The Apothecary - book chat

Now that I am done with my graduate work, I am going to get back to filling out book chat forms so that I have a stash of books I can share with students.  I just finished a book this morning, so here goes!

Download my book chat on The Apothecary by Maile Maloy.

Book Title	The Apothecary
Book Author	Maile Meloy
Illustrations?  Illustrator	Ian Schoenherr
Genre	Fantasy / historical fiction
If you read a narrative (story)
Book Summary:	Janie    wanted   to help Benjamin save his father , but she was way over her head when she realized that he was involved in an international, magical scheme to stop the Soviets from testing a nuclear bomb north of Norway.  So she went ahead and helped him, discovering secrets about the world that she thought were only fantasy (things like humans turning into birds and paint that paints walls on its own).   Then she is captured, but she manages to escape – almost losing her life in the process.  In the end Benjamin’s dad gives her a potion that erases her memory, and the only recollection she has of the entire three weeks is a diary that she kept while on the adventure.
One quotation that meant something to you.  Why?	p. 25 starting with “Mr. Burrows”.  I chose this passage because it was the single act of defiance on Benjamin’s part that showed the reader immediately what kind of kid he was.  Although it almost gives the reader an inadequate impression.  Benjamin felt so passionate about NOT participating in the bomb drill because he knew from experience that a table would not save them from destruction if a real bomb hit.
If you read an expository book (informational)
What was the main subject of the book?	Click here to enter text.
What were some of the main ideas (categories) of the book?	Click here to enter text.
All books
Why did you choose to read this book?	It was a part of the Battle of the Books.
I would recommend this book to students who like . . .	I would recommend this book to kids or adults who like fantasy and adventure.  It wasn’t completely over the top, and yet it had a good hint of science and fantasy along with some great historical stuff.  I thought it was a great balance.  I DO think, however, that a little background knowledge on the whole Soviet Union situation might be helpful, however.

Reaching our social students

Last week I submitted my final essay for my last class.  Ever.  At least I keep saying its going to be my last class, but I have a feeling there will be more.  However it is, the class I just finished, presented information on how to best teach our Latino students.  Considering forty-four percent of our student population, according to the State of Illinois interactive report card, are of Latino heritage, I figured the class was appropriate.

Now, I am a native Auroran, and I figure thirty-eight years of life in this city gives me some sort of honorary diversity-certificate, but I was surprised to find out how much I didn't know about my neighbors, and I was horrified to discover that there are certain behaviors that I need to reconsider as I continue working with our Latino families.  

Before I get started, just as my last blog about boys in education, some of what I will say here will sound generalized and stereotypical.  In no way am I asking my respected colleagues to start treating all of our Latino students and families a certain way.  What I am asking is for an open mind so that we can work together to embrace our diverse classrooms.  Each of our students comes from a wide variety of backgrounds that may or may not encompass what I bring to the table today.  All I want to do is point out that there are more cards in this deck than the ones we are currently playing, and if we want all of our kiddos to play, we need to play their cards as well.  

The author team of Bridging Cultures Between Home and School breaks our student groups into two commonly referenced cultural categories: individualist and collectivist; individualist being a culture that emphasizes "individual fulfillment and choice", whereas our collectivist cultures focus mainly on the well-being of the entire group and downplay individual accomplishments and choice. A lengthy list of characteristics describes each group, but the class spanned two books and a nineteen page article, so I will do my best to give you the highlights and points relevant to direct instruction.  

There were several main characteristics that stuck out to me, and I felt I could change them in my own behavior when trying to reach our diverse groups.  Because each characteristic held so much depth, I will touch on only one here.  The first aspect was the idea that part of the collectivist culture is working as one collective group - in other words, sharing is not an option - it's a way of life (supplies, lockers, homework, and test answers).  How often have I, as a teacher, marveled at the audacity of a student who reaches across an aisle or behind him to grab a pen or pencil to make a change on a paper . . . without asking?  And how many times have I been flabberghasted at the number of math books that can be shoved into one locker?  It's also been an interesting phenomenon how willing some of our young ladies are to do the homework of their male counterparts, but one thing I haven't really stopped to do is consider who it is performing these acts. 

