Close Reading Strategies

Here are five features of close reading instruction that make students want and love to read.

Text Selection

Passages don’t have to dense and dry to be worth a close read. Choosing novel excerpts, articles, poems, even images or movie clips that address big ideas, even if they’re from modern sources, accomplish the same instructional objectives as reading Twain or Bronte. A bonus, using contemporary YA material means your students will likely have loads of background knowledge to apply to a cold read. 

Engaging Questions

Is our destiny malleable or fixed? Should government make decisions for us? Why do we need love? When questions invite students into discussions that have engaged humans for centuries, they captivate student interest and prompt rousing discussion.

Students Take ControlOne of the tenants of close reading, the purposeful rereading of text, allows students to take ownership. The more students read, the more they can take a leadership role in the discussion. As students read and reread, look for opportunities to step back and let students take the reigns. 

Collaboration

Far from silent reading or quiet work time, close reading lessons should be peppered with lively discussion and Aha! moments. Collaborative discussion allows students to put text evidence into practice and to share and refine their ideas. Provide time for students to work together during readings, before writing, and in discussion to make close reading a shared experience. 

Debate and Argument

Students—middle schoolers especially—love to debate. Draw the connection between crafting strong, logical arguments and winning debates and you’ll have them hooked. 

read more here

Invigorate your classroom - strategies to energize

Every day presents a new opportunity, and that's why we're giving you five totally easy, totally doable tricks to invigorate learning (and to refresh your outlook) in your classroom today. Because an energized classroom drives results. And excited learners can accomplish big things. And because it's a long time until winter break ... not that we're counting down or anything. Here are our ideas:

1. Show them some classic snapshots.
   Project a series of classic photographs onto your whiteboard. (For example, these on American labor history and these on the former Soviet Union.) Ask your students to look and imagine what it would have felt like to be in that photo.
2. Redecorate.
   We know those Pinterest-worthy bulletin boards you made for back-to-school were just about perfect ... for back-to-school. But now that the school year is up and going, why not give your classroom walls a refresh? If you need some inspiration, check out these free printable posters from WeAreTeachers.
3. Get hands-on.
   This is an obvious one, but it's also an easy one to forget when the glitter glue hits the fan. Sometimes a simple hands-on experiment or activity is all it takes to bring some excitement back into your classroom. (Need hands-on ideas? Try these easy and funFoldables.)
4. Let them watch cartoons.
   What kid doesn't love Saturday morning cartoons? Expand on that by finding fun, short, entertaining cartoons (like these on essential reading skills) that enrich the teaching that you're doing.
5. Celebrate!
   Not every day can be Halloween or Valentine's Day (thank goodness!), but celebrating the "little" holidays with big learning can really make a lesson memorable. So check out McGraw-Hill Education's Get Inspired Board on Pinterest and get fun ideas to celebrate things like National STEM Day, Honey Bee Day and more with your students.
6. 
   

This blog series is sponsored by McGraw-Hill Education. Visitblog.mheonline.com for educational ideas, information, and free resources to inspire learning every day!



SOURCE - http://www.weareteachers.com/blogs/post/2014/09/25/5-simple-tricks-to-invigorate-learning-in-your-classroom-today

I TEACH....

Student-Centered Discussion Tips

It can be scary to let students guide discussion in the classroom, but the rewards are well worth it. Check out six tips for implementing student-centered discussion: http://bit.ly/19TdOht

1. Start With a Challenging Text 
   In the Shared Inquiry method of discussion, the text provides the foundation for student understanding, multiple meanings, and debate. Both Damm and Benefiel found that when preparing for discussion, students were able to grapple with a text much more difficult than that they may have read on their own. “Sometimes I think a text is too hard,” says Damm, “and it has been proven to me over and over that it is not.”
   
   Take Away: Even if you think a text is above your students’ reading level, bring it in and plan opportunities for students to engage and grapple with it.
   
2. Set the Stage 
   Before any discussion, Damm’s students spend five to ten minutes writing their response to the first question. This allows less outgoing students to share their carefully considered answers, and ensures that everyone has an opportunity to participate. After the discussion, students reconsider their answers based on what they’ve heard from other students, and are given a chance to change their initial responses. Damm reads the final responses to assess how students changed their minds during the discussion, and why.
   
   Take Away: Create and reinforce a structure for preparation, discussion, and reflection. During discussion, set a procedure to help you facilitate and monitor. Damm and Benefiel both recommend keeping a record of who has contributed to the conversation so you can ensure 100% participation.
   
