Show time!

"Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone."

Amy Tan

My 2nd grade students have been working on personal narratives for the past two and a half weeks and in an effort to increase their motivation towards writing and their academic achievement in writing, I stated at the beginning of the project that their stories would be shared with their families, friends and classmates during an author's celebration.  We counted down the days, kept our eyes on the deadline, shared different stages of writing with one another and wrote, wrote wrote.

I put together their illustrations and final writing pieces into individual books and found a site that would publish their stories into a 'real' hard cover book for free!  The class is given a complimentary copy and parents could purchase additional copies at a reasonable price.

Because our classroom has 1:1 iPods, the students recorded themselves reading their stories (they even added a statement like, "When you hear the beep, turn the page....").  These voice memos were uploaded to the class website and a QR code was made for each voice memo.  These QR codes are on the front cover of each book.  Sooooo cool!

This Thursday, my master teacher (who is WONDERFUL)  and I are hosting an author's celebration so the students can share their work with their parents, other teachers, and classmates.  School and district administrators will also attend and the students are nervous, but excited!

So proud of these writers!

Next Steps. . .

"People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.
"

 – Brian Tracy, Author

I'm on my 3rd week of implementing my action plan for my Teacher Inquiry Project, "How does providing an authentic audience for students effect their attitudes and academic achievement in writing?" My master teacher has been extremely supportive and helpful during this process - She gives me the freedom to implement my ideas and plenty of time to work with the students. I'm enjoying watching my 2nd graders progress as writers and find it interesting as I observe my students' love/hate relationships with writing evolve. I'm collecting all sorts of great writing samples, I'm journaling after every lesson and students have been filling out weekly exit slips . . . . I'm quickly accumulating a lot of stuff and I I know I need to make more of a concerted effort to analyze the data in a formative way.  

Here's my plan: In terms of students’ academic achievement, I plan to analyze students’ writing pieces by measuring students’ length of writing pieces, complexity of sentences, number of complete sentences, use of descriptive words, word choice, ability to implement structure into their writing (parts of a letter, parts of a story, etc.) and ability to complete assignments within a given time frame.  The 6+1 writing rubric is the guide that I will be using to help me do this. Chapter 7 of "The Power of Questions" offered an improvement to this particular data analysis idea by encouraging researchers to ask certain questions when analyzing students’ work. Figure 7-1, Questions for Looking at Student Work, contains meaningful questions that I will ask as I am reviewing my students’ writing samples.

1.  What was the context in which the work was created?

2.  What questions does this work raise about the student?

3.  What does this work demonstrate about what the student understands, what the student can do, and how the students meets standards/expectations for the work?

4.  What does this work demonstrate about the students’ growth over time?

5.  What does this work tell about the instruction and learning environment that prompted the work?  How effective were the assignment and teaching strategies?

6.  What does this work suggest about the kind of teaching and opportunities for leanrning that should come next for this student?

A new idea that I acquired from this chapter is to ask my students to take part in “member checks.”  Sharing with students my thoughts and findings about their work and the data I collect can ensure that my students’ points of view are being depicted as authentically as possible.  It will also ensure that I am interpreting behaviors accurately.  Sharing my findings and thoughts could be easily done during discussions or when students are sharing their weekly summaries.  If I notice a pattern during a particular week or lesson, I could voice this to my students, tell them my perception of why this pattern took place, then ask my students if they agree or disagree.

This chapter informs my next steps in data analysis and classroom implementation because it reminds me to take things slow and steady.  Instead of gathering data and looking at it after I’ve accumulated a pile of notes, I should begin organizing and analyzing as I am collecting different types of data.  Not only will this prevent me from making a molehill into a mountain, but it will also help me determine if I am gathering enough appropriate data for each of my subquestions.  

Of course..... all this is easier said than done!

