Today I am a student. I am attending the Ohio Educational Technology Conference. This is a chance for me to learn new and sometimes innovative ways to use technology in our language arts class. I will be attending many classes all focusing on different ways that teachers are using technology to help students better learn.
This is a test for Reading Workshop students. They are working on an Argumentative Essays about year-round schools. When I come back on Friday, I will see what they have accomplished while I was gone. This is always interesting to me because it shows who is motivated to be successful.
So what about it Reading Workshop students? How hard are you working? Are you driving for success? I am anxious to see how you do on your essays. Put in a great effort and make us both proud!
Students recently completed an Argumentative Essay Project. The following essay was written by Emma A. She did an excellent job of organization and supporting her opinion.
I think parents should limit social media use. I think they should because too much time on social media can put teen’s mental health in jeopardy. Social media can be addictive. Studies show that 63% of people log on to Facebook daily, and about 40% log on multiple times a day.
Social media also leads to a higher risk for cyberbullying. Sixty-seven percent of cyberbullying comes from instant messaging. Peer pressure is another thing that cyberbullying leads to. That affects our mental health because too much pressure can cause teens and people of any age to make bad decisions such as smoking, doing drugs, and drinking alcohol.
Using social media can also lead to low self-esteem. This can cause depression and anxiety. The University of Michigan collected data about Facebook users and how it changed their moods. It showed that people who use Facebook daily have shown lower satisfaction for their life and Facebook as they use it more and more. It can also lead to fear of missing out, or FOMO. It is a form of social anxiety.
Social media is sometimes a good idea, but it can be very bad in some ways. The good things about using social media, such as Facebook, Instagram and many more improves your heart rate because it relaxes you, and increases productivity. Just a 10 minute break can make employees happier and they will get more work done. They are many more ways that social media can be good, but not bad.
In conclusion, I think that social media use should be limited not only for teens, but for everyone. Too much time on social media can cause mental disorders, social anxiety, and peer pressure, and many more. Social media can be good as well, but for the most part it is bad for teens, especially. So I think social media use should be limited not only for teens but for everyone.
Reading Workshop students, your task is to write an editorial stating your position on year-round schooling.
Be sure to include:
• An engaging opening that states your opinion
• At least two separate supporting arguments/reasons, with supporting details from at least two sources
• An explanation of the other side and your reasoning against it
• A conclusion restating your opinion and a call to action (what you want people to do)
• Citation of your sources at the end of your essay
Listed below is an organizational/format aid.
Introduction
1. Statement of opinion--Students would/would not benefit from year-round schools.
2. Two or three sentences that provide background information to the reader (you may want to do this after you write paragraphs two and three).
Body First Paragraph
1. Topic sentence that tells the topic of supporting evidence you will use in this paragraph. It might sound something like, Students that attend school year-round . . .
2. Supporting sentences with facts and/or information from sources.
Body Second Paragraph
1. Topic sentence that tells the topic of supporting evidence you will use in this paragraph. It might sound something like, Another benefit/detriment of year-round school . . .
2. Supporting sentences with facts and/or information from sources.
Body Third Paragraph
1. Topic sentence that tells the opposing viewpoint. It might sound something like, Some people might say . . .
2. Supporting information of the opposing viewpoint
3. Your rebuttal--reasons that this viewpoint is wrong
Conclusion
1. Restate the statement of opinion from the introduction
2. Wrap up your essay with final points that sum up your argument.
Want to check your writing? Try the Hemingway App. All you have to do is copy your writing and paste it in place of the text you see in the image below and it will help with all of the things listed.
1. Make a plan for the process. Think about the topic and what main points will be stressed.
2. Conduct research and take notes. Use a range of resources — from essays, articles, videos, and the Internet to do this. Take notes without copying word-for-word to reduce the risk of plagiarism. Be sure to copy websites and titles of articles so you can cite your sources.
3. Organize your paper using an outline. Decide which research and information fits best and where it should go in the essay.
4. Write the first draft of the report. Use the outline as a road map.
5. Edit and reread the report. Checking and correcting mistakes are the hallmarks of a good student.
Possible topics might be:
Teams are Built Through Cooperation
Put Your Problems Aside and Put the Team First
Drama Kills Teams
All Teammates Must Contribute
Everyone Must Give 110%
It's About the Team and not the Individual
No I in Team
Teams Work Together to Make Everyone Succeed
Team First
Helping Others Makes the Team Strong
Working Together is More Fun
Together Everyone Achieves More
Helping Makes Better Teammates
Working Together Is Easier
Working Together Helps Everyone Succeed
Team Focus is Important To Go Far
We Not Me
None of Us is Smarter Than All of Us
Teamwork Makes Dreams Work
Selfish Doesn't Work in Teams
Cooperation Counts in Teams
Teamwork is Not Something You Have, It's Something You Have to Achieve
The Whole is Greater Than the Parts
Everyone Included
A Successful Team Beats with One Heart
If No One Works on a Team, Then the Team Doesn't Work
An article in The Daily Texan talks about teamwork at the highest level with NBA champions, San Antonio Spurs.