3. Seize Questions As Opportunities 
   Students at Sarah Smith Elementary School in Atlanta, GA, start learning Shared Inquiry discussion practices in kindergarten. By first grade, they’re starting to drive the conversation. “Once the students understand how to question, [the rest] comes naturally to them,” says principal Sidney Baker.
   
   When teachers seize on student questions and use them to drive discussion, it empowers students, agrees Denise Ahlquist, the vice president for training at Great Books. Underscoring the value of questions also helps open the floor to students who may struggle with reading in general.
   
   Take Away: Set the expectation that questions are valuable and take time to answer every question that you can during discussion.
   

4. Encourage Interaction
   Damm and Benefiel sit outside of the discussion circle and interject only to facilitate or to invite students to participate. During discussion, asking students “why?” and “what do you think?” is enough to encourage students to deepen their understanding of the text without losing student ownership.
   
   Take Away: During discussion, give students simple directions to encourage them to interact with one another. If one student disagrees with another, for example, prompt her to turn to the other student and try to convince him of her point of view.
   
5. Seek Support From Colleagues
   At Sarah Smith Elementary, a week before student discussions teachers have their own Shared Inquiry discussions about the stories they are reading in class. This helps teachers go through the process and become deeply familiar with the texts before they facilitate student discussions. It also provides a foundation for later reflection on classroom discussions.
   
   Take Away: You will find more success with student-centered discussions if you are able to prepare for them in collaboration with other teachers.
   
6. Be Patient 
   How quickly or how effectively you will transition to student-centered discussions depends on your own experience as a learner and teacher, so be patient and plan to spend a few weeks teaching students how they work. “It really takes practice to support ideas with evidence and look for deeper meaning,” says Rachel Claff, editorial director of K-12 programs at the Great Books Foundation, but “it yields rich results.”

Source: http://www.weareteachers.com/hot-topics/special-reports/great-books-great-discussions

Four More Tips
Here are four more things to keep in mind when getting started with student-led discussion.

Welcome All Discussion
Talking about text does not just happen in a formal discussion, but throughout the week. Set up pair-shares, informal discussions, and other opportunities for talk as students work with a text. 

Resist the Urge to Explain
Your first instinct might be to explain the text, especially if students are stuck. But resist that urge and trust the process of discussion to get kids to form their own understandings and build off of each other’s ideas.

Model Curiosity
During Shared Inquiry, the role of the teacher is to be a model learner for students and to show what it means to go from not understanding to creating meaning. 

Take Risks
As you ask your students to take risks, be willing to be pushed out of your comfort zone as well. If a student asks you for more reading from a challenging author, run with it!

5 Apps that engage parents

Technology is opening up new windows for communication and for those who want to embrace it, there are some great ways to communicate with parents. I found this post with a variety of ideas.

One that I didn't know about was 'Fast Follow' on twitter:

Twitter: Whether it is class homework updates, project deadlines, school news or dinnertime conversation starters, teachers are taking advantage of Twitter’s free tool and keeping parents up to date and involved in classroom happenings. In a day-in-age where most parents have cell phones, Fast Follow by Twitter becomes a simple and reliable alert system. To use it, all you need to do is setup a Twitter account and ask parents (and older students) to text Twitter’s shortcode of 40404 with the message “follow [your Twitter username].” From there, parents will start receiving all of your updates via text message in real-time.

Read more here: http://www.weareteachers.com/community/blogs/weareteachersblog/blog-wat/2013/05/30/5-apps-that-engage-parents-in-the-classroom

Student Digital Portfolios for assessment and learning

Really enjoyed this blog post on Assessment using Student blog-portfolio's: http://plpnetwork.com/2013/05/30/digital-porfolios-thinking-assessment/

It is unfortunate that many schools don't have the capabilities to do this (not enough ipads, laptops, computers in classroom, bandwidth, wi-fi, money, etc.) but I do like the idea. I have used forums and such for independent novel studies and interactive class activities in the past, but I would love to use blog portfolio's for students. It would be interesting for them as well to have and be able to look back on.

The post explains:

Verbal explanations
I have always used formative assessment in my classroom, but our digital portfolios give me much richer information than our paper portfolios ever did. Because my young students are still beginning writers, it is often difficult for them to explain their learning through writing. They can, however, explain their learning verbally. There are lots of apps (including my current iPad favorites Educreations and Draw & Tell) that record voice over an image. These digital artifacts allow me to understand a child’s thinking in a much deeper way.

The beauty of digital portfolios is that as the children and I are constantly assessing their learning in a formative and summative way, the students are also demonstrating their growing knowledge for a wide audience and learning about digital citizenship and appropriate online behavior. What great by-products of the assessment process! 

