Ode to the Narrative.

Leave a comment

I am not sure if it is an appropriate title or not, but I just completed the first of four Google Hangouts I am having this week. I met with CRWP colleagues tonight in our first Monday book club chat. We are reading So, What’s the Story?: Teaching Narrative to Understand Ourselves, Others, and the World (Exceeding the Common Core State Standards). by James Fredricksen, Jeff Wilhelm and Michael Smith. Tonight we got the logistics out of the way and moved forward with a discussion about narrative writing in general.

Throughout our discussion we talked about the art of creating narratives and how teaching students to write a good narrative is difficult and takes a lot of practice for our students. Whether it is character development, purpose, detail, etc, it takes time for anyone to become quality narrative writers. What was perplexing to me is how narratives seem to be forgotten when considering the high school level. Why aren’t high school English teachers teaching narrative writing? Dr. Troy Hicks discussed how he has asked college students in the past about the last time they wrote anything creative such as a narrative; they often can’t remember or say middle/elementary school.

Some thoughts that came to mind during our discussion tonight were that we are spending too much time worrying about informational and argumentative writing. Hear me out, they are both important, but why abandon narratives so much in high school? I am sure ACT testing contributes somewhat to the disappearance of the narrative at the secondary level. With teachers wanting students to be successful, practicing argumentative writing is at the forefront. In addition, the common core standards are geared towards college and career readiness and any college student knows, they don’t write creative stories in their college courses. Now, when you add the thought of Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA), teachers will continue to focus more on informational and argumentative writing. The SBA samples that are currently out don’t even allow students to create their own narrative. Instead, one sample writing assessment asks the students to read an existing narrative and rewrite it fixing and mistakes and revising it accordingly. Below is the link to that sample question.
http://sampleitems.smarterbalanced.org/itempreview/sbac/ELA.htm

Now you add teacher evaluation and the idea of student growth and student proficiency, the puzzle becomes even more complicated. In terms of the Common Core Curriculum, high school teachers are responsible for completing narrative writing with their students. As Dr. Hicks stated tonight (I am paraphrasing here), perhaps with narratives being brought into the light of our conversation, it is time for us as teachers to reclaim the teaching of narratives at the secondary level.

After all, I argued tonight that employers are looking for creativity and innovation in the hiring of new employees and narratives can help bring to the surface that creativity that is missing in new hires that companies are looking for.

Cheers!

Expanding Narrative Writing With Beliefs and Memoirs

Leave a comment

Before I really get into my writing tonight, I wanted to write down what I do in my grade book. My school uses a program called Powerschool for our attendance and our grades.  It is only our second year using it and it has had its challenges.  All complaining aside, this year I am doing something different that I have not done in the past, which I probably should have been.  When I am entering an assignment into the grade book portion, I add the standard being covered next to the name of the assignment. For instance,  the students just wrote a six word memoir.  In the grade book I wrote six word memoir (W.7.3).  I now can keep better track of what standards I have covered with the CCSS and if my administrator wants to see what I have been doing, it is all right there for him to see. Oh, and Powerschool does have a nice app for Ipad (when it works) to do your grades on the go.

With that being said, on to what the students did today in class.  First, on Friday, I handed out an opt out letter for the 7th/8th graders to take home to parents to explain to them we would be using 3 social media websites throughout the year (Schoology, Twitter, Celly).  The students were instructed to take them home to share with parents what each digital tool was and how they were being used in class.  A majority of the information in the letter was what each website provides in their help and question section of their sites.  If you want to see a copy of the letter just email me and I can send it to you.  I did receive 2 of the letters back today.  I must say I am very disappointed they were returned.  I feel parents are doing their children a dis-service if they are not allowing them access school appropriate social media websites.  One of the parents even told me it was my responsibility to teach their child to write down username and passwords for these sites.  I am not one to easily get upset, but I don’t feel I am out of line when I say by 7th or 8th grade, I hope a student can write down a username and password.  Needless to say, I will need to have alternate ways for those students to complete certain assignments.

My 7th and 8th graders did some really amazing journals today.  I didn’t bring home any student examples, but I will definitely need to include them in a future post.  The 7th graders did a sort of prequel today to their “This I Believe” essay by composing a list in their journals of 15-20 beliefs.  They are going to take that list and make a wordle on Wednesday and I will then display their wordles around the classroom. Wordle is a digital tool where students can create word clouds.  Students are then going to narrow those 15-20 beliefs down to their top 5.  From there, students will narrow it down to one belief to write their “This I believe Essay”.  Tomorrows class will be spent listening and reading NPR this I believe essays.  I started to do some scaffolding with my 8th graders today by having them expand from their 6 word memoirs.  In their journals I had them write a Twitter memoir.  The students could not exceed the 140 character mark set forth by Twitter.  I didn’t mind if students went under 140 characters, but I did challenge them to be longer than just one sentence. Otherwise, I would have wound up with more six word memoirs.  Students will need to type these on Wednesday when the mobile lab is in my room and their memoir tweet along with their 6 word memoir will be put into their digital portfolio. Standard W.8.3 and W.7.3 were discussed and partially used today.

