April 29, 2015

Page Turners: Teaching Literature & Fiction Skills


Greetings and welcome to Page Turners, a weekly Wednesday linky, where I will feature great blog posts I have read (and sometimes that I have written). Hopefully you will find ideas that inspire you in your classroom and your teaching and maybe even a new blog to follow. Read down to the end of the post for directions if you are interested in linking up a post of your own.


And now on to this week's topic: teaching literature & fiction skills. If you are anything like me, you are always reinventing your lessons. Why use what you used last year when you know you can come up with something even better? You are always looking for new ways to teach old skills, new ways to teach new skills, or new ways to apply a skill to a piece of literature. These posts should definitely give you some new ideas about fiction skills and literature.



Lauralee of The Language Arts Classroom shares The Hungry Games, a parody of The Hunger Games, which could be used to teach parody or just for fun if you are reading The Hunger Games. It would also be a great "mentor text" for students to create their own parody of any text read in class.



Kristen of Secondary Solutions shares a lesson on symbolism and The Great Gatsby (but really could be used with any novel heavy on color symbolism). Assign a group of students a chapter and have them list any colors and connections to that color in the chapter. Then have groups record their findings on chart paper by color so that each group is adding to each color's chart. Once all groups have shared, see if students can determine the symbolic meaning of that color in the novel.



Perspective and point of view are two words we use interchangeably outside of the ELA classroom, so it is no wonder students confuse them or have difficulty distinguishing the two when we discuss them in connection with literature. Mandy of Caffeine and Lesson Plans posts about a lesson she did to help students differentiate the two ideas.



Check out Sara of Secondary Sara's seven ideas for teaching allusion, an integral part of Common Core literature standard #9 and a toughie to incorporate. My favorite idea is #7 where you ask students if an author "plagiarized" another author's ideas.



Somewhat similar to Mandy's lesson on perspective and point of view is my lesson on Point of View Retellings. I love to use children's books, specifically fractured fairy tales, to teach my high school students about unreliable narrator. Exploring how a story could be told from another character's perspective is also a great way to work on characterization. 

Be sure to check out the posts linked up below and come back next week for some great posts about classroom management.


April 22, 2015

Page Turners: Technology in the Classroom


Greetings and welcome to week 4 of Page Turners, a weekly Wednesday linky, where I will feature great blog posts I have read (and sometimes that I have written). Hopefully you will find ideas that inspire you in your classroom and your teaching and maybe even a new blog to follow. Read down to the end of the post for directions if you are interested in linking up a post of your own.


And now on to this week's topic: technology in the classroom



Who doesn't love memes and a good laugh? Julie of Faulkner's Fast Five explains how creating memes focused on plot, characterization, irony, etc. is both a meaningful and enjoyable learning activity for students.  




Jessica of Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten shares 10 ways to utilize Skype in the classroom, technology I never considered utilizing. My favorite ideas are talking to an author and interviewing an expert. Both are great ideas for sneakily getting students to use their research skills.



I don't know about you but I am obsessed with TED talks. There are so many out there on so many great topics. I watched a clip on 60 minutes the other night about how the idea started and how presenters are selected and coached. Having your students create TED talks or even a TED Ed Club is one of Caitlin Tucker's ideas. She shares a few of her students' videos as well as TED's official application if you want to start a club. What a great way for students to research a topic of interest while also practicing speaking and listening skills.



If you do decide to create TED talks or any kind of video with your students, you will likely want to post them online for others to see. YouTube is a great place for sharing videos, but you don't want your students to be exposed to rude or unkind comments. Caitlin Tucker shares how to moderate or turn off YouTube comments.



The Teaching Trio hosts a weekly linky on Thursdays called Tech Thursday where they share all kinds of technology tips and resources. This recent post about Explore.org caught my attention because who doesn't love animals. On this site you can view live and pre-recorded video feed of animals from all over the world. You might see a lion taking a nap, a shark chomping down on its dinner or even a giraffe giving birth (and yes that really happened for one class). While the Teaching Trio is tooting this as a way to enhance science lessons, this would also be great in an ELA classroom for working on descriptive language.



