What I'm Reading & Teaching in December

My school operates on trimesters rather than marking periods, and our new trimester started when we returned from Thanksgiving break. My units align with our trimesters it's been nice to start something new upon returning from break. 

The end of first trimester was a bit of a let down. Despite all of the supports I have built into the essay writing process, the quality of many students' essays did not match what I expected to see after two weeks of work and many, many small group writing sessions. Similarly, the quality of students' final projects was also disappointing despite the step-by-step brainstorming and templates provided for students. Many projects were submitted incomplete and some students just didn't turn in anything despite knowing it was one of two of their final grades for the trimester.

That said, it's likely no surprise that my October frustrations with teaching haven't magically disappeared, but I am continuing to hold fast to my plans of keeping activities shorter and simpler to match student skill levels and stamina, using reading sprints to break up independent reading time into more manageable time chunks for students, and taking the time to deal with even the small behavior issues to keep things from spiraling. To help myself focus on the positive and not feel totally overwhelmed by the negatives, I also set a goal of sending home two good news notes per class period each day. 

What I'm Teaching & Reading in November

The month of October is leaving me feeling a little frustrated. Too many students are still struggling with classroom routines. It's been more difficult to engage students in independent reading this year. I've done less choice writing than last year instead of more. There is never enough time to catch up students who are behind or need remediation. I could go on.

Instead I'm going to take some deep breaths and think about how to reset for the month of November. I know I  will need to do a review of expectations this week since Halloween was on Monday, students had off on Friday due to parent/teacher conferences, and we had a field trip on Thursday. 

As I plan my lessons for the month of November, I am going to continue to shorten the length of activities, knowing that this year's group of students doesn't have the same stamina as previous years. When we finish our novel unit and resume independent reading, I will use reading sprints to break up the chunk of time at the end of class I have dedicated to independent reading. Finally, I am going to make student behavior my priority and hold myself to having students reflect on their behavior during lunch, make their own phone calls home, etc. even though that means losing time to plan, grade, and create materials during the school day.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in October

Over one month of school is now in the books. I feel good to be back in the classroom and a little more of my enthusiasm for teaching has returned. Overall, I have another good group of students, despite some high energy, chatty students in my last period class. I did think I would be doing a little less material creation this year, now that I'm fully working my way through my curriculum for a third time, but I'm finding that my students' skills are not as developed as they have been in years past and many more students need additional reinforcement of texts and skills. I am finally able to return to working with small groups, so rotations have made a big comeback in my classroom

What I'm Reading & Teaching in September

I have mixed feelings about the end of summer and the start of the school year. On one hand, I had a pretty darn good summer and I'm sad to see it go. On the other hand, I really do love my job and I'm eager to spend a year with a new group of learners, reading and writing and growing together. I work at a small, unique school and I'm also excited about the positive directions we continue to move in.

What I'm Reading & Planning in August

I'm down to my final month of summer, but I'm not panicking just yet. Right now I'm on a long weekend trip to Arlington and Alexandria with my sister. Then my daughters have one more week of camp and school at home before we head back to the beach for another two weeks. They'll all do a week of camp there (my oldest one week and then my twins the next) and we'll have some family visit with us. Things are so go, go, go during the school year so I've been trying to really slow down and enjoy time with my daughters. They are getting to be an age where it is so much easier to do things with them. This summer has been a good mix of doing ordinary summer things (playground dates, library trips, swimming) with some special summer things (beach trips, a visit to Sesame Place, camps).

What I'm Reading & Planning in July

Summer is in full swing and I am trying to enjoy every moment of it. Immediately after school ended, I spent two weeks at the beach with my daughters just enjoying the sunshine and decompressing from our nonstop routines during the school year. 

