Who Do You Ask?

Ben and Chloe sit beside each other in Reading Workshop. Both are good students and work hard. When they have a problem, or don't understand something, they don't ask for help. They will talk to each other about things that don't matter but they don't ask each other for help. 

What makes this interesting is how our class is built around everyone helping everyone be successful. Peer tutoring is a continual thing. Any time a student doesn't understand, someone is ready to help. This is expected and students do an amazing job of making sure their classmates do well.

This is similar to how our team of teachers work. If someone has a question or concern, Mrs. Hardin, Mrs. Webb, Ms. Huysman  and I work together to help work it out. This makes a strong team of people that count on each other and are strong because of their unity. This also helps make our hallway a great place.

We talked about this in class today. Most of the students have a couple of people they count on when they need help. This might be when they are editing their writing, doing something on the computer, or trying to complete an assignment. Hopefully now that we have discussed this Ben, Chloe, and any other students that doesn't have a pal to count on will be open for a little help and ask someone when they need a hand.

What Did You Learn at Camp?

Last week's visit to Camp Oty Okwa was a great time for students and staff. The group building activities were exciting and students did an excellent job cooperating and making their team successful. With that in mind, this leads to this week's writing assignment. 

Students, on your blog, tell what you learned. Pick a skill and write about it. Define the word that best describes what you learned. This might be cooperation, teamwork, kindness, respect, friendship, working together, responsibility. . .  Include the meaning of the word, and what it means to you.

Explain the situation where you saw this skill in action. This will be one or more incidents during the group activities where this took place. Give details to help the reader understand. You may also want to include how the use of this skill impacted your group.

In your closing, tell how using this trait at school would effect Salt Creek. What would it look like? How would it improve our school? Where and/or when could you use this skill to make our school a better place?


When your blog post is completed, please submit it.

A Look at Bullying

The assignment for Reading Workshop students is to write a blog post about bullying. Use the information below to help guide the writing. Use a web as a prewriting tool to help organize your post.

What is your view on bullying? Is it really a problem? Does it always look the same? Do you recognize it when it happens? How do you react? How do you define bullying? Is it always the bullies fault? Or does the person getting picked on sometimes cause the problem? 

Please pick one scenario listed on the Reading Workshop Wiki as an example. Explain how you view it and tell why it is or is not bullying. Describe possible responses to the situation and include how you would react if you were involved, both as the person being bullied and as a member of the group, but not the person doing the bullying.

Web from http://stamford.region14.net/webs/gilbertm/target_lessons.htm

A Great Start to the Year

This school year is off to a great start. As we close in on the end of the 1st nine weeks, I can't imagine things going any better. A recent Question of the Week got me thinking about why things were going so well. 

As I said in the question:

Read more: http://thereadingworkshop.boards.net/thread/7/best-thing-hallway#ixzz2ieDuz9NI

Question of the Week

Recently at Reading Workshop I created a discussion board for the Question of the Week. Responses must be a minimum of two - three paragraphs with details to support students' points.

Students, please post your best response to be graded.

Easy Extra Credit

Hey parents, grandparents, and other family members, want to help your student earn some easy extra credit? All you have to do is fill out the form below. It is well worth it to me just to get parents to check in here.

Our language arts class is anchored around this blog. At the top you can find links like the one to Jupiter Grades that are helpful to both students and parents. On the right sidebar classwork, homework, and important dates are listed. Further down on the right side are links to blogs of all of the Reading Workshop students. 

This website is the easiest way for parents to know what is taking place in language arts and at Salt Creek. Please use it to your advantage and thank you for helping your child earn some extra credit.

Success Blog Post

Students, please submit your blog post to be graded in the Google Form below. For the last question use the Student Blog Rubric to support your response.

Do You Want Success?

I had this conversations with a student:

Student:  My aunt doesn't care if I work hard.
Me:  Seriously?
Student:  No, she doesn't care. As long as I get a D she is happy.
Me:  I don't believe it.
Student:  Test it out.
Me:  Whattttt?
Student:  Test it out. Call her and see.
Me:  OK we will.

And so we did and she really did care. She expected him to work his hardest and get good grades.

Thinking about this later, I wondered about how bad sixth graders want success. Have a look at the video below. How does this relate to sixth graders? Is success important when you are twelve? How can ideas from this video help a middle school student reach their goals?

PUGS--Puncuation, Useage, Grammar, and Spelling

If you want to be taken seriously as a writer, you must write cleanly. Many readers will judge what you say by how you say it. If your writing is filled with mistakes, the message will get lost in the errors. Do your part and edit carefully.

Chris Pirillo discusses the need for PUGS--Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, and Spelling in this video.

Book Trait Blog Post

Students have recently been writing a blog post about the book they are reading.

To read them go HERE.

Apostrophes Rock

Students seem to have trouble with correct use of apostrophes. Here are a few basic rules to follow.

1. Apostrophes are used to show a missing letter, for example:
you're instead of you are
can't instead of can not

2. Apostrophes show possession, for example:
the boy's bike
the student's desk
the students' desks (if there is more than one student)
If there are two or more students, the apostrophe comes after the 's'

3. Apostrophes NEVER show plurals! 

"book's in the library" should be "books in the library"
"car's in the parking lot" should be "cars in the parking lot"


The Edrocker explains it best with the Monster song.