And this last page turner is one of my own, a post about Remind, a free messaging system you can use with students and/or parents. It is easy to sign up and set up and a great way to remind students about their homework and parents about important deadlines and events.

Be sure to check out the posts linked up below and come back next week for some great posts about teaching literature and fiction skills.


April 15, 2015

Page Turners: Fostering A Love of Reading {4/15}


Greetings and welcome to week 3 of Page Turners, a weekly Wednesday linky, where I will feature great blog posts I have read (and sometimes that I have written). Hopefully you will find ideas that inspire you in your classroom and your teaching and maybe even a new blog to follow. Read down to the end of the post for directions if you are interested in linking up a post of your own.


And now on to this week's topic: fostering a love of reading. Whether it is a home or in the classroom, we want children to not just become proficient readers, we want them to love reading.



At home, one way to spread the love of reading as suggested by Caitlin Tucker is to start a new tradition: family reading time. Let your children see that you love reading and they will too.



Most children, regardless of age, love to be read to. I frequently read to my high school students, even my twelfth graders. Sometimes having an audio version of a text is more convenient than reading it out loud yourself. In Story Sunday: Reading With Audiobooks, Elizabeth-Elle shares some sites for free audiobooks.



I loooove the idea of using Kahoot to host a book tournament from Erin of Technology Erintegration. I recently began using Kahoot! with my students in place of pencil and paper quizzes. Just like a basketball bracket during March Madness, Erin selected a set of books and then had them "face off" against each other with students voting on the winners.



This Edudemic article has 8 creative ways to get reluctant students to read. While I don't think all of them are that creative, I love the ideas of reading breaks, using reading a positive reinforcement, and hosting a book fair.



In a secondary classroom, organizing your classroom library in a way that helps students independently find books they are interested in is important. For page turner #5 check out my simple, inexpensive and easy to implement system of organizing your classroom library.

Be sure to check out the posts linked up below and come back next week for some great posts about using technology in the classroom.

April 11, 2015

Observing the Days of Remembrance in the Classroom


This year, the Days of Remembrance, the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust, fall on April 12 - 19. Maybe you are reading or planning to begin reading a Holocaust related text in your English Language Arts. Maybe you are touching on the topic as you teach about WWII or genocide in your history class. Whether you spend one day or devote weeks to a unit, I hope you take time to recognize this event in your classroom.


If you are only spending one day on the topic, consider using these Holocaust Victims' Identity Cards. This free resource, with information and images used with permission from the United Stated Holocaust Memorial Museum, is designed to help students make personal connections with the victims of the Holocaust. 

Distribute one of the 37 different ID cards (Jewish, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, accused homosexuals, mentally ill, and the “righteous”) to each of your students. On each card is a photo of the victim, his/her name, date of birth, place of birth, and a description of his/her life before Hitler came to power, before World War II, and after WWII began. Give students time to read about their victim and then hold a class discussion. What do these victims have in common? What do they have in common with your students? Have students predict the fate of their victims and then at the end of class, allow students to read the "newspaper" revealing the fates of all 37 victims.


This set of activities can be purchased to complement the Holocaust Victims' ID Cards. Included is a Holocaust victim ID analysis worksheet, a set of writing prompts to which students respond from the point of view of their victim, and a ID card planning sheet and final product form for students to use to create their own.


Are you working on symbolism, persuasive techniques, and/or propaganda in your class? This lesson on propaganda used by the Nazi Party during the Holocaust and WWII connects to all three concepts. Students will view propaganda posters used by the Nazi party to spread and preserve the basic ideas of Nazism and to dehumanize “inferior" groups. Students will then analyze ten posters to infer meaning, and identify patterns and symbols.


Do you teach math or maybe health? This lesson on Nutrition During the Holocaust & World War II could be used in your classrooms as well. In this lesson, students will analyze information from a short informational text as well as tables/graphs. Students will learn about rations of bread and potatoes during World War II and recommended daily allowances of food. Students will compare this information to their own one day calorie count to gain an understanding of how the Nazis used food as a weapon and why survival was so difficult for the Jews.


