CRWP Middle School Writing Camp: Day #1

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It is without a doubt a whole different world when you are talking to middle schoolers about writing when they actually care and want to be writing.  All in all, the first day of middle school tech writing camp was a success. I now understand what NWP directors go through with logistics on the first day. My co-director and myself spent a good portion of the morning getting a majority of our students signed up for their Google accounts so they can use google docs.  Unfortunately the Ipads were not ready today so the students had to use their composition notebooks, which isn’t a major set back, it was just frustrating when it is a middle school tech camp and they couldn’t use the technology.

After their writing into the day was completed, we focused on argumentative writing with the campers and we used George Hillock’s Teaching Argumentative Writing and Crime and Puzzlement by Lawrence Treat.  The campers looked at two different cartoon murder scenes and wrote down what evidence or facts they saw in the picture.  Then, they used that evidence to form a rule or warrant.  If the evidence did not answer all of the questions the campers had, they wrote down those questions.  The students worked in groups on this and eventually they wrote a police report.  Before the students wrote their reports we had a detective from the CMU police department come in and speak to the campers about his job and what police reports look like and why writing is important in police work.  The students asked great questions about his profession and they asked really smart questions about the reports they were writing.  In addition to the detective, we showed a model of an actual police report that was done on a car theft.  I also showed the campers a short youtube video on writing a quality police report.  The video had to be slowed down because it went to fast, but the students were able to understand what we were asking.  When the students were done with writing their reports, all four groups shared out their report.  Next year, I am hoping they will be put into a google doc and then be shared with the other groups so they can collaborate and get feedback from their peers.

The really fun part came in the afternoon when the students got to use the digital still cameras and the digital video cameras.  The campers were instructed to make their own murder scene and take digital still pictures of the staged murder scene similar to the ones that were given to them earlier.  In addition, the campers were to take the digital video cameras and record a narrative that would explain the scene for others to follow.  Before the students were allowed to wander the building and stage their murder scenes, they needed to develop and write out their plan for what they wanted to do.  Furthermore, they needed to write out a script for their narrative. Once their scripts and plans were approved, they were able to start staging their scene.  What I want to do is load their images and videos into youthvoice.net.  Then, I want the camp participants to go to youth voices and watch other groups videos and look at their pictures.  After viewing other groups work, I want them to comment on their work. I have to upload their work tomorrow morning to the youth voices website.

The last item I had participants complete today was write a short reflection on the days events and discuss what they might have learned about argumentative writing, visual literacies, writing as a whole, etc.  Reflecting on my own work today,  I want students to have more time to play with the digital cameras.  I would also like to bring them in props to use next year (if we go this route).  It would also be beneficial for the participants to have more time to plan for their murder scene and script.

Again, it was a very successful day. I feel that it went well and it extremely fast.  Tomorrow we are exploring poetry and we have a poet lined up to come in and speak to the students.  It should be a blast!

Cheers!

Writing Reflections

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On Thursday of this past week I asked my 8th graders to reflect back on their writing they have done this year.   Earlier in the week as I was developing my lesson plans I began to really think about the writing we have done this past year.  As I do every other year, I began to feel guilty because I was thinking I didn’t assign enough writing for them to do throughout the year.  So, when I described the reflection assignment for my students, we composed a list on the board.  If I was thinking about it, I would have taken a picture of the list and just posted the picture, but instead I will have to compose the list again here. Below you will see all of the writing I have done this year with my 8th graders.

1. This I believe Essay – Posted to our classroom wiki.

2. Alternate endings for The Giver by Louis Lowry (Students could do a traditional writing, Glog, or Comic Strip.

3. 25 word story

4. Sentence in a day

5. Compare/Contrast Essay between characters in The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

6. Glog or Book Cube for Christmas break book (See previous post I have written).

7.Celly writing – writing journal prompts and collaboration with cell phones

8. Journal Writing on various topics every day

9. Extended journal writings – Students went back through previous journal writings and found ways to make them more detailed and better.

10. 50 word stories

11. Paper Tweets – a two day lesson on Twitter and tweeting.

12. Biographies – Posted to our classroom wiki.

13. 8th Grade Reflection writing

14. Police Reports – Modeled after George Hillocks Argumentative Writing Book

15. Musical Chair Writing – Post a comment or send me an email if you want information about this activity.

16. Article of the Week – (Title does not reflect the fact I didn’t do this every week)

17. Science Fiction Stories

18. Ticket out the door writing responses.

Now for the sake of time and not boring my few readers, I will just say there are a few more writing activities that  I have not posted.  When I reflect back on the amount of writing my students did this year, I have nothing to feel guilty about.  My students definitely did more writing than I did grading.  Kelly Gallagher argues this in his books.  We as teachers do not need to be grading everything our students do.  There were many occasions my students turned in writing and it was graded on a formative scale rather than be a summative grade. What I really noticed is how much digital writing my students have done this year.  My students wrote on Glogster, toondoo, used Celly phones in class, they used Google Docs/Drive and helped create a paperless classroom and used it regularly for collaboration.

