This post is a collection of the idea discussed at the Classroom Websites and Blogs session I did with Helen Copeland (@mediatechcrew). Below is the video of the session broadcast live on Google Hangouts. My apologies for the not so great quality... but you can still hear the discussion! Thanks to @peoplegogy for making this idea happen and joining the Hangout! Blogging Tips & Ideas Giving students an authentic audience by having them blog about their writing is a powerful tool. Try some of these sites below as options to start inspiring your students to share their writing. Link up with your PLN to share your students' writing with other students. Use the hashtag #comments4kids and the example websites below to get connected with other teachers whose classes blog. Introduce students to blogging and commenting by using this fun Paper Blogging idea by @mcteach. Acclimate students to the blogging platform and posting by having their first post be a "Hello World" post. Here is the assignment I gave my students. And here is an example student Hello World blog post. You can see other assignments I've posted on our class blog - click on the "Assignments" tag. Provide your students blogging and commenting guidelines to help them learn the online etiquette and digital citizenship needed for blogging. I compiled this list of Blogging Guidelines from several sources last year. Feel free to borrow or pull from these! Weebly Teacher, student, or classroom websites or blogs Pros: Offers extensive options for classroom websites and professional looking blogs. User friendly and easy to navigate for both teachers and students. Student blog comments and posts can be monitored by teacher using edu accounts. Cons: Edu accounts limited to 40 students before having to pay for more. Kidblog Student blogs Pros: Safe site for students of any age to blog. No email addresses needed to sign up. Built in monitoring of posts and comments. All student blogs curated on one homepage automatically. Cons: Only has basic editing features and does not provide extensive choices for theme and personalization. Free account restricts single classes to 50 students and does not allow students to chose their own themes. Upgrade per class for $25/yr or for $2 per student. Pricing Details Edublogs Teacher or student blogs Pros: Intended for educational use already so offers safe environment for student bloggers. Offers Wordpress platform for editing, which allows for creativity and customization. Cons: Only the basic features are free. Blog monitoring and mobile features only available when linked to a Pro account ($40/yr). Pricing Details. Example of blog designed using Edublog by @jaimevanderg : Breaking down the Walls of the Classroom Blogger Teacher or student blogs; teacher, classroom, or student websites Pros: It's FREE!! Links directly to Google accounts. Easy blogging platform with basic editing tools. Teachers or students have freedom of website creation by creating multiple pages on their blogs. Cons: Each student has their own site that is not censored or managed by the teacher. One way to overcome this is adding a teacher/admin to each blog site as @mathletepearce suggests in this blog post. Edmodo Classroom websites for sharing materials with students. A free student information system that offers features similar to a social networking site within a protected environment. Offers grouping of classes and groups within classes, also offers options to give students quizzes, surveys, polls etc. WIX Teacher or classroom websites Pros: Free account offers user friendly editing features and multiple templates to choose from for classroom website options. Includes a blog feature as well. Cons: Not specific to education, so doesn't offer monitoring if you choose to use for student websites or blogs. Examples We are Remarkable (@carriegaffney84) - 2nd Grade classroom website and teacher portfolio. Scholars in Room 239 (@joykirr) - 7th grade classroom website and links to students blogs via blogger What's Going on in Mr. Solarz's Class? (@paulsolarz) - 5th grade classroom website, e-portfolios, and educator links Wolfpack English (@alcp) - 7th grade classroom website and link to Kidblog blog sites Globally Connected (@pneid) - 7th and 8th grade classroom website with links to student e-portfolios via blogger Barnes Class (@markbarnes19) - Author of Role Reversal. Middle school Language Arts classroom website with links to Kidblog blog sites
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This is an idea that a colleague of mine, Carter Fawcett, had this summer. She said she had seen it used at a professional development session. I have been waiting to try it and today was the day! Parking Lot for Questions: Have students write their questions for you on a sticky note and put them in the numbered spaces. The numbers function like a ticket at the deli counter in the grocery store - it gives them a place in line. When you finish working with one student, go to the next question in the Parking Lot. When to Use: When students are doing independent work and you need to be helping individual students. It also works well for when you are conferencing with students one-on-one and do not want to be interrupted. Our 5th grade teachers plan to use it this year during their small group reading instructional time when students should be working silently at their desks while the teacher meets with a group in the back of the room. How it helps: Most importantly for me it eliminates the frustrated student sitting for 10 minutes with his or her hand in the air just waiting for me to come around. It helps that student "ask" their question and then get back to work, not feeling like they have to wait for me to get to them before they