The article begins:
This summer the San Antonio Spurs won their fifth NBA championship, crushing the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals four games to one. The 2013-2014 San Antonio Spurs are one of the great championship teams in NBA history, and their recent victory further solidified the Spurs as perhaps the best franchise in professional sports. This year’s team also personified the sacrifice of individual acclaim for a greater goal, a characteristic increasingly rare in athletics, which, even on the collegiate level, focus on profit today.
No sports team is successful without working together to reach a common goal. Teamwork is essential to a good performance from any sports team, professional or not, and is a great way to teach children certain life lessons, such as cooperating well with others and taking responsibility for actions. Such lessons are applicable to life outside of sports and can be applied to work or school, such as focusing without interruption on the school paper that needs to be written or working with a less-than-pleasant colleague on a project.
A team building success is when your team can accomplish something much bigger and work more effectively than a group of the same individuals working on their own. You have a strong synergy of individual contributions. But there are two critical factors in building a high performance team.
Sled Dog Teamwork is discussed at the Wilderness Classroom:
Every sled dog has a different personality. They are kind of like people. Some of the dogs are outgoing. Some dogs are shy. Some of the dogs are hard workers and some are lazy. The musher of a dog team needs to find the best position for every dog on their team. When the dogs are all working together as a team, they can travel far and pull a lot of weight. Teamwork is a very important part of dog sledding. Do you use teamwork at school? I bet you do!
Reading Workshop students are working on an interdisciplinary unit in science and language arts. They are finding the volume of the classroom pond in the science class determining how many liters of water will be needed for this new and improved home for the class turtles.
In language arts, students will be writing an informational report detailing the process, and what they discovered. Essays will be scored based on the PARCC rubric below.
Your class is your team. Every day you could be a part of something meaningful. You could be a part of something special. You could better the lives of those around you. You could be a leader. You could show kindness to someone in need. You could bring your class together to make it strong.
For this to happen though takes a team first attitude. It means putting others' needs in front of your own. Most of all though, it means evaluating yourself as a teammate. Then you must be motivated to use your strengths to the best of your ability to make your class the best it can be.
Your first task, Reading Workshop students is to describe yourself as a teammate. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How do your classmates view you as part of the team?
Today we are going to take the event from yesterday and use it for support on a writing prompt. This is working backwards from normal, but the process and use of an event for supporting details is the same. This event can be used for a number of topics like setting, character, problem, plot, conflict, comparison to self, comparison to another character, comparison to another setting, mystery, etc. For this example I am going to write about setting.
I just finished reading Compound by S.A. Bodeen. The setting plays a major role in this book. The story takes place in an underground compound/bunker. For almost the entire book, the main character, Eli and his family live in the "Compound."
The books opens with this scene:
My world ended with a bang the minute we entered the compound and that silver door closed behind us. The sound was brutal. Final. . . . My fists beat on the door. I bawled. The screaming left me hoarse.
Right from the start as a reader I had to stop and try to imagine myself in this place. I couldn't imagine being forced to survive trapped underground with no hope of escape. Also, when Eli finds out his twin brother and grandmother don't make it to the shelter and die, the setting causes even more thought. Eli's father, mother, and sisters Lexie and Terese managed to get safely inside within the forty minutes needed to survive, but his twin brother Eddie and his grandmother didn't make it..
In a way, the setting is the whole world because the world just ended with a nuclear explosion. However, Eli's family was safe only because of the compound. Eli's father (a billionaire) had prepared them for this day and made provisions to help them survive underground for the next 15 years. This tells me right from the start of the book that the entire story takes place underground in this compound prison.
Being trapped here causes major problems emotionally for Eli. He was forced to live with the fact that he caused Eddie's death. Eli had talked him into sneaking into their grandmother's car. She didn't make it back to the compound in time to get to safety in the shelter. Now Eli had to spend each day knowing his brother, his twin died because of him. There is no escaping this fact and being stuck in this setting reminds Eli of this every minute of every day.
Compound is a great book with a lot of events that bring you into the book and make you wonder what you would do in this situation. The setting controls the lives of the characters and the entire story.
I just finished reading Compound by S.A. Bodeen. This is the opening scene:
My world ended with a bang the minute we entered the compound and that silver door closed behind us. The sound was brutal. Final. . . . My fists beat on the door. I bawled. The screaming left me hoarse.
In the next few pages the book explains that Eli's family is in an underground shelter but his twin brother Eddie and his grandmother didn't make it. Eli's father, mother, and sisters Lexie and Terese managed to get safely inside within the forty minutes needed to survive.
