Building Classroom Community

The first week of school is over. This past week has been filled with community-building activities, communicating rules and procedures, and establishing routines. I'm itching to get started with curriculum, but I know that these past four days are vital preparation for a smooth year ahead. Here are some of the things I did last week for Get-to-know-you/ Community-building games: 

• Seating Challenges: Middle school students tend to stick to the people they know, especially early in the year. If allowed to choose seats on the first day, they would sit next to their friends, leaving the new kids and those who may not have any friends in the class to fend for themselves and feel left out. Not good! The series of seating challenges in this article makes sure that every day for the first 5 days of school, seating is mixed up and students work with different seat mates. It takes about 10 minutes of class time, but by the end of the 5 days, students are better able to work as a group, I have a good sense of leaders and followers, and the set-in-stone seating friendship spots are never allowed to start. It also gets students in the habit of looking at the front of the room for any instructions they need to do right away.
• Gorilla-Man-Net: This is also known as Gorilla-Man-Gun but I am trying to reduce violence in the world so we use nets instead of guns. Basically, this is a variation on
  
  rock-paper-scissors. Students stand back to back, say, "Gorilla, Man, Net, Go!" and on "Go", they spin around, assuming one of the positions-- monkey arms for the Gorilla, fashion-model pose for (hu)Man, or swing an invisible net for Net. Gorilla beats man, man beats net, and net beats gorilla. As students are preparing to play, I shout out a category, for example "food", and the winner has to tell their favorite/best, and the loser has to tell their worst. Students find new partners while music plays, and then go again with another category (movies, books, bands, vacation spot, sport, color, etc.). It's fun to end up with a whole group share, "What did you learn about someone that you didn't know before?"
• Alliteration Name Game: Although this is an old and familiar game, it quickly teaches everyone's name to everyone in the room--including me. Students think of one thing they like that starts with the same sound as their first name, for example, "Ms. Pohl likes playing piano." Students sit in a circle. One person starts, then the next person has to say the first person's name and likes before saying his/her own name and likes. This continues around the circle until the last person has to say all the students' names and likes before his/her own.
• Six-Word Memoir: The idea of telling one's story in only six words appealed to me as a quick way to learn something meaningful about each other. We studied a selection of six-word memoirs and analyzed the kinds of stories they told: passions, recent activities, life philosophies, past lives (memoirs), feelings. I shared a few of my own: "So many books, so little time." (passion), "Changing 'should' to 'am' is hard." (working on some life goals this year), "Setting up house for college boys." (the story of my summer). I had students work with partners to write one or two six-word memoirs about the first day of school as a way to practice the genre without any personal risk. I read a few aloud (anonymously). Finally, we watched Gigi McAllister's class video sharing their fourth grade end-of-year six-word memoirs to look at more examples. Students were then let loose to draft several that captured a passion, a life philosophy, or a memoir. I asked them to choose their favorite to write on a brightly colored sentence strip, which they read out to the class before sticking to the wall around the room.
• Where in the World? As international people, one of the hardest questions we get asked is,

  

  Image from 4shared.com

  "Where are you from?" On the surface, it seems easy enough, but to those of us who are expatriates, there are lots of different angles to it: Where were you born? What passport do you hold? Where do you live now? What's your "home" country? Each question could be a different answer. For those students who have mixed-culture families, it becomes even more complex. For this activity, I have students answer each of those questions above on an index card. I post continent signs around the room (excluding Antarctica). Then I call out one of the questions, asking students to go to the continents where the country of their answer resides. Once in those groups, they share where they lived, learning something new about each other. I finish with the whole group, asking, "What did you learn about someone that you didn't know before?"
• Workshop Agreements: This came on day 3 after students had done other community-building games both in my class and in other classes. We are starting the year launching Writer's Workshop, so I asked the students to think of a time when writing was going well for them, when they were immersed in their writing, ideas were flowing, it was all good. What were the conditions that allowed that writing to happen? Think of environmental conditions, mental conditions, etc. They brainstormed a list in their writer's notebooks for about 5 minutes. Then I turned it around and asked them to think of a time when writing was bad for them, stuck for ideas, unable to focus, not productive at all. What were those conditions? They wrote for another 5 minutes. Students shared out while I made one list of conditions for good and conditions for bad. I reminded them that we were a community of learners, and we needed to make some agreements for how our class would be run so that everyone was able to do their best work, which meant doing those things on the "good" side and trying to avoid those things on the "bad" side. I asked them to notice that not everything on the "good" side was something we as a class, or I as a teacher, could control, such as having a plan before writing or having too many thoughts to settle on one. But there were several things on there that we could control, so we highlighted those: quiet to work, time to get help from partners (talk time), comfortable seating/ temperature/ lighting, organized materials, good seating choice, focused and on-task behavior to meet deadlines, participation in conversations. The next day I wrote them up as agreements and went over the list, giving them an opportunity to ask clarifying questions or to object to any of the items. Finally, I asked them to give a thumbs up if they could live with those agreements. These agreements will form the foundation of my classroom management for the rest of the year.
• Reader-Writer Poster: One of my main objectives as an English Language Arts teacher is to promote lifelong habits of reading and writing. The Reader-Writer Poster is a project to
  
