The Art of Manipulation

brought to you by Lori

Getting your kids highly engaged in a secondary English class is hard, but it can be done! This year, helping kids who needed acceleration demanded that I find ways to get them engaged and keep them engaged. 

Typically kids who struggle in English think differently. Often [but certainly not always] they are good at spatial organization and they are kinesthetic learners. They don't like to sit and read and talk and write. They want to move, touch, organize, and think. 

That's a tough learning-style to tap into, so here's how I have successfully used manipulatives. 

In the fall, I organized and planned for Camp Onomatopoeia--a 2-Saturday writing camp to help retesting kids. Camp O focused on writing, so it offered lessons in essay planning, revision, and grammar. [Those are all lessons guaranteed to bring any teacher to her knees, so I promise to blog about them in the future.] 

Flying at 10,000 feet, here is what the revision session looked like. This is just about the simplest way to use manipulatives, and really...it was more cutesy than anything. The brain does love novelty though, and this lesson was lots of fun for both teachers and kids. I took simple sentences [The fish was big. There were so many stars in the sky. The marshmallow was sticky.] and cut them out and stuck them to little die cut fishies. Students were then given strategies to develop those sentences with way more detail and then they wrote them on the bigger fish. I really wish my big fish matched my little fish just a bit more, but hey...go with what works. These were fun finished products to post in the hall.

Camp Onomatopoeia--"Gone Fishin'"
A Lesson in Revision

This next one is less cutesy and definitely more bang for the buck. I LOVED this lesson. I taught it under the premise that all sentences are trails with clues (or trail blazes) about where to go and how to read that sentence. I taught a whole group session showing students how different parts of the sentence work. To make it work, I used laminated sentence strips and stuck magnets to the back. As I taught, I moved kids around, I made kids stand in front of other kids...I even eventually had kids tell other kids where to go. Once the sentence was formed, we could stick it on the white board because of the magnets. It really was a powerful session for kids who had never really understood how a sentence worked or why they needed a comma. 

Camp Onomatopoeia--"Sentence Trails"
Whole Group Lesson

During that same session, I broke them into small groups and had them play with smaller maniuplatives at their desks. The packet of maniuplatives included independent clauses, dependent clauses, FANBOYS [coordinating conjunctions], and AAAWWWUUBBIS words [subordinate conjunctions]. For 5 minutes, I'd tell them to make compound sentences. Then for another 5 minutes, I'd tell them to make complex sentences. If you give the kids a vis-a-vis marker, they can even add in the appropriate punctuation and clean up the desks later. 

Camp Onomatopoeia--"Sentence Trails"
Blazing our sentence trail with words and punctuation

Now...little known fact...I'm actually a mind-reader, and I know that you're already thinking..."ain't nobody got time for that!" And you're almost right. Creating manipulatives is SO time-intensive, but the payoff is huge! For the fishies above, I was lucky enough to rope in a parent volunteer. For every other subsequent manipulative packet--it's been me and Suzanne, scissors, trash cans, and a whole lot of laughter! Sometimes though...it does get overwhelming. This summer, I prepped classroom sets of manipulatives for 7 different teachers!! SEVEN! I promise that it will never, never, never be that bad for you. You can do a set of manipulatives in a couple of well-planned hours.

Here are a few nitty-gritty details to help you keep your sanity while you work on the art of manipulation:

1. Spell check does not recognize the word "manipulatives". It's annoying. Just get used to it telling you that you are wrong. [But you know inside that you're right because I said so.]
2. Color-code them!! When you find the random word "because" laying on your floor and you're not quite sure who it belongs to, it is WAAAAAAY easier to find your green group [and give them the ugly teacher face for losing materials] than it is to reconcile each group's manipulative envelope.
3. Keep them in resealable envelopes. Suzanne and I steal borrow these from the office downstairs on a regular basis because they've got cool little brads for closing.
4. Finally, when you're done, bundle them together with a rubber band and label the bundle. The one in the picture even reminds me that it is camp themed. Trust me...once you get cranking on these bad boys, you'll want good record-keeping. 

Good luck perfecting the art of manipulation and student engagement! 

Words You Can See

This next little ditty deserves a drum roll ....barummmmmmmmm... this year our students kept a visual dictionary in their notebook.  We tried this two ways: 

1.  7 pieces of copy paper folded into a booklet 

2.  including it as a section in our notebook  

Either way, it works great! 

In each lesson, academic vocabulary was pre-taught.  We would write the word and have a discussion about what they knew/thought they knew about the term.  We would then write a student friendly definition.  Lastly, students came up with an illustration that helped them link the word and definition.  We would talk about a couple of examples as a class, and students could pick the one that worked for them.  

My illustrations ranged from unfortunate to gross- even scandalous once.  It was an accident.  I promise!

New words were applied to class assignments that day and were there for future reference.  It also saved me lots of words.  We didn't have to reteach, reteach, reteach what a simile was.  Students could reference their dictionaries anytime and were encouraged to do so.  

I know that our visual dictionary benefited all students but was incredibly powerful for our LEP population.

I {Heart} Notebooks

Are you tired, run-down, listless?  Do you poop out at the end of the school year?  Are your teacher rants making you unpopular?  Well the answer to all your problems is in this lil' ottle...just kidding...are in this little notebook.

For years, I've watched my science teacher friends glam up their interactive notebooks with envy.  Scissors, glue sticks, post-its, they seemed to be having all the fun.  I kept this idea in the back of my mind, unsure of what to do with it.

