Browsed by
Category: Parents

Nonfiction Novels

Nonfiction Novels

November’s books for the month are whole class and small group nonfiction novels. Nonfiction is generally more difficult reading and in the sixth grade our state test begins the shift of adding more nonfiction text. Nonfiction reading also helps students increase their background knowledge which is another key factor for student success.

Thanks to the funding of my Donors Choose projects, we have enough copies of books for every student! I am so grateful for the individual donors and the Equal Justice Initiative, who matched all donations for these projects. Our books were funded quickly and made this unit possible.

My 4th, 6th, and part of 9th period are all reading the novel The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. The novel shares the story of William Kamkwamba, a Malawian who taught himself about electricity and built a working windmill that helped his family irrigate their maize crops during a major drought. We started the unit listening to William share his idea in a TED talk and we will end the unit watching the Netflix movie of this book. It will be our “before break” treat!

In 7th period, students are reading the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative’s book Just Mercy. The book retells the story of Bryan Stevenson starting his important organization, Equal Justice Initiative, which helps to release those wrongfully convicted. Two summers ago I had the opportunity to visit EJI and the museums and memorials they have built in Montgomery, Alabama. Reading this book and visiting these landmarks were eye-opening.

Small groups in 8th and 9th periods are reading the book Hidden Figures. Also, a major motion picture, this book shares the stories of four African-American women who worked for NASA helping to contribute to some of the United States’ greatest aeronautic successes.

Other small groups in 8th period are reading the book I Am Malala. Malala’s story tells of her survival after a horrific terrorist attack on her life. This event leads to her rising up as an activist for women’s education and her eventual receiving of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The last small group in 8th period is reading the novel Outcasts United. This is the story of a town greatly impacted by an influx of refugees and how a diverse group of these young boys helped change that town. Told in journalistic style, this soccer team and their coach share an inspiring, hopeful story.

While these books will help students to learn the necessary reading skills for analyzing nonfiction, it is my hope that they also connect with students on a deeper level.

FAQs

FAQs

Here is your place to find answers to the most frequently asked questions. If you are having trouble with tech or finding what you need, here is a great place to search for answers first.

  • Blogging 101
  • Google Classroom Navigation
  • Book of the Month Assignment

Blogging 101

How do I log in to my blog? Be sure that you are on Edublogs.org. From there click Login and type in your username and password. DO NOT sign in with Google! Students were asked in class to write their login information inside the front of their planners. They were also asked to set up their accounts so that their log in matched their computer login. If a student needs to change their password, please contact me.

How do I see my Dashboard? Check the houses up at the top in the left corner. The individual house should be your blog name. If it’s not use the stacked houses to change to your blog’s dashboard.

How do I publish a post? Writing begins in Google Classroom. There is an assignment and usually a prompt to choose from when blogging. Drafting should take place in the Google Doc and submitted after the post has been published on the blog. To add a new post there are several ways to get started. The easiest is to hover on the +New at the top of the Dashboard and choose Post. Once there, go back to the Google Doc and copy the draft. Return to the new post and paste the writing in a paragraph block. (Title block is first, paragraph block is directly under that.) Type in a creative yet descriptive title, proofread for errors, then click the Publish button (top right, next to the gear wheel.)

What if my post won’t publish? Chances are you have already published a post that day. The system, for security purposes, won’t allow someone to post more than once a day. However, you can choose to schedule your post to publish on the next day and it will automatically publish.

Google Classroom Navigation

How do I join or leave a Classroom? To join a Google Classroom you can use the plus sign in the top right of the app or use a link sent by your teacher. If you are part of a quarter or semester course PLEASE DO NOT LEAVE until the teacher has entered all grades. To find codes for specific classes Mrs. Buen has shared a spreadsheet with all codes.

Are all my assignments on the To-Do list? No! This is not the best place to look for your assignments. Teachers may have recurring assignments that were only posted once, or they may provide a material with a task to complete and these do not show up in the To-Do list.

Why is Progress Book saying my assignment is missing, but I turned it in? There are a few reasons for this. First, check to see that you have, in fact, completed and attached work to the assignment. It is not a good idea to submit an assignment without completing the work. This will only slow down your learning and the grading process.

