The Literary Maven Looks Ahead to Next School Year

You've made it! Another one bites the dust! Your school year has ended, or if you are like me, you are in the last week or so and things are winding down. Despite this year coming to a close, you are a teacher and teachers are planners, and you are already looking ahead to next year. How to teach differently, how to do things more efficiently, how to work smarter not harder.

Unless your district has gone paperless, one thing we all struggle with is the paperwork, the daily handouts, the assignments for absent students, the extra copies. My tip for you...

...create a "while you were out binder." 

You will need a large binder, two or three inches, and plenty of page protectors. Make plenty of copies of this free "while you were out" sheet. Each day that you give out handouts, fill out the sheet and place extra copies of handouts behind it. 

You can check off the different activities completed in class and fill in notes about the assignments or any important announcements. This would be a great job to assign a student with great attendance (work smarter not harder!) I place the most recent items at the front of the binder so students have less pages to flip through to find what they missed. 

Having this binder puts the responsibility on the absent student to get the information and materials he/she missed. When a student asks you, "What did I miss yesterday?" you can just point to the binder. No discussion needed, no class time wasted. This binder is also extremely useful for that point at the end of the marking period when that student who has slacked off all marking period suddenly wants to get caught up with all his/her work. Everything is in order and missing assignments can easily be given again.

If you are looking to start the year, each week, and each day right, check out this must-have product...

my Twelve Weeks of Root-Based Vocabulary Instruction. 

Because so many words in the English language include Latin or Greek roots, focusing on roots rather than just vocabulary terms at random will increase your students' vocabulary exponentially. Each week, before introducing one root and five connected vocabulary terms, have students make predictions about the meaning of the new terms based on context clues.

Weekly PowerPoints provide student friendly definitions as well as warm-ups/bell ringers, word practice, and exit tickets/closings for each day of the week. This resource also includes a homework choice board and choice-based assessment, both of which can be used weekly. Using this resource means part of your Mondays are planned (introducing vocabulary), part of your Fridays are planned (assessing vocabulary), and the beginning and end of your classes ALL week are planned (warmups and exit tickets). Can you say time saver? You can even download this sample for free.

In between reflecting on last year and planning for next year, your best year ever, be sure to also make time to rest up and relax. It is summer time after all!

On My Bookshelf: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

The basic plot: Cadence is recovering from a head injury and amnesia, the cause of which she can’t remember. It’s summertime on her wealthy family’s island. Her mother and her two aunts (her mother's sisters) each have their own houses on the island in addition to her grandfather’s house, which he recently rebuilt. Cady is looking forward to seeing her two cousins and a family friend/love interest; together they form a foursome self-titled “the liars.” As Cady spends more time on the island, she begins to remember more and more about the terrible injury that caused her memory loss.

Why I liked it: Cady and “the liars” are at a wonderful age where they have bursts of maturity mixed with innocent childishness. Cady and Nate have a relationship that is intense without being overly physical or sexual.

While I struggled with the author’s writing style at first, the main character often just trails off at the end of each chapter, the writing does move fluidly between past and present.

There isn't a set date yet, but it looks like this novel, named a best YA book of 2014 by GoodReads, will become a movie. I am intrigued as to how it will transfer to film.

Classroom application: Your students will likely either love it or hate it based on how much they love or hate the narrator. It's definitely one to add to your classroom library.

Because of the novel’s surprise ending, the novel would make an excellent mentor text for plot structure. After students have finished the novel, have them re-examine the book, identifying clues that point to the ending. Then have students plan their own narrative starting with a surprise ending and working backwards to the start of the story, planting hints at the ending as they go. Work with students to make those hints subtle rather than obvious. Students can test the subtlety of their clues by having a peer read their narrative minus the ending and see if their ending can be predicted. If it can be, then the clues are too obvious.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of We Were Liars for yourself, you can find it on Amazon here.

Note: The Literary Maven is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.