I {Heart} Notebooks 2.0

your curly co-captain, Suzanne

We have been blown away by the number of people who have checked out I {Heart} Notebooks!  So in honor of over 1,000 page views, we bring to you the sequel- I {Heart} Notebooks 2.0.

Last year was our first year to use interactive notebooks.  Before school began, we found ourselves with the desire but no direction, so we made it up.  Overall, they were a success, but we did learn some tricks and additions that we've implemented this year. 

As you know, I'm a Lori-proclaimed data queen.  It's important for students to have their information early on, so that you can refer back to it for motivation and focus.  In the first couple of weeks of the new school year, I take about 10-15 minutes to distribute and explain student's data.  Especially for my acceleration students, I focus on positives- "look at how you've grown in this area", "you do this really well"...  Students fold and glue this data inside the front cover of their notebooks.  

Our first 10 pages are for Star Points.  You can read about them here.  They are a great way to address the editing questions on STAAR.  

Next comes the toolbox section (10 pages). Here we take brief notes for skills and strategies.  Pictured are notes over "be" verbs, dialogue rules, author's purpose, pitchforks, and Ba-Da-Bings.

We also included a copy of STAAR rubrics- highlighting important traits and writing in strategies that we have to help us get those points.  This was really empowering to me because it validated that my co-teacher and I had given students the skills that they need to be successful.  Hopefully students walked away with the understanding that they had the strategies needed to be successful; it was just up to them to use them.  

Our toolbox is also where we store our grammar foldable.

I've had an 'Ideas' section before this year, but this year I just saved a couple of pages in the toolbox for ideas.  This is my favorite idea list.  I give students 2-3 minutes to list five movies they know well.  We talk a little about having a variety of movies- not all of the Fast and Furious movies and calling it a day.  After students brainstorm their movies, we talk about hashtags and how they are used on Twitter- as a category or label.  I then give them about 5 minutes to go through and provide hashtags for their movies they came up with.  They need a little direction to come up with hashtags that relate to the message (theme) of the movie, not their reaction to it. 

This was out example in class: 

Madea's Witness Protection  #family  NOT  #hilarious

We repeat this process for 'Events I Know Well' and 'Celebrities I Know Well'.  Once they have a completed list, it is easy to refer back to for examples for expository and persuasive writing.

We started off our Close Reading section (10 pages) with our Short Answer Question graphic organizer.  I'm not great about using this section but hope to utilize it more.  You could have students cut and glue Shared Reading passages into this section to analyze.  The page where they answer the accompanying questions could be loose it's easy to turn in to you at the end of the four days.  Because they have the analyzed passage, it would be easy to turn back to for text evidence or connections to other reading.

Our My Writing section gets all the remaining pages of our notebooks. We spend time in this section daily kerneling essays or revising to include skills from the day's mini-lesson.  Here are pages that hold our literary writing.  Click here to read more about the mini-lessons that were taught with literary/narrative writing.

With expository writing, we focused on organizational structures.  The overall frame of our essay was- State the prompt as a fact (thesis)--Reason 1--Reason 2--Restate thesis in a zesty way.  Reason 1 and 2 could be an example from a book or movie.  One could explain how the topic relates to me while the other talks about it's affect on others.  These reasons could track our thinking- from what I used to think (before) to what I now think (after).  

We also learned strategies like renaming from Gretchen Bernabei's Fun Sized Academic Writing for Serious Learning.  This book is SO great, and you'll be hearing much more from me about it soon (hint, hint, wink, wink)!  On our last expository essay before the retest, I used these cute mini file folders.  I've had them in my cabinet for years, just waiting for the perfect opportunity. I made the class period have a Mission Impossible feel.  These folders contained their unique mission.  They had to utilize the strategy and organizational structure we'd covered in their final piece of writing.  They played along with the theme, and I choose to believe it caused them to stretch and solidify learning.  

We glued our Book Bingo cards to the back of our notebooks.  You can download this freebie from Hangin' with Hekken here.  I had every intention of channeling my inner Donalyn Miller and becoming the 10th grade Book Whisperer.  So, at the beginning of the school year, we glued our bingo card to the back of our notebooks.  I instructed that they were to create one bingo in any direction except straight down the middle- your choice, your choice, your choice- by the end of the semester.  Well...the semester is almost up and becoming Donalyn will have to be my New Year's resolution.  

Have you entered our second curly giveaway?  If not, what are you waiting for?!  There are many ways to enter, and you can tweet or share about the giveaway on Facebook daily to gain more entries.  Click here for your chance to win our English II Shared Readings.

Like Clockwork

your curly comrade, Suzanne

With the STAAR retest right around the corner, we have several finished essays laying around that need some reflection.  I don't know about you, but re-entry into writing needs lots of of teacher prompting.  Clocking was a good fit for us last week.  