For most of the rest of the summer, my daughters are back in preschool (my twins) or enrolled in camp (my oldest) and I am catching up on doctor and dentist appointments and reconnecting with friends. I am working on turning resources I have used in my classroom into ones you can also use in yours and writing blog posts sharing my experiences teaching all things ELA. I am also making more time for exercise, trying to reclaim my garden, and sitting down to read a book in the middle of the day whenever I feel like it. Summer is glorious.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in June

All things, good and bad, must come to an end, and that includes this school year. Like the past two years, there's been an intensity to this year that leaves me longing for summer and some time to decompress. 

Despite the challenges of teaching during a pandemic and being out for two extended absences because of Covid, there are things this year that I am happy about. I am pleased with the layers I've continued to add to my curriculum,  and the work I did to develop students' writing skills and love of reading. I hope to continue my progress with all of those things next year, but mostly I'm just hoping for a healthier school year.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in May

With each new month this school year, I feel like I've tried to convince myself that things are going to be better: I am going to have more energy, be less tired, and be more on top of things. It's probably not a surprise to you that I'm still waiting for that to happen, and I have no hopes that May will be the month that it does. I know I have been fortunate compared to the behavior issues and coverage shortages that so many teachers have faced this year, but I still can't wait for the school year to end in June. What I planned on  teaching in May remained much a mystery until late last week and we're already halfway through the month at this point.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in April

Spring is finally here, bringing warmer weather and more hours of daylight. I can feel the effects on my energy levels and students' as well. Once the mornings are a little less chilly, I'll start planning lessons that we can take outdoors again. 

The infographic project at the end of our "facing fear" unit went really well, and so did our personal narratives for some students. However, too many just aren't taking the revision and editing process seriously. Next year, I will have to work out how to spend more time working on making those changes in small groups. We just wrapped up our March Madness Poetry Tournament and our winner was "Water" by Rudy Francisco.

Right now, I'm coasting a bit through the start of our new unit on "dealing with disaster" because I've previously taught all of the shorter texts we start the unit with. I will have some work to do when we start our parallel novels at the end of this month. 

What I'm Reading & Teaching in March

For the shortest month of the year, February sure felt long. For me it was likely less because of teaching and more because of interruptions to my sleep thanks to my own children (I don't function well without a full night of sleep). I wasn't super productive during my time to work at work and ended up doing too many things at home. We also had parent conferences, a field trip, and a day off for President's Day thrown in there, so maybe part of the problem was never quite settling into a rhythm. Whatever the root of my February problems, I'm trying to reset my energy and focus for March.

There were some positives in February. My students enjoyed our literature circles just as much as I did and since covid cases are way down, we are allowed to put student desks together again. That also means being allowed to pull small groups, which I've been struggling with not being able to do all year. Especially because I teach a 90 minute block, being able to pull different groups of students or have different groups of students work together throughout a class period is a must. 

What I'm Reading & Teaching in February

January was exhausting. The first week back from break was an emotional roller coaster of getting ready to go virtual and then not, due to a last minute health department decision. The following week was just weird, with anywhere from one third to one half to two thirds of my students out in each of my classes. It felt like those days just before schools closed down in March 2020 when I kept teaching to try to maintain a sense of normalcy, but it felt foolish with the number of students missing. The following weeks some students were back and others are out and the health department changed its guidance again. Now I'm trying to catch everyone up and still stay on top of everything and I'm just tired.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in January

Happy New Year! I’ve spent as much of my time as possible over the break not thinking about school, avoiding social media, and limiting my news intake so that I could actually try to relax during my time off. 

My school will return from break in person, continue to require masks, and hope for the best. Our students will continue to be seated 3 feet apart and while we have been instructed to put a pause on group work, we aren't yet reverting back to a standardized seating chart across class.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in December

My predictions about November being over in the blink of an eye were correct and now we're into December! Perhaps because October was a nightmare of a month for me (my entire household had Covid and I missed nearly 3 weeks of school), November seemed easy breezy in comparison. I also feel incredibly fortunate that my school has invested in building substitutes so my colleagues and I are not constantly covering classes the way I know so many other educators are right now. 