The other thought I had was about academic rigor.  The Common Core Standards essentially helps guide teachers to develop more rigor in our classroom.  I still believe my students can do more writing and I will push my students to do more writing next year and the years to come.  If you want any information on any of the listed writing above, feel free to email me or make a comment.

Cheers!

Letting My Students See Me Struggle

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It has been some time since my last post and I apologize to my readers. Fortunately, I have been working on other writing that can benefit me professionally. Today dealing with 21st century learners can be a bit of a challenge for us in the language arts world. It isn’t enough to simply say to today’s learners that class is going to be fun or the topic we are going to write about is going to be of interest to you. Let’s face it, teaching students, especially middle schoolers how to write is a challenge. You add the CCSS to that equation, we now have to be more prepared in our classrooms to teach our students. As I have been spending an absorbent amount of time writing these last 3 weeks, I have given a lot of thought about how to make my students better writers. Though I am confident I do a solid job modeling for my students what I want to see out of their writing, I have failed to show them one side of me as a writer. I have failed to show my students the times I have stumbled or struggled with my own writing. All of the writing my students have viewed that belongs to me have been either finished or close to a finished product.

As I continue to find new ways to better myself as a teacher of writing and my students, I have realized they need to know about the times I struggle and what I have done to overcome those moments. Since the end of April I have been working on a book proposal and as my Thursday night writing group critiqued me and gave me valuable feedback last week, I knew I had to go back and do some major revision to my writing and make my voice more present in my writing. My audience needed to hear me and not a superficial voice that didn’t represent me or my writing. This has been somewhat of a struggle for me, but I have persevered. Then, I remembered, I didn’t share this particular uncomfortable adventure with my students. So, when I return to school, I will take the time to talk to my students about how I struggled with my writing.

So, why do I feel this is important for not just me, but other teachers to do in their classrooms? First, if I want my struggling writers to take the risk of making a mistake, they need to see me, the teacher/expert make mistakes and know that I am a human being who struggles with writing from time to time. I feel there are language arts teachers out there who find it easy to stand in front of a classroom and bark at their students about how a piece of writing should be constructed, but the teacher themselves don’t show how they go through the writing process and discuss with students how they struggle with certain parts of their own writing. Show them your not perfect. Second, modeling is by far one of the most important aspects of teaching. On the other hand, if a teacher actually writes with their students, they send a clear message to their students; writing is important! In my professional opinion, writing with your students is the best form of modeling a teacher can display for their students.

Finally, I want to leave my readers with this final thought, especially if you are a language arts teacher. Think about how many times your have shared your own writing with your students. It can be visually, or orally. If you don’t regularly do this in your classroom, I encourage you to start now. I don’t care if it is nearing the end of the year and you are trying to squeeze in the last of those curriculum requirements, share your writing. There are a lot teachers who lack the confidence to share there writing. I completely understand your position, but we need to be learners too and allow our students to catch a glimpse of what goes on inside of our heads. Who knows, we may gain some valuable insight from our students about our own writing. If a writing workshop classroom is what you desire, you will never gain your students trust if you don’t share your own writing. By sharing our own writing students are not so reluctant to share their writing and we as teachers might learn more about our students, other than the obvious fact they are language arts students in our classroom.

Cheers!

Writing Across the Curriculum with the Common Core

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I don’t teach writing because I have to, I teach writing because it is a passion. It is a passion that was reignited in me after attending the Chippewa River Writing Project’s summer institute in 2010. Now, I can’t stop writing or talking about writing.  To a language arts teacher and someone who has that passion for writing, the Common Core Standards are great! Okay, so that is my opinion. I know others don’t share the same feeling. To be honest, the few that do like it, are on an island.  Nevertheless, the CCSS calls for there to be more writing across the curriculum.  In all reality, this idea should not come as any sort of surprise, but it in some arenas it is a game changer.  Our principal made sure writing was occurring across the spectrum this year.  Some teachers were already doing this, others had to be nudged on board.  With those that had to be nudged, I now have a clearer picture as to why they were essentially against this idea. Two factors are evident. 

