So
far this year I have jumped in enthusiastically to an improv game called “Bunny,
Bunny” in an 8th grade class. This game encourages students to work
as a team as they pass the words, “Bunny, Bunny” around, while standing in a
circle. The class kept erupting into
laughter as another component of the game is to keep the rhythm going by
chanting, “Goocha, goocha,” continuously. Then, I was off to a fairly new
teacher’s classroom, who was sternly reviewing the rules of the class with a
Powerpoint. I shed my “Bunny, Bunny” demeanor, stood up straight and donned a
serious face to show support for my new colleague. Next, I went to a seasoned 4th
and 5th grade teacher’s room and sat down with a table of students
who were cutting out emojis that represented their identities. I relaxed into
the seat and talked to the students informally about the choices they were
making.
As an English language development teacher (previously known as ESL teacher), I don’t really run the show during the first weeks of school. It is a time for me to observe and notice as much as I can about the students and teachers with whom I will be working. As I move from classroom to classroom I adapt to the environment that the general education teacher has established for the start of the school year. Until my caseload is finalized and I have some time to co-plan with teachers, this is my role and I believe it helps all the students to view me as a positive and natural part of their classroom community. That way when I begin to focus on the multilingual students to develop their language skills, they are not stigmatized and their classmates feel comfortable coming to me for guidance as well.
Over the last few years, my students and I have experimented with using independent reading books as individualized mentor texts. While students studied their books individually or in small groups, I wanted the entire class to benefit from the rich examples of word choice, conventions, style, and craft. I also wanted to highlight exemplar student writing.
What I Did
From October 2018 to December 2018, I invited students to help teach mini-lessons based on their individualized mentor texts and writing pieces. When deciding what skill to teach when, I considered several factors: students’ writing needs and strengths, their Self-Selected Writing Pieces, upcoming whole-class genre and novel studies, and curriculum requirements. As I read student drafts and conducted one-on-one conferences, I noticed techniques that would benefit the entire class. Occasionally, students volunteered a specific skill that they wanted to share.
After asking students to
present, I met with them as a small group to practice what we would say and decide
who would read the mentor texts. These pre-meetings took place during
independent reading or writing time.
During the co-led lessons, each student shared an excerpt from their book and talked through their observations. If a student used the technique, then they discussed their example and writing process. Usually, two or more students taught the mini-lesson with me. As students presented, I helped explain the technique and provided the examples for the class on our Learning Management System (LMS).
Below are two examples of co-led, student-teacher mini-lessons from last year. All names are pseudonyms.
In early October, repetition emerged in my students’ writing pieces, so I asked them to co-teach a mini-lesson with me. During our sixth period class, Emily shared how she repeated “I’ll come back for you” three times with the font getting smaller to mimic the father leaving his daughter. She wrote, “My mind flashed back to Papa’s words, ‘I’ll come back for you . . . I’ll come back for you . . . I’ll come back for you.’ I remember him fading farther and farther away from me, until his voice disappeared into the darkness.” She wanted the visual to help her reader hear a fainter and fainter voice. Next, Elsa included repetition to emphasize a scary scene in her story: the moment a Nazi soldier captures the main character’s sister. She hoped the reader would feel the intensity as the crunching leaves got “louder. Louder. LOUDER.”
In seventh period,
Jack employed repetition to emphasize the impact of his character losing an
important object: “Oh no. No No No NO NO NO
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO! Where is it? I swear I
put it right here! Where is it?!” For Pat, he repeated “No mercy” to reveal the
struggle his soldiers experienced during the battle in his sci-fi story: “‘Get to the guns. No mercy,’ he says.
We run forward, hopping into the seats, powering on the cannons. I hear a loud
boom then a scream. . . . The words no mercy ring in my mind. No mercy,
no mercy, no mercy.” For these students, repetition established
voice and emphasized specific moments. By sharing their craft moves with the
class, they took on leadership roles, increased their confidence, and served as
writing role models for their classmates.
