My blog wordle!

Safety in Routines

     As I get my classroom organized for students to walk into on Sunday, I need to think not only about organizing the physical space, but also organizing the routine of the day. As Harry and Rosemary Wong remind us, having routines makes a classroom a predictable and safe place for students to learn. If routines are not in place, students spend too much time worrying about where to sit, what to do next, and how to obtain or turn in materials and not enough focus on the learning objective. So during the first week, I need to make sure that students know the following:

1. When students enter the room, they should go to their seat and look at the agenda on the front board so they can anticipate the learning activity and objective. Please don't socialize at the back of the room until invited to sit down.
2. Each lesson starts with a teacher-directed section, so they should have their notebook, pencil or pen, book, and any homework ready to go.
3. Homework gets turned into the labeled trays that sit on the materials table, where extra paper and pencils, staplers, hole punchers, tape dispenser, and paper clips are available for student use. Colored pencils are for coloring, not as a replacement for a lost pencil.
4. Independent work time needs to be quiet. People work best without distractions and noise.
5. After the closure, students will be dismissed from the room (wait for it!).
6. Grading is done in a consistent way, and grades are put into the electronic grade book within a week of the assignment's due date.
7. Homework is turned in on the day it is due. If it isn't turned in, it needs to be made up as soon as possible, preferably during break or lunch. If late homework becomes a pattern, parents will be notified to help break the pattern.
8. The school's Moodle site is a student's best friend. Assignments for the week, handouts, glossary, links, test calendar and other resources are readily available for student use. There should never be the excuse "I didn't know" or "I didn't have it."

Hmmm... pretty long list. But it is fairly standard stuff, and if I take a week to touch on all of it, it shouldn't be overwhelming. With attention to expectations and practice to meet them, my classroom management will be a well-oiled machine within a couple of weeks. And with predictable routines comes a feeling of safety and plenty of brain space for learning.

Setting the tone

Summer is ending and teacher pre-service days begin next week. During the four full days set aside before students walk through the doors, there are two, one-hour department meetings. Not a lot of time to set the tone for the rest of the year, so I need to be thoughtful about how to use it.

I know that pre-service days are full of meetings about whole-school year-long goals and the nitty-gritty of opening school. I know teachers are itching to get into their rooms and move furniture, organize materials, and make photocopies. I know that, as soon as there are kids in the room, teachers focus on the micro: seating decisions, management, lesson planning and prep, learning names, and lots more. So how should I use my precious two hours so that we kick off the year on the right foot?

First and foremost: Team-building. Four of the six of us have been together as a team for the past three years. The other two are new this year; a whole new sixth grade ELA/SS team. We need to get to know each other as people first, re-connecting old bonds and forming new ones. That means at least 20 minutes of the first hour should be sharing, fun, and laughter.

Next, curriculum. We are in the fourth year of our English Language Arts, and the third year of our Social Studies curriculum implementation. There are tasks that need to be accomplished with each year. We should look at those tasks and begin planning how we as a team can get to them during the year. I hope to take a less directed position with the department this year. We have come so far as a PLC, and I hope to share some of the work around planning and implementing professional development.

Finally, the implications of student data. We gathered so much student data last year: standardized reading and writing tests and core classroom assessments. The Curriculum Office collated and organized that data for us, but we haven't seen any of last year's spreadsheets. Each student also has a data folder that includes the above scores as well as an end-of-year writing sample and report card. We need to look at all that data and think about what it tells us about our teaching this year. Will we switch around units? Will we emphasize some skills over others? Will we target groups of students who are not making progress? How does this data influence our professional development goals?

Somehow the "housekeeping" items will get done. The orders will get distributed. The meeting norms approved. The Essential Agreements remembered. Taking a little time during the calm before the storm to think about the big work for the year ahead will keep us focused, and set the collaborative tone of working together on common goals.

Rethinking Middle School Classroom Libraries

I have been doing a “study” of classroom libraries on the web this summer. I inherited a minuscule library (we’re talking about a half-dozen books) from the former eighth grade ELA teacher because he didn’t believe that middle schoolers needed a library in their classroom when there was a great resource just down the hall. Although I agree that we do have one of the best young adult collections I’ve ever seen in our secondary library, I also believe there is great value to having a collection of books in the classroom. There is nothing like saying to a student during a reading conference, “Wait, I have the perfect book for you” and then walking over to pull it off the shelf. When students say, “I forgot my book today,” I can send them over to the classroom library to find something to read during independent reading time. So I have been buying young adult books at the used book sales to add to my shelves. I also have about 50 new books coming from Booksource this fall to add to my classroom library. I believe they have an important place in a middle school literacy classroom.

