Blogging in the Middle

Surprisingly, most middle school students I've polled, know about blogs, but simply have never tried it. Blogging is a type of informational writing, it can be persuasive/argumentative and it can even be personal. Last year I tried blogging with my students for the first time, but I went the easy route- creating an informational blog page on a topic of interest. While I could have incorporated the technology aspect of creating a blog page, there were many roadblocks. First, Access to technology is not readily available to all students from home and time in school can be constrictive when trying to cover content. Second, my school does not allow my students to go to any ole' website to create a blog since almost all require email addresses and/or have advertising on those pages.  I did come across Kid Blog, which, like Edmodo, has a code for students to enter and no email is required. So, while I will probably try that this year, I still think this activity is well worth the effort for many reasons.

The first step was to have kids brainstorm about a hobby, topic they are invested in, etc. They had to choose something they know a lot about so they wouldn't just go to websites and copy and paste information. While they were aloud to do some research, (great way to incorporate CCS 7- Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.)  they had to provide a link to that information within their blog page and it had to be at a minimum since I wanted it to be their writing and not that of a website.

Next, Students had to write a rough draft of their blog page- I made it a minimum of three paragraphs. From there we investigated various blogs- what are the parts, how are they written? etc. Some good resources to check out include:
LiveBinder of Resources about Kid Bloggin   AND
http://wheretostartwithwikisandblogs.wikispaces.com/Wiki+Blog+rules+for+kidsKids and Wikis and Blogs   Specifics for kids and blogging.

You might create questions that students can answer through a scavenger hunt using these sites.

Once we have viewed blogs online, learned about the parts and how the blog is written, we began to design our own blog page. I have used a template in the past, but the easiest way to go is have students go to Google and type in Blog Page Template under images. Students can model their template after a variety of images without making them all cookie-cutter. In the middle of their page, their three paragraph blog writing had to be the focus. They were required to have a header, a Blog name, at least one graphic, and a sidebar, with links to other sites about their topic. Below are just a few that students created!

Topics such as NFL, Austrian Shepherds, Soccer, Music and ADD, to name only a few, are what's on our middle school students' minds.

I showcase many of the student blogs on a bulletin board with the title : Blog About It! 

My Visual-Spatial and even Kinesthetic kids loved this activity since they were creating something by hand. Obviously my Verbal-Linguistic students loved sharing their fave topic in writing. And since students were able to choose their own topic, all were highly invested in this project.  The Informational CCS 2 was well covered during this mini-unit.
Extensions can include- Commenting appropriately-Grammar Girl Blog Comment Tips

Which leads to another aspect of a blog post- engaging your audience- Students were required to engage their audience at the end of the blog post so that students had an idea to grasp in order to respond. Once our blogs were finished, students received Post-it Notes and they were able to read the blog posts in a gallery walk, posting comments onto the blog with their Post-It. We discussed revision after this activity- what comments surprised you? Did you realize you left important information out? What would you add or change given the audience reaction/comments?  etc.

Blogging with students does not have to be uncontrollable- which is how many teachers see having 130 students blogging on a website. How do you keep up with all that? How do you grade it? You can visit my Technology Resource page which houses many links to blog/wiki rubrics and ideas:
My Site for Everything Blogs and Wikis

 Blogging on Paper is a first great step to introducing the mechanics of a blog and its contents and can be a great stepping stone to creating a blog online.

Building Community: First Days Activities

Depending on your school configuration, some kids travel with the same kids from elementary throughout middle school, and other schools filter students in from many schools throughout a district. Regardless of the situation, there are first day activities that can not only reveal information about your students individually, but can also provide a class-wide snapshot of who your students are. Furthermore, students can get to know themselves and each other, building community within the classroom. 

One of the first activities I do Involve individual hobbies and interests. Students are asked to simply list up to ten things they love, like to do, hobbies, affiliations with extra-curricular activities (sports, church, youth-group, Boy Scouts, karate, etc.). I take that list and create a Wordle with it. The Wordle has their class title in the largest letters- “First Block” for example, and all the interests are in various sizes. I use Jing (www.techsmith.com)  to take a picture of the Wordle, and we look at it at the start of the following week. We discuss our similarities (the largest words) and our differences (the smallest words). I discuss that a community is made up of many similarities and differences, and that is what makes us who we are as a learning community. We need to respect our differences and who knows? We might even learn from each other; gain new interests as we take notice of what others are “into” around us.