Writing on Topic

As Reading Workshop students start the school year as beginning bloggers, the challenge of writing and writing well looms. Although students have written for teachers in the past, organizing a blog post to make it interesting and understandable is a new skill for many.

As a student, if you are struggling, here is a template to make your writing easy for the reader to get. This is basically the five paragraph format that you will use as a student for as long as you are in school. 

1st paragraph--Introduction

2nd - 4th paragraph--Body

5th paragraph--Conclusion

The latest assignment is to write a blog post highlighting one area of a book that students have read this year. This is how it should be organized:

Introduction/Paragraph 1
The book    (insert title)     written by     (author's name) is one of the most   (insert topic--exciting, funniest, happiest, saddest, greatest, drama filled, scariest, etc.)    books I have ever read. From the second you open it up until the last page you . . .

Body/Paragraph 2
One example from the book is . . .

Body/Paragraph 3
Another example from the book is . . .

Body/Paragraph 4
Another example from the book is . . .

Closing/Paragraph 5
This is an exciting book. If you love . . .

Please feel free to put this format into your own words. You can be creative, but it is imperative that you follow this format. Failure to do will will result in an essay that is hard to understand. Make it easy on the reader and organize your writing.

Start of the Year Blog Post

Students' first writing assignment in Reading Workshop was to write a blog post about one of the most significant events that occurred with the start of the new school year.

You can read all of the blog posts HERE

Reading for Understanding and Score Better Too!

So Reading Workshop students, do you want to get a better score on Study Island? Use the tips from this video and use the highlighter from Study Island and your scores will soar. These tips will also help when you have to read something in social studies and science.

Want to Know Your Grades?

If you want to know your grades just go to Jupiter.  Jupiter Grades is an online program (similar to Engrade, Progress Book, and others) that hosts students' grades and other information so that students, parents, and teachers can access them at any time from anywhere with Internet access.

All of students' grades and information about discipline and behavior will be posted on Jupiter. Students can check their grades daily during Brave Period, the intervention period that starts every day. If you are a parent, you will soon be receiving information to enable you to view your child's grades.

Writing an Essay/Blog Post

Building an essay is just taking yesterday's lesson one step further. The basic idea for building a paragraph is expanded into several paragraphs. The organization is the same.

Here is another of Mr. Heath's videos that explains the process.

Writing a Paragraph

Reading Workshop students have been setting up their blogs. Now the task of becoming a writer is ahead. We will start by looking at paragraphs and how to set up the basic paragraph.

This video by Mr. Heath explains the basic parts of a paragraph, the topic sentence, supporting details, and the conclusion.

Read Your Way to a Good Grade

Students weekly Read at Home assignment rewards extra effort. Students choose a book that they want to read from home, the library, or the bookmobile. The only requirement is that they log the title, time read, and pages.

As a teacher, I reward the students that make the most effort. Although grades are not entirely tied to how hard a student works, poor grades are reflective of a lack of work ethic.  If a student wants a better grade, just read a little more.  I even give extra credit for students that read more than 180 minutes.


A =    180 + Minutes
B =    120 - 179 Minutes
C =    60 - 119 Minutes
F =    0 - 59 Minutes

Although students have no direct assignments associated with Read at Home many of the activities and projects in class are based on the book they are reading. When students write about their book, it is easy to monitor comprehension and see if students are "getting it." The fact that students can pick their book to read helps because they can find a book that interests them.

So if you want a good grade Reading Workshop students, all you have to do is read!

Dear Parents

Thank you for the opportunity to spend the year with your child in Reading Workshop. We had a great first day. I saw a lot of smiling faces and good attitudes. Students seemed glad to be back. 

Today's schedule was different than it will be the rest of the year. We started with a whole school assembly and had a walk through to discuss expectations throughout the building. We also spent a lot of time discussing routines and procedures. A major portion of the day was spent preparing students to have a successful year while explaining things like the assignment book and student handbook.

Tomorrow we will begin our regular schedule in Reading Workshop. We will start some of our regular classroom activities. Different pieces of the class will be explained and students will start to work on some of the things they will do all year.

For tomorrow, students must get a parent signature on the Blog Permission form. Soon we will be setting up an individual blog for each student. This will allow them to write essays for teachers, parents, and fellow students to read. This is an exciting learning activity that is extremely beneficial in building students' writing ability.

As the year progresses, I look forward to getting to know your child. My hope is that each sixth grader can have the best year possible. If I can help you in any way, or you have questions or comments, please let me know. Once again, thanks for sharing your child with me and all the staff at Salt Creek. 

Are you Nervous?

New grade, new teachers, new classmates, new shoes--it's a new school year. Everyone is nervous. All the teachers are nervous. All the students are nervous. It happens every year. It even happens to old teachers that have seen many new school years. 

Should you be nervous as you start this year in Reading Workshop? Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on you.

It's really easy to succeed. It all comes down to just three things.

1.  Work hard--always do your best. Set a high standard for yourself and give it your all. Never turn in work until you are sure it is your best.

2.  Respect others--treat people kindly. Show friendship and care towards others. Help your classmates when they need it. 

3.  Be responsible--take care of yourself. You aren't a little kid any more. It's not up to me, or your mom, or dad, or grandma. Your success depends on you.

If you do these three things, you really have no reason to be nervous. You will have the best year of your life this year in sixth grade. You will learn a lot and have fun doing it. You will be successful. Your parents, grandparents, and teachers will be proud of you. 

No need to be nervous--YOU WILL SUCCEED!