Infographic Syllabus!

So after reading a ton of posts about these gorgeous infographic syllabi, I had to try one out for myself!  I stole a lot of ideas from this great blog here.  Thank you to Profe Tauchman for showing off your syllabus as I used your wonderful layout and most of your ideas of what to include!

So here is my new and improved syllabus!  I really like it, and it is interactive!  If you look at the one I have on Piktochart (click here) you can run your mouse over it and find the parts that are interactive!

Starting the year with Interactive Notebooking

First Few Activities for Our ISN

So we are going to start off the 7th grade year by focusing on reading strategies  and elements of narratives.  As I am trying to incorporate as much of the Reading Apprenticeship program into my classroom, the notebook is going to be used to help students come prepared to discuss the skills we are learning.  The left side of the notebook will probably have to be finished at home on some occasions (with only 50 minutes we are limited!)

Week 1 plans:

Day 1 - students are going to discuss and reflect what it means to them to read.  They are going to create a definition of what it means to read.  I plan on keeping these definitions and having them reflect later in the year on their definition.  Students will also be doing a student interest survey and learning about me!

Day 2- We are going to create a class set of norms this day.  I want to focus on what students need to feel safe to make mistakes in a classroom atmosphere.  They will have a reading history assignment to complete as well.

Day 3 - Students will be starting their notebooks today!  My plan is to have at least 20 notebooks and just ask that students bring one in to replace the notebook that I gave them.  Or they can pay me for the notebook as well.  We are going to setup the beginning of our notebooks today.  If you would like to see what I am doing to start the notebooks click here.

Day 4- Students will continue to build their ISN and they will share with a partner their reading history assignment.  On this day, students will have been asked to bring in a text that they think this easy for them, but could be considered hard for others.  I am going to be modeling "Think Alouds" this day with the texts that students bring into class.  The hope is to show students that they are readers and what an experienced reader does to make sense of "outside school" texts.

Week 2 Plans

Day 1- Students are starting their daily grammar warm-ups today.  I use the book here for this.  Students complete the daily exercise on their own and then on Friday we go over the entire packet together and students ask questions about the ones they didn't understand.  They correct their answers as we go along and then the only day I look at is the "Friday" day.  Students will also be doing an activity with pipe cleaners that starts to get them thinking about their thinking.  This is the way I will get them start thinking about their thought process in a non-threatening way.

Day 2- Teacher models read-aloud for class.  As a class, everyone creates a reading strategies list and they fill this out in their ISN.  As homework, students will record their own read-aloud with a common text and post it to our Haiku wiki page and complete the left side of their ISN

Right side of ISN - list of strategies that the class comes up with together

Left side of ISN - student listen to their read aloud and fill in  the table about the strategies they use.  This will also be used for a discussion in class.

Day 3- Students will be introduced to their reading journal today.  They will do their first reading journal and share with their partner to make sure that their journal is meeting the expectations.  In class, students will listen to their partner's read-aloud and will identify at least 2 reading strategies that the speaker used.  The two will come together and discuss what they found and share their answers from their left side of their notebook.

Day 4- Students free read and journal.  Teacher models talking to the text for students with "7th Grade" by Gary Soto.  Students will practice in pairs as well on this.  I will go back and forth with student led TttT and teacher led TttT.  Students will fill out the right side of their ISN during this time.  For homework, students will practice TttT on their own with a short poem (left side).

Left side - students practice TttT and they recognize which types of comments they are making as they TttT

Right side - Students take notes about TttT as the teacher is modeling for the class.

Day 5- Grammar packets are due and are gone over as a class at the beginning of class.  (No free reading and journals on this day!)  Students will be meeting with book groups today to share their journal entries and discuss the books they are currently reading.  When finished, students will meet with their seat partner and discuss their TttT homework and what they marked.  The class will come back at the end and share how we are doing with TttT.

So these are my first 2 weeks of school for 7th grade English.  Coming up:

- QAR

- Narrative Elements with short stories

- Poetry and Figurative Language

Reading Apprenticeship and Interactive Notebook Beginnings

My summer will be filled with reading, planning and moving :)

I am currently reading the book Reading for Understanding by Ruth Schoenbach, et al.  It focuses on the Reading Apprenticeship technique and how to implement it into the classroom.  My school is very big on the reading apprenticeship method and as I read I can understand why.  What I have read so far (I am about half way through) is that this program is about focusing on the process students go through to read, rather than the decoding process.  This has been eye opening for me both as a reader and as a teacher.  As I have been reading this book, I am starting to pay attention to my own reading habits/struggles.  It has already helped me get through parts of the text that were dry or it helped me to build stamina as I needed to reach certain parts of the book to reach my daily reading goal.

I am already trying to find ways to incorporate the 4 main qualities of this method.

Ways I hope to incorporate what I have learned so far:
1) During the first few weeks of school, we will be focusing on creating an awareness of metacognition in each of the students.  They need to see how they make sense of texts and what trips them up and WHY.

