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Posts from the ‘Tools of the Trade’ Category

Nov 19

The Color Conversation: A Classroom Strategy That Actually Gets Teens Talking

How do you get high schoolers to open up and share something real? If your students are anything like mine, they tend to deflect, joke, or suddenly become very interested in the ceiling when it’s time to make personal connections to literature.

So earlier this week, I tricked them—gently—into opening up with a “color conversation.”

The setup was simple: a pile of sticky notes and a handful of colored Sharpies. Before showing the prompts, I told students to grab one marker. Then I revealed the color-coded questions:

Green = Goodbyes: Who is someone you’ve had to say goodbye to?

Red = Bravery: When have you had to be brave?

Purple = Fear: When have you felt afraid?

Orange = Hope: What are some of your hopes for the future?

These emotions connect to the memoir we’re reading together, and because my students are English language learners, I also provided sentence stems to support fluency. I set a 7-minute timer and told them to create and post as many sticky notes as they could. For a bit of motivation, the table with the most notes earned a trip to the class snack bucket.

When the timer dinged, we took a silent gallery walk. Of course, silence didn’t last long. A few whispers broke through: “Wait—whose house caught on fire?” or “Hey, who’s from Ciudad?” While I reminded them there was no pressure to identify their notes, most students did. They wanted to.

The best part? This activity works for any pre- or post-reading moment where students might hesitate to go deeper. And I’m saving the sticky notes. When it’s time for them to write their own memoirs and someone inevitably says, “I don’t have anything to write about,” I’ll point to their own words on the wall—a whole collage of lived experiences waiting to become stories.

Kelly Virgin is a WCWP teacher leader who teaches high school English for the Kennett Consolidated School District.

May 20

Saying a Virtual Goodbye to our Classrooms and the Communities we Built Together.

The last few weeks of school are typically some of the best few weeks of school. This is when we get to enjoy all of our hard work and efforts together through writing celebrations, field trips, poetry slams, sharing our favorite reads, and reflecting on the year we spent together while looking ahead at our futures.

So as I  sit here separated from my students by a computer screen, I’m not only mourning the loss of our in-person connections but I’m also pondering how to honor the community we built with an asynchronous goodbye. 

First and foremost, I know I need to give my students choice with how they close out their school year. I realize this school shut down has presented a vast array of challenges for my students. While most deal daily with the boredom and loneliness of social isolation, others have become full time workers, some are trying to navigate online learning while sharing a computer with siblings and a home with 10 or more people, and a few are grieving lost or sick family members. With this in mind, I want to honor the school year we’ve had together while respecting the various hurdles they each have to jump in order to finish it. Accordingly, the following is how I plan to invite students, in their own ways and on their own time, to celebrate the community we’ve built before saying goodbye to it:

Virtual poetry slam: Since we’ve spent the few last weeks reading and writing poetry through our online learning platform, I want to take some time to communially celebrate the creative work we’ve done by inviting students to participate in any or all of several sharing options. Read more

Oct 10

Tools of the Trade: Creating Student Bloggers in 5 Easy-To-Follow Steps

By Kelly Virgin

It is estimated that 2 million blog posts are written everyday. That is over 10 million per week.

The sheer amount of content makes learning about and teaching this writing task daunting. Nevertheless, my students and I faced this challenge head on as we worked together to craft and publish the first of what will hopefully be many posts on our new blog – khscreativewriters.edublogs.org. The following is the step-by-step approach we used to get comfortable and confident with blogging.

Step 1: Write!

Before I introduced the blogging writing task, I wanted students to have a wealth of ideas to pull from for their first posts. So, we spent a few class periods writing to gather ideas. First, we curated expert lists. Students had five minutes to list as many topics they considered themselves “experts” on. After we listed and discussed some of our expertise, we returned to the items and brainstormed types of writing we could do on the different topics. For example, one student who considers himself an expert on backpacking realized he could write a how-to guide or keep a journal of his backpacking trips.

Another list we created Read more

Sep 12

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Tools of the Trade: Poster Walk the Reader’s Interest Inventory

By Kelly Virgin

Like many teachers I spend time in the fall getting to know my students as readers. I try to learn as much as I can about their reading habits, interests, triggers, opinions, and self-perceptions. Up until a few years ago I gathered this early information by administering reading surveys. Students quietly and individually answered questions about their reading habits that I collected, reviewed, and filed away for reference during future conversations.

However, I realized the questions I was asking should be asked and explored publicly. It isn’t only beneficial for me to get to know my students as readers, but it is also essential for them to get to know each other as readers. So I took that individualized reader’s interest survey and made it visible with a poster walk/discussion.

Now students, armed with a Sharpie marker, spend time meandering around the classroom posting their responses to a variety of prompts. I encourage discussion as they visit posters headed with open-ended questions such as why do you (or should you) read and what topics are you most interested in reading about. I ask them to circle around a second time to notice trends in response to yes or no questions such as do you read for fun and do you enjoy being read to. I give them an opportunity to learn each other’s reading preferences and resources by inviting them to mark their favorite genres and indicate the top sources for their reading materials.

After we spend time posting, noticing, and discussing our reading habits as a class, I ask students to study and hypothesize about some nationwide data on the declining reading habits of adolescents over time. Since their own class data is visible on the walls around them, they are able to situate themselves into the national data and engage in more meaningful and productive conversations. When I meet with readers for conferences in the future I’m able to use this activity and their reflections as a starting point for our conversations. Moreover, students have taken a vital step towards developing stronger literacy habits – they’ve begun to engage in meaningful and thoughtful reading discussions with their peers.

How do you get to know your students as readers at the beginning of the year? What other types of literacy discussions do you have with your classes?

Jun 14

Tools of the Trade: Local Libraries

by Kelly Virgin

LIbrary Post-2

Throughout the school year I have the ability to push my students across that threshold on a regular basis. We visit the school library at least monthly and since I line my classroom walls with bookshelves, they literally walk into a library every school day. However, as the end of the school year looms, I grow increasingly concerned for their literary lives over the summer. To ease my worries, and to nudge students to cross that magic threshold on their own, I take the time to introduce my students to their local library.

Read more

May 9

Mini-Conferences and 1-Day Workshops

By Jen Greene

Professional organizations like NCTE, ILA, PCTELA, and KSLA offer a yearly conference that takes place over several days and is usually packed with inspiring presentations and amazing authors. These conferences are tremendous opportunities to grow and learn in your teaching. I have attended many of these conferences and have been so awestruck by the presentations I’ve seen and people I’ve met.

There’s just one slight problem…..

They are expensive. And many districts cannot or will not provide funding to attend a national or state conference (particularly if it involves airfare).

Fear not! There is a solution…

Read more

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