First, the teachers who are against having their students write in their class are not quality writers.  I say this with all the respect in the world, but it is true.  For instance, you can not have confidence implementing more writing into your Science curriculum if you yourself are not comfortable writing or confident in showing students how a piece of writing should be set-up or written. I can comprehend this and it makes sense to me.  If I don’t know how to play golf correctly, I am not going to be comfortable or confident teaching someone how to do it.  As language arts teachers, perhaps it is our responsibility to mentor our colleagues instead of getting frustrated with them. Just a thought.

Although I take confidence into consideration, the second factor I have seen constantly and consistently is poor attitude.  In other words, poor attitudes by teachers.  Teachers who feel that writing belongs in the English classroom. An individual I once came into contact with every day, who was a teacher, told me writing was not their responsibility.  They didn’t take college courses to teach writing.  At the moment, when this conversation took place, I wanted to scream.  I’ll admit, at the time, I was sulking about the paper load I had and with good reason, but I probably shouldn’t have complained about it. However, one educator telling another educator it’s not their fault I chose to become a language arts teacher is rather unprofessional.  This type of attitude is only going to hurt our students when it comes to increasing rigor in their daily school lives, especially when the Common Core Standards call for this type of rigor as I mentioned in my last blog post.

As I head into the month of May I am having more conversations about making connections across the curriculum.  As a matter of fact, the math teacher and myself had a great conversation about the students writing a research report connected to the statistics unit that she will doing in class.  It won’t happen this year, but we will try to continue the conversation and definitely put something in place for next year. In addition, the language arts standards can easily work with the social studies state standards that we have.  The social studies teacher and I are going to be creating some cross curricular units where the students can write about a social studies topic and also read more authentic texts, such as the primary documents. 

Those teacher who do not teach language arts are no longer going to be able to hide in the corner and forget about implementing writing.  They will need to change their attitude, and be willing to accept the idea of writing in their classroom.

Cheers!

 

Not Too Much: Slowly Approaching the 21st Century Classroom

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Moodle, Google Docs, Glogster, Edmodo, WordPress, Blogger, Vimeo, Diigo, and Wikis. Are you out of breath yet? If your not, you are one of the 21st century educators who are implementing digital tools into their classrooms. If you are just laying foot to path and beginning your journey into all of the wonderful digital tools that have the potential to transform your classroom, the choices can be a bit overwhelming. This is just one of the many thoughts I had yesterday attending the pre-conference sessions at MACUL. As I sat through a moodle and a web publishing session, I began to wonder what my prospective would have been if I was new to all of this. Rocking in the corner with my arms wrapped around my legs came to mind. It wasn’t that long ago when I went through the summer writing institute and our director Troy Hicks gave us a plethora of digital tools to use. There were days I had anxiety, but everything in the end worked out. I get excited about challenges and persevered through it all. I honestly believe teachers can transform their classrooms into 21st century portals where the students can once again be excited about learning.

So, how do you begin with this barrage of digital tools being thrown at you? First, simply start by picking just one tool to implement into your classroom. A great colleague of mine Kevin Hodgson commented to me about students and technology users alike are leaving “digital debris”, meaning we try new things out and think it is great, but then we never use that tool again. Students and users have created accounts, used it one time, then never go back. I know I am guilty of doing this very thing this year with Edmodo. By choosing just one tool, you can use it over and over during the school year. Essentially, by the end of the year, your students and you will be become an expert on that tool. Furthermore, you as the leader in the classroom, won’t feel so overwhelmed. Then, the following year you can stretch your zone again and try something new.

Next, after you have chosen the digital tool you want to implement, ask yourself two questions. First, why am I using this in my classroom? Second, why is this tool valuable to my students? The first question was an eye opener for me. I have to thank Troy Hicks again for pushing me in this thinking. Now, I am passing it on to you. Simply using a digital tool because it looks fun or the students like it, aren’t the most important issues here. Some tools are geared towards a language arts classroom, where another one might be more science oriented. In addition, some schools may not have up-to-date technology capabilities that support the tool you want to use. More importantly, with increased rigor and higher order thinking wrapped around the Common Core, it is essential to stop and think about how the tools we are using are helping to develop these very traits within our students.

I leave you with the the advice to go slow, find what is easy and works well for you and your students. We all have to shift our learning styles and our minds to the 21st century and how our classrooms are going to look.

Cheers!