can move on. I have also found that it helps students articulate their questions more clearly - sometimes I walk up to a student who has their hand raised, and they want to explain all the background before they get to the question. This helps them narrow their question to the scope of a sticky note, so they have to THINK about what they need help with. I ask them to be sure to write it in the form of a question. It also helps me realize when multiple students have the same question. Today, I had three students write a sticky note that said "Can you help me with my conclusion?" This led me to stop the class and quickly do a whole class explanation of how the conclusion of the essay should look. By addressing it whole-class, I was able to answer multiple questions at once, and probably lingering questions in some students minds who had not yet written a sticky note. Quick questions can be answered quickly. Today, I could read a sticky note, look over at the student and simply say "John, yes that is fine" and move on to the next student, streamlining my ability to answer questions faster. Try This Tomorrow:
This is a quick and easy classroom management tool. Try it! It takes one poster board or piece of chart paper, a marker, and some sticky notes to make it happen! I was surprised by how well it worked even on my first attempt. If this becomes routine, students will always know that I am working to meet their needs. Leave me a comment to let me know how you have used similar methods or how it goes if you try it! I am so interested to hear! ----- Allison Petersen @alcp You need a vision. Don't allow yourself to float without anchoring to a larger vision. Setting goals helps you articulate that vision. The goals will become the lighthouse guiding you as you make decisions throughout the year. This bright light of vision should shine in front of you to remind you of your direction. At the start of the school year teachers are often asked to set goals as a part of the evaluation process. Take a different approach this year and make them real, meaningful goals that you truly want to work toward. Stretch yourself to craft goals that will push and encourage you to grow as a teacher. Sometimes goals themselves seem a little disjointed and scattered, covering several different topics. Here are some thoughts on crafting a larger vision along with matching goals and action steps. This came from my goal setting PD for the faculty at my school. The Prezi for this PD is at the end of this blog post. Goal Setting: 1) Start with the mission statement of your school or organization: Hopefully this is already a place where you receive direction and purpose for your job. Break it down and understand the elements and think about the pieces of the mission statement that are related to you and your teaching. Use this step to be sure that your goals will align with what is expected of you if your goals are for evaluation purposes. 2) What is your one sentence? You may be familiar with Daniel Pink's book Drive, where he discusses motivation. The video below explains the idea of the one sentence. Think about YOUR one sentence. Create a mission statement for yourself that summarizes the legacy you hope to leave. Whether you pull from your school's mission statement or not, try to craft a vision that is unique to you and your role. 3) Set overarching goals. You want these to align with your one sentence and overall vision. Ask yourself, "how will I achieve my one sentence?" Try to make these goals into specific areas of how you will accomplish your one sentence. At this point you are still crafting a goal that is a little broader, but it clearly falls under your mission statement for yourself. Here is an example from my blog post Goals Provide Focus. My one sentence: My goal is to energize teaching and learning by fostering a learning mindset in teachers and students. Goals:
4) Establish clear action steps. Here is where the practical comes in. I am all about the practical! The trick here is to be specific. What actions are you going to take to attain this goal? Try to make them measurable even if they are simply a specific completed task so you can show progress toward your goal. This is actually sometimes the level we usually work in to craft goals, without thinking before about mission and overarching goals. Now that you have your one sentence and goals, these actions steps should be very clear in your mind. Below is another example from Goals Provide Focus: Goal: Coach teachers by helping them to align instruction with standards and implement effective teaching strategies. Action Steps:
5) Don't lose sight of your goals! Literally. Make them into visuals! All this goal setting is nice, but if you don't keep a bright visual reminder for yourself everyday, you will start to lose sight of them. Write or type them out and post them somewhere in your eye line everyday. This will remind you to keep the small daily tasks on track with your bigger goals. This is key in Turning an Idea into a Habit, which I recently blogged about. Try This Tomorrow! Actually - try this right now. If you are having an insight or idea while reading this post, jot down your ideas right away! David Rock says in Quiet Leadership and Your Brain at Work that acting quickly on an insight makes it more likely you will complete the task. It will also take you 5-10 minutes now, whereas coming back to this idea later makes your brain work hard to remember what you were thinking, which will take longer to process. I need to say thank you to all of the wonderful Tweeps who shared their goals and one sentence statements with me while I was planning this PD! I truly love my PLN: @lookforsun, @bjorth, @vealheidi, @peoplegogy, @jaimevanderg, @amytwhite, @kdwashburn, @ricki908, & @redmondcarol. You are all quoted below in the prezi. -- Allison Petersen @alcp I got a challenge today, and it sent my mind whirling! Maureen Devlin (@lookforsun) probably didn't intend much when she wrote me this tweet:
But it gave me an idea that sparked a fire! I truly love how blogging can be so inspirational! If I really do want to make take the ideas from the book Quiet Leadership, which I have written about in two previous posts, and turn them into habits, what do I need to do? This also aligns with David Rock's method of coaching, which explains how to instill new habits and ways of thinking into the person across the table from you instead of telling them what to do. David Rock says: "A new habit is a delicate and fragile creation, Through different conferences and books, (like @kdwashburn's Architecture of Learning), I have learned the basics of how the brain works. New ideas can only stay in your mind for a matter of seconds before they are gone. Your brain needs to make connections to existing information for anything to stick. And even then, you need to be dwell upon it, write it down, and think it through for the idea to be made into a true habit.
So, the first step to turn ideas into habits is to intentionally transfer them from working memory to long term memory. Here are some ideas on how to do that: 4 Ways Turn an Idea Into a Habit: 1) Mindmaps or Diagrams: Toni Krasnic (@conciselearning, www.conciselearning.com) explains the power of a mindmap extremely well in his book How to Study with Mind Maps. By creating connections in your brain between an old idea to a new one, you will begin to solidify the new concept in your mind. By using a visual tool like a mind map or any type of diagram, you can take a higher level idea and bring it down to something your brain can manage. I am currently doing this with my each of the coaching models David Rock presents in Quiet Leadership, and it has helped tremendously. Think about the potential with students - when they are having trouble understanding a concept ask them to draw a mind map of what they do understand and help them fill in the gaps! 2) Visual Reminders: One of the things I always find myself saying is "out of sight, out of mind" because it is a literal thing for me. If I do not have a visual reminder, I honestly will not remember to do something. I try to blame this on mommy brain, but really I just have too many things to remember to do. So the more I can do to create visual reminders (i.e. a checklist, sticky notes, images, diagrams, reminders on my phone, etc) for myself the more likely I am to stick to something. Also, the more colorful the better. Your brain is able to trigger memories of where things are placed on the page more easily. I will be pasting visual charts and quotes on my desk to remind me of details from Quiet Leadership. This is also true with students - they have been away from your class for 24 hours; they've done a lot in between. Help them by creating visual reminders that will trigger their memories as much as possible. This is why I often use Poster Sticky Notes to take important colorful notes. This way I can paste it back on the wall when they return the next day. 3) Planned Action: Habits don't become habits if you forget about them. You need to set up some specific actions to transform it from an idea to a habit. David Rock says "Do something tangible yourself to anchor this model into your thinking. Some possible ways could do this include, explaining it to others, creating your own diagram of the model, or doing some writing. Anything you can do to give the circuits holding this concept in your thinking some attention will make a difference" (172). Rock also recommends accountability, find someone to talk to this habit about so that they can help you form it more solidly! Peer accountability can be key in building student habits. For example, I am always harping on them to write their homework down in their planners. But what if the routine was to have your seat partner check to see if you had written it down correctly? Then, that forces both students to check the accuracy of what they wrote down, and they each have peer accountability. 4) Don't Give Yourself a Crutch: If you truly want to form that new habit, don't allow yourself to go back to the old way. Not even once or twice. You will slip back into your old ways in no time. For example, I recently decided that I wanted to go digital with my To Do Lists. I was really sick of losing sticky notes, but I always have my phone with me. So I started using the Any.Do app (after trying several others, I landed on this one and love it!). To make this true change in habit, I needed to stop writing down notes to myself. So anytime I attempted to take a note on paper, I stopped myself and went to my phone. This is still a work in progress, but I think I'm getting there! With students this means stretching them. They are going to most likely revert to their usual way of doing things because that is easier. You have to stretch them and gently remind them that this is the new way and they can't go back and lean on the old way instead. I recently taught a Study Skills class where I emphasized the importance of students transferring the information from a lecture or class into long term memory to help them study. Here is the link to the Prezi and Visual Posters for that class if you want to check it out. Try This Tomorrow: What habit are you working on forming? Any new ones at the start of the school year? I am so interested to hear! Please leave a comment. And try out these tricks to help you make them stick! --- Allison Petersen @alcp Have students write quotes that reveal "the truth about writing."