I can see the class as a whole through this Wordle (www.wordle.net), and I can use those interests we have in common to bring in reading material and to help create writing prompts. I can also use those smaller words to gain the attention of my more difficult to reach students, tying in reading and writing activities that relate to those who might not otherwise be reached, had I now known their interests. I staple these Wordles on the bulletin board for future reference, and throughout the year, I am pleased to see kids studying their own class’ Wordle as well as that of other classes.

Another formative assessment I perform in class is a Multiple Intelligence test. I am able to gain a quick answer to how my students learn best, integrating these learning styles into lessons and activities. I don’t stop there, though. I want students to be aware of our similarities and differences in the class and I need to see the classroom as a whole. We engage in a graphing activity to do this. 

Students are given a post-it for their highest score, and asked to remember which Intelligence that high score was in. (If there is a tie for a high-score, and there often is, I give them two post-its, and so on.) Students are asked to write their name on the post-it. On the board I have listed each Intelligence across the top, and students take their post-it and place it under the category in which they scored the highest, forming a bar graph. Once more, I discuss our similarities and differences, as well as re-enforce how each Intelligence might be used to help them learn, and how I plan to integrate these Intelligences in lessons and activities. I also take a snapshot of the class graph, so I have a quick reference in order to plan my lessons.

Both activities create community, informs my instruction, and informs my students about themselves and each other- ultimately, aiding in the formation of a positive learning environment.

Mapping in the Middle

 The #CLMOOC I am participating in with the National Writing Project (NWP) has introduced different makes each week. This week’s make has been maps. Several wonderful ideas have evolved and could be used in multiple ways in the ELA Classroom. One such way maps can be used in any classroom- the Google+ Map where students can pin where they are from. I could see this as a precursor to the “Where I’m From” Poem originating with George Ella Lyon. It is simple to do- students can log into Google +, right click on the location where they are from, and insert a placemarker. A box opens for a subject line and some text- students might do as we did in the CLMOOC, we put our name in the subject line and a six word memoir. Take a look at how it might appear:

One could take this farther and map the progress of a character or characters as they journey within a book. One such book The Watsons Go to Birmingham involves the family’s travels from Michigan to Alabama. As the family travels and places are mentioned in the book, students can pin those places and a memorable event or quote from a character. Rules of the Road is another great book that could be mapped. I have a cheap Webquest for Rules of the Road on Teachers Pay Teachers that prompts students to map the main character’s journey. Of course there are other types of maps and most of us have heard of the life map- where students “map” out their lives and significant events in their lives. This type of life map could also be a great pre-write for a “Where I’m From” Poem or a personal narrative. Students might also create a future life map- like this one on Prezi- http://prezi.com/8j__jhpkccbp/my-life-map/ and they can create SMART goals to get to the future they want. Students might map a character- what he/she sees, feels, thinks, wants, etc. as a pre-write for a character analysis- You can see a sample here- http://prezi.com/kly7hgwbz78x/character-maps/ One other type of map involves a sociogram, where students map character interactions- who interacts with whom within the story. You can see a simple example here using The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey. One might use circles for the main/Round characters, squares for secondary/flat characters, etc. Students can color code with a key that reveals the particular meaning behind each color, solid lines or dashed lines to connect the characters, etc. In The Monstrumologist example below, I could have put a dotted line from Dr. Warthrop to his father- since his father had no real relationship with his son but was the direct cause of the monsters coming into his son’s life.

Finally, many on the CLMOOC have experimented with a learning walk- inspired by Mary Ann Riley’s Blog post found here- http://maryannreilly.blogspot.com/2011/07/being-in-middle-learning-walks.html . Some have created learning walks that show their surroundings- what they see globally, locally and even from the micro level. Some have gone on a “hearing” walk to record what they hear. This would be a great exercise in “noticings” in our school, outside our school, in the community, etc.- helping students to use their five senses to notice what is around them- to practice capturing what they see, hear or smell in words.

 There are so many places to go to experiment with some form of mapping- I was just introduced to www.myhistro.com . Here (for free) you can map out an entire story by dates- insert information, see the place on the map and create a timeline of your life. Here I wonder if students might use this when Interviewing Veterans for a Veteran’s Day project, to map out each person’s or several Veteran’s life story in relation to their lives and/or military service. Of course the life map could also be the focus for this type of app as well. You can take a look at my map using myhistro.com- http://www.myhistro.com/story/life-as-i-knew-it/72106

As I developed my Life Map using MyHistro, I saw a theme develop- the number of times I moved in my life. This could develop into a memoir of my houses and the places I've lived and what I have gained through all these places. I might write a narrative help article on moving and how to cope, etc. The point is that a theme developed for me and may for students as well. If not, students always have individual events they've mapped that might spark an idea for writing.  