How is the ELA Classroom organized? The CURRENT WEEK topic is kept at the top and houses all the week’s assignments or materials needed. All other work goes to a unit topic. Once quarter grades have been submitted those assignments will be moved to a quarter topic. Any notes or materials students still need access to will stay in the skill’s topic.

Book of the Month Reading

How much do I need to read? At the start of each month, students choose their book; unless we are reading a whole class novel then they may choose an optional independent book. They will do the math for figuring out how many pages each night they will need to read. We also write down what page they should start on and end on.

What assignments go with the reading? September was about learning how to choose books that are just right for reading. October was about making sure we have created a reading habit and then we added the bookmark. The reading bookmark asks students to read fiction while practicing specific literature standards. Bookmarks are due at the end of the month.

Why We Blog

Why We Blog

For over a decade now, blogging has become an important way for people to gather information and find solutions to their problems. Nearly every major brand with an online presence has a blog as part of their website. This is because people have started to turn to blogs for answers. When we want to know the best tips for planning a trip we turn to a travel blog. When we are searching for new recipes or trying to follow a specific diet we turn to food blogs. If there is a topic where you can have a problem there is a blog that can help you find the answers. The number one purpose of a blog is to provide a solution to someone’s problem.

But how does all of this translate into an English class? Let me share some of the greatest advantages of using blogs as a writing curriculum.

Metacognition

This is the concept of thinking about our own thinking. It’s considered the highest level of thinking because you must first identify what you think. Then you must analyze where these thoughts came from and how they were formed. This process automatically happens when writing a blog post. Writing to provide a person with a solution starts by identifying a problem.

For example, you might ask yourself should I read A Wrinkle in Time before I go see the movie? It’s a popular book, it has won book awards, but would I enjoy reading it? I could easily jump on Google and look for a book review to help me make my decision. Book reviews are just one of the writing tasks students tackle on their blogs.

The process of writing a blog post requires students to think critically. Analysis questions tend to be the most difficult for students to correctly answer on standardized tests. Part of this is because these questions are often asked in two parts. If the first part is not answered correctly then the second part will not matter. Practice with analysis as often as possible is important. Analyzing what we read through a blog post helps to practice the skill assessed through the Part A, Part B type test questions.

Share your voice

Blogging tears down the walls of our classroom. With access to the Internet, our world becomes flat. Students have the opportunity to share their voice with a global audience. Working with other teachers from around the world who also blog with their students, give us an opportunity to learn about places in the world we may never experience. Collaborating with students from around the globe allows students to interact with cultures they might never encounter otherwise. Whether those cultures are from students living in a different state or a different country, hearing from other high schoolers can elicit empathy and a wider worldview.

Sharing your voice can also be an important way to express oneself. High school can be a time when childhood and adulthood begin to mingle and the lines are more blurred creating stress and overwhelm. Processing through the written word and hearing feedback through comments can help ease worries and fears. Finding a way to speak your mind helps to shape our thoughts that in turn motivate our actions.

Collaboration

In blogging, collaboration can come in two different varieties. The first is collaborating on a writing piece. Working together to share opinions or provide two different, possibly opposing viewpoints. Professional bloggers practice this often. Working with people who have a strength where you may have a weakness or inexperience allows for personal growth. It’s a great way to gain needed experience and strengthen a weakness.

Another way to collaborate is through commenting. Reading classmates’ blog posts and leaving them a comment that challenges or confirms their writing helps a writer to grow. When students are only ever hearing from their teachers they can become numb to their feedback. Writing for an audience of one, a teacher, can also be less of a motivation to write. Writing for a number of people who consistently comment letting the author know they are being read and making a difference for someone can be incredibly motivating.

Future Career Opportunities

Through my own professional blog, I have met a number of professional bloggers who now blog full time to provide for their families. A number of them have talked about not having a college degree, but having the motivation to learn a skill that would help them make a living. College is not always for everyone, and with the opportunities presented by the Internet to learn nearly any skill possible, it’s not always necessary. College is a good option, but with the increasing cost and academic skills necessary to succeed some students would be better to choose a trade and complete course work through the Career Center. Blogging in English would allow any student with the desire to learn graphic design or web design to gain some basic knowledge.