The objective of this activity was to help students see that writing isn't easy! Even published authors who we admire admit that it is hard. I wanted my students to embrace the hard work of writing. This idea also relates to the idea of the 6 Word Memoir. You could try that approach too. 1) Author's Quotes: I started out by introducing author's quotes on writing. We discussed the authors' perspectives on writing and how tough it could be. “Writing is not complete when you’ve added everything you could, but rather, when you’ve taken away everything that is not needed.” – Ann Clark, Secret of the Andes “Writing is like a sport. To get better you must practice every day.” – Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief Series “Resign yourself to the fact that you will not write something good the first time; you're going to waste a lot of trees before you hit your stride, and you will imitate people you admire first and that's fine – everyone has to start somewhere. And most importantly persevere – keep persevering.” – J.K .Rowling, Harry Potter Series More Author Quotes Here 2) Modeling: I wrote several of my own quotes about writing in front of the class to help them before they got working on their own. It took me several quick drafts to get them right. “When writing, start with the middle or with what you know, and the opening will come to you like a gust of wind.” -Mrs. Petersen “Books sit on the shelves waiting to teach you the secrets of writing: strong characters, suspenseful plot, and how to capture a reader.” -Mrs. Petersen 3) Writing Quotes: Students wrote 2-3 of their own quotes about writing, trying to create a quote that grasped the challenge of writing in a sentence or two. The results were honestly so impressive and astounding! “Do not excuse the seemingly silly whims of your imagination. For those little whims can grow into whole new worlds, waiting to be brought to life by the imaginations of others.” – Isabel “Don’t be afraid to write something silly because later it will be phenomenal.” – Mariah “Writing is near to impossible to do on your own; never be afraid to ask for a critique, a suggestion, or inspiration. Nothing is wrong with help.” – Samara “When you finally finish your masterpiece, and when you reread your writing, none of your original work that you started with is in your finished piece.” – Bradley More Student Quotes Here 4) Publishing & Sharing: I posted these quotes on my wall along with the quotes from the authors. The student's quotes went alongside the author quotes and it felt authentic. Students loved reading each other's quotes! Try This Tomorrow! Use it as an introduction to the school year or a tough writing unit. Get them on board with the challenge so they can't throw back at you all year "This is too HARD." Well, they still might, but at least you can remind them of what they learned in class during this activity. --- Allison Petersen @alcp This memoir essay idea was inspired by @kdwashburn's Writer's Stylus course. This course and Kevin Washburn's other course Architecture of Learning have informed many of my teaching methods. During the Writer's Stylus course, teachers write a This I Believe essay. This writing was key in developing my voice as a writer in so many ways. So now, I have students use it as a platform for sharing. The idea originally comes from NPR's This I Believe radio broadcasts, which you may be familiar with. The website has hundreds of This I Believe essays on it to pull from. So here's how I structure this unit. I teach seventh graders, but it is easily adaptable to any age level. Standards:
1) Mentor Texts: We read and listen to multiple examples of This I Believe essays from the website. Some of them have recording included. Kevin Washburn calls this "Acquaintance and Analysis" where students have an open discussion about what they like about the writing style. This gets students thinking about HOW this type of essay is written. Great Mentor Text: I Believe in the Beatles by Macklin Levine 2) Qualities of a This I Believe Essay: In small groups, students make a list of qualities that define this style of writing (memoir/narrative). We combine these small group lists into one class list to refer to as students write. This helps students to define the style of writing that the essay requires. Looking for Qualities of TIB essay Assignment 3) Pick a Memory: This is often the hardest part of this essay, yet the most crucial. Students need to pick a very vivid memory th base their essay on. This memory drives the belief by having students explain what they learned from this unique event in their lives. It is very hard to write this essay by starting with the "I Believe" statement because that statement should come from the story itself. So, I have students brainstorm several story choices and then narrow their idea down to a very specific part of that story that they remember clearly. 4) Structure of the Essay: I explain to students the basic structure of the essay to give them a framework. This still allows them a lot of freedom with paragraphing and style choices.