What I'm Reading & Teaching in November

Just when I though we were settling into routines, I had a nearly three week absence in early October due to Covid-19. Despite being vaccinated and being cautious as possible, the virus spread from my husband to one of my daughters to me and finally my other two daughters. Fortunately my husband and I had mild symptoms and my three daughters, all too young to be vaccinated, were asymptomatic. Teachers always joke that writing lesson plans is worse than calling out sick, but being sick, solo parenting while quarantining, AND writing lesson plans for 12 days definitely was a whole 'nother level of stress. We're gradually getting back in the swing of things at home and at school. This month will bring benchmark testing, the book fair, and Thanksgiving Break, and I feel like before I blink November will be over too.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in October

After a choppy start (we didn't have a full five day week of school until the fourth week of school), I finally feel like I'm settling into routines with my classes. What I'm most excited about this school year is how many students are excited about reading. Independent reading is now part of our daily routine at the start of class (I struggled to commit to that this year, but the start of class is what works best for me and the flow of my lessons). I have a variety of strategies I'm using to read the excitement of reading high and expose students to books from our classroom library they might want to read next. I am also slowly working toward my goal of connecting our independent reading with grammar and writing instruction, so far with great success.

What I'm Reading & Teaching in September

And just like that, school is back in session again. After a week of professional development (good, but still made my head want to explode. I'm back in the classroom with full classes of students for the first time in about a year and a half. 

I am feeling incredibly anxious about the health risks of being in a room full of students who are largely too young to be vaccinated. While, my school (and state) is mandating masks for everyone and students' seats are three feet apart, I worry that it will not be enough to prevent the kind of horror stories I'm hearing from teachers in the South and West who have been back at school for weeks now. 

What I'm Reading & Planning in August

This summer has been all about making myself feel like me again. Between the struggles of the pandemic and mothering three little ones, I needed to spend this summer on things that make me happy. I've focused on making time for more exercise outdoors and reading even more than I do during the school year. I've been writing blog posts and revising teaching resources. I've traveled to visit family in the Catskills of New York and spent two full weeks plus several weekends at the New Jersey shore with my immediate family. I've taken my girls to playgrounds and splash parks, and filled up bags and bags of library books. 

What I'm Reading & Planning in July

School is out for the summer and those last few days of teaching in June weren't half bad. After sweating through two field days (thanks hybrid schedule), we spent our last few days in the classroom reflecting on the year and having fun. Students created a virtual portfolio and completed an end of year survey for my class. On our last day of class, students "competed" in a series of summer themed challenges. It was definitely a school year like no other and I'm interested to see what next year will bring.

Reading in July

I read all but two books on my June TBR list. I read 7 middle grades titles, all of which were audiobooks. I also read 3 young adult titles and 1 professional development book that I plan on finishing today. I decided to start including the titles that I did read the previous month in these blog posts because it is usually more than what I set out to on my TBR list.

So here's what I read in June:

1. Walls by L. M. Elliott (young adult, available July 27)

2. The Antidote by Susan McCormick (young adult)

3. A Sea of Troubles by Elizabeth James and B H James (professional development)

4. The Revelation by Jared B. Sharpe (young reader's edition) (young adult)

5. Blended by Sharon Draper (middle grade)

6. Simon B. Rhymin' by Dwayne Reed (middle grade)

7. The Brave by James Bird (middle grade)

8. Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly (middle grade)

9. Pie in the Sky by Remy Lai (middle grade)

10. Goldie Vance: The Hotel Whodunit by Lilliam Rivera (middle grade)

11. Finding Langston by Lesa Cline-Ransome (middle grade)

More time in the car driving my oldest daughter to and from camp plus the back and forth from the beach plus more downtime at home means I've had more time for audiobooks. During the school year when I'm tired, I get in bed with a book, but I'm finding I'm doing less of that during the summer because I'm better rested and less stressed. Tracking the number of books I've read throughout this year and the format of those books (physical versus audiobooks) has really helped me think about my reading habits and ensure that I'm not spending too much time doing less important things (yes, I'm talking about you social media). In July, I'm hoping to read a few more adultish titles plus two PD books that I want to lean on during my writing instruction this year.

