During his classroom sessions, Mr. Burleigh connected with the students by asking, "Who wants to become a writer some day?" He said at their age he was more interested in sports, but sometimes "a book or a poem can change your life." He said that's what happened when he read Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." He said it felt like "a homerun with words." He shared where he gets his subjects for writing: from his reading, from his life, and from his imagination.

He explained that he writes a small part of a person's life, for example, Amelia Earhart's flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He wants to give the reader a "feeling of being in the person's head." He narrows his focus to a small event, like in his book Home Run. This book describes only one of Babe's at-bats.  As is always the case with an author visit, hearing the stories behind their books makes them all that more interesting!

Mr. Burleigh shared with the students how he keeps a writer's notebook. This is a place to keep ideas or noticings safe. He also uses a little notebook that he can carry wherever he goes. He quoted Langston Hughes by saying, "Poems are like rainbows, you gotta catch them before they're gone." He emphasized the importance of keeping an idea list. 

We were able to provide each 6th & 7th grader with a copy of one of Robert Burleigh's books. He was gracious enough to personalize and sign each one.  Several students were also selected to participate in a "Meet the Author" lunch and eat lunch with Burleigh.

biographies

My 6th graders are writing biographies for their research papers.  It's been a long process.  I've read a picture book biography to them every day for weeeeeks.  Last week we looked specifically at different ways authors begin biographies.

Each student picked a biography from the basket and reread the beginning.  We gathered in our workshop space, I asked students to raise their hand if their lead contained a date, and we specifically looked at those titles.  We talked about all the different ways authors can start biographies by using dates and came up with these categories: birth linked to other historical event, birthday & what family wanted for them, building historical background knowledge, early life linked to what created fame, date of famous event.

After creating the list of categories I challenged students to settle into a writing space and write a lead for their biography subject using a type of lead from the list.  There was a lot of gathering research materials and settling down and in the middle of it all I remembered I was going to try a transition song to writing (from hearing Ruth Ayres speak at the Dublin Literacy Conference).  Once they finally got settled & writing they worked hard!  They wrote for 10 minutes and then met me back at the workshop space.  Many of them had written more than one type of lead.  It seemed to spark a renewed interest in their subject!

The next day we did basically the same thing, but looked at beginnings that relied on specific word choices (not centered around a date).  While looking at them we also noticed that those beginnings could be divided into two smaller categories- those that started when the subject was young and those that started when the subject was already famous.  This is what our list looked like: young - describe setting of hometown, describe family, description linked to future fame; already famous - a quote, description of piece of fame & linked to setting, build suspense from an important event.  Again, I challenged them to choose one and write.  I also remembered the transition song & the difference was amazing!

These discussions of specific crafts have renewed my students interest in their biography subjects. Even though we had already read all of the books we used, focusing on just the beginnings helped get my students focused on the home stretch of writing their research!

Our Dates chart.  I was digging around in some cabinets in my room and found a huge roll of paper that was like really wide register tape.  I wrote examples of each beginning on a piece and hung them on the wall beside the charts.  That is what is on the wall to the left of the chart.

A small sampling of the picture book biographies I've read to my students over the past several weeks.

Reader's Notebooks

We have had the pleasure of sharing how we use reader's notebooks in our classrooms at two recent conferences - the Dublin (Ohio) Literacy Conference and the East Tennessee Literacy Conference in Morristown, Tennessee.

Over the years we noticed that our middle schoolers needed help organizing their learning as readers. Reader's notebooks are a place to, not only record their daily reading, but a place to respond to what they're reading.

The first thing students do is number their pages in a spiral notebook (hopefully this will discourage them from tearing out pages to use for something else). Then as a group we create a table of contents by using different color sticker dots to note the four sections: response, strategies/workshop, workstations, and wonder (informational).

The first few pages are dedicated to their "Books I've Read" & "Books I Want to Read" lists. The inside cover includes a genre checklist & a monthly calendar to record their daily reading.

We labeled the first section "response." In this section, students are able to respond to what they read by writing a letter, completing a four-square, or summary/response. The next section is titled "strategies" or "workshop." This section becomes a visual reminder of the reading strategies & skills that we practice throughout the year. It is an anchor chart at their fingertips. Items in this section might include: t-charts, Venn diagrams, foldables, sample passages of text, graphs, etc. The "workstation" section is next. This is the section that students can document what they work on is literacy workstations. It keeps them accountable for the work they do while the teacher is working in small group. The last section we included is labeled "wonder." This space is reserved for informational & non-fiction reading strategies. Items in this section might include: informational poems, t-charts, examples of text features, foldables, and sample passages.

What do you see?

The Blue Between

Everyone watches clouds,
naming creatures they've seen.
I see sky differently,
I see the blue between-

The blue woman tugging
her stubborn cloud across the sky.
The blue giraffe stretching
to nibble a cloud floating by.
A pod of dancing dolphins,
cloud oceans, cargo ships,
a boy twirling his cloud
around a thin blue fingertip.

In those smooth wide places,
I see a different scene.
In those cloudless spaces,
I see the blue between.

~Kristine O'Connell George
She says poetry is like, "being startled when you suddenly see the world differently." Stop and look carefully at your world...what do you see?

app share

Today's app:

• Faces iMake

My students flipped out when I showed them this app!  They love Hanoch Piven's books, so they were all about this app before they even got their hands on it.  I've always thought making Pivenesque mixed media representations of student writing would be fun.  This app proves that to be true! 

We've used the app in several ways...
We first modeled creations after Piven's My Dog is as Smelly as Dirty Socks.  Students chose a family member, spent time looking through the app's objects, & wrote similes combining the two. 
Students really couldn't get enough of this app & wanted to also create self-portraits. 
We've used this for the past several days & it is already a class favorite.  I'm thinking it will also be fun to use the app to create favorite book characters.

app share

I feel extremely blessed to have an iPad for every student in my classroom.  Talk about motivation!!  I've been keeping a list of all that we've been doing & have decided to post about a different activity everyday this week instead of lumping them all into one huge post. 

 

Today's apps:

• Instant Poetry
• Pictureka HD (iPad version... which was on sale last week... score!)

I combined these 2 apps to make a word wall activity.  Instant Poetry has several features that immediately interested me.  Students are able to choose their own background, input their own word choices (in addition to default word groups), & change the color & size of the words. 

First, students opened the Pictureka app and took a screenshot of a game board.  Next, they chose that screenshot as the background in Instant Poetry.  Once the Pictureka background was set students searched the screen for an image that matched one of their 15 word wall words.  They added the word, then placed it on the corresponding image.  I gave them time to get started, then walked around & asked them to explain their reasoning.  They LOVED it!  I've used the mini travel versions of Pictureka in this same way, but the apps made it spectacular.