6) Modeling: I have my own This I Believe essay that I am crafting along with them. I model for them how I structure my essay (using short paragraphs) and how I incorporate “Show Don’t Tell." I find a place in my own essay to expand sensory imagery and show them my thinking process by writing in front of them. 7) Coaching: Feedback is a vital part of the writing process. This is where I am sure to meet with each student to conference and coach them on how well their essays match the structure framework and push them to think about each element. I limit this essay to no more than 700 words to force a concise approach to the story. I often coach them on how to cut irrelevant details or how to make their I Believe statements symbolic. We also discuss areas of the essay to add Show Don't Tell. 8) Audio Recording: Since the original This I Believe essays are broadcast on the radio, I wanted to add an audio element to this essay. We have a classroom set of Chromebooks, and I needed a web based tool where students could record the essays, so I found Audioboo! I contacted them on twitter, and once I let them know I was an educator, they extended the audio length to 30 minutes instead of three minutes. Bingo! Bonus: Students can also do this on their cell phones using the Audioboo app. I had students record the essays, and then use the embed code to paste the recording into their blog posts. Just like the examples we read for the mentor texts. This year's blog posts with the audio included 9) Publishing & Reflection: Students published the This I Believe essays to their blogs - check them out here. This allows for students to comment on and read each other's blog posts and share their work. It becomes a great time for reflection to see how each student approached the challenge of explaining their belief in a different way. Try This Tomorrow! This could be a great way for you to incorporate Memoir/Narrative writing into your class this year. Please let me know if I can provide more details for you. Check out the resources below! Resources This I Believe Essay Dropbox Folder: Includes mentor texts, assignment sheet, power point, revision checklists, etc.
Essays with audio included Looking for Qualities of TIB essay Assignment More 7th Grade Student Samples: From our blog last year. Please feel free to share with your students as mentor texts. A Dog's Life: This is my This I Believe Essay written during Writer's Stylus about Aspen, my bulldog. There is no "I Believe" statement because I decided to remove it at late stages of editing. ___ Allison Petersen @alcp My last blog post was a reflection from the book Quiet Leadership by David Rock. As I continue to read, i am bombarded with insights and helpful information as a leader and as a teacher. These tidbits are too good not to share. At the end of each step or section, Rock summarizes his approach. I've collected these summaries and my other insights below for you as quick take aways. I highly recommend that you read this book - it is eye opening! All the statements below are direct quotes or paraphrases of David Rock with page numbers from the paperback edition included for your reference. QUIET LEADERS...
And these are only from the first 3 steps of David Rock's "Six Steps to Transform Performance at Work." More to come soon. Try this tomorrow. Put even a few of these leadership qualities to practice and see how they change your interaction with people. Even your family - it amazes me how much this book applies beyond leadership and expands into the classroom and at home with my husband and son. -- Allison Petersen @alcp Ok, seriously. You have to read this book. It's called Quiet Leadership by David Rock. I am 50 pages in, and I cannot stop underlining almost every sentence I read. (I always tell my students not to underline too much, and here I am NOT taking my own advice). At first, I bought this book to learn more about leadership. I was planning to apply the concepts to my new role as an Instructional Coach. It came highly recommended to me by Kevin Washburn, who does a lot of research in neuroscience and has great book recommendations along those lines. But as I have been reading it, I am realizing that it applies to many more elements of my life. David Rock uses neuroscience to discuss how to truly change a person's performance by changing a person's thinking. This also relates back to the idea of changing a person's mindset (Mindset by Carol S. Dweck), which is not easy. He explains seamlessly how the neuroscience and true understanding of how people handle situations can play an important role in influencing a person to change their perspective and/or behavior. There are so many elements of the book that have my mind whirling so far, but this one about how people tackle new ideas really stuck with me today. Rock explains how the brain handles new ideas: "Anytime we try a new activity, behavior, or way of thinking, we are literally forging a new pathway in our brain. We're creating circuits that don't currently exist. Doing this takes energy and requires extensive use of our conscious mind...Before we feel comfortable with a new idea or behavior we have to own it, we have to develop our own hard wiring for the idea. Getting to this point requires we go though a stage of mild discomfort, uncertainty, and often even frustration and fear" (52). As I read this