  showcase who students are as literate people (and as a message: Everyone in this room likes to read and write! You are a member of the literacy club!). The components of the poster are: a photo of yourself, an "about the author" blurb, a self-written one-sentence philosophy statement about reading and another one of writing, a quote from someone famous that you like, a piece of writing from the past 5 years (or excerpt), and 3-5 favorite books, each one with a short summary and a quote (and a book jacket picture if possible). One of the books is marked "favorite", and that blurb needs to explain why it's your favorite. Any program can be used to make it (a technology diagnostic assessment!), or it can be done by hand (also a piece of technology diagnostic information). Students lay them out on top of their table, and then go around the room for a gallery walk looking at others' posters. They complete a graphic organizer finding connections to other people in the room who have similar taste in books or life experiences, etc. I like finishing the class with a whole group share: "Who did you find a connection with? What was that connection?"

I had a lot of fun last week playing the games, learning bits and pieces about the kids, and watching their personalities. I will continue to learn more about them academically over the next couple of weeks as we do beginning-of-year assessments. I feel good, though, about getting the year started on a positive and fun note. We have plenty of time for seriousness!

Setting Up For a Year of Learning

Here we are again, poised to open our doors to a new batch of learners on Monday. This year, the batch of learners needs to include the middle school English Language Arts teachers as well, while we launch the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) writing standards. Over the past month, I immersed myself in leadership training, learning techniques and thinking through how to help the department in this journey.

In true Understanding by Design fashion, I identified our goals:

1. Become familiar with the CCSS writing standards and related language standards, including noticing what was similar and different with our last set of standards as well as noticing what elements built up from year to year within the CCSS strands (unpacking the standards).
2. Identify and understand how to use the new Units of Study in Writing (Heinemann, 2014) on-demand performance assessments and learning progressions as tools to identify student strengths and needs (prepare for student data analysis). 
   
3. Become familiar with the new Units of Study in Writing (UoSW), including mapping out the sequence of units across the year and across curricular areas, noticing similarities and differences with our last set of units, and tips to lift the level of our teaching in those units (prepare for new teaching).
4. Make a departmental goal that guides our learning together and supports our efforts of professional growth as well as impacts student learning (goal setting).
5. Gather student data and analyze it so that it informs our teaching in ways that improve student learning (student data analysis).
6. Teach the new units, reflect and get feedback on our practice, and look for improvement in student learning (implementation of curriculum).

Our teacher inservice week focused on setting up Professional Learning Teams across all school divisions, during which we learned a cycle of continuous improvement as a way to work in our PLTs:

1. Analyze student data for areas of strength and areas of need
2. Identify a curriculum standard related to the area of need and unpack it
3. Identify a student and teacher goal to address the area of need
4. Professional learning to address the area of need
5. Implement new learning and gather assessment data
6. Analyze student data to see if student need improved

This continuous improvement cycle fits well with my goals for the department. Once we've decided the year-long calendar, we can gather student data through on-demand assessments before the unit starts, unpack the related genre-based writing standard for the unit we're about to launch, and make our student and teacher goal. We can spend our professional learning step digging into the unit itself as well as other resources such as Pathways to the Common Core and TCRWP videos. We can implement the unit in the classroom, get feedback from peer observation, and bring student data back to the team for further analysis and reflection.

I am excited by this school-wide initiative, and how it supports the work we teachers need to do this year. We have always been a strong team, and this protocol will help us become even better.

Members of the Reading Club

image from openclipart.org

Finally! We are approaching the last two weeks of school. In eighth grade, that means students will be reviewing content and skills to prepare for final exams, taking exams, spending the last week of school filling time with end-of-year wrap-ups, games, and the all-middle-school field trip to the water park, and finally, 8th grade Commencement. There's not much time for teaching in there!