Looking back at my sixteen years of teaching experience, I can easily align this idea of working as a group and for a group to our large groups of Latino students.  In fact, last year while on bus duty, I did an informal observation each week and noticed that the only consistently homogeneous group of students standing together outside were our Latin American males - a clear indication that their comfort zone was within their cultural group.  Interestingly, however, the Latin American females were peppered within other cultural groups (although often in pairs) - giving evidence to support brain research that theorizes our females can more easily adapt socially due to the way their brains are wired.  Nerdy, I know.  But fun to learn!  I dare you to look at this the next time you're out on the blacktop.  It'll give you something to do other than scan the crowds looking for suspicious behavior. 

How can we make this collectivist mentality work to our advantage in the classroom?  The idea that we should all be working for a common good and sharing responsibility is obviously a trait of cooperative learning.  What is interesting to me is the complaints I hear, across the board, from teachers who can't seem to understand why our kids can't work in groups very effectively.  When I walk into my own children's Montessori classroom I am bowled over by independence that even the primary students display.  Why does this happen?  A systematic approach to teaching students how to work independently and in small groups from the get-go, the expectation that they will all accomlish this, and the consistent monitoring and interaction of teachers in these classrooms is what works, and it is what builds the confidence of some of our kiddos who lack the academic self-esteem necessary to surive in our individualistic society.  If four-year-olds can do it, middle schoolers can too, right?  I mean, brain research often parallels the early-teenage brain to those of early preschoolers in terms of development, and there are definitely some behavioral commonalities. 

Chapter four in the fourth edition Project CRISS manual gives the reader solid research on social learning before diving into ways educators in a traditional classroom setting can promote it.  As I process through this information, I am reminded about a lesson I co-conducted with our sixth grade intervention teacher called Save the Last Word.  This was a powerful lesson that involved 100% of our sixth grade students and required them to listen and speak as equal partners in small groups.  I can remember after the first few classes how pleased we were with what our students could do, simply because we had given them a structure for their cooperative learning. 

We were disappointed, however, to find that the more adults that were in the room, the less effective the activity became because our students fell back on their old go-to behaviors and refused to rely upon themselves as learners and participators in their learning.  Interestingly, as I continue to reflect on this, it dawns on me that another characteristic of the collectivist culture is the idea that if you are talking you are not learning.  When an adult is around, your mouth closes.  Ask no questions.  Do not provide your own ideas.  Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.  Period.  Had I known this back in the winter I would have addressed the issue by telling students that adults will hang back (and then asked the adults to hang back) as the students maintain control of their discussion.  Then I would have only allowed a few adults to circulate the room and only to listen, not to participate.  Hindsight, right?

Some other discussion activities that might help our social creatures are the quick and simple ones:

• Think-Pair-Share (Think and write down your answer, quickly discuss with a partner, and share out with the class.)
• Three Minute Pause (Pause learning every five to twelve minutes for three minutes to discuss with a partner by summarizing, identifying something interesting, and asking questions.  Then continue learning.)
• ABC Brainstorm (In partners or small groups come up with words or phrases beginning with each letter of the alphabet that directly relate to the topic.  Be prepared to explain.)
• Read and Say Something (One person in the group reads out loud while others follow along.  person to the right says something related to the reading and the rest of the group responds.  Move on to the next reader, and continue in this fashion.)
• Read and Explain (Read a small selection, pause and explain it, ask questions or talk about problems you encounter, move on to the next reader.)

Or the more extensive ones:

• Discussion webs (These work really well for topics that have opposing sides.  Have students work in groups to fill out the web.  The web gives students an automatic format for discussion.  CRISS has a nice one you can use also.)
• Carousel Brainstorming (Select a number of topics related to your lesson and post them on large poster paper around the room.  Separate students into that number of groups and put each group at a poster with one marker.  Give groups one minute to brainstorm everything they can think on their particular topic and write it on the paper.  When time is up, have students "carousel" to the next topic, pass the marker to another person in the same group, and read/respond or correct information.  Repeat.)
• Cooperative roles (Just Google it.  But CRISS's new manual lists roles for fiction, nonfiction, math, and poetry because they get that those discussions are going to require different facilitation).The photo to the right is taken from the manual and gives an idea as to the differences between what roles would look like between fiction and nonfiction discussions. 