Please check out the entire article here: http://plpnetwork.com/2013/05/30/digital-porfolios-thinking-assessment/

Giant Venn Diagrams - Hands on

I love this hands on idea for Venn Diagrams. What a fun way to do sort.

Source: lessonplansos.blogspot.com via Amanda on Pinterest

Easy way to ensure participation...

Source: alove4teaching.blogspot.com via Amanda on Pinterest

I bought some dry erase hands from scholastic to use for writing answers on and holding up. I have also used mini chalk boards and mini dry erase white boards for students. I will ask a Q or give a French word and they write the answer and hold it up. Often I do this in small groups and they get points.

I like this idea because it is cheap and easy and you can easily have enough for each student to use.

Questioning in the classroom, Bringing Class Discussions to life

This article  looks at questioning and and how to make classrooms engaging through questioning.

 Middle E-Connections - Bring Class Discussions to Life

January 2013
Rick Wormeli

"Beuller? Beuller?"

Look in on class discussions today and what you'll see (I hope) is a far cry from the classroom of gaping-mouthed, drooling, blank-faced students in the John Hughes 1986 film Ferris Beuller's Day Off.

One great way to get students to think critically and move information into long-term memory is through dynamic class discussions. However, ensuring these discussions are effective requires clear principles and strategies.

Whoever asks the questions does the learning. If I ask a student about a topic and listen to his answer, especially if I'm interested in the topic and the student, I'm learning a lot, but the rest of the class is sitting passively. Do you see something wrong with this picture? I am the teacher; I already know the material. My goal is for students to learn it. Students, therefore, need to be asking the questions.

Students learn the most when they ask the questions themselves. To make this happen, teachers have to make question-asking compelling and habitual. As often as possible, ask students to brainstorm questions, queries, and investigate starting points for as many topics as time allows to get them in the habit.

• Create 10 questions to which "colloquialism" is a good answer.
• What are all the possible things we'd want to know about cuneiform writing?
• What do you wonder about your future?
• What questions might a visitor from another planet ask after observing our election process?
• Pretend you're a radicand (the number under the radical sign in a square root). What would concern you as this math algorithm progresses?
• Create all the "Why … ?" questions you can about light and the way it behaves.
• Skim the whole chapter and list at least eight questions the chapter seems to answer.

Making question-asking compelling is another issue, however. Here, we're trying to make students so curious that they form their own questions: "Why does it do that?" "What will the effect be?" "What are the exceptions to this rule?" "Why do you believe that?" "How is this false?" "Where's my mistake?" and "What would happen if … ?"
We can create curiosity by presenting students with puzzling phenomena, surprising facts, challenges to accepted opinions, appeals to imagination, playful situations with manipulatives, connections among seemingly disparate concepts, moral dilemmas, and personal dramas when facing struggle.

Another way to involve more students in active question-asking is to get your students to ask the follow-up questions. If one student answers the initial question you pose, ask a second student to offer evidence to support or refute the first student's response; then ask a third student to critique the second student's evidence. Go back to the first student who provided the initial response and ask her to respond to what the other two students said. This creates positive anxiety in the classroom. We want students so concerned that they will be called upon to say something intelligent that they remain on their toes mentally. To be effective, we have to make a habit of this redirection so that students know it's going to happen. This keeps the entire class thinking of answers and questions to ask.

Another tip for keeping the whole class engaged is to always pose questions to the entire class before calling on a specific student to respond. This invites percolation, which builds those neural pathways. Wait time is important as well. Research shows that waiting 10 seconds or more before calling on a student to respond leads to more depth, thinking, and investment in the conversation. It takes practice, but it's worth promoting this expectant silence so that students know you're counting on them to come up with a quality response.

This article was excerpted from the new AMLE release The Collected Writings (so far) of Rick Wormeli: Crazy Good Stuff I've Learned about Teaching Along the Way. For more great teaching advice from this beloved speaker and author, pick up the book in the AMLE Store.

Engaging Activities for Better Learning - Jane Faber

Teacher educator and AMLE author Jane Feber shares several clever teaching techniques that engaged students when she subbed in English and science classes.   

Engaging Activities for Better Learning

Jane Feber

As a teacher, no matter what lesson I had to teach in the classroom, I knew I had to hook the students and engage them if learning was to take place. When students are engaged in the learning process, they take ownership of their learning. Being engaged allows students to work at the application level, which, in turn, enables them to transfer what they learn to other contexts.

