Minutes+2012

Minutes 2013

May 29: 1. Discussed themes in Remember the Titans 2.

May 28: May 24: 1. Discussion of a student and how he has improved his temper tantrum behavior. 2. worked on spreadsheet for gr 8. 3. Discussed the scales from MCCL. It doesn't make any sense to us as ELA teachers that a 2 should be I know about this but can't apply it and a 3 is I can apply it. That only fits for a small number of skills, and these may be the more discreet ones. For processes, such as inference, or writing an argument essay, isn't it about the DEGREE to which; you can do this, so a 2 would be I can do some of this correctly, or the easier parts correctly, or some of this independently, and a 3 is I can do all of this or most of this correctly on my own.

May 23 1. Dani's kids will finish their imovies by Friday - she's having kids share their imovie and the audience say one thing they learned. 2. We will show a Jim Crow/civil rights movie and revisit the Jim Crow hypotheses and maybe some kind of reflection on activism - we want them to have to make some kind of statement about the connection between Jim Crow/ROT and rebellion/activism.

What traits do Mary and David Logan have in common with some of the activists you learned about? What about you? Do you possess any of these traits? How could you acquire them? Think about the movie - did any of the characters behave like activists? What traits do they have in common with activists? Why do you think we asked you to learn about Jim Crow and read ROT through the lense of rebellion? Now, can anyone really be an activist?

May 22 Team Meeting

May 21 1. Finished scoring guide for Rebellion Project. 2. Activist research - Julie is concerned that teachers do not have the resources they need to support LG students. 3. Maybe we can add some LG history to our rebellion unit, or to the research project. May 17: 1. Looked at all the events between now and the end of the year for us and for kids - too much class time being lost! 2. Emailed Cathy about NWEA data. 3. Discussion about activism and danger - is it more dangerous to be an activist in your own backyard? How do we help kids see that? May 16: 1. Data! 2. Julie has informally observed that on the NWEA test, kids who start out in the fall in the 60-80 %ile seem to be the ones who have the most trouble meeting their goal. So we are doing well with raising the achievement of the less able readers, but not doing so well with the more able readers. She suspects that it is more a matter of content than process - knowing literary allusion, rhyme scheme, etc. How can we find out what to teach these kids so they can improve, too? Looking at the Descartes is only a little helpful - they do not admit to any new vocab, and it's still heavily process. It does suggest having kids be able to compare and contrast things like theme, tone, etc. in two texts, so we'll work on that. 3. fables, fairy tales and mythology we need a pattern or overarching concept. HW: look on the Internet for ideas!

May 15 7th grade meeting May 14 - did not meet. May 13 1. Discussing the ROT theme essay - teach kids to paraphrase the events or character's feelings - they will not find direct quotes. Teach them to use the INW saying "The part where..." 2. Have kids take the universal theme and translate it into specific Jim Crow or ROT language, so that the connection is clearer to kids.

May 8: 1. Discussed activism with Heidi - worked on the research rubric.

May 7th After School: In order to get kids thinking about or making the connection between rebellion and activism - Compare and contrast activity. Comparing Papa to Uncle Hammer. What are their differences? Why do they respond differently to injustice? Papa doesn't do nothing in the face of injustice. He boycotts the Wallace store. The boycott is peaceful and respectful. This makes him an activist. Uncle Hammer is not an activist because even though he is rebelling against injustice it is not peaceful and it is often not respectful.

Keep this in mind as a comparison activity for next year!

Discussion of revising from a 3 to a 4 - we still are not sure we understand why a kid can't revise from a 2 or a 3 to a 4. If during the revision process you go above and beyond without having been "taught" or prompted to do so, why can't you earn a 4?

May 7: 1. Discussed the difference between research that asks kids to summarize the research, versus draw a new conclusion about the research. 7th grade social studies only requires the former. We need to address this 3-12, not just at Gr 7. 2. talked about speaking and listening for next year - teaching kids a protocol. Maybe there is one on the Internet. We could also teach kids to take notes on what is being said, and to annotate a little - so listen and think at the same time. I agree with Dani because, and I would like to add.... I disagree... Earlier Dani mentioned and I'd like to go back and comment on that. I'd like to ask a question of Dani about __I'd like some clarification about__ I would like to clarify/add to my earlier statements. I would like to revise my earlier statement I would like to suggest the idea of __

3. What about Robert's Rules? Would it be useful at all to teach kids about them? Could this be a joint venture with social studies?

