One of my first mistakes was made with the best intent: I burnt myself out. I worked really hard and tried everything to help my students learn. In fact, I worked so hard that I often spent hours and hours trying to find the *right* passages to read. I think I believed there was a magic article that would somehow unleash the students' intellectual curiosity and make them lifelong learners, all the while hitting every anchor skill of the ELA standards.
But that was crazy! I look back and laugh. My curriculum (or lack of curriculum) gives me some autonomy. Nearly all the readings are entirely up to me. I have the ten Reading for Information standards and the three writing standards: Narrative, Explanatory/Informative, and Argumentative. Some of the coolest articles we've read are about wolves and Goodyear Tires. There was no magic recipe for student engagement. In fact, most class periods had completely different interests as far as reading materials are concerned.
Thankfully, I was able to learn from my misplaced hard work. It was a mistake to think I could work hard and the perfect materials would emerge. Instead, I learned that the teaching resources online exist because not every teacher needs to "reinvent the wheel" so to speak. When I gave in, and searched actively for preexisting content, I was able to form units of study fairly easily. In fact, if I had an acknowledgements page in this portfolio, the first thank you would go to NewsELA.com. I was able to use their lexile adjustment to tailor each reading based on the students within my classes. Often, for differentiation and enrichment, I would print multiple articles from a text set. This is how my instruction would often pan out: my inclusion students would read the text at a fourth or fifth grade level, spending more time on comprehension checks and graphic organizers. Meanwhile, my honors class and other high achievers would read the article at a sixth or seventh grade level, as well as other related texts to the subject matter at hand.
A great example of this utilization of NewsELA is best seen in my Black Lives Matter unit. For all of my class periods, we studied the work of Baltimore-based photographer, Devin Allen. First, we watched an excellent artist bio on vimeo.com:
But that was crazy! I look back and laugh. My curriculum (or lack of curriculum) gives me some autonomy. Nearly all the readings are entirely up to me. I have the ten Reading for Information standards and the three writing standards: Narrative, Explanatory/Informative, and Argumentative. Some of the coolest articles we've read are about wolves and Goodyear Tires. There was no magic recipe for student engagement. In fact, most class periods had completely different interests as far as reading materials are concerned.
Thankfully, I was able to learn from my misplaced hard work. It was a mistake to think I could work hard and the perfect materials would emerge. Instead, I learned that the teaching resources online exist because not every teacher needs to "reinvent the wheel" so to speak. When I gave in, and searched actively for preexisting content, I was able to form units of study fairly easily. In fact, if I had an acknowledgements page in this portfolio, the first thank you would go to NewsELA.com. I was able to use their lexile adjustment to tailor each reading based on the students within my classes. Often, for differentiation and enrichment, I would print multiple articles from a text set. This is how my instruction would often pan out: my inclusion students would read the text at a fourth or fifth grade level, spending more time on comprehension checks and graphic organizers. Meanwhile, my honors class and other high achievers would read the article at a sixth or seventh grade level, as well as other related texts to the subject matter at hand.
A great example of this utilization of NewsELA is best seen in my Black Lives Matter unit. For all of my class periods, we studied the work of Baltimore-based photographer, Devin Allen. First, we watched an excellent artist bio on vimeo.com:
From the intro video, arrived the differentiation. Lower lexile readers worked on T-charts, organizing people, events and ideas on the left, with quick annotations on the right of the text. Lower level readers seemed to succeed with extra modeling, vocabulary work, and usually a graphic organizer. Meanwhile, my higher lexile readers, read two more articles on Alicia Garza and Deray McKesson. I would often times read the first article, then leave them to read the remaining articles and annotating. Embracing relevant subject matter was definitely the first step to helping all of my students learn, regardless of how close they were to grade level.
I have had the privilege to receive a ton of coaching regarding my teaching practices over the last two years. As I mentioned, North Panola requires Instructional Strategies Meetings every week. This means that all english teachers across the grade levels meet together to discuss resources, practices, and assessments.
Over the last year, I have remained consistent in two specific practices. The first is my bellringer method, which is a multiple choice distractor analysis. An example has been posted below. I grade my bellringers according to accuracy and completion every day. Each class period then learns to analyze answer choices, eliminate incorrect options, and choose the correct answer. I believe this bellringer works best for my classroom because it provides students with a logical method of dealing with difficult state test questions. Furthermore, students are so familiar with distractor analysis that they have no hesitation in facing challenging multiple choice questions, regardless of their reading level or proficiency level.
The second practice I have used both last year and this year is the "fork" for essay writing. The "fork" is a pre-writing graphic organizer. It is used both for argumentative and informative essays. I have included a picture of some of my "fork" anchor charts, in the photo of me teaching (above). This writing practice is used not only in my classroom, but across all grade levels and subject areas at NPJH.
Unfortunately, Reading for Information Standards and the writing portion make up the majority of the 6th grade english state test. Therefore, most of my classroom instruction ended with the intent of moving students up to proficient. This was incredibly limiting for many of my projects and units. However, I was able to incorporate a great deal of exciting reading and analysis in preparation for the state test. Some of my students' work as well as their original assignments are included below.
One of my best units was actually my first foray into chromebook use. NPJH purchased 150 chromebooks for testing and instruction this semester. We received no formal professional development for the first few weeks, so I decided to sign out the mobile cart and invent a media project.
My students were assigned an article about a specific country, from NewsELA. As a group, the three students had to close read the article (read, annotate and summarize). Then, the students had to research their given country and pull together a google slide presentation. Most students had minimal experience with google slides, and most could barely type. In this way, we were able to incorporate some real life skills along with our close-reading strategies. Each group also presented their project for a grade. One of the most interesting aspects of this assignment was that each group had a different country (either Spain, Bangladesh, Colombia, Ecuador, Cuba or India). So, students were able to actually present new information to their classmates, who had not read all of the articles nor had background information on the country. In this way, each group became "experts" on their own country and article. Some stand out examples of the project are linked below.
The last two examples of student work are two writing assignments I gave as part of the state test practice. On Thursdays during the last 9 weeks of school, my students write. They come in, drop their bags, sit and read an unfamiliar passage, then write an essay. They have 45 minutes to write complete essays. One of the essays they wrote recently was an argumentative essay on gun control. The second was a narrative on time traveling. Both the original assignments as well as student samples are posted below. All writing is graded according to MDE's writing rubric.
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