The world just ended with a nuclear explosion. Eli's family was safe only because of the compound. Eli's father (a billionaire) had prepared them for this day and made provisions to help them survive underground for the next 15 years.
Eli was forced to live with the fact that he caused Eddie's death. Eli had talked him into sneaking into their grandmother's car. She didn't make it back to the compound in time to get to safety in the shelter. Now Eli had to spend each day knowing his brother, his twin died because of him.
Reading Workshop students, please copy and paste the latest writing topic about the book you are reading, "Could You be the Main Character?" To see more about this project you can see all responses to this topic on the Question Board.
Each day in Reading Workshop for about 7 minutes (usually two songs), students sing. Lyrics are shown on the white board using the LCD projector. Music is played and students sing along, reading the lyrics as they sing. Every week, we sing at least one new song. As students get familiar with a song, they know all of the words, so they don't need to read. Changing songs is important to keep students reading. It also helps with vocabulary instruction. With each new song, there are new words to learn and discuss.
The best part of singing in reading class though, is how it helps academic achievement. When students read fluently, the ability to comprehend increases dramatically. Conversely, when students fight to read each word, starting and stopping, and starting again, comprehension decreases dramatically. We have all listened to a student read, struggling with each word, never reading a sentence through, and wished we had a magic bullet. We know if we could just get him to read fluently, he would have a better chance of understanding what he reads.
As we know, there is no magic pill, to cure all ailments. However, with modeling, and repeated readings, students can significantly increase fluency. In fact, primary teachers use this daily. Adolescent learners will quickly turn us off though, if we try to read as a class every day. This just wouldn’t be “cool.” This is where singing plays an important role in the language arts classroom. Singing their favorite new hit is most definitely “cool.”
The available evidence provides reliable, scientific evidence of the positive impact of repeated readings on a variety of reading tasks and outcome measures. These studies also indicate that engaging children in repeated readings of a text is particularly effective in fostering more fluent reading in children who are struggling to develop proficient reading strategies.
What better way for repeated reading than through singing?
Here is an example written by Trinity T. in about 15 minutes.
Gecko had stolen a car from a lady. He was trying to find his brother Reuben but couldn't find him on foot. He was under age to be driving. He was only 13! The lady called the cops and he had cops after him in a few moments of driving. He was going about 80 mph down the highway trying to find his brother. He finally found his brother running out of the door at a game store with a bunch of games. Gecko figured his brother was stealing the games. Reuben spotted Gecko and ran to the back door. He hopped in with all of the games in his hands.
The cops started to catch up with him and soon were on their tail. Up ahead was an old lady pushing a stroller with a baby in it. Gecko swerved the car and the car started to spin. Gecko slammed on the brakes and the car stopped. Gecko noticed that he had missed the old lady. He sighed in relief. The cops were long gone. No where to be seen. So he headed back to the house. Gecko started to think that his life needs to change.
Jacob came to school this morning and he was really upset. He did his best on Study Island trying question after question after question and his score was still really low. He spent a lot of his evening last night trying to improve his grade. I appreciate his effort very much, but there are a couple of things he needs to know.
1. Doing extra work always pays off. Even if it doesn't help his grade it will make him smarter and make success more likely down the road.
2. Students are only required to do 20 questions. They can do more to improve their grade, but they should never do more than 40 - 50 questions.
3. Study Island is a challenging program and I don't expect students to get A's all the time. All I ask is their best effort.
4. The grading scale is curved for a reason. Getting high grades every time is extremely difficult.
5. There are a lot of grades in language arts each grading period. One or two low scores will not ruin a grade. Just keep working hard and your grade will show it.
6. I appreciate the hard work Jacob put forth last night. Even if his grade doesn't improve, he earned my respect for his positive attitude and that is worth a lot more than any 10 point assignment.
He came to me extremely upset. It was almost time to turn in his assignment and he had really messed up. He figured it out, but it was too late. He didn't have enough time to make it right and he was tore up.
He said, "Mr. McGuire, I don't know what to do. I think I did this all wrong." He was shaking and distraught. He so wanted to do well and he knew what he had done wasn't good enough.
We talked over the assignment, I showed him an example (See the post below), and then he asked if he had to turn it in right then. He chose to stay in from recess and work on his post during study table. Great job J.C. You got an A!
The big question that anyone seeking success should ask is, "could this be you?" Do you have the drive and determination to do your best? Will you make the extra effort to be a winner? Could this blog post be about you?
This blog reflects the thoughts and opinions of the author and is not, in any way, representative of any school or district. The purpose of this blog is to share information for educational purposes. Comments are the sole responsibility of their writers. The views expressed by commenters and those who link to this website do not necessarily reflect the views of this website.
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