Here is my dilemma. I have never seen pictures of or read articles specifically about middle school classroom libraries. I have seen lots of pictures of elementary libraries; in fact, Choice Literacy posted pictures of attractive elementary classroom libraries on their Facebook page all during the month of May. Here are a couple of examples. I saw shelves filled with plastic baskets labeled by genre, series, or author. I saw select books displayed on stands. I saw rugs and rocking chairs and floor lamps and houseplants and bright colors. Choice Literacy also published several articles about classroom libraries: organizing, types of books, categorizing, leveling, etc. Again, the examples were all elementary age.

So I am wondering: What would an eighth grade classroom look like? My students love my reading corner outfitted with beanbag chairs, throw pillows, overstuffed chair, and traditional Arab majli cushion set. I like displaying five or six books that connect with the genre we’re focused on or titles I think they would like on the top of the bookshelf. The setting works. What should my library selves look like? Should I have plastic baskets of books labeled “Nonfiction”, “Walter Dean Myers”, “Twilight”, and “Books About Girls Who Don’t Fit In”? Should I alphabetize the shelves by author for fiction and assign Dewy Decimals for the nonfiction like the “real” library? Should I randomly throw them onto the shelf? Should I take time out of class to have the kids figure it out?

Middle school students draw a fine line between what is “babyish” and “cool”. Sometimes I’m shooting in the dark trying to figure it out. Last year I learned that they definitely think sitting on the cushions to read or work on laptops is cool. But sitting on the floor during the mini-lesson is babyish. Would they think plastic baskets too babyish? Or would they direct readers to easily find books to read, and thus they would be cool? What other organizational container would be “cooler” than plastic baskets? I think I’ll go to the dollar store and see what I can find.

Teachers as Writers

I firmly believe that writing teachers need to write, and they need to write what their students are writing so that they can teach from personal experience. It is powerful to say to a student, “Something that works for me when I’m having that problem is…”, and so I have tried to maintain an active writing life for the past fifteen years.

Notice the verb “tried” in that last sentence. I cannot yet say that I have achieved the active writing life that I know I should maintain. My writer’s notebooks are full of spurts and gaps. My entries range from rants about my husband (not often, but helpful at the time), to observations about the scene in front of me, to poetry drafts, to character sketches, to thoughts about my children, to travel writing. My portfolio of pieces matches the genres and deadlines of my units for students. I seem to be writing because I “should” and not because I feel the urge to voice my thoughts.

This summer, I signed up for Kate Messner’s Teacher’s Write “Writing Camp”. A teacher and author, Kate posted a series of mini-lessons, prompts, and encouragement on her daily blog. She invited guest authors to contribute, and allowed participants to share their writing. In mid-June, I had all the best intentions to follow the blog daily, to write daily, and to write at least one finished fiction story (my most difficult genre) by the end of the summer.

Can you guess how it’s turned out, now that we’re nearing the end of July? Yep, best laid plans…. I have done some of the prompts in my writer’s notebook, such as written a couple of scenes and character sketches. I’ve written other entries in between. I haven’t written daily, nor have I written a complete story. Sigh.

But wait! I actually HAVE been writing (almost) every day. I got my blog up and going again—that’s writing! I wrote in response to articles for the blogging course I’m taking—that’s writing! I wrote reviews for the books I read this summer for my Shelfari and Goodreads pages—that’s writing! I emailed and chatted and posted on facebook—that’s writing!

Maybe I should recognize and celebrate all the writing that’s in my life. I will still try to stretch myself by trying new things, either through prompts in my writer’s notebook or working toward a finished piece in a specific genre. But perhaps I need to let go of the guilt and let me be the writer I am: a full time teacher/ mother/ wife who fits writing into the spaces left behind. Some of that writing is full and thoughtful (like this blog) and some is quick (like a facebook post), but it’s writing.

And as I sit down with my eighth graders this fall, I can say to them, “I know what it’s like to be a busy person. Do you know what I do to fit in time for my writer’s notebook?”

image from scribifile website