Fortunately, I was able to wiggle things around early enough this year to carve out three days last week after the heavy research-based argument writing unit and before the above-mentioned madness begins. I needed to find the perfect balance for those days: something interesting enough to keep them going, but not heavy or boring (or something needing feedback or grading for my sake!), and also not too fluffy or they would quickly descend into off-task, summer-fever-brained adolescents (oh the horror!). 

I settled on Looking Forward, Looking Back: Setting Up for a Summer of Reading. On the first day, I talked about leaving a legacy for the incoming 8th graders. The current 8th graders are now experts at what 8th graders like to read, and the new 8th graders need some guidance. I asked them to look back through their Shelfari shelves and think about all the books they've read this year, both in school and out, and choose one book (yes, only one) that they could label The One Book Every 8th Grader Should Read. There was quite the buzz of excitement as they jumped into that task: "Which one should I choose? I can't decide!" "Oh, you're doing Ender's Game? Well, then I'll do Ender's Shadow." "Can we choose nonfiction?" It was interesting to see the range of books chosen, from Alex Rider to City of Bones to Goal! to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to The Fault in Our Stars.

Next, I went over characteristics of book reviews, looked at some student-written reviews published in Voices from the Middle (NCTE), and the students noticed how they matched up with the list of characteristics. Finally, they wrote a book review justifying their choice, and published it with a book cover graphic (properly cited). Once printed out, they became my end-of-year bulletin board display, and will become my beginning of the year display in August.

The second day bridged Looking Back and Looking Forward via a mini author study. I asked them to choose one of their favorite authors and to think about patterns across their work. Do they write about the same theme, moral, or lesson in all their books? Do they use the same elements: same setting, same kinds of hero/ine, same plotline, same genre? Do they have a unique style of writing that is seen across all their books? I showed them Laurie Halse Anderson's webpage (she was our visiting author this year-- we're so lucky!) as a way to introduce them to the idea that authors had webpages (who knew?). Laurie's has book blurbs, video book trailers, reviews, a blog-- lots of great stuff! I invited them to add books to their Shelfari shelf if they came across new books by their author that they wanted to read. Their exit ticket was a write-up of what they noticed about patterns, which they added to one of the author's books that they had on their Shelfari shelf (either one they'd read previously, or one they just added to read later). 

Again, there was great excitement and a lot of buzz: "What? Orson Scott Card has a whole other series focused only on Bean? I'm adding those to my shelf!" "I noticed that John Green always has love in his books and that at least one of the characters is damaged in some way." "I wish Ransom Riggs wrote more books. I loved Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children! I guess I'll have to choose another author..." "I don't know if I should read The Heroes of Olympus series. I read the Percy Jackson series and I'm a little tired of those characters, and the plot is always the same. I might try his Kane Chronicles since it deals with other characters and other gods."

The third day was purely a Looking Forward day. I talked about the value of summer reading, and the dangers of a summer without reading (summer slide!). I mentioned that lifelong readers always have a book on the go and know what to read next. I reminded them of the book reviews on display on the bulletin board. I showed them how to use the tags on my Shelfari shelf and the librarian's to look for recommendations. I encouraged them to go to their friends' Shelfari pages and see what they had read. I showed them how to use Amazon.com's "Customers who bought this book also bought..." as a source of recommendations. And I gave them a variety of outside sources that recommended books for young adults. I challenged them to get at least 5 books on their "to read" shelf by the end of the period. Then I let them loose.

The book talk was golden! "Have you read (insert name of book)? I really liked it. You should read it." "I read (title), and I should probably finish the series." "You added that book? You should talk to (name) because she loved that book." "I'm looking up biographies of athletes because those are the kind of books I like to read" (fair enough). "I've already added 20 books! Should I stop now?" (NO! Keep going!)

To be honest, there were a few (struggling, not interested) students who did not get into this work. However, by approaching them as if they were members of the reading club, with a little nudging they at least thought about books they liked, authors they were interested in, and they added a few books to their shelf. Who knows? Maybe when boredom hits in the middle of July, they will pick up one of those books and start to read. That will count for something!

Planning for the Hard Work of Implementation

Here we are at the end of May, the end of another school year. It's a good time to look back and reflect on successes and challenges during the year, as well as look ahead to the work that needs to be done next year. At our May department meeting, the middle school English Language Arts and Social Studies teachers did just that, especially thinking ahead to next year and implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Over the past four months, we participated in a book study of Pathways to the Common Core (Calkins, Ehrenworth, & Lehmann. Heinemann, 2012). We read the overview chapters, laying them alongside the middle school standards, to get a sense of what the CCSS was asking learners to do in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. We congratulated ourselves on already having a solid program in place, with many of the expectations already embedded in our units. We deemed the changes do-able and not intimidating or frightening. The discussion turned to the practical: How do we do this? When will we have time?