section titled "The Challenge of Changing Behavior," I immediately thought out three places I have seen this happen lately: My Son - Cooper is almost 3 years old. Whenever he tries something new, from a toy to a game, he will react quickly with frustration that he doesn't know how to do it. Just today, he was playing with the water hose in the back yard, and it stopped working because the line had kinked. He almost started throwing a full blown fit over the fact that he couldn't get the hose to work. I had to talk him down and walk him through the steps to stretch out the hose. His natural reaction to something new is immediate frustration. My Students - This past year, I taught many students who held a firm fixed mindset about their abilities as students. So whenever I presented something challenging or anything that forced them to think, they would immediately give up. Analyze a poem? They would freeze. Stare at the wall and do anything to avoid the assignment. Give a hard test? Sulk through it, coming up to ask questions that they hoped would lead to me just giving them the answer. Their natural reaction was to shut down when presented when new challenges or anything that stretched their thinking. Teachers at a Workshop - We were fortunate to host Architecture of Learning on our campus this year. (Side note: You REALLY want to bring this to your school!!). Kevin Washburn puts best practice teaching strategies into a sequential order based on neuroscience and brain-based research. This workshop is very challenging and requires a lot of brainpower because participants begin embracing a new way of thinking when it comes to teaching. The teachers who came to this workshop were truly challenged by the new content; some of them were just unsure how to wrap their heads around it all. Being strong teachers who wanted to learn, they worked hard to understand, but the initial reaction to some of this new ideas was frustration and a need for clarity. They immediately wanted to discuss the new material with each other to better understand. Not long after that, the new ideas became energizing and exciting, but only because they began to "own" the ideas themselves and understand how the new concepts applied to their individual classrooms. So, knowing how common this is around me, I realized that these three concepts are going to be vital to me as a wife, mother, teacher, and leader: 1) New ideas require mental energy and evoke strong emotions. 2) The initial reaction will most likely be frustration and fear of the new. 3) People have to begin to "own" an idea themselves before they can accept it. David Rock goes into detail in the next sections of the book to discuss how positive feedback and encouragement can help as people try to tackle new ideas. Can't wait to share those thoughts soon! This is just a snippet of the great thoughts coming from reading this book. So I encourage you to pick it up - try out some of these new ideas tomorrow as you interact with the people around you. You will be able to understand their thinking better. Who doesn't want that?! --- Allison Petersen @alcp NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month where writers try to tackle the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. 30 days 50,000 words, impossible right? Impossible for your students? Not as impossible as you might think. It equals out to be about 1,667 words a day. This may be too much for an average student, but for those who love to write it could be just enough to get the juices flowing.
So, why don't you start a NaNoWriMo Creative Writing Club tomorrow? It is as simple as the Field of Dreams mantra "if you build it, they will come." NaNoWriMo starts in on November 1 and you can have them ready to take on the challenge in 5 Easy Steps: 1) Log onto the Young Writer's Program NaNoWriMo site ywp.nanowrimo.org: Do a little research. About 5 minutes on this site is all you need to see how easy this will be. Since it is geared specifically for young writers and educators, it has everything you need to prepare the students. Create a classroom for your club and get things up and running. Check out the workbooks for students and educator resources. I also used our already established kidblog site to create a private NaNoWriMo blog just for these students to have a safe place to share their ideas and writing. I posted the word count poster from the starter kit (order for free from the site) on my wall and had students keep track of their word counts throughout the month. Students who were not even in my English class would pop in to write down word counts or see how others were doing. 2) Get The Word Out: Make flyers (borrow mine by clicking here or use the ones online here) and post them in the hallways and on your door. Tell the kids! Tell them what it is and how crazy the idea is; they will latch onto your enthusiasm. Tell them it is a club so it is completely optional, but that it will be great if they like to write. Use any other avenues you have available to share the idea with parents, such as principle's newsletter or emails home. 3) Hold Your First Meeting: Find the best time that works for you and the students. Even if it is only 30 minutes, it will work. Use a computer lab or if you are 1-1 have the students bring their computers. Tell them about the premise of NaNoWriMo and get them signed up on ywp.nanowrimo.org; you can add them to your class by getting their usernames. I printed for them some specific pages (not all 115 pages) of the YWP Workbooks so they can get started planning out characters and plot. 4) Kick-Off Party: Get the whole group together on November 1 for the first day of writing. Meet in the morning or after school, have snacks or order pizza (get a parent to help), and have everybody typing for a goal of 1667 words. First one to the word count gets a prize. Make it fun and get them writing. It's all about energy and momentum. Print the contracts and writing coupons from the website and hand them out at the party. Make them feel like it is a real commitment. 