As I stated earlier, preschoolers in a Montessori classroom can work cooperatively because they are exposed daily to the expectations of independent and cooperative work.  Daily.  If we truly want to embrace our kiddos whose lives revolve around their collective groups, perhaps giving group work a conserted effort on a regular basis would be a good place to start.  Just like with any other strategy, cooperative grouping and discussion will never become a comfortable part of a student's education if that student is not exposed frequently, so bring it on!  But remember, asking students to work in groups is not enough.  Highlight some guidelines for yourself as some of you move into this uncomfortable territory:

• Create a structure for group work (assign and define group roles, even if it is "partner one does this and partner two does this").
• Communicate this structure . . . over and over and over again, expect that the structure is followed, and possibly assign one role in the group to be the one who oversees the structure itself.
• Monitor closely without interfering with the collective group work (remember, they're supposed to be learning from each other).
• Give collective feedback without interfering (maybe leave feedback to the end).  Because you have a group of kids whose culture may disappove of individual feedback, picking out something positive you saw in each group and giving the feedback to a group rather than individuals may still give the feedback needed to keep motivation going without embarassing or singling out any one student. 

I look forward to consulting with some of you this year on the art of cooperative grouping as we continue to learn how to support all of our students more effectively in all content areas.  I'm still baffled at my own ignorance of some of the more obvious differences between our cultural groups, and I'm anticipating an even better year as I use this knowledge to my advantage while maneuvering interactions with students and parents.  The biggest challenge for me will continue to be utilizing my observation skills and intuition so that I can use what I know to meet the needs of each individual family rather than using the knowledge as a blanket over a large group whose individual participants may actully take offense to things that I do as an educator.  As they say, knowledge can be a blessing, but it can also be a curse. 

See ya'll in two and a half weeks!

Reaching our active learners

June has moved surprisingly quickly, and my promise to myself to blog twice monthly has already been abandoned - at least professionally.  I've been writing for myself personally, but that wasn't my original intent for the summer.  Thankfully, I have some friends and family members who are heavy thinkers and debaters, and I have had two very interesting articles shared with me within the last few weeks that I figured would make excellent blog topics.  Both, in fact, align nicely with the classes I am taking this summer and with my experience with Project CRISS.

The first article was posted by my cousin, a naturalist, certified nurse, and set to start her doctoral degree in nursing this fall.  I have a lot of respect for her as a mom, a nurse, and a friend.  Our connection to the article stems from our experience with highly energetic sons who currently attend Waldorf and Montessori schools.  The 2013 article is entitled, "Stop Penalizing Boys for not Being Able to Sit Still in School."  The end.  

Just kidding.  But the title does kind of sum up the article, doesn't it?  Jessica Lahey, author of the article, begins with a narrative reflection on her pile of discipline slips from this last school year, noting that the names on the slips were heavily male and generally written due to little success in grabbing the attention of the boys, not due to lack of effort (in other words, they were doing something other than pay attention).  Lahey connects her discovery with reports in a book called Reaching Boys, Teaching Boys: Strategies that Work and Why.  Basically, the book discusses that our current education system is failing boys.  An over-generalized statement, but I'd say a fairly accurate one when you compare the number of boys versus girls who find themselves sitting in student services or struggling academically.  

I remember a few years back when I read Engaging Tweens and Teens: a Brain Compatible Approach to Reaching Middle and High School Students by Raleigh Philp (2007).  This book was one of the most refreshing books I have ever read on how to hit middle schoolers because it explained WHY we needed to use certain strategies, not just "strategies that work".   For those of us who need the full equasion, this book fills in those gaps left wide open by other works that just present a collection of ideas.  My Project CRISS  manual plays a similar role.  The manual presents a wide variety of strategies and examples under philosophy umbrellas with brief narratives that discuss brain research, whereas Philp's book fully explains the brain during adolescence with a few general ideas for teaching.  Both books compliment each other, making it easy to work with a combination of ideas from both.

 

Lahey's article continues with a set of disturbing statistics taken from the Journal of Human Resources (see below).

