Writing Club September 20, 2011

It’s official. I am starting a writer’s club this school year. For several years now I have wanted to conduct a writing club, but wasn’t sure how. This year I took the plunge and wrote the proposal! My principal is excited about this new endeavor at our school. The name of the club is The Spilling Ink Writer’s Club. I have the book Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook and wanted to learn more, so I googled it. Guess what? The authors have a blog  with a plethora of writing information for young writers. This year we will use the book Spilling Ink. I have made buying the book optional. The club is for students in grades 4-8. My hope is that the students will come to enjoy being with a community of writers along with creative writing. Our first official meeting will be Wednesday, October 21. I can’t wait!

Wild Goose Chase Theater April 13, 2011

Today my sixth graders had a special treat. The Wild Goose Chase Theater came to our school! Matt Sandbank made his shadow puppets come to life with his voice and poetry. He taught the students how to create imagery in their poems. He engaged them the entire 45 minute period. Even the science teacher wrote a poem! During his show he had the students pick an image and then list nouns, verbs, and adjectives that would go with the image. He modeled every step that he did. After they compiled their lists, he had them create music with their words. He taught them about alliteration, metaphors, and similies. Yes, I teach these at my school, but it was good for my students to hear it from someone who writes their own poetry. Below is my list and poem.

Watermelon

fun  lime  green  red  green  stripped  juicy  black seeds  picnic  slices  chunks  summer  messy  munching  devour  child  running soft  basket  adults  children  humongus  ripe   fruit  plump   crisp  quench  bite  flesh  rind  ants  dribble eat   large  rotund  table  spit  hard  mounds  water  melon abundant  pile

Watermelon

Mounds of messy melons

Stacked on the picnic table

Ripe juicy fruit

Dribbles down my cheek

Children devour

Chunks of plump red flesh

Seed spit in the air

This is more fun than the fair!

Gratitude November 2, 2010

Each year I have my students create a gratitude project. I got the idea out of a scrap-booking magazine eight years ago. The project has progressed from a scrapbook to a poster to a power point. I have found that the power point is highly effective. Students learn technology skills along with using writing in a nontraditional way. My students are to write 5 entries of gratitude. On each slide they must include pictures and why they are grateful. I work with the computer teacher so that they work in computer classes 3 times throughout the month of October and at least 2 times in my English classes. Students are to incorporate slide transitions and music in their power points. This is a learning process for me as well. I get to know my students more, which is truly a blessing. Once the students have finished their power points and edited them, we invite their parents in to view their projects before Thanksgiving. I create one BIG gratitude sideshow with all of their projects combined. I love this project; it puts the ordinary of every day in perspective. I am grateful for my students because I get to see them develop and grow into wonderful human beings!

Peer Responding October 21, 2010

Last weekend I attended our writing project’s writing retreat called WOW (Writing On Water). It’s a time for us to get together and write. This year we wrote teaching stories and one point during the retreat we had a peer response session. Each person read some part of their piece while the rest of the group listened and responded on post-it-notes. After the read aloud, we placed our post-its on a sheet of paper with the person’s name on them. I enjoyed reading all of the comments my fellow teacher consultants wrote.

I decided that I wanted to bring this to my classroom, so today my seventh graders peer responded in this manner. Instead of the whole class reading, I placed students into groups of 6. Before the students responded, I asked them to write a praise and write in question form something that may be confusing or need of revising. As my students read and responded, I traveled around the room and responded to those students I heard read. After the read aloud, I passed out a colored sheet of paper so they could place their post-its on it. Tomorrow my students will be turning in their writing of choice piece with those post-its.

I look forward to reading how they responded to each other. I am curious to see what they wrote. I did poll my classes to see if they liked this way of responding. Some did like it and others did not. One student said that she didn’t like sharing in front of everyone.

 

 

 

Ode to Fall October 20, 2010

www.treelink.org/woodnotes/vol6/no3/content.html (picture came from)

 

Ode to Fall

Your shades of brown

red, yellow, and orange

dance among the trees.