Clocking is traditionally used for revision.  I designed mine more for inventory.  I wanted students to walk away knowing that Ba-Da-Bings, pitchforks, complex sentences, etc. weren't a "one and done" technique.  They are signs of good writing and should be used throughout an essay.  

The class period before, students completed a literary story.  I redistributed their writing, along with a clip board, highlighter, and clocking sheet.  Then we numbered off 1, 2, 1, 2...you get the picture. 


*If space allows, arrange desks in a circle (like a clock) with a smaller circle inside, facing the outer circle.  

**In my case, space did not allow.  So I sent my #1 students out in the hallway and told them to sit along the wall.  Then my #2 students were sent out and told to sit across from one of their classmates.  Digital clocking (ba dum cha)!

The Literary Clocking Sheet
Looking for: Where in the character standing?, What do they see?, What are they thinking?, Pitchforks, Dialogue

Students then exchanged their writing and clocking sheets.  They would add their name to the sheet and see what we were looking for first.  For literary writing, we looked for all details that described where the character was standing.  They were given three minutes to read through and mark the element they were looking for.  Lastly we totaled up and traded back.  Students were able to instantly see elements that were missing in their paper or parts of their paper that could use a little added pizzaz.  Then they would slide over to their next partner, and we would start again.

Clocking allows for timely feedback that students can quickly apply to their writing. (Do you have __ or not?  If not, add it!)  Students are engaged because they are only looking for one thing for a finite period of time.  I loved that it changed our scenery, kept students moving, and allowed them to share and respond to one another without using a ton of class time.  That, my friends, is a winner!

Download my literary and expository clocking sheets for F.R.E.E.E. here.

Who Cares?

half of our curly cohort, Suzanne

Literary writing...who cares?

In Texas high schools, this fictional story is dead to us.  On to bigger and better things, like expository and persuasive.  Well let me tall ya, in my Texas high school, literary writing is alive an well...at least until the second week of December.  We still have a staggering number of students who will fight to pass the STAAR retest in December.  The structure we are using would work very nicely with the personal narrative at the 4th and 7th grade level.  

Literary or narrative writing is, for most, the easier of the two writing tasks.  It is worth our time because it is a great place for students to pick up mucho pointage.  It will come as no surprise that we turned to our good buddy, Gretch, for help.  

We emphasize that the purpose of literary writing is to entertain.  They are excellent critics (and tough customers) of entertainment.  I can think of many a joke that has passed without a chuckle, deadpan stares after a hilarious YouTube video, and the denial of humor is a text (It was Dave Berry...come on people!!).  Yet they continue to turn in snooze-fest papers and call them entertainment.  To remedy this, students use her "Completely Made-up Story" structure to plan a story with an engaging character, conflict driven plot, and resolution. 

To plan, student draw and label the four boxes of the structure.  (See a picture? Ready go...character in the middle of doing something, a problem arises...)  Then they "kernel" the essay.  Under the structure, students write a 1, 2, 3, 4, leaving some room in between.  In the planning stage, they will draft four sentences of their essay.  This ensures (I use this word lightly) that their story will go somewhere.  In the drafting stage, writers "pop" open each kernel and fully describe.  

We recently finished working with the literary story in class.  Each day students would kernel an essay for a different prompt.  For our lesson, I would focus on one part of the structure and teach a different skill.  It went something like this:
1.  Character in the Middle of Doing Something- Ba-Da-Bings
2.  A Problem Arises- Showing vs. Telling: We made a list of "Be" verbs (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been) in our Writer's Tools section.  I had students go through the essay they'd just kerneled and highlight any of the words listed.  We talked about how these words tell what happened.  Eliminating them helps us show the reader what happened.
3.  Unsuccessful Attempt to Solve- Dialogue: Using manipulatives (imagine that!), students put together movie quotes.  My fav:
"Nobody puts Baby in a corner," he said.  Did they know the movie reference?  Nope, but it sure did make me happy. 
Students copied their sentence into Writer's Tools, and we discussed what the noticed (a.k.a. were sneaky about taking notes of dialogue).  We also talked about how the same rules apply for internal dialogue and the positive impact it could have on our paper.
4.  Character Solves/Deals with the Problem-  Pitchforking

We would always revise our sentence to show this skill.  Students "published" there sentence on a poster, and I mounted the structure on top.

 

I don't know why, but I love this so much!  Students have a visual reminder of the structure, and they can see a sample sentence of the structure and skill in action.  This is probably me being overly mushy, but I love, love that it looks like a patchwork quilt.  All of us bring something different to the table to achieve a common purpose.  Told ya, sappy!

My Anchor Holds

your curly comrade,Suzanne

I haven't determined the rightness or wrongness of using part of a hymn for a blog post title, but I went for it. 