 

 

Now, let me just throw out a disclaimer right now before I get a bunch of hate mail from my respected colleagues.  I feel like this report is over-generalized and a little over-the-top.  However, the truth is, friends, that when I walk into student services on many days, I see a higher percentage of boys.  When I walk into our classes designed to support our struggling readers, I see lots of boys.  When I see our detention go-ers gathered outside the office after school?  Boys.  Higher percentage of suspension?  You guessed it.  Boys.  Most of the conferences I attended this year for students whose teachers were struggling to motivate them to do much of anything?  Boys. 

 

Boys. Boys. Boys.

 

Philp quotes multiple studies that report glaring differences between male and female brains.  In his chapter on brain mapping he touches on testosterone levels in males and although he never says, "This is why you may have trouble grabbing the attention of boys," the evidence is pretty clear.  "Men have as much as twenty times more testosterone in their systems than do women" (Kastleman as quoted in Philp, 2007).  "Testosterone levels correlate several behaviors such as competition, self-assertion, and self-reliance. This makes men typcially more aggressive . . . "  Philp goes on to discuss the idea that men rely more on their sense of doing to help them learn and don't necessarily put much emphasis on their sense of hearing (which he goes on later to say is more of a female trait). 

 

Take this information and line it up to Lahey's article on our boys' behavior and academics, and do you see where the problems lie?  Not to mention that our teaching staff is heavily-female!  This is like a morphed Venus & Mars nightmare!  What can we do to figure this out and get our tough-to-reach population of kiddos on track for this coming year?

 

Lahey asked this question also.  What she found was a study performed by Dr. Michael Reichert and Dr. Richard Hawley in 2009, called Teaching Boys: A Global Study of Effective Practices.  One of the end products of this study was a composite list of guidelines for lesson creation that over 2500 surveys showed as being effective strategies for reaching boys.  After looking at this list, my first response is, "Well, that's just good teaching," but I have to remind myself that every teacher needs reminders and thought-provoking challenges.  And our staff is no different.  But I'm also looking at this list and smiling widely because Project CRISS oozes from each line. 

 

 

The Project CRISS manual and training includes ideas such as transforming information into visuals, organized writing, pattern puzzles requiring motor activity, group work, problem solving organizers, metacognition, and discovery.  Cracking open that manual when planning each lesson may encourage students (especially boys!) to participate more than we realized - and the strategies aren't earth-shattering or difficult to implement.  They're just good teaching!

 

What's really nice about all of this is that we now see why some boys struggle with our system of education.  We see that even though we'd like to point fingers at outside circumstances, the fact remains that these students are ours to educate.  What are we going to do?  Recreate the wheel?  I hope not!  But throwing in some fully-engaging activities daily will keep your difficult-to-reach students more engaged.  If they're more engaged, the chance of a struggle becomes less.  How many behavior problems do you have when 100% of your students are engaged in a project or activity?  Very few compared to when students are required to listen to a lecture or instructions, participate in a teacher-directed question session, or watch a documentary video.  When total engagement happens, trouble decreases, teacher-student relationships change from negative to positive, and teaching becomes more effective. 

So as you are resisting thinking about the 2013-2014 school year, consider some of those highly engaging strategies that you can recall.  Consider how you can include reading, writing, discussion, and reflection in every lesson.  And when you're stuck, look to your colleagues for support.  I know for a fact that we have some hefty thinkers and problem solvers on our staff with creative minds and the drive to reach every student.  I'm certain we can pull together to create a more motivating environment for our kiddos this coming school year. 

Happy 4th of July, all!

2012-2013 Reflections

Well, this is it, I suppose.  The day that we all have anticipated this week - the day we say good-bye to our kiddos for the summer and our eighth graders for good.  I always get this panicked feeling about mid-year when I realize I only have half a year left to prepare our eighth graders for the high school where the expectations continue to increase in the areas of responsibility, citizenship, and academia.

I consider us to have pretty rigorous expectations here, but even with those expectations I worry myself sick about how our students are going to "measure up" with the rest.  Will his freshman English teacher ask, "Who was your teacher last year?" and then judge us because he is not measuring up?  Will she have difficulty adjusting so much that she falls apart in the fall?  The high school IS big, and sometimes the shock is enough to send a kid into melt-down mode. 

But most importantly, as a reading specialist, I shake in my shoes as I send kids over - hoping that they've been able to stock up on the most essential skills and praying that the communication I have with the high school will be enough to provide them a window into the students' reading skills and build upon the work we have done here. 

