Putting Student Writing Center Stage →

“A prince! And can someone with a quiet hand tell me what our main character the prince’s name is?”

Dozens of tiny arms shoot into the air. Peter McNerney, who is moderating the performance, chooses one. He leans in and waits encouragingly for the kindergartner to whisper an answer. “Chicken Breath?” McNerney confirms softly. Then, in a booming voice to the 100 other 5- and 6-year-olds sitting on the gym floor, “Yes, that’s it! His name is Chicken Breath!” Uproarious laughter fills the room. A 20-something actor steps out from behind the curtain wearing a paper crown and blue cloth cape over his t-shirt and jeans. “Good day! I am Prince Chicken Breath!” he declares, to even more laughter.

This “Idea Storm” at Little Falls School No. 2 is the first of four such live shows the performing arts group known as the Story Pirates will put on in New Jersey public schools that day. Just watching these talented actors and improv comedians jump, yell, dance, sing, and throw their bodies about on stage can feel like a workout. But they are indefatigable. The improvised performance they do for the upper elementary students later that afternoon will be just as dynamic and amusing as the one for the kindergartners.

A great read if you’ve got a few minutes (definitely smile-worthy).

Oh, and did I mention there’s a video of the performance?

The 28 most tried and true writing prompts

writingprompts:

50 Alternatives to the Book Report →

theteachersdesk:

1. Character Astrology Signs
2. Heroes and Superheros
3. Create a Childhood for a character
4. Critique from the point of view of a specific organization
5. Social workers report
6. College application
7.  School counselor’s recommendation letter
8.  Talk show invitation
9.  Radio exchange
10.  Movie recommendations
11.  Create a home page
12.  Chat room conversations
13.  E-mail directory
14.  Title acrostic
15.  Cartoon squares
16.  Word collage
17.  Yearbook entries
18.  Letter exchange
19.  Awards
20. Talk show on issues in the novel
21.  Dream vacation
22. Scrapbook 
23. Photos or magazine pictures
24. Music
25. Poetry
26. Twenty questions
27. File a complaint 
28. Tangible or intangible gifts
29.  Talk to the author
30. Point of view column
31. Character monologues 
32. Make up a word test for the novel
33. Answering machine message
34. Found poems
35. Name analysis
36. A character’s fears
37. Current events
38. Advertisements
39. A pamphlet 
40. Draw a scene
41. New acquaintances 
42. Book choices for character
43. Community resources for characters
44. Family history
45. Detective work
46. The dating game
47.  Create a character’s room
48. CD collection
49. Photo album
50. A character alphabet 

(Source: kbkonnected)

coursekit:

“When we were children, letters were like fun toys… Soon, letters turned into words. Words turned into sentences. Sentences turned into thoughts. And along the way, we stopped playing with them and stopped marveling at A through Z.

- Word as Image by Ji Lee

via ianbrooks

Reblogging because I think this could be adapted into a cool activity. Or at least a creative brainstorming exercise.

20 Popular High School Books Available as Free eBooks & Audio Books →

Here’s a full list:

1. 1984
2. Animal Farm
3. Brave New World
4. Frankenstein
5. Heart of Darkness
6. Romeo and Juliet
7. MacBeth
8. Hamlet
9. Julius Caesar
10. Pride & Prejudice
11. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
12. The Call of the Wild
13. The Crucible
14. The Grapes of Wrath
15. The Great Gatsby
16. The Odyssey
17. The Old Man and the Sea
18. The Red Badge of Courage
19. The Scarlet Letter
20. To Kill a Mockingbird

And here are three, for an example:

Animal Farm by George Orwell: Free eBook – Free Audio Book – Free Animated Movie
Orwell’s 1945 allegorical novella took aim at the corruption of the Soviet Union and its totalitarian rule. The short book, which almost never saw the light of day, appears on the Modern Library’s list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley: eText – Free Radio Dramatization (by Huxley himself) – Free Audio Book by Audible
Little known fact. Huxley once taught George Orwell French at Eton. And, years later his 1931 classic, Brave New World, is often mentioned in the same breath with 1984 when it comes to great books that describe a dystopian future.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley - Free ebook – Free Audio Book (MP3) – Radio Drama version (1938) – Movie
Mary Shelley started writing the great monster novel when she was only 18 and completed it when she was 21. The 1823 gothic novel is arguably one of your first works of science fiction.

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magicalteacher:

kbkonnected:

75+ Educational Games

GUDLI is a fantastic website for primary students offering 75+ educational games.