For Boston

I've been terribly saddened and frightened since yesterday's Boston tragedy -- I felt guilty going into the classroom today and to go on, business as usual, while hundreds are mourning over the loss and injury of loved ones.  My thoughts are with 8-year old Martin Richard, 29-year old Krystle Campbell, and the Boston University Graduate student who lost their lives.  My thoughts are with all of those who helped, who are helping and who responded with strength, assistance and courage.

My FIRST Edcanvas

Ready... Set... Go!

"Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect."

 -Alan Cohen

After weeks of assessing and planning and thinking and rethinking, I started off this week jumping straight into my Action Research Inquiry which revolves around the question,

“How does writing for an audience affect students’ achievement in and attitude toward writing?”

I was excited, nervous, scared, and hopeful to start a daily writing program in my second grade classroom and knew that it was going to be a huge change for the students. Being able to write everyday takes practice and I understand that my students will need to build up their endurance for writing. To get them fired up about writing everyday, I introduced the students to their special writing tools, their first writing topic, their first major deadline and their first audience.

Before spring break, the students read several stories by Tommie dePaola and discussed the different elements of a story such as its characters, the setting, the problem and the solution. I told the children that they would be telling a story from their own personal lives and that they would pick the experience they would write about. I explained that they would have three weeks to brainstorm, draft, edit and publish their stories so that they could share them during an author's celebration. During this celebration, other students from the school, parents, administrators and community members would be invited to read their stories AND we would be publishing their stories in a hard cover book so that people could BUY it. The students were stoked. They were all about having their stories in a REAL book that people had to actually pay money for.

I would like to say that after my mini lessons about prewriting, characters, setting, problems and solutions, the students grabbed their pens and pencils and wrote with fervor and enthusiasm. The truth is, while almost all of the kids expressed excitement and motivation during the lessons, their excitement faded as soon as they were sitting in their seats, pencil in hand and paper on desk. Familiar looks of frustration appeared on their faces and the statement, "I don't know what to write," was repeated more than I wanted to hear.

The Good News: After repeating certain questions (Where were you? What did it look like? When did this happen? Who was with you? How did you feel?) students began to warm up and their creative juices began to flow. (For some, their creative juices trickled, but I'll take it). I noticed that encouraging students to talk before they wrote, either to me or to each other, helped in getting them to write their ideas on paper. The trick was asking the right questions and I am hoping I can teach my students to ask each other the 'right' questions so that I do not have to conference with everybody everyday.

If anyone has any advice regarding effective and efficient ways to implement peer feedback, your ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Working Break

"Spring is the time of plans and projects."

-Leo Tolstoy

I have been on Spring Break this past week and although I have not spent time in the classroom, I found myself thinking a lot about my students.  As soon as we get back to school on Monday, my master teacher has given me the freedom to plan and implement a writing program (think "Writer's Workshop") so that I may begin my Action Research.  I'm extremely excited about this and have been gathering ideas, receiving guidance from Dr. Lattimer and Nancy Hanssen, and laying out my game plan.  Because my Action Research is centered around how an authentic audience impacts student attitudes towards and academic achievement in writing, I have planned three main projects for my students to work on until the end of the year -  A narrative story, letter writing, and the retelling of a fairy tale from a different point of view. Each project will be shared with peers throughout the drafting process and the final pieces will be shared through a writer's celebration, the publishing of a hard cover book via Scholastic Teachers, ePals and blogging.  

I will also be starting a nutrition unit, which is something that I am extremely passionate about and have taught before in a Montessori setting.  To tweak the lessons and ideas that I already have so that they may be manageable and effective in the classroom that I am in, I have used resources such as Pinterest and Share My Lesson.  Share My Lesson is a website that I was introduced to during a staff meeting (I love that the principal of the school that I am in constantly encourages teachers to explore and use technology and internet resources).  The site reminds me of Teachers Pay Teachers except all of its resources are free.  The site is fairly easy to navigate and contains lessons, reproducibles, videos and power point presentations.

Lots of things to look forward to!  Hope everyone had, or will have, a fabulous Spring Break