Honestly, I'm proud of what we have accomplished this year, so I thought I'd make a list of all of the things that make me most proud in hopes that the rest of you can see just how far we have come.

• I have worked with every LA1 teacher in the building to support them in benchmarking their own students in comprehension using the Performance Series test.
• After I determined which students needed it, every LA1 teacher in the building made an attempt to benchmark at least some (and many - all) of their necessary students in fluency - and FAST. Whatever they were not able to finish, I picked up or helped with the process.
• A collaborative atmosphere was maintained, which allowed decisions to be made and for us to make schedule changes when appropriate.
• I was able to get lists to our schedule guru for SLC classes for next year (because of our timely testing) so that we can deliver more fluency practice (Tier 2) and some additional vocabulary interventions (Tier 2) to those students whose scores and performance show they might need it. 
• Trained expert teachers in the building delivered multisyllabic training as a Tier 2 intervention in SLC to students who showed gaps in their decoding skills. 
• Expert intervention teachers showered our struggling students in their LA1 classes with good, solid comprehension skills and devices to use when tackling complex text (Tier 1).
• Many of our LA1 teachers and I shared test scores with our students, and some of us even made time to have students set goals and review them at each benchmarking time!  Some of us used these scores to help narrow down reading material in the library, and our ET students used them to find more challenging material! (Tier 1) Awesome!
• Every week during grade level meetings, specific students-of-concern were discussed. This often led to Tier 1 strategies and Tier 2 interventions for these students, which were then evaluated and tweaked until we could find the right plan for some of our strugglers.
• Every few weeks, our school psychologist, social worker, speech pathologist, reading specialist, and an administrator were able to meet and review data, student concerns, and next steps for some of our kiddos who were brought up as concerns to the grade level teams.  This led to a small group of Tier 3 students. 
• Several teachers and administrators in the building, along with myself, set aside time once every two weeks to help progress monitor our 120+ students who were receiving Tier 2 and 3 interventions. Much of this took place during SLC time.
• I have had conversations with reading specialists at all of our feeder elementary schools regarding specific students who will need support next year.  Communication between myself and the bilingual teachers of transitioning students have occured.  And I have been able to sit and discuss individual students with our high school reading specialist, as well, so she knows which students to target at the beginning of the year. 
• More content area teachers have expressed interest in collaborating with me on projects, reading skills within the content areas, and using student data to explain student learning.  Much of this happened this year, and I enjoyed the opportunity to learn from these teachers and work with their students.
• And last of all, we have worked together to create readers.  Are they all readers?  No, but how can they not see the passion that many of our teachers have for reading?  Some of our SLC interventions were delivered flawlessly and skillfully by teachers with expertice in subjects other than the language arts.  We had teachers of several content areas require independent reading every day. And over twenty teachers in the building participated in reading and writing questions for our 2013 Battle of the Books!  Incredible.

Next year our plan for Tier 2 expands to vocabulary interventions during our SLC time.  Fluency training will be strategically and systematically planned during SLC and at other times in the day for students who need both fluency and vocabulary.  Progress monitoring will continue during SLC, so if you're interested in joining me once every two weeks for a progress monitoring session, please let me know!  We are going to need all the help we can get, and it is pretty easy.

I also have lists of students who I am watching carefully, and once we finish benchmarking in January, I will spend springtime working on diagnostic testing on students who still seem to be making little progress.  I'm excited for this new plan!  Additionally, we have some specific, strategic interventions put into place for our students who, even after the multisyllabic training, have made little to no progress in their decoding and fluency.  Plans for including parents are also being developed, and a new system for Tier 2 and Tier 3 communication amongst staff will be up and running when school opens in August.

What I have learned this year is that the role of the reading specialist is a bit of a tight-rope walk around here. It's a walk between reading and literacy, in my opinion: reading being the actual skill of reading and literacy being the ability to tackle more complex text, grappling with the meaning, and making beautiful connections. Literacy is at the heart of Common Core, but in order to be literate, you have to first be able to read.  In order to learn how to read at this age, you have to want to be literate. In order for us to build these types of learners, we have to have passionate teachers. And that, friends, is the foundation and why my year has been one of gratitude for the passionate people with whom I work.

