Ditch The Chairs: Use Carousels for Previewing & Responding to Reading

The "carousel" is a great strategy to use when previewing a text or for responding to a text after reading. This can be used with your students or with teachers in a professional development (the examples below are from teachers).

The first step is to create questions or prompts or select quotes from a text to put out around the room. Chart paper laid out on tables/desks or hanging on the wall (with markers that won't run through of course) works best because it is large and multiple people can write at the same time. But you can also just tape down pieces of paper to desks/tables. Chart paper is expensive!

You can decide how many questions/prompts you need to create but a 1:2 ratio is good, one prompt to every two students. One student can be reading over others' responses while another student adds his/her response. You want students to be moving from prompt to prompt or writing, not too many just standing around, which is what will happen if there are too few prompts.

Set a certain amount of time for the carousel activity and a goal of how many prompts you want students to respond to during that time period (they probably won't get to every single one and if they are, your questions/prompts are too simple). At the end of your set time period, have students stop where they are. You can ask students to read out the whole paper or just select a response that stood out to them.

Like I said, this is an activity that can be used before reading. Instead of your usual anticipation guide where students check off agree or disagree, turn it into a carousel so your students are moving around using up some of that energy. Research also strongly links movement with learning. For example, before reading Romeo & Juliet, I do a carousel of questions that relate to the themes of the play, such as "what should be the punishment for murder?" and "how important is family?" These are great to hang around the classroom and you can return to them throughout the text you are reading to see if students' answers change.

If you don't have the space to have your students moving around the room, aren't allowed to hang things on your walls, etc., you can modify the activity by having students seated in small groups and then passing the prompts/questions around. In that case, you want a 1:1 ratio of prompts and students, and each small group can have the same set of questions.

Do you use carousels in your room? For what? How? Do you have a special twist to yours? I would love to hear about it in the comment section below.

No Pencil? No Problem: Dealing With Unprepared Students

Tired of purchasing writing utensils for your students? Tired of wasting time while a student sharpens the pencil you just gave them or that they got from a friend? At Staples for $8.99 you can get a box of 144 golf pencils. That is about 6 cents a pencil. They come pre-sharpened so no sharpener noise will disrupt class when you hand one of these out. 

But there is no eraser! And they are so small! Well that is the point. While I give these to my students for free, no one wants a golf pencil, which means they will look a little harder in their book bag or ask a friend or two before asking me for one. I also keep a cup of "found" writing utensils (pencils, pens that students leave behind) and students can return their golf pencils there. My students know to look there first before asking me for one.

I also sell pencils (that I have already sharpened, can you tell I hate the noise of the sharpener?) and pens to my students for 25 cents each. But I have to have something for students who are unprepared and don't have any money to spend, so golf pencils it is. I will occasionally hold their ID in exchange for a pen or full pencil but then there is the hassle of returning the ID and making sure you get the pen or pencil back.

How do you handle writing supplies for students who are unprepared in your classroom?

7 Steps to Making Your Own Mini-Book

During the Philadelphia Writing Project's Summer Institute one of our guest speaker's was Lynne Strieb who talked with us about the importance of parent involvement, but also showed us how to make different kinds of books. Teachers love takeaways, something we can bring back to our classroom and use. For the first book she showed us, all you need is a single piece of paper! Because you don't need scissors, glue, or a stapler, this is a quick, no mess activity.

Step #1: Fold the paper in half "hamburger" style. Make sure the fold is creased crisply.

Step #2: Unfold the paper and fold it the other way, "hotdog style."

Step #3: Fold the edges in to the center crease.

Step #4: Unfold the paper, which should now be divided into eight boxes. I drew dotted lined to make it clearer.

Step # 5: Fold the paper in half again "hamburger" style and tear down one box. I have drawn a solid black line to make it clearer. This is why it is so important to have really creased folds or else you will need scissors.

Step #6: Unfold the paper and fold it the other way, "hotdog style." Press in the outer edges until you have a four pointed star.

Step #7: Fold all of the points of the star in toward each other and you have a mini book with a front and back cover and six inside pages.

For five ways you can use a mini-book in your classroom and to see the scary mini-book project my students did, check out this post here. I would love to hear your ideas for how you could use this little book in your classroom.