Teaching Students how to Summarize

The I-Tunes conference really made me re-think the way I teach literacy in my classroom. The first unit for English 11 in Norfolk is the Non-fiction unit, and my 11th grade team begins with teaching students about Native American myths. When I looked in the SOL (red) warm-up book for the passage from the myth "When Grizzles Walked Upright," I noticed that the summarizing literacy strategy was used for the multiple-choice questions. Thus, thinking back on what I learned from the conference, I designed my lesson completely around the summarizing strategy. The students and I will read the first myth together, and we will complete the "Somebody Wanted But So" activity in order to summarize the myth; then, the students will read the second myth and complete the SWBS statement independently. I will then use their SWBS statement to assess whether or not they summarized the myth correctly. After I realized what "magnificent seven" strategy I wanted to use in my lesson, the rest of the lesson fell into place!

Power Tools Help With School Improvement Plan

The Power Tools for Adolescent Literacy book helped to devise strategies for improving English 9 reading scores. In addition I am using three on the first day of school. Yay, Power Tools!

Wow...we have already had to share an overview at a full faculty meeting. Next step, we have to do a lesson demonstration tomorrow!! And this is before we have even gotten underway!! It is really exciting to me that we are going to use and remember the wonderful strategies because our school is committed to supporting and acting on it!! I love, love, love the magnificent seven and have gotten a new zeal for preparing my lessons the first nine weeks to SLOWLY walk through them for the benefit of the students!! Thank you SURN!!

Returning to work

As I drove home from Williamsburg yesterday, my mind was racing with what I needed to accomplish during the next several hours. I would be picking up my twins from my sister, squeezing in a much needed hair appointment, rushing to cheer practice and thanking the other coach who got it started for me, and eventually getting home to unload the car, unpack then pack again to leave this morning to take the kids for a last summer visit with their grandparents in N.C. Dinner ended up being a quick sandwich at 9 pm and I fell into bed relatively early.
I woke up this morning while it was still dark outside and my thoughts jumped excitedly from one idea to another and they all had to do with the iTune into Literacy conference from which I'd just returned. Even though I attended as an ambassador, I got so much out of the conference! I am emailing my principal a "plan" for the continuation of our Literacy initiative begun last school year. I love WAFL that the administrators came up with at the conference & would like our building to embrace the We are for Literacy slogan. I will share the plan I'm submitting to my principal in a future blog...I simply wanted to share my enthusiasm for the upcoming school year and my hopes that your year is phenomenal.

Thank you!

As I drove to the conference last year I began to wonder why I had given up my vacation time to go to another conference. Three days later I didnot want to go home; I wanted to learn more! I have implimented many of the strategies with much success in my classroom. I use my iPod daily for "setting the mood",transitions from one task to another, and for motivation. If all of my students receive an 80% or better on a quiz or test we dance in celbration to the "Electric Slide." I teach World Geography and my students have enjoyed the tradtional cultural music from each part of the world that we have studied. I have started my personal libray of picture books to help me teach my content and I am writing a grant for the purchase of more picture books. Thank you iTune into Literacy Conference for giving me the tools to be a better teacher.

Changing the way I think ... about teaching

One of the biggest challenges as a middle school teacher is keeping around 100 students engaged in learning every day. This year, I teach two different grade levels - which adds to that challenge considerably. Before attending the Power Tools workshop, I would plan my units and hope that something in the units would reach each student. I find that now, I am much more deliberate about planning specific strategies that will be helpful to the students - and ones that the students will be most likely to carry to other classes. Two of the strategies that I have found especially helpful in Language Arts are "Marking the Text" and "SWBS."

Marking the Text is a great way to help students through difficult passages, or passages that deal with a lot of specific content, such as history or science. I made bookmarks for the students that have the different code abbreviations, as well as poster sized copies for the room.

Many of my students have trouble with comprehension, or more accurately, writing a summary that demonstrates true comprehension. Using "Somebody Wanted But So" (SWBS) is a fantastic way to teach students a lifelong skill of quickly summarizing the content or explaining someone's life work. We use this a lot!

The Power Tools book is an invaluable resource, and it sits on my desk each day. I wish every teacher in my building had the chance to attend the workshop, because although all teachers were given their own copies of the book, I know they are not seeing these strategies in the same way as those of us who were lucky enough to attend.

I look forward to incorporating these strategies into a new content next year when I change subjects - and am already looking at the new materials through a different lens.

Applying Reading Strategies in a Collaborative Classroom

Since the beginning of the year I have modeled and utilized many of the reading strategies. I collaborate with a general education teacher. We have found that modeling the actual reading straategy and talking students through the process has helped students greatly when we ask them to apply the actual strategy to a passage.

We have a section in our Interactive notebooks where we list the reading strategy and then have them to explain the strategy and how it helps them comprehend reading materials.

The handbook has been very useful!!