Have a restful summer.  Read a lot.  Get ready to run again next fall!

Time for reflection - May 17 Crumble

The year is ending, and classrooms are beginning to look empty.  This last week I had a group of five eighth grade girls ransack my office and pack up books, photographs, and supplies.  They just showed up one day at lunch, and, like a band of hungry vultures, pecked my office clean.  Then they had the nerve to show up the next day and complain because I had unpacked some of my boxes so that I could do my job for the next two weeks!  I have some nerve, I know.  I love middle schoolers.  Sincerely. 

This week I've felt a little revitalized, and I thought I'd give the area of metacognition a good shake down as we all prepare to take off our educator hats for at least a few weeks and rest.  As many of us know, reflection is such a key component in becoming a better anything, and there is no better way to know oneself as an educator than to reflect upon oneself as a learner and a person.

One of the foundations of Project CRISS is a skill called metacognition, which many of you know means thinking about one's own thinking.  How do I, as a learner, learn?  I almost think that this reflection is more important for teachers than it is for students because, cognitively, these kiddos are still in stages where they haven't got a clue how they learn and are looking for us to supply them with those answers.  If we can't show them our confidence in our ability to detect our own learning styles, then how can we show them how to explore theirs?

Several years ago I conducted a refresher geared toward learning styles, and it's been a while since I preached that sermon, but I recall one revelation that many of us had after we all took the VARK learning styles assessment together and a multiple intelligences assessment.  It was like light bulbs went on all over the library as we started sharing our learning strengths with each other!  After I took those tests, I realized why I get frustrated when I sit in lectures or when somebody tries to tell me how to play a game.  My auditory listening skills stink, and I tune out after the first few instructions. 

But something even more amazing happened that day.  My ability to connect to my colleagues expanded because I was able to identify each person by his/her learning style.  I also began to notice that we bring those styles into our interactions with others.  Anybody ever notice me staring at your hair or interrupting a lengthy conversation with a completely new one?  Yep.  It's because my ears have shut down.  I don't mean to do it.  I am a better emailer and texter than I am a face-to-face conversationalist - and it's not because I like to hide behind my computer and my phone.  It's because I can't focus on my ears for too long.  Knowing this about my colleagues made it easier for me to communicate because if I knew I was working with a person who was kinesthetic - I showed them how to do something rather than type them out an email with directions. 

It even made a difference in my relationship with my husband - who is completely kinesthetic.  My strengths are my read/write ability and my musical/rhythmic ability.  Instead of frustrating him with lengthy instructions about things, I try to show him.  This is a challenge for me, as I produce better with my words, but to improve our (already amazing) relationship this is what I do.  With my daughter (the technology and visual girl) it is even more of a challenge, but I am learning.

My point is, friends, if we are willing to put forth the effort in creating engaging and meaningful lessons geared toward the highly-rigorous Common Core Standards, we have to be willing to go all the way.  Our kids will meet us with what they have to offer, but if their brains aren't wired for what we're giving them - good luck!  You can rebuttle this with the idea that as they get older learning isn't going to be geared toward their intelligences, and that they need to learn how to adapt - if you want, but the fact remains - we have these kiddos now.  Our job is to pack them with confidence, skill, and the ability to learn without being directed.  What better way to do this than to empower them with the idea that their way of learning may be different than others and by giving them ideas to adapt that way to today's education.

Metacognitive Journals and Paragraph Frames - May 10 Crumble

Well, it took about twenty-four hours for our extreme reluctant readers and writers to become disenchanted with the blogging we had started last week.  Once we started pushing the idea that our kiddos needed to shelve the text-speak and try to write academically - a few went right back to irritation and frustration - even with the technology.  What a disappointment this was for us, but I have to keep reminding myself that there is a large group who seem to be getting better and better.  The technology and the blogging are really motivating.

"Why are we doing this?" came from one of our loudest in the back.  I cringed.  We knew if one was asking that there were more wondering.  And yet as soon as we began reading the next chapter of Unwind, most of their eyes were glued onto the page and their ears were perked up, waiting to hear whether Connor, Risa, and Lev were going to be caught and unwound.

