Tag Archives: common core

I ♥ Writing

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How do we get students to love writing? The key to writing instruction (like anything), is the sales pitch.  You have to “sell” your kids on writing. Make them believe that writing is the best time they will ever have in school.  Gimmicks work; check out my bag of tricks for writing.

My Writing Bag of Tricks

My Writing Bag of Tricks

When I enter the room carrying this, the kids take notice.  I circulate around the room during writing time. Students are buckling down, writing away. I stop near a student, talk a few minutes about his writing, and hit one teaching point.  I may give him a sticky note to add some details, pull out some scissors so I can cut the writing apart, leaving a space to add more details in the middle, or give a fun colored gel pen to do some revising. As I dig into the bag for something, and it’s like E.F. Hutton is talking–everyone leans in, nearly falling out of chairs, to listen.

What’s in the bag?

In the bag, I keep anything I think students may need. This could be in a writing station, but I find it handy because I travel to different classrooms.

  • different kinds of paper–loose leaf paper, little drafting booklets, scrapbooking paper, handwriting paper, etc.
  • topics chart–a blank chart for students to list people they know, places they have been, things they know a lot about, and things they like to do
  • variety of sticky notes–all shapes and sizes to use for jotting information, organizing ideas, or adding revisions
  • proofreading tools–scotch tape, scissors, glue sticks, stapler, erasers, and other tools to use to perform “surgery” on writing (cut writing apart and rearrange)
  • lots of writing instruments–mechanical pencils and especially gel pens
  • mini dot stickers–useful for marking the place where students need to add details, change a word, begin a paragraph, etc.
  • variety of checklists or rubrics–kid friendly tools for students to use to review their own writing
  • triangle pencil grips–to give the student who has such a funky way of holding a pencil that it causes fatigue or  laborious or illegible writing

Where Can I Find Such a Cool Bag?

I found this bag in my basement; I think I got it at a craft shop years ago when I thought I would have time to scrapbook or something (then I had kids…).  You can find bags with pockets at lots of different places.  A teacher got one at Home Depot that is designed for small tools. Thirty-one is a company that sells great, inexpensive bags like this.

Now, what do you keep in your writing bag of tricks?

The Beauty of “Brief-Search”

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Research and media skills are featured prominently in the Common Core State Standards.  They are found throughout the strands of Reading. Writing, Language, and Listening & Speaking.  The Standards describe two types of research: long term research, which is most commonly found in schools, and short term projects. According to the Common Core State Standards Initiative (2012), “Research—both short, focused projects (such as those commonly required in the workplace) and longer term in-depth research —is emphasized throughout the standards but most prominently in the writing strand since a written analysis and presentation of findings is so often critical.” The short, focused projects described are what I like to call “Brief-Search”. I see Brief-Search as being a real world, engaging way to get students to dig deeply into text and write about it.

Do you remember any of the research reports your classmates did in school?  Most of these are forgotten soon after completion.  Instead of a traditional research report, try a fun way to present information that students will remember.  Barry Lane (2003) wrote a delightful book about weird, wonderful ways for students to share what they have learned, Wacky We-Search Reports: Face the Facts with Fun.  Trading Cards, Cartoons, or other creative products will keep students engaged and help them express what they learned.  The key is for students to not only share the information, but to express themselves in a unique way as well. By making the presentation fun, it makes it more likely that students will retain the material.  Here are other some engaging, unique ways for your students to present their information:

  • Talk Show
  • Trading Cards
  • Podcast or Webcast
  • Prezi—an online tool for creating multimedia presentations

Historically, schools have concentrated on in depth research—the research report: five paragraphs on Mexico or Kookaburras or some other topic.  Studying topics like these in-depth require students to think critically about a topic, sifting through a great deal of information to synthesize just the right details to include in a report to support a thesis or opinion.

Research projects, however, do not really mirror real-world research experiences.  In our adult lives, most of us do “mini-research”—quick investigations focused on a precise topic that take a few minutes to a day or two, from start to finish.  For example, last week, my refrigerator died.  I spent a few hours online researching different brands on consumer websites, looking at features and reliability and comparing brands and prices.  In the workplace as well, we often are called upon to research a topic and share our findings quickly with the boss or our team. The Common Core recognize that we need to prepare our students for these brief research opportunities as well as longer, more developed projects.

Brief-Search topics can be found anywhere.  Did you just finish reading Dear Mrs. Larue: Letters from Obedience School by Mark Teague?  Students could brief-search whether dogs see in color, or dog training techniques.  Are you teaching about weather in science?  Students would be very interested in brief-searching the biggest storm your area ever had or how much rain fall your region gets.  Let your students take the lead and tell you what they would like to know more about.

Try this Brief Search Organizer for a quick and easy Brief-Search. 

Paraphrasing Power

The internet explosion has made it so much easier for students to copy and paste than to read, ponder, and then retool the information in their own, original language.  This has led to a plagiarism boom. It’s not that students are natural cheaters; often they don’t know what else to do—how to rephrase or quote a source—so they end up simply copying. Therefore, the skills of paraphrasing and citing sources are found throughout the standards.

We know as teachers that paraphrasing is one of the most difficult skills for students to master. Paraphrasing is not only important for students to learn how to borrow information from a source, it is also helps students link the information to their own understandings and firm it their memory paths.

 

A Lesson on Paraphrasing

1)      Display an original text on the document camera.

2)      Read the text to the students.  Have them help you highlight or underline key ideas presented by the author.

3)      In a different color, highlight or underline distinctive phrases or specific data that the author included that are unique to this piece of writing.

4)      Discuss synonyms for some of the key words and phrases.

5)      Have students work in small groups to paraphrase the original text.

6)      Compare students’ paraphrased versions to the original.

 Don’t forget to use quotes if you use exact language, such as a memorable way of phrasing something or specific data.