  • (W.8.3) -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.7.3 standard is not that different from W.8.3.  See the CCSS website for details.

As always my classes will keep me busy this week and I will blog about my experiences as they happen. Tweet memoirs were discovered when I read Kelly Gallagher’s  Write Like This.

Cheers!

Narrative Reading and Writing

Leave a comment

After giving my 7th/8th graders a small grammar pre-test, I launched my first unit for the year.  When examining the Common Core standards I decided to launch a narrative unit first. Generally speaking, students really enjoy writing narrative pieces and reading them as well.  I kicked off the unit by displaying the CCSS literature standard and the writing standard on the whiteboard:

  • (RL.8.2)Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.
  • (W.8.3)Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences.

    a. 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.

    b. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

    c. 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.

    d. Use precise words and phrases, relevant descriptive details, and sensory language to capture the action and convey experiences and events.

    e. Provide a conclusion that follows from and reflects on the narrated experiences or events.

*I am displaying the 8th grade standards here as an example.

I then wrote a few I can statements on the board so the students know what they will be able to do by the time we finish the unit.  I do not put all of the I can statements on the board at once.  I only put the ones on the board that the students will be currently working on.  In a given day students could see up to four I can statements.  Today, I had two on the board.

  1. I can analyze plot (the events that happen) to determine a theme (author’s overall message).
  2. I can define narrative and describe the basic parts of plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution).

After sharing the standards and explaining what we are going to be doing, I share with my students the CCSS website. In addition, I share with them the mastery connect app where they can access the CCSS at anytime to see what they will be learning.  I did actually have one student download it to their phone.

With all curriculum talk aside, I introduce my students to memoirs.  We discuss the characteristics of memoirs and then provide them with some models. The book I introduce them is The Freedom Writers.  I give the students background information on the book and then read a few passages out of the book.  We then focus our attention back to memoirs and I assign them to write a 6 word memoir.  I provide the students with several examples and then release them to write a 6 word memoir on Schoology.  I put their assignment under the discussion tab and ask them not only write their 6 word memoir here, but to collaborate and respond to one other classmate. Tomorrow students will go back and create their first writing piece to put into their portfolio by revising their 6 word memoir and adding a picture and putting it into Google Docs.  The 6 word memoir is the start to how the students will scaffold into a more complex memoir and narrative.  My 7th graders are going to write a This I believe Paper and my 8th graders are going to write the more complex memoir.  Below are some student examples of 6 word memoirs.

  • Dance all day, sleep all night. (7th grade)
  • Everything is lost, nothing is found. (7th grade)
  • Ate Mom’s cooking; died right there! (8th grade)
  • Keep smiling, even without the camera. (8th grade)

On a side note, my 5th hour class ran into a Schoology glitch today.  Schoology decided to shut down their site for an update or something along those lines, it was very inconvenient and instead of panicking, I had the 8th graders research online what is an osage orange and if it has a realistic purpose..  You always have to have plan B ready to go!

Cheers!

Not Enough Time: Digital Citizenship/Mobile Devices/Discussions

Leave a comment

Day 2 of school had its bright spots and its challenges.  We are fortunate enough to have a mobile lab with 30 Dell Laptops for our students to use.  After finishing some typical house keeping items, I was ready to deploy the laptops to my students.  Before I assigned students to a computer, I began by asking students to help me make a list of examples of mobile devices.  The list the students compiled looked like this:

  1. laptops
  2. cell phones
  3. Kindles
  4. PSP
  5. Nintendo DS
  6. Ipad
  7. Ipod
  8. Itouch
  9. Nexus
  10. tablets

It was clear to me, whether it was 7th or 8th grade, the students had a clear grasp on the concept of what a mobile device is.  Upon completing our list on the whiteboard, I shifted their thinking to another topic that involved using mobile technologies; digital citizenship.  As an educator and an advocate for the use of mobile technology in the classroom, I was disappointed when I posed the question: “Who has heard of digital citizenship?” Out of all three of my 7th grade classes, not one student raised their hand.  This is a problem.  By 7th grade students need to be made well aware of what it means to be a responsible digital citizen.  Needless to say, I felt it was necessary to discuss this topic with them.  During our conversation we discussed the characteristics of being a citizen. Students knew that a good citizen participated in community activities, was respectful, followed rules/laws, and needed to be helpful to others.  After students exhausted all the characteristics we talked about how they apply to being a digital citizen as well. Furthermore, I took the time to address cyber-bullying and sexting.  By the end of the week, I would like to develop a handout or sheet for the students to put inside of their planners stating their responsibilities as a digital citizen.  I also want to send the handout home to parents to help educate them as well.  The 8th graders were much  better when it came to digital citizenship and that is because I discussed it with them last year.  I did revisit cyber-bullying and sexting to pound home the importance behind what NOT to do when using a mobile device.