Here's what I'm hoping to read in July:

1. Terraform: Building A Better World by Propaganda (poetry)

2. Everyday Editing by Jeff Anderson (professional development)

3. Mechanically Inclined by Jeff Anderson (professional development)

4. At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop (adult fiction)

5. The Light Between Us by Andrew Fukuda (young adult fiction)

6. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (adult fiction)

7. The Misadventures of Max Crumbly: Locker Hero by Rachel Renee Russell (middle grade)

8. The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora by Pablo Cartaya (middle grade)

Planning in July

Immediately after school let out, I spent a week at the beach with my little ones, enjoying being able to just be mom. Now we're in the swing of summer, which means some time at camp and with their summer sitter for my girls and long weekends at the beach. The days when my girls are occupied, I spend working through my teaching resources, making plans for next year, and thrifting for books.

One of my first summer tasks, especially after this year, was to do a clean up of my Google Drive. I have an archive folder where I put all of the folders I won't need next year, but might want to reference at some point. Then I organize everything in my ELA folder, labeling and color coding things so they are easy to find and access. One thing I did this year that I haven't done in the past is to make copies of excellent student work samples and save them in the folders with the assignments. I know I'll be thanking myself for that next year.

Another of my first summer tasks was to review the novels I used this past year and submit any changes so books could be ordered for next year. In Trimester 1, my theme is "animal intelligence" and all students read Pax by Sara Pennypacker, which I'm keeping for next year. I'm considering replacing it with Song for a Whale by Lynne Kelly, but not ready to create an entirely new whole class novel unit just yet. 

I am also going to keep the parallel novels from Trimester 3 tying into the theme of "dealing with disaster." Using Life As We Knew It and The Dead and The Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer meant students still had a choice in books, but they were similar enough that we could have whole class discussions that still made sense to everyone. That was perfect for the end of the year when we did a lot more just talking about our books and less assignments. The change in genre (the rest of my titles are realistic fiction and these are science fiction/dystopia) is also nice.

For my literature circles with the theme of "facing fear" during Trimester 2 this past year students had 6 choices: On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer, Maybe He Just Likes You by Barbara Dee, Black Brother, Black Brother by Jewell Parker Rhodes, The Only Road by Alexandra Diaz, A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée, and Under A Painted Sky by Stacey Lee. There weren't any titles that students didn't enjoy, but as I reflected on the list I wanted to replace some of the titles to better allow students to learn about identities or experiences other than their own. I also wanted to make sure my choices didn't center around racial trauma or potentially reinforce stereotypes. 

As a result I decided to drop On My Honor and Black Brother, Black Brother. I will still offer The Only Road and Under A Painted Sky because I have copies left, but I'll phase those out. My new additions will by Tight by Torrey Maldonado, The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Perez, Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake, Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick (I used this title as a read aloud this year) and Pie in the Sky by Remy Lai. I imagine this list will continue to evolve year to year as I read more middle grade books and as new titles are released. The new mix of titles still ties in to "facing fear," but more specifically the fear of "othering," which will allow me to incorporate purposeful discussion around our experiences being the other or othering, and being upstanders and bystanders.

My big mental project this summer is to think about how I'm going to build by writing instruction next year. Pre-pandemic, I was working on building students' writing skills with personal writing assignments, mostly inspired by Linda Christensen's work in Teaching for Joy and Justice and Reading, Writing, and Rising Up. I want to get back to that this year, but also work in Jeff Anderson's use of mentor sentences as a way to "teach" grammar in the context of the writing we are already doing. The first step will be reading the two books of his on my TBR list. Hope you are enjoying doing whatever it is that makes you happy this summer!

