CONTRACTIONS EVERYWHERE!!

We used magazines to find contractions and their derivatives. Students glued them into their Word Study Journals. It was a mess, but great learning was reinforced!

Digging Deeper

One of the phrases my students have gotten used to me saying this year is:

 "Dig deeper with your thinking!"

I don't, (I won't!) allow my students to stay on the surface of their thinking any longer!

Here is our "Digging Deeper" Character trait poster:

We then took our "deep thinking" and applied it to the main character in the book Tiger Rising. Each student came to the board and contributed to the class anchor chart.

 

GREAT THINKING = DEEP THINKING!!

 

We REFUSE to do the minimum!! We will ALWAYS do the MAXIMUM!!

Things I DON'T want to do...

I'm not sure why I want to post this, but I'm going to.

I don't want to...

1. Go back to work after having two weeks off. I know, I know....I'm soooo blessed to have TWO weeks off for Christmas break, but NOONE in their RIGHT mind would just LOVE to go back to work. Let's just be REAL here!!

2. I don't want to think about the STAAR test.

3. I don't want to have a "Writing Boot Camp". It's old school. It's out of date. It's just....well... not realistic. REAL writer's don't have BOOT CAMPS.

4. I don't want to cram testing strategies down my 4th graders. They are smart. Period. I trust them. They will be FINE.

AND FINALLY...

5. I don't want to use my very special time I have with my students 'practicing' for a test that really we have no idea how they are going to rated. It's not fair to them.

Okay..I'm done venting.

"Pushing Our Thinking"

"Pushing our Thinking"

This is my new favorite saying....

My students are now used to me asking, "Are you doing the MAXIMUM, or the MINIMUM?" This is coming from Lucy Caulkins, but I have really tried to take it the next level. I truly believe our students are, 95% of the time, doing only the minimum-what we ASK them to do. Well...you see..I'm TIRED of that!! I don't want my students to JUST do the minimum anymore! I want them to PUSH their thinking! I want them to DIG DEEPER! Think like no other student has thought before! JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU ARE FINISHED..YOU HAVE JUST STARTED!

Please, please, please don't tell me, "I'm done, Mrs. Gates."! No, you are NOT done! You have just begun!

I have a student (and I know you all have this SAME student!) that gets finished with the minimum of what I've asked...aka... "I did exactly what you asked, but not a bit more." He then gets out his huge chapter book that he can't put down (don't get me wrong, this too, is wonderful-but NOT during WRITING time!) and begins to read while he waits for me to move on to the next mini lesson or meeting. Noooooo!!!! I don't want you to read during WRITING time! I want you  to keep pushing yourself-

-What else do you have to say about this idea?
-Can you write something else about this topic?
-Can you try this technique as a writer again with a different idea?
-Can you stretch your thinking on this topic?
-What other opinions do you have? Why do you think that?
-Can you take this idea and turn it into a personal narrative?
-Can you take this personal narrative and write it as an expository essay?
-Can you abandon this idea and think of something else to write about?

The questions are endless!

"Becoming Essayist"

Familiar with Lucy Caulkins? I wasn't until I started teaching in Katy. At first, we were given this "kit" (don't ya' just love "KITS"!), and expected to read through it and use the great ideas.

My first instinct: When am I going to have to time to do this? (Looking through Book 1... "she goes on and on...") Set it aside and think about it later.

Sometime mid-October: We've taught personal narrative and realistic fiction narrative with good success using our own past experiences as teachers and past, no-fail, lessons. We've taught an essay, "What I want to be when I grow up..." with moderate success---(the same 'ole boring essays that every kid can write if they follow the formula.)

End of October: I start reading Lucy's books. I jump to "Breathing Life into Essays" and start to think, "Maybe I'm rushing it. Maybe I'm trying too hard to get them to follow a formula." I decide to follow Lucy, mini-lesson by mini-lesson. (An action research approach!).

Wow! I truly think I'm getting it, and so are my students! We can write about the same topic as a narrative OR as a non-narrative! We go outside and find simple, unimportant topics to write about. We turn them into GREAT topics to write about! We PUSH....yes PUSH our thinking!!!!

We ask ourselves, "Are we doing the minimal, or are we doing the maximum?" We can be AMAZING writers if we CHOOSE to be!