2) We will also be building a community in the classroom where students feel secure enough to share their struggles with reading.  As I read, I find that RA relies on the ability of the students to share how they struggle and also how they worked their way through that problem!

3) Create classroom made anchor charts to guide students and to remind them of the topics we have covered as a class.  These anchor charts should also portray the strategies and terms we have learned in the process!

4) Give credit for the process rather than the product.  I really like this idea and I am trying to come up with ways to put the emphasis on the process rather than on the final product,  Students are always graded on their final product, but in these middle level classes, the important part is that they know HOW TO GET TO the final product!  Let's face it, those middle school grades are not as important as the ones they earn in high school or even college.

Along with reading and studying the RA program, I am also researching and working on implementing interactive student notebooks (ISN).  Overall, I am super excited about creating these with the students and hopefully creating a resource for the students!

For English, this is what I have planned out so far:

#1 - Cover sheet - students will create a sheet that has their goals for the year and they will decorate it to reflect themselves.

My example that I created this summer

#2 - Rubric - This will be where students tape in their grading rubric.  The plan is to collect the notebooks once a trimester, but I will be doing random, timed pop quizzes that test the organization and neatness of their notebooks.

#3-5 TOC (I might need more space than this, but I figure we can always tape in more pages)

#6 - Give me 5 page - this will be the student reflection on the course syllabus.  Students will trace their hand and then in each finger they will pick the 5 most important rules/procedures that they found in the syllabus.   They are to decorate and make the hand reflect them as a person as well.

#7 Course Syllabus - taped in! (picture to come)

#8 2 :) and 2 ?'s - I found this idea on this blog http://mrshester.blogspot.com/ (I highly recommend it if you are looking into ISN!)  Students will go over and read the ISN expectations in class (they will also sign it with a parent this is on the next page) and then on this page, they will write 2 parts about the notebook that really excite them and draw a picture to go with it and 2 questions/concerns they have about the notebook and draw a picture to go with each picture.

#9 - ISN expectations contract - This will be a sheet explaining what students are responsible for when it comes to completing their ISN.  The bottom of this sheet will need to be signed by the student and a parent/guardian.

#10 - Books I want to read - I am going to give the students a fun header and then they will use the pages of the book to fill in info on books they hear about or see that they might want to read.

#11 - Reading Log - Students will track the books they read here.  I have an ice cream party at the end of the year for any students who can read 25 books in a year.  Last year this system didn't work out too well and most students forgot to track their books.  With the ISN, I hope to have this be a little easier for me and for the students.  Parents will also have to sign and date to show that they really did read the book.

Other parts I am going to have but I am not sure where to put them:
- Glossary of terms - I saw a great idea about creating a glossary of key terms used in class.  I would like to try this, but at the moment I am not sure how I want to do it.
- Reading journal - Last year I started reading journals and I really enjoyed them.  I would like to do them again this year, but I haven't decided how yet.  Either the students will need a second notebook, or we will need to use a 3 subject notebook to include everything I want to do.
- Word Wall - Students are learning new words all the time, I just don't think they realize how many they are learning!  I would like to have a place in the notebook where students can track new words they find as they are reading!
- Partner sheet - I have created two partner sheets to make pairing students fast and easy, but I am not sure where I want to put this sheet.  I think I want them to tape on the back of the front cover, but I am not sure are this point.
- a Ribbon in the back to be used as a bookmark in the ISN.


At our open house, I plan to have a list of required materials for parents, and I will also have a "wish tree" where parents can pledge to donate needed items so that we hopefully have enough supplies to make this an easy process.  More info to come on my classroom setup and my open house materials!

Now to start planning the lessons and materials to go with the classroom content!!  Have you done ISNs in your classroom?  What worked for you and what didn't?

A Year Finished and a summer to reflect

2014-2015 IS DONE!!!

My second year of teaching is done!  Whew!  This year flew by.  As the last week came up, I couldn't believe that we were done!  I learned a lot this year about myself and about my students.  I wanted to reflect a little on my experiences this year and my goals for the following. (Oh and next year I will be teaching 2 levels of English and 2 different classes of French.. 4 preps... yay....)