Understanding and Implementing the Common Core

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Michigan is one of many states who have adopted the Common Core National Standards. More and more I read both negative and positive reviews of the CCSS. I am sure the more educators, professionals, and school districts unpack them, there will continue to be the emergence of these types of reviews. It isn’t a secret schools districts will be tested over the CCSS in 2014-2015. To me, schools will not be successful if they plan on implementing and reviewing the standards the year before they are being assessed. I am utterly shocked at the number of schools who have NOT implemented or even looked at the CCSS when my PD partner and I are delivering our breakdown of the informational writing standard. A word of advice to those schools; you better start.

In addition to districts and teachers themselves, I question what is happening at the university and college level in regard to the Common Core. For the past month I have had a mid-tier student in my classroom from a university/college that I will leave nameless in my blog. Mid-tier students have to complete so many hours of observation as part of the teacher-education program. These hours are completed before they begin their student-teaching. I remember having to do the same thing during my undergrad work. Last week my mid-tier and I were having a conversation about a lesson that needed to be taught in my classroom and after establishing it would be a lesson on grammar, I asked what they knew about the CCSS. The response I received just about knocked me down. Though they knew of them, they were not being discussed in the classes they were taking. According to my mid-tier our states Grade Level Content Expectations(GLCE) and something else called the high school content expectations(HSCE) was supposed to be the focus of the students. Now, how is not discussing the Common Core preparing new teachers for the classroom? I asked my mid-tier to go back and ask their teachers about the CCSS and why they weren’t being baptized into the world of the new National Standards.

The following week I had a follow-up conversation with my mid-tier and it according to them there seems to be a lot of finger pointing going on. Education professors are saying the English professors should be covering the CCSS and English professors claim the Education professors should be covering them. It seems we have a failure to communicate people! It’s obvious to me there is a problem. What is it? It’s not being taught. My mid-tier even brought it up in a class and other students wondered too why it wasn’t be addressed with them and the professor told them they wouldn’t be covering it at all. We aren’t doing young teachers-to-be any services if they aren’t being kept up to speed about curriculum and standards. Now, I am not attending these classes my mid-tier is taking, so I don’t know the whole story. All I know is something isn’t stirring the Kool-Aid. I did have an opportunity to fill out an online survey provided by the college/university and expressed my concern pertaining to the Common Core and I did receive an email back and was told my concerns would be addressed.

If individuals are under the impression the CCSS are going away, they are are wrong. The time is now to start thinking and acting and that does include individuals at the college level.

Cheers!

Motivation: For Teachers

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The last few days of break have been very cumbersome for me. I have felt weighted down, not very energetic, and somewhat irritable.  Nevertheless, I knew the alarm would go off at 5:50a.m. this morning and I would have to be ready for my students. A very perplexing issue that has risen to the top of my thoughts over the past few days is the term motivation.  Yes, I truly believe as educators, we come back from Christmas break re-energized and ready to teach our students to the best of our abilities. 

 On the other hand, I know as a teacher in the great state of Michigan, we pray for snow days too.  Or at least I know I will be wanting a snow day. Why?  In my school district we don’t have another break until the start of our Spring break which is April 2.  Now, I know some school districts have a mid-winter break in February to try to break things up, but I do not.  So, I had to ask myself the last few days, what is going to keep me motivated to get me through this long stretch.  Because to be honest, mother nature doesn’t look to be on my side.

The first idea that came to mind was professional development.  This is a great time of year to be a part of some sort of professional development that your district or local university may be hosting.  I might suggest finding some professional development on the Common Core Standards.  I recently enrolled into a professional development book club about the Common Core and Project Based Learning.  I am looking forward to attending.  In addition, I am helping our Writing Project Sit with professional development about informational writing and the Common Core.  Needless to say, there should be plenty of opportunities for any educator out there to imerse themselves in PD.  I find PD does two things for me.  First, it obviously gives you a break from your students and your classroom where the stress can mount quickly.  We all need adult interaction once in a while.  Second, I always get that refreshing feeling that we all need. I become armed with strategies to use in my classroom and it almost feels like a coach has given me a pep talk.  Once again, I am ready to go!

Besides professional development, I encourage anyone to write.  Writing has helped me so much since being part of the National Writing Project. Troy Hicks, our site director, was intense and challenged us all.  I am the writer today and the teacher I am today because of him and the National Writing Project.  Writing is a great outlet to express your feeling and your ideas.  In addition, it makes you feel better when you are done getting your thoughts down on paper.  Writing can take the form of a poem, journal, song, etc.  I even encourage you to enter a writing contest.  There are plenty of them out there.  Figment.com is a great website that hosts plenty of writing contests. 

If professional development and writing don’t sound the most appealing, I encourage you to start a book club with friends or colleagues with a New York Time’s bestseller, or any other book that may be of interest.  If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea or might be too time consuming.  Befriend a colleague and go out for a nice dinner and perhaps vent to each other about the challenges you face in your classroom. 