Your cool crisp air

awakens me

so that I may appreciate

you more.

You remind

me of God’s

precious

gift

that awaits –

Heaven

 

Andi N.

Writer’s Notebook Strategies October 19, 2010

Each day I try to give my students a new writing strategy with their writers notebook. Aimee Buckner’s book Notebook Know How has several strategies and ways to incorporate writer’s notebooks into your classroom.   I also use Roberta Allen’s book The Playful Way to Serious Writing. I have decided though that any mini-writing lesson can be a strategy. I have branched out on my own and have come up with a few strategies on my own.

I do grade my students’ notebooks. 9 weeks have come and gone. Last week I graded my 6th and 7th graders’ writer’s notebooks. I was impressed with how many students used the writing strategies taught in class with their own entries. My classes are to write 3 home entries a week in their notebooks. At the end of the quarter, I have my students count all of their class entries and then all of their home entries. I like to separate the two so I can tell who is writing at home.

This week my 7th graders are working on writing of choice so I wanted them to have another poetry type idea, so today I read them several examples of odes. I got the idea from Georgia Heard’s book Writing Toward Home. I would like to share with you the ode I wrote today with my students.

Picture came from Babycenter.com

 

Ode to My Hair

Oh, how

I love thee

Your wispy strands

Glistening in the sun

You are a fashion

Statement

Without you

I would be

Nothing!

 

Andi N.

Writing Marathon July 1, 2010

Today my young writers and I had a writing marathon. This is where you travel to different places, write for a set amount of time, read your writing aloud, and then move again. There is no responding to anyone’s writing. It’s a great time to just write. The most interesting place we wrote was inside the kitchen of the school cafeteria. I enjoyed hearing the spontaneity in their writing. One of my students shared more today than she had all week.

Graffiti Walls June 24, 2010

I learned about graffiti walls from my student teacher. It is a simple way to help students understand concepts. To create a graffiti wall you will need a piece of paper. In the center of the paper, draw a circle or any shape. I like to do a squiggly cloud shape. Write the concept in the center of the shape and everything that has to do with that concept. On the outside of the shape, have the students write everything that the concept is NOT.

My students and I created a graffiti wall bulletin board on vivid verbs. We added as many vivid verbs to the center. Some verbs we came up with are scampered, casting, stroll, animate, devoured. On the outside of our wall we placed helping verbs, conjunctions, linking verbs, nouns, adverbs, adjectives. Students were then allowed and encouraged to add to the graffiti wall whenever they heard of an excellent vivid verb.

I also tweaked this idea by creating a huge idea wall for my students at writing camp this week. I used a huge piece of butcher paper and across the top I placed the headings onomatopoeia, instead of said, adjectives, adverbs, and vivid verbs. I wrote words  under each category to start the brainstorming process. When I introduced the wall to my group on Monday, I had them brainstorm aloud and I added words under the category. Throughout this week my students have added words to the wall and have used the words in their writing, which was the goal!

Poetry Read-A-Thon April 11, 2008

Starting Monday, my classes will begin our first poetry read a thon. I got the idea from poets.org. I introduced it on Wednesday to my classes and how I would like them to go about doing the poetry read a thon. My students and I are excited.

Here’s how it works:

My students sign up for a day to read a poem to the class.I have a sign up sheet in the room so that everyone will have a chance to read a poem.  The student reads the poem they have selected to the class on their designated day. The students then paste the poems into their writers’ notebooks and then respond to the poems in paragraph form using the criteria given to them.

Click below for the handout I gave my students.

poetry-readathon3

Pure Comfort February 10, 2008

What better food to give you pure comfort—mac-n-cheese & a Coke.

 

I wrote a description of my pure comfort and tomorrow I plan on teaching a mini-lesson on editing. (PURE COMFORT DESCRIPTION) I have errors because I want my students to pick up on them. I notice they have problems indenting, so I am going to discuss that too. They will be given a rubric and we are going to discuss each component on the rubric to see if I met them. (of course I didn’t) My students don’t like to revise, so I am going to model revising as well. I hope it goes well.