Then, at the beginning of November, I asked students to observe the em dash in their independent reading books. Three weeks later, I approached a number of students who had experimented with the technique in their writing and located the em dash in their books. Ten students participated in the co-led mini-lesson (four in one class and 6 in another). The students shared their examples and explained whether their em dash cut off dialogue, interrupted an idea, accentuated a point, or replaced a comma. Sam read the following example from This is Where it Ends, “The silence from the auditorium is tense and loaded. Except it’s not silence. All around me there are sobs, prayers, and curses—friends are trying to calm each other” (Nijakamp 62). From Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Brad added, “‘I heard you speaking Parseltongue,’ said Ron. ‘Snake language. You could have been saying anything—no wonder Justin panicked, you sounded like you were egging the snake on or something—it was creepy—you know’” (Rowling 196). All the examples were available for the class to review on our LMS. After the mini-lesson, the class worked in groups to practice adding em dashes to their own writing. The student presenters acted as leaders within their small groups, guiding their peers’ writing process.
My Plan
These co-led, student-teacher lessons prompted my students to take a front-row seat in sharing their writerly observations and explaining their writing process. Overall, these lessons and procedures proved successful, but I wanted to increase the number of co-led mini-lessons while streamlining the collection of student writing and mentor texts. I also wanted a way to collect titles for book talks and excerpts for quick writes.
Step 1: For the 2019-2020 school year, I am in the process of creating an assignment that will ask students to submit text excerpts for mini-lessons, book talks, and quick writes. They will collect and post their observations by the last day of each month in our LMS. Students will submit in one of the following four categories:
Independent reading book mentor text excerpt
Student writing mentor text excerpt
Independent reading book excerpt for quick writing
Independent reading book for a book talk
Step 2: During the month of September, students read like writers, completed quick writes, and listened to book talks. We also reviewed MLA In-Text Citation and Works Cited. The first monthly assignment will launch in October and be due on October 31st. Students will be able to submit their work during class or at home. If they find more than one excerpt, technique, or book that they wish to share, they may do so.
Step 3: Each month students will submit a reflective assignment that includes:
The
category they chose
The
except from the text or their writing (either typed or a picture)
The
reason (specific technique, craft move, idea) why they selected the book and
excerpt
Works
Cited
Step 4: As students share their work, I will schedule the mini-lessons, book talks, and quick writes as they fit into our Writing-Reading Workshop. I will approach students a few days before their lesson to review their assignment submission and prepare them for their book talk, quick write, or co-led lesson.
Step 5: Before the selected students present their findings to the class, I will upload the necessary materials to our LMS. Depending on the mini-lesson’s content and the class’s ability, the co-led mini-lesson will require varying levels of teacher support. Students will be able to present their book talks and quick writes independently.
Next Steps
I am excited to see where this
new initiative leads. The LMS should streamline my ability to collect student
work. The assignment puts more onus on my students because they submit their mini-lesson,
book talk, and quick write ideas. As they assume these new leadership roles
within our workshop, I hope it builds confidence in their abilities and offers
opportunities for peer collaboration. I will continue to model successful book
talks and quick writes as well as share texts that foster their abilities to
read like writers.
If you have tried something
similar or have questions, please share your thoughts below. I would love to
hear from you! Take care for now and have a great school year!
Students are given groups, clues, scratch paper, and twenty-five minutes. They have everything they need to figure out who murdered Mr. Kelley.
I started doing this activity a few years ago when I found that my students either didn’t like to participate in group discussions or struggled to have conversations with peers that weren’t their friends. I started searching around, and I found a murder-mystery discussion activity.
I adapted it to suit my needs, piloted it, and it is now part of my opening week lessons.
When placing the students in their groups for the period, I try to pair them up with people I haven’t seen them interact with as much. I want to build community within our classroom. Students are dealt clues, and they are the only ones allowed to read their clues out loud. This is an easy way to make sure everyone within the group participates and that no person dominates the conversation.
Students work together, organize information, and collaborate and communicate with one another. Once the murder is solved, we discuss the importance of sharing ideas with one another, working together, and thinking critically. The students really enjoy the activity and it does a great job of highlighting the idea that everyone can make valuable contributions to a discussion.
I have used one-pagers before in the context of literature courses, asking students to respond to a book or a reading. But, during the first week of classes, when my first year writing students began thinking about their literacy narratives, I decided to try out something new (for me, at least): to use the one-pager as a brainstorming tool.
Why use a one-pager?
Students are creating narratives, so allowing a visual representation in the brainstorming process can help them think about important details.
They don’t need to write complete sentences. The prompts I gave them asked more about the general aspects of their stories: Who are the characters? What visuals stand out? What are some of the keywords in your narrative? Are there quotes or ideas that could become dialogue? Etc.
Students don’t have to be artists. They just need to convey their ideas in short textual or visual representations.
What did I ask them to do?