#elemchat #spedchat #kinderchat #1stchat #games #Gudli

GUDLI’s games are excellent for teaching and reinforcing skills. They are bright, colorful and include sound. Advertisements do not appear on the site.

Game categories include…

• Math
• Language Arts
• Science
• Puzzle
• Fun

This will go in my Portaportal right away!!!!

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writingprompts:

246

Did you know that there’s a Writing Prompts Tumblr run by a teacher?

Ten Ideas That Get Kids Writing →

From the National Writing Project’s website (with supporting links). I’ve put two below.

If you don’t want to click through, the article is also available for download as a PDF :o)

4. Students write best about what concerns them most.

Janet Swenson, director of the Red Cedar Writing Project in Michigan, is one of the creators of Write for Your Life. The core idea of Write for Your Life is that important issues in students’ lives should be at the center of their learning. After brainstorming what these issues are, students spend time in a reading/writing workshop setting, researching and writing on their concern, be it a toxic landfill in the area of the school or the prevalence of asthma among the student population. Swenson and her colleagues believe that whatever writing students do should seek an audience beyond the classroom. For example, one student created a firsthand chronicle of her journey through anorexia. She wrote to her teacher, “I wanted to let you know that I let my doctor read my paper and he is now using it to show the other patients. I felt very proud of myself. In a small way I accomplished my goal, to help other people not go through what I have gone through.”

5. Students are motivated to write when good writing is recognized.

At the Oklahoma Writing Project, which she directs, Janis Cramer and her colleagues sponsor a writing workshop/contest for students. The event occurs in two stages. In the fall, up to 250 students of writing project teachers attend an instructional and motivational workshop. Writing project teacher-consultants give demonstrations with titles like, “I Would Love to Write If Only I had Something to Say” and “Life Sentences: A Journey into the Interior.” Then the students are on their own. They submit writing in a number of categories and they return in the spring for another workshop and announcement of the winners. As the contest is a yearly event, those who do not receive top awards one year are usually motivated to try the next year. Said one parent of her son: “This is a boy who is a good student but who never goes above and beyond what the teacher demands in class. When I asked him what he was up to, he told me `I plan to win next year’s writing contest, so I better get to work now.’” Read more.

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girlwithalessonplan:

allabouttoledo:

This is exactly what my life is like.

MA’s, eff yeah.

I don’t know a single BA-in-English holder who does anything directly related to their major. We’re versatile folk like that.

Huge List of YA Books, Recommended by Actual Students →

My favorite part of this, though, was the introduction:

Take four seventh grade girls, plop them in the middle of the teen section at the local library, and just listen. You’re in for, at the least, a very interesting morning. Of course, if you were sitting with my students, you might just laugh yourself silly and then be absolutely amazed…all in the space of about ten seconds.

Welcome to middle school. This is no place for wimps.

"Another reason the comment struck a chord with me is how the decision to Google a word comes ahead of trying to establish meaning from reading skills, such as reading into the context and exploring the sentence further… In my opinion it does hint at the ways children are thinking about processing the information, from reading material or otherwise, we work with everyday."

— Are Online Behaviours Affecting Reading Skills? | edte.ch

Are Online Behaviours Affecting Reading Skills? →

In my final weeks of school our class had our usual Tuesday afternoon guided reading session, where we get the opportunity to work on some reading text with a small group of children. One particular comment from a pupil has stuck in my mind, so I thought I would share some of my reflections with you.

Whilst exploring a text we came across a particular word that became the focus of our attention. Although the group had no problem reading and pronouncing it they didn’t know what it meant. I aimed to set the children off exploring the definition from the information we could acquire from the sentence and the text overall, we may have even cracked open a dictionary or two…

“We could just Google it!”

Click through to read the rest.

Suggestions? →

shapefutures:

Hey all, I’d love to construct some more Grammar Games and the like but I’m not entirely sure what you’re doing in the classroom right now — at the moment, most of  the districts here are in the middle of their state tests, and curriculum boils down to review.  (Part of this is sheer curiosity — I love to know what people are doing in the classroom.)

What’s coming up?  What do you plan to teach next?  Or, for those who don’t necessarily have curriculum-planning power yet, what’s coming up next in your classroom?

Top 12 Young Adult Books for Reluctant Readers →

theteachersdesk:

This is one teacher’s list for the best read, most asked for, and favorite books from their personal class library.

All 12 of these titles are young adult fiction and includes books aimed at both boys and girls. This list was (most importantly) created by the students based on popularity and…

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“I just tried to write a good story about a smart kid in an interesting situation.”

-Gary Paulsen, on teaching guides for his book Hatchet