If this is a subject of great interest for your students, consider allowing them to choose a topic for further research. This step-by-step guide to writing a research paper on the Holocaust is a great resource for introducing research writing or support for struggling writers.

The packet includes a step-by-step checklist, ELA Common Core standards, reading & writing objectives, a note taking PowerPoint and Cornell note taking sheet, a sample research paper for annotation, a pre-writing graphic organizer, an outline, a structured introduction paragraph, self and peer assessment forms, and a grading rubric.


If you are going to spend several days, a week, or teach a unit on the Holocaust consider purchasing my Holocaust Resource Bundle. This bundle, over $10 in savings,  includes all of the resources above as well as Holocaust Themed Non-Fiction Homework Readings & Responses, The Holocaust Introductory PowerPoint, Stations for Previewing Holocaust Texts & Night.


If you are reading Night by Elie Wiesel, an excellent literary nonfiction text, take a look at stations, vocabulary, constructed responses, and "menus" of activities. These resources are all bundled together for a $5 savings.


Or purchase all of my Night & Holocaust resources in one super bundle, over $15 in savings.

For more information about the Days of Remembrance and events in your area, visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website.

April 8, 2015

Page Turners: Hands-On Learning {4/8}


Greetings and welcome to week 2 of Page Turners, a weekly Wednesday linky, where I will feature great blog posts I have read (and sometimes that I have written). Hopefully you will find ideas that inspire you in your classroom and your teaching and maybe even a new blog to follow. Read down to the end of the post for directions if you are interested in linking up a post of your own.


And now on to this week's topic, hands-on learning. As an English teacher I am always looking for ways to engage my students. Of all the subjects, I think incorporating hands-on activities is toughest to do with English because students have to read, a "passive" activity, before using the information to do something more active.



Simulations are a great way to bring learning to life. Jennifer of Mrs. Laffin's Laughings explains in Bringing the Fur Trade to Life with Book Bartering how she showed her students the importance of the fur trade to Native Americans by doing a book trade in her classroom. I love how she substituted books, something her students would care about, for furs, something her students wouldn't care about. A simulation doesn't always have to be an exact replication of an idea or event. Centering the simulation around books allowed students to make connections to the events they were studying in Social Studies. Think about a difficult or distant concept in a text you are reading. How might a simulation help students better connect and understand?



Another great simulation I came across was one Kristen Dombrowski shared in her High Five for Friday post about assembly lines. In this simulation, students were responding to an inquiry question about the pros and cons of assembly line production and traditional craftsmanship. A set of questions helped guide students in their inquiry and would be a great lead in to a writing piece. Real life experiences ensure that students will have plenty to write about. 



Page turner #3 was an idea I had never seen or heard of, trioramas! Angela of The Teacher's Desk 6 has more great photos in her post, Wordless Wednesday: Responding to a Novel if trioramas are new to you too. Like a diaorama, trioramas allow students to create 3-D representations of elements in a novel such as characters, conflict, setting, or an important part of the plot. Because the triorama is made of paper, there is no need to collect shoe boxes. These would also take up less space and be easier to hang up.



Page Turner #4 is connected to math, but the idea was so delicious I wanted to share it. In "Oreo Stacking Contest for Mean, Median, Mode Lesson" Mary from Teaching with a Mountain View shares one of her students favorite activities. Students stack Oreos into towers and then using the data, practice with mean, median, and mode. I liked that the activity was a bit competitive and students got creative with their stacking strategies so it challenged students to think as well as apply math concepts. 


For a hands-on activity where students work directly with a text, check out this post, Teaching and Assessing Writing Organization, by The Daring English Teacher. Cut up a fiction or nonfiction text and then have students place the events or ideas back in the correct order.



My last page turner this week is one of my own blog posts about Character Silhouettes. The idea came from Linda Christenson's book, Teaching for Joy and Justice and allowed students to dig into a character from a recent text while creating a visual representation. This activity could be done with a fictional character or a real life/historical figure.


Be sure to check out the posts linked up below and come back next week for some great posts about instilling a love of reading in students.