I first explained what a one-pager is and why we were using it for further brainstorming. On the previous class meeting, students had produced a list of potential topics for their literacy narrative. On this class meeting, they narrowed it down to the one they would develop.
Before starting their own, I showed students examples of one-pagers from my previous students. I explained that these were a little different because they were responses to a book rather than ideas about their own writing.
I projected on the screen the following list of elements to include in their one-pager:
■A border with key words about your narrative. It can also be a quote you remember.
■Tone. What tone will you take? How will you achieve it?
■An image or set of images that relate to your narrative. Think about what you are including and why. Write about them.
■Key events in your narrative. You can list them, sketch them, or both.
■Characters in your narrative. Who plays a part? How are they part of your story?
■Lines- think about dialogue (this can be “made up”)
What happened?
While including the main components, students created a variety of one-pagers. And each one addressed the individual needs of each writer. One student, for instance, brainstormed ideas learning to use a computer when they were little. In their one-pager, they sketched a keyboard that, instead of letters, was covered in what looked like chicken feet. As the student explained, thinking about their first time trying to use a computer, this is what the keyboard looked like– just indiscernible and confusing characters.
The verdict: The one-pagers worked! My students were able to brainstorm in textual and visual ways, with some structure yet also freedom. Next time, I will consider allow more time in class for this so that their one-pagers can be even more detailed.
How have you used one-pagers with students? What are some brainstorming strategies your students have enjoyed?
Consider seven surprises from the start of the year:
A 6th-grade girl dancing and leaping like Isadora Duncan all by herself. Easily 100 yards away from everyone out in the fields by our school–a happy little pink speck twirling and flickering across the grass.
An 8th-grade boy handed me a knitted blue heart on his way out of class and said “there’s a really interesting project going on with these”: The Peyton Heart Project.
I saw $25 dollars in cash outside. I’m “used to” seeing kids’ smartphones left unattended outdoors, but we’re doing cash now?
The student who said: “I. Am. SO. Going. To. Raid. Your. Bookcase.”
And the boy who wore a full Spiderman costume to Picture Day and the rest of the kids didn’t blink.
And the magic that happens when we provide kids colored chalk, an asphalt surface, and time.
Educator’s curate and plan. Administrators curate and plan. The top-down model of “doing business” is real. Yet, so much of our vocation is steeped in holistic responses–the “intimate and inexplicable connections”–generated within our small communities.
The seven surprises shared above may seem unconnected but that isn’t true. They all have something in common.
Me.
I was there.
And each act of creativity, sincerity, or folly can be impacted by my responsiveness…or silence.
I haven’t shared if or how I may have responded, but I know I can be better. I am reminded that, even after twenty-five years in the classroom, we have so much to learn…and give.
Opportunities to give emerge in unexpected ways every day.
I collaborate with students at Penn State Brandywine’s Writing Studio amid a culture clash. I tutor first-year writers one-on-one weekly; for many students, this is the first time they’re receiving sustained, individual educational attention. This year, Penn State’s professors, drawing from generations of institutional and social power, will expect students to compose using standardized citation, annotation, Standard American English grammar, and critical literacy skills. Meanwhile, our students speak and write a plurality of grammars. They grew up among multiple family and community literacies. Faculty and staff may expect students to navigate college as their primary, if not singular, responsibility. Our students hold themselves personally responsible for much more.
Brandywine’s campus is the second most diverse student community in the Penn State system. My intention this year is to hold space for our differences. When we open intercultural dialogue, my students and I can better acclimate and build a shared community. Previously, I began every semester by reviewing the tutorial’s syllabus: I led with my expectations; I created the terms of a contract for students. I’ve defined students’ success, even delineating their acceptable boundaries for resistance (students are allowed two missed tutorials). My power defined our first communication. This year, I will ask, not tell:
What are your expectations for yourself and for me?
How do you define success as an individual writer and as writing partners, together?
What will we do when we encounter misunderstanding or conflict?
How can we hold each other responsible and accountable for our goals and intentions?
Importantly, we both share our answers to these questions. Exploring difference early and developing shared agreements will hopefully reduce students’ isolation when they encounter different values later on. Hopefully, we’ll begin a conversation that makes visible our intercultural exchange and we’ll return to that conversation throughout the semester. I have the privilege of cultivating individual relationships at the Writing Studio. I want to advance that by respecting students’ unique experiences, histories, and strengths as the foundation for their progress.
write.share.connect 