5) Be Their Biggest Fan: Your job after November 1 is simply to support them. Be there when they need help with a character or a plot idea. See them in the halls and ask them how they are doing. Encourage them after week one when it starts to become daunting and overwhelming. Write them notes of encouragement and unlock the computer lab before school. Support these young creative minds as they need it. Each week I give them a short mini-lesson about a writing technique, such as dialogue or how to create sub-plots (all using ywp website). If you have time, which you probably feel like you don't, read Chris Baty's book No Plot, No Problem: A Low Stress, High Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days where he tells the story of NaNoWriMo. He makes this sound manageable and somehow logical. And he gives great tips and techniques. I also splurged for $9.99 and signed up for Writer's Digest's digital magazine subscription. This has given me some fantastic ideas to share with students. I am doing the NaNoWriMo club this year because I knew I had about 5 girls who wanted to write and would love this project. I have over 20 kids who have shown interest in the club and at least 12 at our club meeting each week. You just don't know who will want to try this out. Try it yourself and see what comes of it! Encourage creative writing in your students. --- Allison Petersen @alcp The school year is starting to creep up on us. Well, at least those of us that start in August. With a lot of thinking this summer about my new role as Middle School Curriculum Coordinator and some inspiration from my amazing PLN, I have been setting my goals for the upcoming school year.
I have the privilege of taking on more responsibility as an Instructional Coach this year, and I am really looking forward to it. But I felt like I needed to help define this role for myself. So I began researching and compiling an Instructional Coaching Storify with resources. This ASCD article, Ten Roles for Teacher Leaders was incredibly helpful in crafting my thinking. By taking the time to state my new role clearly, I feel prepared to also set specific goals to guide me throughout the year and provide a focus for tasks. I narrowed it down to one sentence, inspired by recent ideas from my PLN: Daniel Pink's book Drive and video What is my sentence? Jaime Vandergrift's (@jaimevanderg) recent blog post: What Defines You Matters. Jaime also recently joined Will Deyamport (@peoplegogy) and Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) for a video on the topic: Peoplegogy TV: Your One Sentence. My one sentence: My goal is to energize teaching and learning by fostering a learning mindset in teachers and students. The idea of a "learning mindset" came from several places. One is in recent discussions with Kevin Washburn (@kdwashburn) and his wife Julia, of Clerestory Learning. We discussed the importance of creating a culture among teachers that is one of growth and improvement with an open mind toward change. Also from reading books like Mindset by Carol S. Dweck, Quiet Leadership by David Rock, and Choice Words by Peter H. Johnson. All highly recommended, by the way! So, the question is... How will I "energize teaching and learning and fostering a learning mindset among teachers and students?" These specific goals are helping me answer that question.
Formulating these goals has been an incredibly enlightening and rewarding experience for me as I see my role at school transforming. Putting in the thinking and research that is required to create these goals has been professional development in itself. Please Try This Tomorrow! Craft your "one sentence" and set your goals for the school year. Give yourself focus moving forward. Energize and prepare yourself now for the onslaught of busyness and craziness that is about to come. Please share your goals with me if you blog them! Can't wait to learn from you! Maureen Devlin (@lookforsun), who has a powerful blog Teach Children Well, recently posted her goals for the rest of the summer: Focus, Focus, Focus. Great read! __ Allison Petersen @alcp |
About AllisonAllison is an K-12 Instructional Coach. Her goal is to empower educators to grow continually. Recent Posts#5Tips4LMS Series
Cast a Vision Create Momentum A Problem and a Solution HIGHLIGHTED POSTS Re-Center on Vision Letting Go of Control The Power of Positive Feedback Inspiring a Love of Reading Turning Ideas into Habits The Truth About Writing This I Believe Essay Quiet Leadership Qualities Thinking About New Ideas Goals Provide Focus The Power of Twitter Use Storify to Organize Tweets Build a PLN Categories
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