 

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What I'm Reading & Teaching in June

May was not much of a teaching month between administering our school's benchmark tests (NWEA's MAP testing) and then our states standardized tests. This lull in classroom planning and grading made May my best month yet for reading. But that doesn't mean nothing happened in my classroom! Students did finish up a crossover research and narrative writing assignment and will finish their last novel unit this week. I have just a week and a half of school left in June to squeeze in some reflective activities and some fun.

Reading in June

In May, I read everything on my May TBR list; I am finally getting the hang of creating a monthly stack of books I want to read without hesitation. I'm still working on balancing genres, but did pretty well with that this month too; I read six YA titles (one was a collection) and six middle grades titles (two were nonfiction and the other four were audiobooks). I'm almost a month ahead on my goal of reading 104 books for the year, so I'm feeling pretty good about that too.

Here's what I'm hoping to read this month:

1. The Edge of Anything by Nora Shalaway Carpenter (young adult)

2. Walls by L. M. Elliott (young adult)

3. Terraform: Building A Better World by Propaganda (poetry)

4. The Antidote by Susan McCormick  (young adult)

5. A Sea of Troubles by Elizabeth James and B H James (professional development)

6. The Revelation by Jared B. Sharpe  (young adult)
7. Blended by Sharon Draper (middle grades)

8. The Line Tender by Kate Allen (middle grades)

Teaching in June
My students just finished their final novel of the year; they had a choice between two parallel novels, Life As We Knew It and The Dead and The Gone, both by Susan Beth Pfeffer. Because of all of the testing in May, this novel unit was much less structured than the whole class novel or literature circles I did with students earlier in the year. We had a lot of informal whole class discussions about the two books because although the characters and specifics of the plots are different, the general events and issues are similar enough. Students enjoyed getting to hear about what was happening in the other book and comparing the characters' experiences.

To wrap up the novels, students will have a short and creative assessment that will hopefully be the perfect mix of structured and open ended. I'll ask students to focus on the thoughts the main character is having in the final chapter of the book. Students will choose three key words or phrases to represent the character's thoughts and then pull three pieces of evidence from the text to support those choices. Students will also add at least three images to reinforce the key ideas and text evidence. To support my special education students and lower level readers, I created a word bank of key words they could choose from. This is my first time using an assessment like this, so I'm hoping it is something that students will be successful with and not something that turns out to be much more difficult for students than I intended.

Despite all of the challenges in teaching and learning this year, I want students to reflect on everything they've accomplished this year and give me feedback so that I can make changes for next year. After grades are in, I'll have students complete an anonymous survey about their favorite unit, assignments, and books as well as the structure of my class and classroom. The other reflective activity I'm trying out this year is for students to create a virtual portfolio. They'll choose four of their assignments to show off, write a reflection paragraph, and then decide who they'd like to share their portfolio with. If the idea goes well this year, I would love to build it up next year into an in person event for families to attend (I can remember doing something similar as a sixth grader).

Each year, students are given a summer reading assignment, so I'll be previewing Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson, the novel students will be reading as rising seventh graders, and passing along Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds to my incoming sixth graders. The "work" attached to reading is to send me an email reflecting on the character and conflict and making connections with the book. I also ask students to answer some fun questions about themselves. The summer assignments are not graded, so I like the email format which doesn't make a big show of who turned it in and who didn't. It is also a great way to preview students' writing skills and start connecting with students before the school year begins.

On the very last day of school, I've set up a summer themed mini-Olympics, similar to what I did the day before winter break. Students will create teams and compete in six rounds of activities, some are word or logic puzzles and others are games on Kahoot!, Quizziz, and Blooket. Since some of my students are remote and some will be in person, I'll use breakout rooms on Zoom to allow students to work together. And that'll be a wrap for the 2020-2021 school year!

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What I'm Reading & Teaching in May

After another month of virtual teaching, I thought I would feel more comfortable and settled into a routine, but instead I find myself feeling more bored and frustrated. There's only so much shaking things up I can do while still feeling connected with my in person and online students. There's also so many aspects of teaching that are just more complicated with some students at home and some in the classroom. 