Even though I took more time discussing digital citizenship than what I wanted, it will be worth it in the long wrong.  Laptops were handed out to each student.  I called up 5 students at a time and assigned them a number.  The number they are assigned will be the same number laptop they will use in other classes.  This helps us as the teachers and our tech guy who to talk to if the computer has been used maliciously or it gets broken.  On the whiteboard the students were given written directions on what to do with the computer.

  1. Turn on the laptop
  2. Login to your school account
  3. Access Internet Explorer
  4. Go to www.schoology.com
  5. Watch the short video on the home page

After all of the students completed the tasks on the board, I walked them through the sign-up process for Schoology.  Students were given their individual course codes and then they had to fill in their names, usernames, and passwords.  I directed students to use their last name and first initial of their first name for their username.  For example, mine would by hylerj.  I asked them to make their passwords something easy to remember or use the same password they use for Facebook.  Schoology has an excellent feature available to teachers where they can reset a student’s password if they happen to forget it.  Now, I did run into a few glitches today with students not being able to log in to their school accounts meaning they couldn’t use the laptop that was in front of them.  Such is life when it comes to technology.  I had these students look on with other students who didn’t have difficulty logging in.

Despite the typical issues that came about today, I was able to get everyone signed into their courses I created.  We then walked through the files/links tab and the discussion tab.  We focused more of our attention on the discussion tab.  It is here where we will be collaborating as a class.  I will have the students post discussion questions for socratic discussions we will have in class.  It will be a place I may post reading questions after the students finish a reading homework assignment, and it is a space where students can ask me questions about homework or other assignments.  Today, I simply posted the question, what is your favorite music, music artist and why?  I instructed the students to post their reply and respond to 2 other members in the class.  Prior to releasing them to work on their own, I modeled for them what a quality response is to another member.  Responses like nice, wow, I agree, I like that, and great are not accessible.  I want my students to actually have a discussion, so I direct them to ask questions, be thoughtful and to put some time into their responses.  This conversation and modeling is worth it because students really start to have quality discussions.  Below is an example of what a discussion page looks like.

Once students got started, there weren’t any issues with them operating the site.  A lot of students were shocked how much it is like Facebook.  Even though it appears my students may not have done a lot in class today, they did complete at least one of the Common Core Standards.

  • Standards W.7.6 and W.8.6 – Use technology, including the internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.

Students were able to identify technology (Schoology) and collaborated with peers and their teacher through technology to enhance their writing.

By the time the end of the day came, I felt like I had been holding my breath all day long.  It never seems like there is enough time to cover what needs to be done.  Tomorrow brings us to Narrative reading.

Cheers!

CRWP Middle School Writing Camp: Day #2

4 Comments

With our second day of middle school tech writing camp complete, I am no doubt more fired up about the campers and their writing, but I am also exhausted.  Today was a huge poetry day along with tying up some loose ends with our writing yesterday.

We started today with the students writing 25 word stories in their composition notebooks.  I showed the campers the examples on Kevin Hodgson’s Prezi.  The campers enjoyed the many stories that were in the Prezi.  We then proceeded to share our own 25 word stories out loud.  Participants did an amazing job!  We then quickly transitioned into our poet coming in and speaking to them about writing and what it means to be a poet/writer.  Robert Fanning was our poet and he did a super job with his presentation.  He had the students create this huge word wall on our whiteboard and then he read some poems to the kids.  He discussed the power that words have, something that students today need to hear again and again. At the end of his presentation, he took the campers down the hall and opened a box full of words on pieces of paper.  He then had the students throw them in the air and once they landed, the students needed to form lines of poetry. He instructed them to be silly and non-traditional and I was impressed with how our campers worked on this.  I was even more impressed by one young man who had some really powerful lines.  Below are some pictures of the activity and the lines individuals came up with:

            

When our poet departed today, the students wrote three different poems.  They wrote something called a diamond poem where they started with a topic like female and then end up at the complete opposite which would be male in this case.  In addition to their diamond poems, they wrote haiku poems and then collaboratively wrote a poem that rhymed.  You can see student work on youthvoice.net. Their work is under CRWP and writing poems.  I encourage you to check out some of their work.

Throughout the time the participants were working on their writing they used Ipads for the duration of the day.  Some campers had experience with using Ipads, others did not.  Students were actively engaged in writing using Google Doc/Drive and Youth Voices.  There were very few gliches and overall, the students did a plethora of writing today incorporated with the use of technology. They finished out their day responding to other camp participants work on Youth Voices and trying to polish their detective skills by solving some of the staged scenes that were posted on to the Youth Voices website.

With all of the writing the campers have done so far, our goal for this camp is to look at a way we can incorporate the three major areas of writing the Common Core State Standards focuses on: narrative, informational, argumentative.  Yesterday we asked our participants to be detectives and try and solve a murder which led them to writing a police report, a great lead into argumentative writing.  Today, we focused on poetry, part of the narrative world of writing.  Thursday we will look at research, a type of informational writing.  Our adventure continues tomorrow as we embark on our writing marathon and hear another guest speaker.

Cheers!