Having retired from full-time teaching four years ago, I am now able to work with students in a substitute capacity. I teach a reading competency class to current teachers, and many of the teachers in my class ask me to substitute for them. Quite often, they leave lesson plans that say, for instance, “Jane, we’re reading Canterbury Tales, do your thing” or “Jane, we’re studying the water cycle on page 142 in our book; do something to help them understand the water cycle.”

Read More

Math Problem Treasure Hunt

Instead of a worksheet, here is a way to make math (or any subject with simple questions) more engaging...

Write problems on post-its, hide them around the room, and have students walk around and find them...They end up solving the exact same problems, and it is MUCH more engaging. They are also able to exert a lot of energy finding the questions so they can sustain enough focus to actually solve it!

You can also colour code them with easier questions being easier to find and more difficult problems harder to find.

Be sure to let students know where they ARE NOT hidden (in teacher's desk drawers, outside of classroom (unless they are?) inside cupboards or drawers etc.

Culture of Learning: Fooling Around in the Bathroom

Loved this story from a principal in our district: 

It is not rare to walk down the hallway and hear strange noises coming from the boys bathroom in an elementary school. Sometimes you hear giggles, or doors slamming, or screams as the boys play tag, toss around paper towel, or slam the doors on the stalls. And although my school is not immune to this type of behaviour I must admit that I am very pleased that our students do a pretty good job of respecting their school, and this includes their bathrooms.Last week I was heading down the hallway on my way outside about 10 minutes into the outside play portion of lunch. As I walked past the boys bathroom I could see that there were two boys standing at the sinks. I paused…it was quiet. I heard a whisper. I looked again, they hadn’t moved.
 

Read the rest of this story here: http://principalofthematter.com

 

Love this post: Re-Engaging the Disengaged: 5 Strategies

I love Middle School. When i tell people I am a teacher, they ask what grade... I tell them and they seem shocked... "wow! I could never do that" I laugh and explain all the reasons why Middle School is amazing.

When I saw this link pop up in my twitter feed i instantly connected to the writer and found his strategies to be quite accurate:

A common response, when people find out that I work with junior high school students, is an eye roll and a comment to the effect of, “I could never do that.” The thought of spending five days a week with nine-hundred teenagers is enough to make most people shudder, but I love this age group and the challenges they present.
 

When talking about Middle School, I admit the greatest challenge can be keeping these pre-teens engaged in learning. "How do I make learning relevant to each of them?" this blog post continued to address similar ideas and questions I have asked my self and my colleagues...

Lately, our staff has struggled in their efforts to make connections with students who are disengaged from the educational process. These are kids who are seemingly apathetic–they don’t participate in class activities; they don’t complete assignments; they frequently exhibit poor behavior and they are frequently absent. For all intents and purposes, these students have lost hope in their educational future.
 

These are the 5 strategies he suggestes:

(1) Make it Personal – take time to visit with students and learn about their personal interests. Better yet, give them opportunities to tell you about their passions (see Identity Day by George Couros). If they don’t think they have a passion, help them find one. Most importantly, allow students to apply what they are learning to their personal interests. Allow school to be about them!
(2) Search for Celebrations – be constantly vigilant for celebration moments. Trust me when I say that this isn’t always a personal strength and that I realize the school day isn’t all daffodils and candy hearts. If we are looking for reasons to be frustrated or discouraged, we will undoubtedly find them. Instead, search for the moments that making this profession rewarding. Catch students making good decisions, using sound judgement, meeting expectations, working diligently, enjoying school…and take time to recognize these behaviors. Make “celebration moments” the focal points of daily instruction.
(3) Give Every Student the Opportunity to Succeed – it is unfortunate, but some of our students have not tasted success for so long that they have lost hope–no longer possessing the self-confidence, or will, to invest in what they see as a wasted effort. One way to overcome this sense of helplessness is to plan opportunities for every student to experience success. This will mean different things for different students, but by designing lessons, activities, assignments and questions that will set students up for success we can begin to repair student self-esteem and open doors for greater challenges.
(4) Reflect on class assignments and homework – in spite of our best intentions, we frequently set our students up for failure by burying them in assignments that do not serve a clear purpose, or that students have little chance of completing. The issue of homework has been widely debated in education circles (check out the post entitled Homework, by David Truss). Regardless of your position on making homework assignments, I would hope that all educators recognize the importance of making ALL assignments purposeful and relevant. If you are making assignments, be sure to ask yourself (1) what is the purpose, (2) is it a good use of time and resources, and (3) is it in the best interest of students? (see 5 Hallmarks of Good Homework, from ASCD)
(5) Try something different – if things don’t seem to be working, do something different. There are rarely easy answers when it comes to motivating struggling students and keeping them engaged, but doing the same thing over and over without results makes no sense. As problem solvers, we have to shake things up, employ new strategies, and be on the lookout for opportunities to challenge students to be active participants in their own education.