The good news is that there's only a little over a month of the school year left. The bad news is that next year may not look much different, but I can't process that right now, so I'm trying to actively ignore it. At this point though, I've taught in person, virtually, and hybrid, so whatever next year brings can't be more challenging. I've also got a repertoire of activities and lesson materials for all three scenarios, so next year will not be me recreating the wheel, maybe just fine tuning the spokes. 

Reading in May

In April, I read 9 books, six of those were young adult and the other three were middle grades (and all of those were audiobooks). This is the fewest number of books I've read in a month so far this year and I can't pinpoint why. I still averaged about 2 books a week, keeping me on track to reach my goal of 104 books by the end of the year, and worked through most of the titles on my April TBR list. However,  this month I want to be more conscious of what I am spending my time doing when I could be reading. I may be able to sneak in some reading time in class during independent reading time. Here's what I am hoping to read:

1. Women Who Dared: 52 Stories of Fearless Daredevils, Adventurers, and Rebels by Linda Skeers (children's biography)

2. The Radium Girls by Kate Moore (middle grades nonfiction)

3. Girls Who Looked Under Rocks: The Lives of Six Pioneering Naturalists by Jeannine Atkins (middle grades/young adult biography)

4. What Kind of Girl by Alyssa Sheinmel (young adult)

5. The Obsession by Jesse Q. Sutanto (young adult)

6. Yesterday is History by Kosoko Jackson (young adult)

7. Five Total Strangers by Natalie D. Richards (young adult)

8. Be Dazzled by Ryan La Sala (young adult)

Teaching in May

May has just barely started and I know it is going to be a whirlwind. So many teaching days are lost to testing: first our school's benchmark (MAP)  testing and then state standardized testing (the PSSAs). As we continued with our dealing with disaster narrative, I debated moving into a historical fiction narrative piece (students research a disaster to be at the center of their narrative) or our final novels of the year (parallel novels Life As We Knew It and The Dead and The Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer), and decided to do both at the same time. My periods are currently 80 minutes long, so we spend the first half hour dedicated to activities connected to our parallel novels, the second half hour on developing our narratives, and then the final twenty minutes of class reading.

Our narratives are still in the development stages. Students picked a natural or manmade disaster to be the focus of their narrative and then researched the disaster as well as its setting. I provided students with two lists of disasters as a starting point, but they could choose other topics with my approval. Incorporating a real disaster allows students to practice their research skills at the start of the writing process and practice MLA formatting for a bibliography at the end of the writing process. Once students have a grasp of what happened during the disaster and where it occurred, they create the main character for their narrative. Students have a choice of basing the character off of a real person involved in the disaster or starting from scratch. Finally students will map out the plot of their narrative, making the connection between the disaster they researched and the character they created. Before we start drafting, we'll work on writing dialogues and hooks. After drafting, we'll work through revisions focused on adding figurative language and imagery.

We just started our parallel novels last week. Both center around the disaster of an asteroid hitting the moon, knocking it closer to Earth, but have two different settings and protagonists. Miranda is a white high school sophomore living in fairly rural Southeastern Pennsylvania and Alex is a Puerto Rican high school junior living in New York City. As students started reading the first few chapters of their books, they explored nonfiction texts and media about asteroids, the relationship between the Earth and the moon, and the likelihood of a disaster like the one depicted in the novels actually occurring. Now that students are a few chapters in, they are tracking changes that have happened in the character's personal lives as a result of the disaster as well as changes that have happened in the larger world around them. Assignments like these allow students to discuss in groups of other students reading the same text, but we can also share out as a whole class and make connections between the two books. I am keeping the assignments are generic as possible so I can utilize them for both novels. Over the next two weeks, I will work in some grammar review using examples from the books. I haven't decided yet on a final project, but will try to work in something fun and creative after testing ends.

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