English Reflections:
1) I enjoyed teaching English more than I thought I would.  There were even times I preferred it over my French classes (though this had more to do with students than content)
2) There is a lot of pressure on English teachers.  With testing and common core, this was a pressure I was not familiar with.  I'm not sure I did my best in preparing students to continue to 8th grade.  Whee many students did grow substantially in my class, I am not sure I am the reason they grew...
3) Time is not my friend in English class.  I had so much to accomplish and such little time.  I only get 50 minutes a day and by the time the students come in, settle down, free-read and we discuss the agenda, we are lucky if we have 35 minutes left for class/content.
4)  I did not feel as confident in English class on how to help my students.  I had parents and students coming to me to figure out ways to improve reading and writing skills and I found myself floundering in this area.  
5) I LOVED working with students all year and connecting with them during the year.  7th graders are fantastic! :)
6) I worked with a 12 year veteran teacher who has this class down to a science.  This was a pro and a con for me.  Her way of teaching is great, but it didn't always agree with my own.  In the long run I ended up coming up with some of my own materials as I either didn't understand hers or her materials didn't match my students' needs.
7)  Grading in English class is a B*****!  I fell behind so much this year in grading because I was just NOT prepared for the level/amount of grading required in English!  I enjoyed reading my students' work, but I was overwhelmed by the workload!
8)  Organization was a problem for me.  What I thought was a good system, slowly turned to chaos by the end of the year. (Funny part is when I asked my students what they liked about my class, my students told me they enjoyed how "organized" I was. LOL!)
9)  In the end of second trimester I started to have my students complete reading journals.  These were great!  I loved reading what students were thinking about while they read their books!  Grading them was not fun, but I did enjoy reading and responding to their entries.  

Goals for English next year:
1) Figure out a system where I can check in on students who struggle on a one-to-one basis.  This was difficult to do last year and I feel that this is very important.
2) Figure out a way to group students and keep track of their competencies in reading.  Maybe doing book talks of some sort where students are grouped based on similar needs.
3) Research how to teach reading and writing to middle school students!  I need more resources and help on this!
4) I would like to try an interactive notebook next year.. It is what I am currently working on!


French Reflections:
This was a tough year for me in French.  My students were fun but not studious.  This may be partially my fault, as I made their explore class in 7th grade "fun" and I think I attracted students who wanted to have "fun".  Don't get me wrong, I loved my students and they were a blast, but they also had a hard time focusing and getting to work.  By the end of the year I was essentially handing out notes and covering each topic for a day and then moving on as we had run out of time! 

 Some new things I tried this year:
1) IPA (Integrated Performance Assessments) - I actually really liked these tests.  They showed students what they could do with the language in real world settings and tested them on all levels (speaking, reading, writing and listening).  The difficult part is that the tests are 3 parts and I didn't have the time to keep doing them.  I did 2 of these and then went back to my original exams (mostly writing and listening).  I honestly ran out of steam to make these exams and to keep making new materials (as I was doing this in English as well!)  The other problem I had with IPAs is that our final exams don't match the purpose of the IPA.  The final is all multiple choice with little to do with true proficiency and the IPAs are completely proficiency based.  This divide gave me problems as my students were still responsible to take the exams and do well...
2) Student jobs - These were great at the beginning of the year!  I loved them and so did the kiddos!  In the long run I made the timeline too time consuming.  Students were only in a post for 2 weeks.  Next year I am going to bring them back, but have the students in each position for a month.  Less work for me and for the students!
3) Going Paperless- With every student having an iPad, I thought it would be great to go paperless this year.  Yeah... that ended up being a pain in the a**!  Students wanted paper copies, the internet would have issues, some students wouldn't have their iPad or it would be dead (French is at the end of the day).  In the long run, I ended up just giving paper copies of everything and then just posting the copies on our online learning management system (Haiku).
4) Extra Copies Binder - This is a must have for next year and I will continue it until our world goes paperless! :)


Goals for Next Year:
1) As we don't use the textbook much in class, I would like to create an interactive notebook for my students next year.  I want to do it in English as well, so this might be more of an undertaking than I can handle... but I want to try!
2)  I would like to get more IPAs going for next year and possibly talk the high school teacher into changing the final exams to better fit the IPA format.
3) Stay on schedule.  Although I want to give the students as much time as they need, this is unrealistic!  I need to create a schedule and stick to it from the beginning.

General Musings about me as a teacher:

I learned a lot about myself as a teacher this year.
1) I act tough, but when it comes time to bring down the hammer, I tend to be nicer than I should!  I let students get away with too much this year, and I forgave them where others would not have.  I need to be stricter from the beginning of the year and stick to my expectations!

2) I need to spend time on myself.  Most nights I would come home to work on school work for the majority of my night and then get ready for bed and repeat... This did not go well... My husband was very understanding and supportive, but I was burnt out most of the time and did not do my best...

3) Parent contact is my least favorite part of the job.  I need to force myself to do this!  Several situations may have been avoided if I had just called home in the first place!

4) Grading is a pain... I need to really be selective about what I collect to grade.  Sometimes I collected items and never really looked at them... Is this a waste of time for me and the students.. on that, I am still not sure.

5) ORGANIZATION is a must!  I need to come up with a better system for next year!  I lost papers, calendars, quizzes and so much more this year!  I was about ready to cry by the end of the year!  Lucky for me, I won a $300 grant for a classroom makeover and I hope to use some of that money to organize my room!

So my plans for the summer are this:
1) Read several books on reading strategies.
2) Study and plan interactive notebooks for English and French
3) Create IPAs for at least 2 more units in French
4) LEARN THE 6th GRADE CURRICULUM!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you all had a great year!