If you remember how this whole thing started, we are on a quest to make secondary instruction colorful and engaging because even big kids want and deserve to have a little fun.  With that being said, something that I stole from elementary education this year is anchor charts.  I wanted my walls to be a valuable, changing part of instruction.  So here is a little look around my walls and a brief description of the skill.

In the first few weeks of school, I had this overwhelming notion that what I was doing wasn't working.  (Gosh!  I hate when that happens!)  So, I pulled out college textbooks and other resources I've acquired and researched workshop classroom models.  My students are not responding to traditional instruction and need something different.  Now for some of them, I'm on my fourth batch of different.  Hello rock!  Hello hard place!  They needed accountability.  They needed instruction to be writing intensive.  

So, we switched.  Mondays are our reading day.  Tuesday through Friday is writing intensive.  We're on a block schedule, so that means that some weeks I lead with my 'A' day (ah, comfort) and some with the 'B'.  It hasn't driven me crazy...yet!  

For one of our first reading lessons, I focused on what is supposed to happen in your head before you read.  It's more than just staring at words on a paper.  Imagine that!  Students brainstormed what happened in their head as they read and shared with the class.  We talked about how writing down brief responses also helped us understand what we were reading.  Students practiced reading and responding.  I asked them to go back and and notice what their notes were mostly about.  They identified the strategy and explained how it helped them on a post-it note and placed it on the corresponding poster.  We talked about how a combination of these thinking strategies would best help us understand what we read.  

This lesson idea and a chart of the thinking strategies are found in Harvey "Smokey" Daniels's book, Texts and Lessons for Teaching Literature.  I also have his book of non-fiction texts, and both are excellent!  They provide brief texts and skill-based lessons for each.

The first six weeks was spent teaching the structure and guiding questions for the Short Answer Questions.  Some students had been taught and feel most comfortable with a different graphic organizer.  Fine by me, but I still wanted them to see how the questions work with both structures.  Find more about how we teach the SAQ here.

I kind love my Ba-Da-Bing anchor chart!  A Ba-Da-Bing is a descriptive strategy for the literary essay.  In theory, it could work for expository and persuasive writing, but I haven't quite figured out how.  We added the notes above to our Writer's Tools, and they practiced the still to start their story.  It could be used throughout the story because it's just that great! In fact, I presented it as English teacher chocolate- we crave it and sometimes have to have it!  I'm going to let the graphic speak for itself, but feel free to email me for more Ba-Da-Bing details.

Pitchforks are easy and effective.  They can be used in any type of writing to add detail.  Since I was taught this strategy in Gretchen's training (Pitchforks and Ba-Da-Bings are both hers), I use them more often in my own writing.  For students, it is a great way to force encourage them to vary their sentence structure.  Remember, that AAAWWWUUBBIS word means we can wear it two ways (reversible jacket).  

So there you have it!  Again, I want these to change out as our instruction changes.  New learning- on the wall.  Old learning- in your head (or saved as a picture in your phone- all about teaching the real world skills y'all).  I would love to see or hear about what's hanging on your wall!

ETBFFEs

This summer I was given the opportunity to go to a training with Gretchen Bernabei.  That sentence sounds really sweet but is not the whole story.  Actually, my teacher friends and I went to great lengths to attend a training with her.  We heard a rumor that Gretchen...I'm going to call her Gretch...was coming to our district, so I emailed the head of our district staff development.  She said that was a no-go.  So Lori emailed Gretch herself to see if she would be in the Dallas area anytime soon, and she wrote us back that she would.  Isn't she the best?!  Lori had to have an emergency appendectomy in the spring and wound up confirming our spots in the training from her hospital bed.  That's dedication, folks! 

Let me tell you, it was worth it.  We became GB fans this year while trying to help our students write organized, but not formulaic, essays.  *Enter her essay structures.*  In case you're unfamiliar with these structures, Gretch and her students have developed about 119 of them to help students write logically and have plenty to say.  They look like this:

Hello beautiful structure for the 9th grade literary story!

These are also lovingly referred to as Kernel essays.  To use this method, set the timer for 5ish minutes and have students write 4 sentences- one for each box of the structure.

If students respond only to what is in each box in a complete sentence, they have a rough outline of an essay that ACTUALLY SAYS SOMETHING!  Students can then expand the story and provide detail through Ba-Da-Bings and Pitchforking.  Those words are Bernabeinese for some excellent and user-friendly strategies.  Thankfully, Gretch is very generous in providing lots of online resources that are F-R-E-E-E.

Check out her site: http://www.trailofbreadcrumbs.net/

Everything you could possibly want plus things that are too good to even imagine are under the 'Teaching' tab.  Don't hesitate to comment here with questions about how I use the strategies in my own class.  I'd also love to know what you've used with success.

More great GB resources from her book, Crunchtime, can be found here.

Oh, I nearly forgot the best part!  Lori and I got to take a picture with Gretch because we're cool like that!

ETBFFE= English Teacher Best Friends Forever and Ever