This is going to be EXTRAODINARY writing, and we haven't even written a roughdraft yet!

Can you relate?

So, this post has nothing to do with a new, great idea, but everthing to do with just needing to share "teacher" thoughts:

Thought #1: I'm tired.

Thought #2: My team-teacher is coming back after being out for 2 weeks with a broke ankle...OMG!! Thank GOODNESS! I have missed her!

Thought #3: What was I thinking??? I have 3 kids (one still in diapers), I'm 40 years old, and I'm married to a coach...how in the WORLD am I supposed to have time to work on my Master's-much less run in a 5k...ha!ha!ha!ha!

Thought #4: I DON'T want to be a principal.

Thought #5: Surely there is a curriculum/training job out there that's waiting for me.

Thought #6: Be patient.

Thought #7: I miss Crystal..my co-teacher from Mt. Vernon. I miss collaborating with her. I miss having her in my classroom every 30 minutes or so. I miss combining our classes and co-teaching. Bummer. Oh well.

Thought #8: The holidays are coming up! Yay! I miss my family, and it's my favorite time to teach (besides January, February, March, April, and May-especially May).

Thought #9: I'm out of thoughts, but I need to make it to 10.

Thought #10: I've found a GREAT place to raise my kids. It may be a challenge for me, but I've never given up before, so why start now. I have fantastic principals to help guide me and a team that supports me in every way imaginable.

Okay...Thought #11: I'm thankful.

Writing Realistic Fiction

At first, I really thought this was going to be a HARD genre to teach, but actually, it's turned out pretty simple....and fun! I started by reading Lucy Calkins' #4 book (from her series on Writer's Workshop) "Writing Fiction: Big Dreams, Tall Ambitions". Now, let me warn you, Lucy is a very wordy writer. But then, again, so am I, so it was an easy read for me! My colleague and I already had plans for this week before I read the book, so we had to back-track a little (my mistake!).

The BIG concept: students need a good writer's notebook FULL, and I mean FULL of writing ideas. This is not just the usual, "Things I know a lot about", or "Things that are DEAR to my Heart". I mean what serious, REAL writer's do. They write down EVERY little bitty thing they notice, hear, experience...

I started by having my students think about their weekend and start a list of"Things I "noticed" over the weekend: " (I had a sample list on the board for them as well: 1. an ambulance parked outside Wal Mart 2. The man next door plays football every night with his son. 3. The dog across the street barked all night long.)

I then proceeded to model my thinking... I looked through my own journal and came across a page that was full of places I'd moved to. I spoke my thinking outloud and demonstrated my writing on the Smartboard.

"Hmmm...I've moved a lot. That must be a subject that means a lot to me. I could write about several places I've moved to. I think I'll focus on my move to Katy. (Writing on the board) I moved to Katy over the summer from a small town. My  neighborhood is pretty big with large houses all around. I see a lot of kids outside playing. I wonder if my own children will be able to make friends. (Talking now..) Hmmm. I  think I could write a realistic story about this. I could name my main character, Grace. So it could go something like this:

(Writing again) Grace moves to Katy from a small town. She sees kids playing outside her window as she's unpacking boxes in her room. She wonders if she will ever be able to make new friends in this small town.

My students become excited and join in on the story line....

"Maybe she rides her bike later and meets some of the kids." or, "Maybe she's really shy and has to overcome her shyness to be able to meet new people." Both good points and I validate their thinking by jotting down their ideas with my ideas.

This continues as we also come up with ideas for realistic stories for the examples I've listed on the board: "I saw an abulance parked outside Wal Mart. Can we create a realistic fiction story with this idea??" The students talk in small groups and come up with some CRAZY stories!

Then the students find an "I noticed..."idea from their own writer's notebook. They extend their thinking as I did, and then create a character name and problem.

This is extended into today lesson. We created a foldable that resembles the story mountain we have used previously (Character, setting, problem, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, conclusion). Wow!!! My kiddos did an AWESOME job with this! I was so impressed! We have our stories planned out and ready to start our roughdrafts tomorrow!

Of course, MODELING is the KEY here! Tomorrow, I will model my roughdraft and they will begin theirs. I can't wait to see how these stories turn out!