How could we get them to stop and process, comprehend, and write?  It was Monday when I woke up thinking about Metacognitive journals.  For years I've been asking my students to read and write, read and write.  I usually give students a list of prompts and ask them to choose:

• This reminds me of . . .
• Summarize the selection read in twenty words or less.
• I disagree with . . .
• I was surprised by . . .
• Predict what will happen next . . .
• Describe one character.

For each of the above prompts, students were always required to write a paragraph.  Some of them did; many of them didn't, and it took a lot of training to get them to add details and evidence to support their thoughts.  With our current group of readers, things are no different.  We gave them some ideas for blogging, and they answered the questions.  And that is all.  What was worse was the lack of care in spelling and punctuation, making some blog posts almost unreadable.  Our kiddos are so used to their word processors, phones, and tablets correcting spelling, punctuation, and (sometimes) grammar that the use of these skills is not even close to automatic to them. 

But Monday's brain-child came with a flash-back of a Project CRISS strategy that I use sparingly and only with struggling and resistant writers: the paragraph frame.  I had completely forgotten about this useful tool until last week, and I immediately went to work putting together a list for blogs.  Some examples are:

• ________ wanted __________, but ____________.  So, __________________.  Then _____________. 

• When ______________________ happened, it reminded me of __________________.  The situations are alike in that _______________________.  I also think that _______________________.

• I disagree with ____________________'s choice to ____________.  I thought it was wrong because ______________________.  I also think ______________________.

The idea of each of the above "frames" is that the student will pull it up on a Word document from the shared folder and fill in the blanks, taking care not to erase any punctuation but erasing all blank lines.  Once it is filled in, the student can copy and paste it directly into his/her blog. 

Interestingly, we ended up having some students who preferred to fill in the frame on paper.  I actually leaned more toward this technique, myself, because once the students filled in their frames, they had to go in and type the entire thing into the blog - including correct capitalization and punctuation.  This gave the students the experience of correctly typing into their blog, and then they were able to see how nicely it looked once they published!  The blogs were much easier to read, and when we asked the kids about how they liked the frames, most of them said they thought it was much easier.  They also completed the frames in a much shorter time than the other blogs. 

My thought about why the students preferred the frames is because these particular students struggle so much with writing that they cannot focus on the skill of writing AND the content in any reasonable amount of time.  Giving them the outline of what the paragraph should look like and starting out their sentences gave them direction and focus so that the technical stuff was done, and they could focus on the content - all the while still giving them the experience of creating a coherent paragraph.

The idea of the frames is to start out the year giving your struggling and resistant writers a clearly written frame where students supply only the ideas necessary.  As the year moves forward, you can expect more and more to come from the student and provide less and less of the frame.  Paragraph frames can't be used once a quarter if we want to see our students write independently, however.  Using them once a week and across the curriculum will give our struggling and resistant writers consistent experience in writing that will only make them stronger in the end.

Have caution, however.  Proficient writers may resist the use of these frames.  If you want to use the frames for your strugglers, consider making a sheet with whatever frame(s) you want to use and distributing it to specific students or giving the entire class the "choice" to use them.  Then you can stop by individual desks or tables and ask or require specific students to give the assignment a shot using the frames. 

I was thrilled with the end results of our first blog using the paragraph frames this last week, and many of the students seemed almost relieved to use them.  I'd like to see this type of writing used more across the curriculum as we increase the rigor and expectations for reading and writing for all of our students - including our strugglers. 

Technology as a motivational tool: May 3 Crumble

The entire month of February I spent talking about motivating our reluctant middle schoolers to take responsibility for their learning.  Intrinsic motivation is not something that instantly appears in a twelve or thirteen-year-old student - it takes years to build this desire for academic success, and most of our strugglers lost that desire years ago when they found themselves failing more than succeeding.  Why try if I'm not going to succeed?  That is an excellent question.

So by middle school, the job of the teacher becomes much more than a deliverer of instruction and nurturer of curiousity.  If you are an educator who is responsible for our struggling middle school students, your job is to somehow re-light that fire that is natural in our young ones and then you can nurture that curiousity and deliver instruction.  You're working with wet wood though.  Wood that has been soaked for years in a downpour of frustration, humiliation, and embarassment and has become a soggy mess of anger, hyperactivity, apathy, and super-social behavior that no longer cares about reading, math, and science.  Pair that up with video games until midnight and Hot Cheetos for breakfast, and you have a pocket full of a hot mess walking your hallways on a daily basis!

