I want to take a moment and say thank-you to everyone who comments on my blog and actually read it.  Though I don’t get a lot of readers compared to most bloggers, I am happy to be as transparent as I can be to any teacher or educator.

With that being said, I took a few days off from blogging because I have been working on my book.  I will continue to give updates on the book status as things continue to progress. Rest assured, I have been writing, just not on my blog.

The last few days have been rather adventurous for my students and myself.  We kicked off Monday right away with the mobile laptops in the classroom.

7th graders are writing their first drafts of their “This I Believe” essays. As mentioned before the students did a Wordle as their brainstorming and on Monday they visited a website where they could read and listen to some sample essays.  They visited http://thisibelieve.org/themes/. There the students could choose from thousands of essays.  The students brought their ear buds in that day and I instructed them to listen to and read along to three different essays of their choice. As they were doing this, they had their writing journals next to them and they were listing characteristics they found similar between the three essays. When they finished I gave them all a link to a Google Document titled: “Characteristics of “This I Believe Essays”.  All of the students accessed this link I posted on Schoology they began to feverishly type on the document while it was projected on the screen.  When students were done after about 8 minutes, we discussed all of the characteristics they found in common between the three essays by looking at what they posted on the Google Document.  This class discussion let us into our rubric for their essay.  I asked the students if they noticed the similarities between the characteristics they noticed and what was listed on the rubric.  Many faces lit up and it started to click with them that they already knew what was required of them and it wasn’t going to be too difficult.  Students then had time to begin their rough drafts that were due today.

Common Core Standards Covered by “This I Believe” Essay:

 W.7.3 – Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

1. Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
2. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
3. Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to convey sequence and signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another.
4. Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
5. Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events.

W.7.4 – Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

 W.7.6 – Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and link to and cite sources as well as to interact and collaborate with others, including linking to and citing sources.

With the narrative unit pushing forward in 8th grade as well as 7th grade, the 8th graders continued their work on memoirs Monday.  Similar to the 7th graders, they had to look at two memoirs and discuss the characteristics they saw in each of them. I then asked them to extend their thinking and give each one of them a grade and give reasons as to why the student earned the grade they gave them.  It was very interesting to see the grades assigned for each of the memoirs and the comments the students gave.  Many students discussed detail or lack of detail, grammar mistakes, and spelling mistakes.  Both essays that were given to the students were polished student writing and we discussed this as we began to discuss the rubric for the memoirs.  A great extension would be for the students to grade the pieces using the rubric I assigned to them.  As with a lot of things I used a rubric I found online that is aligned with the Common Core State Standards.  Again, the students were given time to start their rough draft in class.

Common Core Standards Covered by Student Memoirs:

W.8.3 – Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

1. Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.
2. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.
3. Use a variety of transition words, phrases, and clauses to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show the relationships among experiences and events.
4. Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.
5. Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events.

W.8.4 – Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. 

W.8.6 – Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others.

We are rolling!  Not only are the students writing narratives, they are reading narratives.  The 7th graders are reading The Acorn People by Ron Jones and the 8th graders are reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.  Though we just have just started the reading part, the students are going to be busy.  Between Article of the Week, writing their drafts, and completing vocabulary assignments, we are moving forward with full steam. Enough for now.

Cheers!