The Writing on the Wall

by your curly friend, Suzanne

and on the floor, sidewalk, desk...

What's more fun to write on than a piece of paper? Absolutely anything!  

Let's face it- staring at a blank piece of paper can be a daunting task, particularly for a student who struggles in school.  You might notice that "writing" days are demanding discipline days.  One way to take the fear out of writing and increase buy-in is to provide unique places and mediums for writing.  Here are a few of my favorites:

The writing on the floor- Arm students with Vis-a-Vis markers and allow them to publish a piece of writing.  I like this strategy because it can live there for several days, and students can easily read the writing of their peers.  Note: I have never asked permission to do this activity.  It's easier to get forgiveness than permission.  To clean up, I give each student a baby wipe and have them do their best.  After the school day, I give it a deep clean with Windex and paper towels.  It might still be a little pinkish or greenish, but it will wear off- promise!  This strategy also works on desktops.  

The writing on the wall- Pose questions on posters and allow students to walk around and respond.  Don't want to replace posters between classes?  Have students write their responses on Post-it notes- easy clean up!

The writing on the poster-  I think I've mentioned before my love for the poster maker.  You take any paper, and it blows it up into an awesome poster.  Laminate, and it's the perfect way for students to annotate a text or complete a graphic organizer with their group.  

The writing on the non-traditional medium- Learning about character foils? Publish your analysis on a piece of aluminum foil.  Check out our character foil lesson here.  Writing a narrative about a favorite food?  Draft on a paper plate.  Our buddy, Gretchen, has a list of fun writing spaces in The Story of My Thinking: 

Get creative, have fun and let the writing flow!

Character Foils--That's a Wrap!

brought to you by Lori

Last year, I was talking to a teacher and she said that she would be covering character foils. Excited, I asked her what activity she was going to use. She said they were going to talk about them. Just talk. 

The problem is that when teachers say, we're going to talk about...whatever, the teacher is typically the one doing all the talking and the kids don't absorb as much as they could. Sad day. 

But here's the good news. The brain loves novelty. It is engaging and [gasp] fun. When teaching character foils last year, Suzanne wrapped it all up nicely...with legitimate foil. Inspired by all of the fun, I turned it around in my own class last year. Now, in my awesome job as the English specialist, I get to take cool strategies like this one and share them with other teachers. 

The 9th grade team recently taught character foils with The Scarlet Ibis. A few sheets of foil and Sharpie markers for a T-chart make studying character foils engaging. Try it! You put a sheet of aluminum foil in front of a kid and give him a Sharpie marker, he will go to town! (We did other English-y stuff on the foil, but you are a smart English teacher, and can think of lots of ways to extend the critical writing component here).

Two GREAT things happened with this lesson. 

Doodle is definitely the class favorite.

1. We discovered...by way of our Dean of Instruction...that it would be great fun to take the finished foils and have kids pick their favorite character and make competing foil balls. It's silly, but also a GREAT physical reminder about character foils throughout the year. The teacher in the featured room hung the balls from the ceiling using pipe cleaners and paperclips. (I think teachers are the best kind of geniuses).
2. To close the lesson, teachers asked students how character foils can make a plot interesting. The kids got it. Many students said that character foils can create conflict. 

There it is. You can't argue with that. It's hard to get that kind of result when you just talk about it. Is it crazy to spend a day writing on foil? I think not!