Whatever avenue you choose to take to keep yourself motivated and doing your best as a teacher in your classroom, I know this time of year can be challenging.  Lean on each other professionally to help!

Cheers!

Grammar, My How You Perplex Me

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So it has been a few days since any real thoughts came across my brain concerning my teaching or my classroom. Besides being really bummed about not attending NCTE this year, I have been critically thinking about grammar and how to teach it with meaning in the classroom. Grammar and how it should be taught has been an ongoing discussion in our monthly department meetings. Last Spring we took action and ordered Jeff Anderson’s Mechanically Inclined. Over the summer we met and had our own book club with our department. Anderson’s book is written really well and if you haven’t heard him speak, you need to make it your first choice the next conference you attend where he is speaking. I love his sentence strip activity, the idea of bringing mentor text into the classroom to show students how writers use appropriate grammar in their writing, and how he has students set up their writers notebook. My favorite idea is AAAWWUBBIS. The idea behind this bizarre but adequate saying is to help students remember subordinating conjunctions and for students to have a way to remember different ways a complex sentence can be formed. There are many other ways Anderson explains how grammar can be taught efficiently in the classroom. I really liked the fact he said that students will show you what they need to work on. I agree with this and I also think that students need a certain amount of practice too. With the Common Core being implemented this year into my district it is pretty well spelled out what needs to be taught at each grade level when it comes to grammar. It isn’t set in stone, but it is much more definitive than what our State curriculum presented to us in the past.

However an English teacher looks at it, there probably isn’t a magic method to teach grammar. I use some methods introduced in Anderson’s book and I try other strategies that I have picked up in the past. Regardless of what I do, or what anyone does, I think it truly does depend on the group of students you have from year to year. I love my students this year; both my 7th and 8th graders. They have made it easy to try new teaching methods in my classroom. One of my 8th graders today said, “Mr.Hyler, this is the first time this year you have given us a worksheet!” I smiled and replied, “Yes, and I am sorry.” Believe it or not, it was a grammar exercise. Though I don’t pride myself on delivering worksheets to my students and I never will, it was necessary for them to have some practice today to make sure they were brushed up in their skills.

I believe grammar will continue to perplex even the most brilliant language arts teacher and I also believe we will continue to not only develop new ways to teach grammars in our classrooms, but we also revisit some old methods as well. After all, I taught my students to diagram sentences last year and I know one our high school teachers did the same earlier this year.

Cheers!

Finding A Male Mentor; Is it Possible?

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Fifteen years ago I decided to become a teacher and I have never regretted my decision. A majority of my decision was based on wanting to be a mentor to students and athletes who do not have a positive male role model in their lives. Today male mentors are becoming more increasingly difficult to find. I have had my fair share of positive male role models in my life. Besides my father, I can distinctly remember both my grandfathers, a handful of teachers I had, and my high school basketball coach. On the other hand, I could also discuss a few male role models in my life that were complete dirt bags and were hypocrites. I won’t waste my time discussing them here.

With all negativity aside and tomorrow being Veteran’s Day, I want to tell you about a mentor in my life that is exceptional. He is my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law is a former Marine who served in Desert Storm. Besides wanting to extend a big THANK YOU! to him for serving our country, I thought discussing why he is such a great mentor would be be more appropriate and meaningful.

My brother-in-law is one of the most unselfish people I have met. He is always willing to open his home to other people and not just family. He sets time aside for his family before himself. In addition, he is willing to help out someone in need, even if the job may seem too big. I witnessed him working 3 jobs because he felt it was his duty to support his family. He is a reader, which never hurts when it comes to his own children and other children he comes into contact with, including my own. His work ethic is without a doubt superior! He works very hard at whatever he is trying to accomplish. One of the most important aspects about my brother-in-law is that he listens. He always has an open ear and is willing to give a different perspective on situations. Sometimes, that one quality is all someone needs.

I want to thank my brother-in-law for serving our country and making sacrifices for me while I could sleep better at night. Thank you for being a great family member and always wanting to sped time with my children and my family. I love you!

Quality male mentors are difficult to find, but they are out there. Perhaps if you are a male, you can take a minute to just listen to a student, or player. Most of the time boys need to learn how to handle themselves emotionally as well, and that can be very tough without another male role model in their life that can show them.

Colby Sharp discusses in his blog http://sharpread.wordpress.com/ about how there are increasingly less and less male protagonists that are STRONG male protagonists. Is this the trend we are going to see? Check out his blog!

To all of you positive male mentors out there, thank you!

Cheers!