The last chapter of Pathways focused on strategies for implementing the CCSS in a way that fueled "whole school reform". The authors listed three targeted suggestions which we took to heart. First, don't try to add the CCSS onto an already full curriculum. We acknowledged that we will need to closely examine our units in a vertical way, noticing areas that we can release because another grade level is accountable for them or because they just don't fit the new standards. Only by creating space in our units will we be able to add the new pieces from the CCSS.

Second, look at your current program and decide where your strengths lie. This is the best place to start making modifications. We recognized that we will not be able to implement all areas of the English standards at once, and after a very quick discussion, turned our attention to our writing program, our area of strength. We decided that we will read the corresponding Pathways chapter and examine the standards about the upcoming mode before we start a unit of writing. We will work as a team to look at what we have that can continue as is, and identify places needing adjustments. Doing this work on an already strong program will teach us how to do it and get us ready for the next year's work: reading.

Finally, work fully and deeply to make lasting, significant changes. In order to reap the benefits of these challenging standards, a band-aid approach won't work. It will take planning, purposeful implementation, and reflection. We will need to look cross-curricularly to ensure we are finding time to teaching writing in all three modes and identify resources to use. We will need to focus on our formative and summative assessments to reflect on areas of strength and areas of needs. We will need to revise our rubrics and gather anchor papers. We will need to observe each other while teaching to lift the level of our practice. This is the hard work of implementation.

Fortunately, I have a team that knows how to roll up their sleeves and get down to work (after an initial bit of whining). We have supportive administrators. We have the new middle school Units of Study in Writing (Heinemann, 2014) coming during the summer and a consultant lined up to work with us next year. Some choices will be hard to make, especially releasing those lessons that feel so comfortable and taking on lessons that are totally new to us. I know that in the end, our students will be more challenged and our teaching stronger. We just need the courage to go for it!

Checking In On My Classroom Library Goal

I read 54 young adult books this school year (so far-- still 5 school weeks to go!), almost all of them from my classroom library. I expanded my classroom library by about 120 books this year, and made a professional goal to do a better job using the library as a teaching tool to encourage independent home reading. Reading is my passion, and I enjoyed reading almost all of the YA books, so I certainly don't view the task as a chore. Sometimes I read so fast, or the plot is so ordinary, that I forget I've read it. That's why I keep track on my Shelfari shelf. That's also how I know I've read 54 books this school year (so far). 

I like making my reading life visible to the kids. Some kids regularly look at my Shelfari and get suggestions from it. I also periodically put up a bulletin board called "Ms. Pohl's 5-Star Favorites" with book covers of those books, and then I display those same books on the tops of the bookshelves. I prop the books I recently read on a shelf by my desk before I re-shelve them. 

But the best part of this project is when I see a student browsing the shelf, and I ask, "Do you need a suggestion?" When the answer is yes, I love to ask, "What kind of book do you like?" or "What did you read recently that you really liked?" so that I can follow up with "Then you might like this one [as I pluck the book off the shelf] or this one [pluck]. I liked this one because..." And when I'm really on my game, I might say, "I thought of you when I was reading this because I know you enjoyed reading..." 

I'm getting better at the "If you liked this one, you might like that one" game. What I still need to work on is the "If you felt comfortable reading this one, you should try that one because it's slightly more challenging". This is more difficult, the push into greater text complexity. I am still reading the YA books with the lenses of 1) Is this a good story? and 2) Who would like this? I need to add a third lens: What is the work that kids would need to do in this book? What makes this book easy or complex?

If I have some lead time, I can come back with a suggestion that includes increasing text complexity. That's why I like having kids use Shelfari as their reading log. I can look at their shelf, consult the complexity guides (either Scholastic Book Wizard or the Lexile site), return to my inventory, and suggest a book that is similar to what they are reading AND is somewhat more complex. When it's on the fly, I'm less confident I will pick a book that will be at the appropriate level.

My goal of building book ladders and using the library as a teaching tool has made progress. I'm happy about getting familiar with the books in the library and having some tools set up to help me make better suggestions. With practice, I will be able to nudge more kids into harder books. For now, though, I'm ready to pick up #55!

p.s. I also read 18 adult books this year. Not too shabby!