Those who are college-bound and seek jobs in technology blogging is a great foundation. Technology is a growing field where understanding the basics can provide someone with a wealth of knowledge to pursue more advanced degrees. Our blogging curriculum will teach students basic graphic design, the WordPress platform (which hosts 80% of websites), online etiquette, and even a few basic entrepreneurial concepts.

Writing skills

Last but not least, blogging weekly provides an opportunity to increase writing skills. Learning to write informational text can often be the most difficult, but when it is about topics students feel passionate about or have personal experience with it can be much easier. Writing an opinion can also be difficult because the audience expects that opinion to be backed up with evidence. It’s not enough to simply say I didn’t like it because it was dumb. Sharing your opinion with an audience you know is going to read what you have to say adds enough pressure to be sure your sources are relevant and strongly support your opinion. All of these are essential writing skills, as well as, part of the Ohio Standards for writing.

When starting our unit on argument writing I often like to share with the students that there is a possibility for them to one day negotiate their salary. When their boss asks them why they deserve a raise they may want these skills to defend that raise.  Writing skills can translate to speaking skills which are all useful in the workplace.

In my opinion, blogging in the classroom is a total package writing curriculum. There is so much for students to gain with this one weekly activity that I place a high value and importance on this assignment. It is my hope that students enjoy learning these skills and sharing their voice and hearing the voices of others that it feels less like an assignment and more like a passion

Access to Books

Access to Books

There are most likely 1,500 books in my classroom library currently. I started collecting books even before I landed my first teaching job. Then I learned about opportunities like grant money, Donors Choose projects, Scholastic bonus points, teacher supply money, garage sales, used bookstores, and Goodwill. Giving students access to books has always been an important part of my teaching philosophy. My library is always expanded in order to include a little bit of everything.

Our Northwestern middle school library and public libraries are the best sources for finding what’s new. Who can afford to buy every new book they want to read? Owning books are wonderful, but borrowing books accomplishes the task of reading. Did you know that you can now borrow books and audiobooks digitally? FREE!!!!! Let me tell you how.

Visit the Wooster Public Library website and look for the link that takes you to their eMedia. From there you will find all the different apps that accept their eCard accounts to borrow materials. You can also use THIS LINK to go straight to the eCard sign-up page.

Once you have an account they will show you the card number and a pin. You can access your account and change the pin to a more common password that you can remember. They will also send this information in an email so that you have it. With these numbers, you can now log in to any of the apps listed. My suggestions would be Clevnet and Hoopla. Both of these offer eBooks and audiobooks.

A word on audiobooks

Students choosing to use audiobooks for reading at home is a valid use of their time. However, if they are choosing to do this for every book then they will not gain quality reading skills needed for high school and beyond. An audiobook is a good idea when students have chosen a particularly long book that they are truly enjoying. It can also be a good way to keep up with assigned pages if they have fallen behind. Audiobooks are a great option when reading in the car isn’t possible, but they have a long road trip. Not every audiobook is going to be engaging to students. The best practice for listening to an audiobook is to also follow along in the printed book.

Hopefully, these directions give you a new way to get the latest books for free. There are also a few apps that provide tutorial videos for a number of career opportunities. I was amazed at all the options listed on the Lynda.com app.

If these directions don’t get you what you need please let me know. Leave a comment or send me an email. I’d be happy to help!

Happy Reading (Listening)!

Progress Book Alerts

Progress Book Alerts

After a long day of work, the last thing you think to do is check Progress Book. But then a phone call rings in from the high school. Apparently, your child has several missing assignments and the teacher informing you that your child needs to stay for Wednesday school. The family has plans that day and it’s  Ugh!

There is a way to avoid this scenario!

Progress Book allows you to set alerts that will come to your inbox when your child has a missing assignment or low mark. Setting these alerts will give you the freedom to forget about checking Progress Book all the time. To make this process super easy I’ve created the following info-graphic. If you are not so tech savvy and would appreciate screenshot pictures of what the website will look like then use this Google Doc.