These are the kids who make their way into my heart, and it is because of these kiddos that I get up and come to work every morning.  They are the ones that I seek out in the hallway because I want them to know that it isn't too late.  And this is why I continue to dig for answers, motivators, and hooks.  How can I get them to start caring again?  What can we do to motivate them to want to read and write?

Well, one answer that we have found is the use of technology as a learning tool.  I once went to a session where John Orech spoke on the use of technology in lesson development.  In this session, one of his messages was that technology should be our "vehicle to a destination", and we should consider how we are going to get kids places and not "how should I use this technology?"  This message has stuck with me this year because, in my case, technology is one key to getting my kids where they need to be.

Recently, during a collaborative conversation, I spoke with our seventh grade intervention teacher.  She desperately wanted to give these kids one last shot at getting them hooked onto reading.  For three years, now, we have used Neal Shusterman's Unwind at the end of the year as a read-aloud or novel study.  This year, CCSS requires students to be reading at or above grade level before the end of the year, and what better way to continue to support this than by dousing them with a creepy and engaging novel about kids who are just like them.  Most of our kiddos are reading right around the level of the novel or below, and the language of the novel is fun - and so are the ethical discussions!

But the issue with the book always is the kids who flat-out refuse to participate - they sit with their books closed or heads down and they get up for Kleenex or to throw away something every three minutes.  At this point in the game, no number of discipline referrals for behavior like that is going to motivate these kids to open their books and love reading.  Period.

Until we let them crack open the 8-year-old computers we have been "storing" in her room off an on this year . . .

The day that we opened the kidblog site for the class and got the kids logged in, we gave them the anticipation guide and a list of possible prompts for writing. It took about 24 hours for 100% of our kiddos to get engaged in the book! Yesterday we even had one interrupt three times and ask if he could blog!

The first blog topic was written before we even started reading.  It was more of a "let's try this blogging thing out" blog than an actual blog.  The kids did pretty well with it, and they were able to get around the site very easily, so that wasn't a problem at all. 

We knew we had to read and write, and we knew we didn't have much time to get them going, so we gave them the option of using the computers to write down their thoughts in a word document before they wrote their second blog, which was to make a connection with one of the three main characters.  Kids who I have watched drag their feet on the way in the door were thinking and typing about Connor, Risa, and Lev yesterday!  It was reported to me this morning that first period sat silently as they typed and clicked for a half hour on the blog site.  We are actually considering the possibility of opening the classroom during lunch for "beautification" and commenting on the blogs as well.

Now, did we do an amazing job at forseeing the problems we would encounter?  Well, we sent a note home to parents inviting them to join us on the blog site, and we emphasized the idea that if the site is misused in any way (and we gave examples) that the misuser would be permanently removed from the site class.  So in that respect, I think we covered our bases.  But one thing I'm already seeing is the attention that is being paid to the way the blog looks vs. the content.  We have a lot of very pretty blogs.  Now that we have established the idea of the blog and motivated even our most unmotivated student to participate, our next battle will be to up our expectations on the content of the blogs.  I'm a writer, and I love to teach writing, so my expectations are going to get higher and higher for the next fourteen days, and I can't wait to see what these kids can produce! 

So how can you, a content area teacher, use this blog idea to enhance and motivate your kiddos?  Well, first off, edublog and kidblog are two websites that I would consider investigating.  We also have gifted students using edmodo in a "paperless classroom" situation that is truly fascinating!  All of these sites are private and can only be accessed by the members of the group.  They are all set up by the teacher and are accessible from home - some of them even have apps for devices other than computers!  Then establish a use for these fantastic writing tools!  Science logs, social studies journals, music journals, health journals or fitness tracking, favorite recipes, responses to art or music, even extended response questions in math can be adapted to blogging!  Kids can respond to books they're reading - even over the summer - and teachers can still see what they're reading!  You can give students specifications on their writing or have them write freely - just remind them that what they write will be seen by you, their parents, and the entire class!

If you're considering setting up a blog for your kids, let me know if you need help!  Once you get into it and get the hang of it, it is really easy.  And it's such a neat way to get the kids writing without telling them they're writing.