Other Mapping Tools- www.mindmoto.com (you can only get 3 free maps and then you have to pay) www.prezi.com – you can certainly create some mapping with several Prezi Templates offered for free.
 And finally maybe you might challenge students to read all the books on your state’s literary map- http://www.ncte.org/affiliates/literarymaps

This Article relates ways that students can create a mental map of where they learn- their "Learning Ecology"  Comes with directions and videos/examples-Mentally Mapping Where Students Learn

Mapping. Who would have thought that so many ideas might be incorporated using the age-old map?

Infographics and Research

CCS W.8.7. Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.

I have been thinking about infographics – a visual representation of data. A topic that many are discussing on the CLMOOC- http://blog.nwp.org/clmooc/  One area that I fail to give enough attention too is research. The CCS states that students should participate in short research projects, and all I have managed to fit in is one major research project and a resulting research paper. SO the idea of infographics caught my attention.

With the possibility of Infographics, students can think of questions they want to answer and they can create an infographic to not only display the resulting information, but they can share this information thus utilizing the speaking and listening skills as well. 

Some questions I thought of include:

·         Do teenagers get enough sleep? (Polling students on the number of hours of sleep they get on average each school night)

·         Does good organization correlate with good grades? (I thought maybe they could poll a number of students on use of their agenda book, use of locker, use of a folder system/binder and what their average grade is in their classes….)

·         Should school start later in the day? (Polling students on a scale of 1-5  on how sleepy they are in the morning, afternoon and late day)  

·         Does education pay? (Researching statistics on pay scales in relation to level of education)

I also stumbled upon a Kids Count Contest for Infographics that offers a cool research tool that kids might utilize to research information about kids and their well being across the US or even in their own state- http://sparkaction.org/content/how-create-winning-infographic

Of course my hope is that students might also generate their own questions in which to poll others in the school for the results.

Showing students Infographics and why they are used, their importance, and their benefits would be our first step after we formulate the question, carry out our research, and compile our results.

Some great sites that offer teaching tips and examples include:

10 Awesome Free Tools to Make Infographics http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/awesome-free-tools-infographics/

Creating Infographics with Students- http://langwitches.org/blog/2011/09/06/creating-infographics-with-students/

Both of these sites provide a great introduction to Infographics, examples, and tips on best practice.  The Infographic site that I have been experimenting with and have found good results and ease of use is  http://www.easel.ly/    It is still in Beta form at this time.

This site has some fabulous samples of Infographics as well!  

Another recommended easy site is http://piktochart.com/  The downside is that you have to log in to save the Infographic, and that might be a problem for students in a school setting. There is no way to print the graphic, so I will have to continue to experiment with different venues to find one that might work for students in a school setting. I do know that Google has some capacity to build charts and graphs, but many schools (mine included) do not  permit students to use Google  in the classroom setting.

That’s not to say that student couldn’t create their Infographic by hand or even using Word, and the Kids Count site noted above does discuss this as well.  The great thing about kids, they are VERY innovative and creative and I am always amazed by what they are able to produce when left to their own devices.

Another aspect of the CCS I think might work well here is the CCS RI.8.7. Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using different mediums (e.g., print or digital text, video, multimedia) to present a particular topic or idea.  

Provide the same information in an article, via a video and in an Infographic and have students compare/contrast the advantages and disadvantages of each medium and its ability to express an argument, to convey information, to persuade, etc. I was able to do this with the dangers of smoking. My students read an article about the dangers of smoking, they watched a video of “Dr. Oz” discussing and showing the dangers of smoking and I showed an Infographic that showed a person with diseased lungs, yellow teeth, etc. each body area labeled to discuss the dangers/effects of smoking. ( I just went to Google Images and searched for effects of smoking) Hands down the kids preferred the Infographic and provide some good reasons why. They enjoyed the activity and we had good discussion on the benefits of each format as well as the disadvantages for readers.

Here is a great blog post on implementing Infographics in the classroom written by Chris Miller, a middle school teacher in Wisconsin- http://mrmillernyr.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/clmooc-reflection-infographics/  His blog is titled- “The Second Level: A  Middle School Teacher’s Perspective”

In the upcoming school year, I hope to post pictures of my students’ Infographics as well as a reflection on the project. In the meantime, I played around with another infographic site-http://infogr.am/beta/   and here is what I was able to develop: http://infogr.am/Does-education-affect-my-future/

Amy

 

Evidence in Writing

I attended a Common Core Academy held by a local writing project and participated in two noteworthy activities that involve prior knowledge and supporting evidence. The below activities are not my own creation and were generated through a group of teachers and administrators.