When I thought about my students that were not successful in class, the key contributing factor was that they turned little to nothing in.  I'm sure I'm alone in this, so thanks for sticking with me anyway.  ;)  Last summer, I decided that I wanted to give these notebooks a shot for the next school year.  I was talking about this idea with Lori, and she had been considering the same thing.  So we did what any crazy teachers would do.  We loaded up on Dollar Tree treasures, grabbed the nearest 1-subject spiral, and planned out our pages crouched around her kitchen table.  

Having used the notebooks for a year, I can definitely say that I LOVE, LOVE notebooks.  Students never had to beg, borrow or steal notebook paper.  Papers didn't get lost because anything of worth stayed tucked in our notebook which lived in my classroom.  And guess what...more work got turned it!  (Cue Hallelujah chorus!)  Students were equipped to be successful.  

Our sections where just a guess this year, but they worked pretty well.  We had four sections: Toolbox, Ideas, Close Reading, My Writing.  To make ghetto lovely tabs on the cheap, use Post-Its.

In our toolbox section, we stored helpful notes.  For example, early in the semester, students completed the grammar foldable shown below. (Cootie catcher, anyone?) It was a reminder of the four types of sentences and their structure.  On the inside flap, we found and recorded an example of the sentence type from something we were reading and from our own writing.  If they didn't have a _____ sentence in their own writing, guess what- they write one now so that they do!  Students would use this tool throughout the year to check their own sentences. *If you use the grammar foldable, I highly recommend that you break it up and do one sentence type per day.*

AAAWWWUUBBIS is our English class bad word.  It even helps us remember some of the rules: "AAAWWWUUBBIS, now I need a comma!"

Ideas was a section where we brainstormed things that we knew, liked, were interested in.  A.K.A.: All things we could write about.  Goodbye Writer's Block!  Ideas we included:

• Books I Know Well- with a 25 word (exactly. on the dot. not 24. not 26.) gist statement
• Movies/Events/Celebrities I Know Well- with a hashtag (sneaky way of getting a theme word)
• 3 customs/habits/rules about ___(school, community, state, country, world)___you would change (Persuasion, anyone?)
• GB's Gritty Life Quick List 

Close Reading was likely the most under-utilized section of our notebook.  Here we would practice and evaluate Short Answer Questions.  Lori came up with a fantabulous ideas to glue in excerpts of literature and annotate in this section.  (I am so stealing this!)

There is such an advantage to keeping student writing together in one spot! Students would post and deconstruct their prompt in their My Writing section of their notebook.  It makes it so easy to return to a piece to add on or revise.  We would talk and play with the organizational structure.  Most of their writing was done in Kernels (Gretch).  "Take about 7 minutes to explain how you used to feel about ____.  Remember to tell me why you thought this way."

Text Structure: Story of My Thinking (Bernabei)

This was a persuasive lesson that encouraged students to generate three distinctly different reasons why someone should do something by drawing pictures.  Again, prewriting and draft right there- together forever.

I had a separate teacher notebook for each class.  It is so much easier to keep up with where each class left off this way.  Also, I could model my authentic writing process and it was less like a cooking show. (Here I am mixing ingredients, I scoop it into the pan, pop it into the oven, wait about 20 seconds, and voila!)

I passed my Pre-AP notebook on to the AP 3 teacher so there was instant accountability.  You HAVE heard this word before.  You DID write an essay like this.  Your teacher last year TAUGHT you valuable lessons everyday.  Beautiful!  

I'm already excited about my notebooks next year!! Because I'm a nerd.

Check out our latest notebook ideas here: I {Heart} Notebooks 2.0.

My Shameful Secret

A few years ago, on the very last day of school, my students had finished their final exam and were preparing to walk out of the doors and into the glory of summer. One student hung back for a bit to say goodbye and thank me for the year. He said some really nice things, but one thing...this one thing I will carry with me for the rest of my life. He said, "you know...we read some pretty good stuff in here and we had some fun conversations, but I don't really know what I learned."

I don't really know what I learned?! What?! The nerve of this kid! How in the Hades can this kid tell me that he didn't learn anything? We read The Scarlet Letter, and I even made sure not to skip parts! We immersed ourselves in discussion of themes about isolation, deceit, and forgiveness. We read The Great Gatsby, the greatest of American novels. We talked about themes of greed, longing and desire, wealth and power. We read The Crucible, a canonized American drama favorite. We talked about McCarthyism and how the 1950s red scare served as a context for Arthur's Miller's work. We acted out scenes with a readers' theatre skit. We spent three weeks on it and ended with an exam that would have made my high school English teachers proud. What do you mean, you don't really know what you learned?!

And then later, I stopped and thought. In all of those things that we talked about, how many kids in my classroom were actually doing the talking? (Oh no.) In all of those themes that we talked about, how did I help grow my kids into stronger readers? (Oh no!) Of all of those books that we talked about, how many of my LEP students or my SPED students or my students who don't like to read felt included? Felt understood? Felt successful? Felt smart? (Oh. no.) 

Instant shame. Like I-can't-even-believe-I-just-told-you-that-shame.

That conversation with that kid years ago changed the course of my teaching philosophy. I don't ever want a kid to leave my classroom scratching his head and thinking what was the point of that? In order to change, I started small. I made a promise to myself that following year--years ago--that I would not make an assignment or activity that did not have a clear correlation to the TEKS. It sounds obvious and simple, but you my friend, as a teacher in the multi-layered world of ELA know what a challenge that can be. It's so easy to get caught up in plot. It's so easy to get caught up in the literature that we love. It's so easy to forget that the kids who are sitting before us don't think the same way we do. They don't love it the way that we do. And that's ok. It's so easy to just teach literature. To just talk about it. But it's so hard to teach the skill; to break it apart; to pull the small piece that you need so that your kids can walk out just a little bit smarter.

But if you do, maybe...just maybe...at the end of the year they'll tell you what they learned.