Cartoneras -- Every Student an Author

This past week we celebrated every student as an author with our Cartonera Celebration.  It is one of my favorite weeks at school.

What is a cartonera?

It is, quite literally, a cardboard book.

To make their cartonera, each student went into their writing "treasure chest" (folder) and decided upon one of their favorite pieces of writing from this year.

We rewrote them on lined paper and illustrated them.

Our amazing art teacher worked with the students to create their covers.  Last year, we used actual cardboard.  This year, we used cardboard card stock because we were short on manpower to cut 800 pieces of cardboard. (Next year, our plan is to go back to cardboard, but to start cutting it much earlier in the year.)

We put the writing together with the covers, hole punched them, and tied them with yarn.

Each day, a different grade level had their books on display in the hallway during the PTO Book Fair and Special Person Lunch for families and the community to read.  

At the very back of each book was a "Raves from Readers" page.  Classes would visit the cartoneras each day, read them, and leave kind comments.

The students were all so proud of their cartonera books and were excited to read the raves that other students had left.  (One student came up and hugged me during recess to thank me for reading her cartonera and leaving a comment.)

As a school, I celebrate seeing us all unite to celebrate writing. We have been working hard to build our level of writing and celebrating is an important part of that. Sharing our writing with others gives us an authentic audience and builds a sense of pride in our writing. 

As a teacher, I celebrate being to read the work of students in other grade levels. It gave me a good feeling for what students were able to do at each grade level. 

For my students, it was good for them to read what other students wrote.  Many of them commented to me that they had learned something from another student's cartonera (many students' writing was non-fiction) or they saw how important good spelling (or neat handwriting) was in delivering your written message. Many students were impressed with the level of writing from students who were much younger than them. As they read, I would often hear giggles as they encountered something funny or see them recommend a just-read cartonera for another student to read.

Writing was alive and breathing at my school this week!

Celebrating every student as an author -- what could be better than that?

Math Troubles? Write About It!

We are just finishing up our long division unit in math and I've got to tell you...this was a painful one (for both me AND the students).

Unlike any other year that I've taught math, my students really struggled with finding a method that worked for them.

Some of this can be blamed on Common Core, I am sure.

Whereas we used to teach one tried and true way to do a division problem (now called "digit by digit," but some of us may know it by its other name, Does McDonalds Sell Cheese Burgers Rare?), students now need to have exposure to dividing a variety of ways, especially those based on place value.

We have been working on long division for four weeks.  In the beginning, I'm sure my students thought I was trying to torture them.  Complaints and whining ("This is hard...") brought about my need to introduce the word "yet" into our classroom vocabulary.  (See this post for more information on how the word "yet" transformed our thinking.)

Every day was painful...for all of us.

Being a writing person, I decided it would be a good idea to have my students get their worries and concerns down on paper so we could discuss and address them.  I had them write me a letter telling me:
     1.  What they knew about division.
     2.  What their concerns, confusions and worries were in regards to division.
     3. Anything else they wanted me to know about their thoughts about division.

I collected these letters and kept them in their writing Treasure Chests.

Fast forward three weeks...Lots of practice, lots of collaboration, lots of reassurance, lots of perseverance, lots of the word "yet."

We are now getting ready to take our division test.  The mood and attitude toward division has changed DRAMATICALLY in my classroom.  There is confidence and composure and dare I say it -- excitement -- for division.

Today I had the students write me another letter telling me:
     1.  What they knew about division.
     2.  What their concerns, confusions and worries were in regards to division.
     3.  If they felt they were ready for the test, giving evidence to support their thinking.

Here are a sample of their letters.  Each picture shows the before and after letters for the same students:

Reading their "after" letters today brought me such joy!  There was a definite change in the tone of the letters.

I shared the before and after letters with the students and we talked about why there was a difference in the letters.  They told me that perseverance, patience, and hard work helped them understand.

One of the best parts of these letters is that now my students have them as a part of their memory.  The next time we do something hard in class (say...fractions), we can recall the before and after letters of division as proof that we WILL make it through, as long as we work hard and understand that even though we may not get it "yet," we WILL.

Twelve is the Magic Number & Positive Thinking Thursday {12-04-14}

Happy Thursday, everyone!  I'm so glad you stopped by today.  I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving!

Before I get to this week's positive thought, I wanted to share a very quick, easy & fun writing activity that you can do today -- The Twelve Word Poem.

Why do you need to do it TODAY?  Because December is the 12th month and there are 12 days of school left before winter break.  (Really, you could do this any time, I just thought it would be fun to try to make as many connections as possible!)

Here are the guidelines:

• Your poem can only have twelve words.
• It must be about December.
• It must make sense.

That's it!

Here is the poem my students and I wrote together to get warmed up:

It's hard to see, but I wrote twelve lines on the board so we were sure to only use twelve words.

We have been studying a mentor poem each week, so the students thought it would be a good idea to put in some line breaks for emphasis:

After they wrote their poem, they typed them up, added a graphic if they wanted, and printed them out for their writing treasure chests.  Here are a few of their poems:

This was a great quick writing activity that even reluctant writers enjoyed because they only had to come up with twelve words.  I hope you will give it a try today!  (I'd love to hear how it goes if you do!)

And now for this week's Positive Thinking Thursday thought:

Life is crazy, crazy, crazy, isn't it?  I hope you will take a few minutes to stop and take in the beauty that surrounds you today and every day.