I love this post. I think some of these strategies are common sense, some are a bit vague/general, but all are absolutely correct and fantastic reminders of the things we can do eacha nd every day with students.

Midsummer Night's Dream - 2 fun games

I have been seeking ways to do more engaging activities during our Midsummer Night's Dream unit. I found these awesome activities and although i was reluctant to try them with my chatty, mostly male, Grade 9 English class (last block of the day also!!!) I gave it a shot and was pleased with how into it they got (ok, they prizes helped motivate them) I was also super excited to discover how much they had retained from the play thus far!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Scavenger Hunt

Part One:

Discover how your classmates’ opinions and experiences relate to the play! Walk around the room and find a student to which each statement applies and ask him/her to initial the square. Students may initial each paper only once! The first student to complete all 25 squares wins!! Share your findings with the class and discuss the situations to which you can relate and why.

___ has played a trick on somebody Puck	___ has "loved" someone who didn’t return the feeling	___ has felt jealousy	___ has envied a friend’s good looks	___ has had parents disapprove of a relationship
___ has tried to run away from a problem	___ believes in love at first sight	___ has fought with a friend over a boy/girl	___ regrets falling in love with someone	___ has had funny or bizarre dreams recently
___ believes that looks don’t matter when in love	___ likes to tease or mock others	___ has disobeyed a parent	___ has been annoyed by a persistent admirer	___ has had a crush on the friend of a boyfriend/ girlfriend
___ enjoys magic shows or tricks	___ has gotten completely lost	___ is sometimes fickle about love	___ has told a friend’s secret	___ has been spoiled
___ enjoys plays and shows	___ has rudely insulted a friend	___ has refused a loved one’s demands	___ likes to play "matchmaker"	___ has performed on stage

Then on a BINGO sheet have students write out these names in random order:

Demetrius Hermia Oberon Snout

Egeus Hippolyta Peter Quince Snug

Francis Flute Lysander Philostrate Theseus

Helena Nick Bottom Puck Titania

Bingo Directions for Teachers: Use the following descriptions or quotes to test your students’ knowledge of the characters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream!

Descriptions:

1. wants to take the changeling child from the Fairy Queen (Oberon)

2. falls in love with a mortal while under the spell of a love potion (Titania)

3. the Duke of Athens (Theseus)

4. the Queen of the Amazons (Hippolyta)

5. says the "Prologue" of the play Pyramus and Thisby (Peter Quince)

6. plays the lead male role in the play Pyramus and Thisby (Nick Bottom)

7. plays the lead female role in the play Pyramus and Thisby (Francis Flute)

8. is worried about learning his lines for the play Pyramus and Thisby (Snug)

9. plays the Wall in the play Pyramus and Thisby (Snout)

10. asks the Duke to force his daughter to marry Demetrius (Egeus)

11. the man Helena loves (Demetrius)

12. the man Hermia loves (Lysander)

13. reveals her best friend’s secret to the man she loves (Helena)

14. puts a love potion in the wrong man’s eyes (Puck)

15. runs away with her lover against her father’s wishes (Hermia)

16. does not think the Duke will enjoy the play Pyramus and Thisby (Philostrate)

Quotes:

1. "The course of true love never did run smooth." (Lysander)

2. "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." (Helena)

3. "Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated." (Peter Quince)

4. "I am that merry wanderer of the night." (Puck)

5. "The villain is much lighter-heeled than I. I followed fast, but faster did he fly." (Lysander)

6. "Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell. It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound" (Oberon)

7. "I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream." (Nick Bottom)

8. "The object and the pleasure of mine eye, Is only Helena." (Demetrius)

9. "I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: Mine ear is much enamour’d of thy note" (Titania)

10. "Nay, faith, let not me play a woman; I have a beard coming." (Francis Flute)

11. "Lovers and madmen have such seething brains …" (Theseus)

12. "A play there is, my lord, some ten words long … But by ten words, my lord, it is too long." (Philostrate)

13. "… I present a wall: And such a wall, as I would have you think, that had in it a crannied hole or chink, Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisby, Did whisper often very secretly." (Snout)

14. "Four days will quickly steep themselves in night; Four nights will quickly dream away the time" (Hippolyta)

15. "Have you the lion’s part written? pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study." (Snug)

16. "You thief of love! what, have you come by night And stolen my love’s heart from him?" (Hermia)

My grade 9s did really well with the descriptions. The quotes were a bit harder, but they still did a good job!

[source]