In this activity we were asked to read from a children's picture book and the challenge was to find or "lift a line" from the text that supported a character analysis. The character "X" is resilient. Find something in the text that supports this character trait. In small groups, we each read the story and worked to find something in the story that would support this character trait.  As we placed our evidence up for all to see, the instructor led us through a mini-lesson on the types of evidence one might find in a story- dialogue, quotes, inference, etc.  This would work very well for middle grades using a higher level text. Character analysis, evidence of theme, etc. might be the focus and students work to lift a line or find evidence that supports a particular theme or character trait.  I can see using this method to discuss writer's craft and how a writer helps the reader get to know the character- through dialogue, action, what others say about him/her, etc. What do we know about this character? What is he/she like? Lift a line that portrays who this character is as a person. A mini-lesson can follow where you discuss how a writer introduces and develops a character.

I wish I could turn this picture around- I actually did so in Paint, but now it comes up like this anyway...sigh...

Nevertheless, in this activity a topic was introduced- what do you know or think you know about proper nutrition? In small groups we listed everything we thought we knew about this topic. Next we were given multiple articles- they were short and in some cases excerpts- and our goal was to find evidence that supports at least one thing we wrote down on the chart paper. We had to list the evidence and source on a post-it  and place the Post-it next to the line which it supported.

I can see this working for many topics, it can help students achieve those short research projects noted in the CCS, and it can assist in learning how to find evidence and how to cite it.

 In addition, one might use this activity in order to counter-argue as well. If students find information that is the exact opposite of what has been listed, you might color-code your Post-its and use hot pink for example to show evidence that does NOT support that information. A counter-argument mini-lesson or even how to introduce a counter-argument mini-lesson might come from this extension.

Argumentative Writing: A Pre-write Activity

Pre-Writing  Activity 

Argument (although could work for Informational writing too!) 

CCS: W8.1; 8.4; SL 8.1

When students began to think about their first argumentative piece, convincing our Site-Based Council to allow cell phone use in the classroom, I knew that many students might struggle with three or more sound reasons for allowing cell phones in the classroom. We read many articles about how other schools were using cell phones as well as articles that listed pros and cons on the issue. I decided I wanted a more collaborative approach to developing possible points and here is what we did. 

Students were given about 4 post-its and on each were directed to list a possible use for cell phones and/or reasons for having a cell phone. Students worked independently to list at least 3 or 4- one per post-it. 

Once completed, students were put into groups of 4 or 5 and they were directed to share their ideas. 

The next step was then to come up with categories for these ideas (safety, tools, etc.) and to place their post-its in the appropriate category. Students had to come up with their own categories and while most did well, I moved about the room offering advice if needed. 

Students collaboratively organizing their ideas

Students Have organized their ideas into three categories or points

Here students have categorized many of their ideas into a "Tools" category

Students organizing their ideas into categories

Once finished, students shared out their categories and what "points" fell into each category.  

My hope was that students would understand that many ideas can fit into a category, which in turn will produce a "FAT" paragraph. Often times students end up creating points that are very similar and they repeat information. By using this technique I was hoping that students would have the opportunity to think critically about brainstorming ideas, categorizing those ideas, and organizing them from least to most important. All of these skills are needed to write a cohesive argumentative piece.

Lego: Writing and Following Directions

Informational Writing - 

CCS: RI 8.4; W8.2

Students often think that following directions are super easy, but we find out just how difficult it can be with our informational Lego Direction Writing Activity.

First we look at vocabulary. Words such as
Horizontal
Vertical
Adjacent
and other spatial words they may want to use. I encourage kids to use the vocabulary in their directions, which embeds the meaning and puts it into practice.

Step One: Each partner group chooses about 15-20 legos and together plan a design.
Step Two: Write your design building down step by step. I encourage one to build and feed direction to one writer.
Step Three- Once finished, you will take the lego design apart (I take pictures of the designs to show the direction designers' version compared to the builders' version)
Step Four- Give the pieces and the written directions to a set of builders.
Step Five- The builders attempt to use the directions to build the Lego contraption as it was originally built.
Step Six- Once built, the designers give feedback if it is incorrect and builders attempt to get it correctly built.
We compare pictures of the two after the second (or third) attempt. 
Step Seven- The builders write feedback on the directions sheet- what was easy, hard, what information was missing, etc. and they give the Lego contraption and their feedback to the original designers, who then reflect themselves on their directions: what was easy about writing directions? What was difficult? etc.

We compare pictures of the two (original and builders) and as a class discuss what was difficult about writing and following directions.