An InLinkz Link-up

Wishing you an amazing day!

Poetry as Mentor Texts for Writing

When I first started talking with my students about poetry, the response I got was not exactly what I had hoped for.  To say there were moans and groans when I announced that we would become poets is an understatement.

In the Common Core for fourth grade, students study poetry as a text, but nothing is stated about students having to write poetry.  As a writing teacher, I know that writing poetry is a excellent vehicle for growing students as writers, as well as working in many grammar and reading standards.

Last year, I came across this wonderful resource for introducing poetry using one poem per week:

You can read more about how I incorporated the lessons from this book here.

This year, I decided to add a writing component to our weekly poetry study.  Now, on Fridays we take the week's poem and use it as a mentor text to inspire us to try our hand at poetry.

Here is one of our recent Poems of the Week (from the Poetry Friday Anthology).

(The red papers you see are from our analysis lesson on using specific word choice.)

To use this poem as a mentor text, we first began by writing a class poem together.  Here is the poem we wrote.  Hopefully, you can see some of the inspiration we pulled from our mentor poem.

Next, students paired up and went to work.

It was exciting to see my students use resources like rhyming dictionaries and the online thesaurus.  There was a definite hum around the room as the teams worked together to write their poem.

Finally, it was time to share.  This can be one of the most powerful parts of the writing workshop, but I never force students to share.

However...these same students who previously grumbled about having to write poetry ALL shared their poem.  And let me tell you...they were pretty good!

Some poems make better mentor texts for writing inspiration than others, I will admit.  But if you make poetry a regular part of your classroom, you will come across some wonderful poems that can inspire your students to take chances and stretch in their writing routines.

How do you use poetry in your classroom to teach writing?

Peek at My Week {9-07-14}

I'm not sure where the past week has gone, but here it is Sunday again which means it's time for another Peek at My Week!

Last week was our first week of school so we spent it learning routines, building community, and getting to know each other.  This week, we will be getting down to business.

I'm really looking forward to writing this year.  Several students have mentioned to me how much they love to write and are eager to begin.  This week, we will begin learning about workshop routines and what it means to be a writer.  I found a great resource online that includes a scope and sequence for the year of writing from Portland Schools.  It is amazing!!  If you do not have a writing curriculum and feel like you need some guidance in teaching writing, this is a must see resource!

Source

Reading workshop will begin this week as well.  We will be reading lots of picture books to review the comprehension strategies and begin working on writing response.  It's always good to have mentor texts to demonstrate what is expected and I plan on using snippets from Spaghetti Book Club and This Kid Reviews Books. These two websites are book reviews written by kids, for kids.  Check them out!

We will also begin using my Word Parts We Know program this week to learn new prefix and suffix word parts.  Each week, students learn five new word parts, working to build their vocabulary up in a slow, but steady way.  I have had HUGE success with this program in the past.  Students vocabularies explode as they are able to decode and understand longer and more difficult words.  This has also helped on assessments such as the MAP test where many of these word parts appear.  I am excited to begin!

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Wishing you a wonderful week!

A Peek at My Week {8-31-14}

Thanks for stopping by this week's edition of A Peek at My Week, my weekly linky party where we can all share our plans for the upcoming week.

So here we go...

Tuesday is the first day of school!  Back in June, this day seemed so far away.  I am super excited for this year!  We will spend much of this week building community,  learning routines and expectations, and of course, reading a lot.

The first read aloud I am going to share is a book I read over the summer that I absolutely loved, The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z by Kate Messner.  I usually begin with The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, but I am saving that one for the Global Read Aloud in October.

The beginning of the year is a great time for goal setting.  However, in years past, students have set these really ambitious goals then they get filed away and forgotten about.  This year, I am going to have my students write out their goals on this form and we are going to slide the paper into the front cover of their 8-pocket plastic folder.  This way, the goals will be front and center all the time, for both students and parents. :)  You can grab this form for FREE by clicking on the picture..

Font:  KG Fonts

Graphics:  Creative Clips

To begin our writing year, students will write "Five Things I Want My Teacher to Know About Me."  This will help me get to know them personally and as writers.  We will also set up our Writer's Notebooks using my Writer's Notebook Divider Pages and my Writer's Notebook Reference Pages.

In math, we will be working on getting those math facts fluent again and practicing some helpful mental math strategies.  I am excited to teach math again this year.  (I never thought I would hear myself say that... :).

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I hope you enjoy this long weekend and have an amazing week!  Don't forget to stop back for Positive Thinking Thursday.

Engaging Student Writers

Do you have students in your classroom who are looking for a little extra challenge or engagement when it comes to writing?

You know the ones...Those students who create the most amazing stories or writing pieces with little effort while others are expending major energy on just building five minutes of writing stamina.

If you do and you are looking for a way to engage and excite your prolific writers, have you seen this new website for student writers (ages 10-18), KidsAreWriters?  I just came across it on Twitter last night and thought it looked pretty amazing.

On this website, student writers are offered activities and ideas to take their writing to the next level.  They have fun writing activities and picture prompts like this one:

They even just finished a virtual writing summer camp for students with daily writing prompts.  (Oh, how I wish I knew about this website back in June...)  As students complete their writing, they are able to submit it to the website via the comments section for feedback on a first come, first served basis.  How fun!

So as I begin this new school year, I will be adding this website to my teaching toolbox to use to help me meet the needs of all of my student writers.

What tools or resources do you use to help differentiate your writing instruction?