4. research project - there are 6 questions and the vocab - working in partners you each have to answer 3 of the 6 questions and half of the glossary words. Show kids revision history on Google docs so they see that WE can see who did what.

5. We need a scoring guide for the research project!

May 6 : Dani at a workshop May 3 - 1. For ROT - theme constructed response, speech stuff, research paper and reflection on rebellion in general.

2. Pam McGinn came up to discuss NWEA results and Greek and Latin roots. May 2 - Field trip April 30: 1. We discussed the NWEA test, and kids rushing. 2. We discussed World Book Night for next year - possible service learning? 3. We split up the CE articles so we can score them. April 29: 1. Reviewed the week! NWEA testing T and W, field trip Thursday. 2. We want them to write a theme argument piece. 3. We want to have kids plan and execute an Activism Party to have after the research piece is finished. 4. Discussion of how to have comment threads, either on the blog or wherever. We want to set up something where kids can comment on each other's posts. For example, in light of the finishing of ROT, comment on your own blog post for the Rebellion Scenarios Assignment. Then comment on at least one other person's post. 5. Dani did a cool activity where kids commented on each other's comment, but in long hand 6. Earlier, Dani went over the CE answers and helped kids make a list of specific rights that blacks were denied. This helped their answers go beyond "I have rights and the blacks in the book don't."

April 26: Talked about the rebellion research. April 24: Team Meeting April 25 Julie at a meeting April 22 - Earth Day April 23 1. Chapter 9 question: inside ring was three examples of rebellion from the book, and quotes/examples of events that the reader can infer are the cost of the rebellion. Outside ring is How those examples help you understand the position of black Americans during Jim Crow? Example Papa and the black citizens could decide to burn the Wallace store down, but they know they will get lynched, so that choose a peaceful rebellion of a boycott. 2. Looked at current event articles.

April 17 1. We started out discussing what would give us the biggest bang for our buck in terms of what time is left in the year. Dani's excellent point is that we might not get as much out of the Giver because kids are already into dystopian lit - this is a big change due to the popularity of Hunger Games. So we are thinking hard about teaching kids to write about/compare two texts. We would also hit a research unit pretty hard, although we are not thinking of a huge written product. 2. HW: read the Fisher Fry article on multiple texts. 3. We need to get the research piece up and running first - we keep going back and forth between having kids research famous activists or organizations and institutions. In social studies they have to research a LOT of people, so we are leaning toward the organization piece. 4. We are discussing why Malala's story has not resonated more with kids - they take education for granted? We are looking into Malcolm X's writing about education.

April 10 1. Discussion of ROT. Ch 9 argument essay: How is Mama's statement to Uncle Hammer at the end of Chapter 6 coming true? How does this help you understand the position of black Americans during the Jim Crow Era when they tried to rebel or even just stand up for themselves? or Has We discussed how to make our argument essay questions more rigorous, and also we want to make sure we are teaching and requiring kids to make connections between texts in argument essays. We need to break this down for them specifically. 2. Talking about the summer - we want to make all of our "process" lessons into tutorials so we can flip our classrooms, and get to more authentic work and levels of Blooms. 3. We discussed the paradigm shift necessary to understand that if half your class fails your test, it's YOUR fault! It's assessment FOR learning. We don't get why teachers don't get that!

April 9: 1. Heidi popped in and we discussed our rebellion Current Events. 2. We are looking for more current event articles for the week after vacation. 3. We need an activity for Chapter 8, or at least a way to organize a discussion. 4.

April 8: Talked to Michelle for a few minutes

Chapter 8 writing prompt: What areas of the Logan's lives, and the lives of the other black citizens of Spokane County, Mississippi, are directly affected by racism, discrimination, oppression and hatred for people of color? What specific events of racism, discrimination, oppression and hatred for people of color directly affect the lives of the Logan family, as they struggle to make a decent life for themselves?

Earth Day ideas: PSA needs to be quick and dirty - something kids can do in one afternoon.

Final Project Idea: Design a project to show that you 1. Have BK about a group whose civil/human rights are currently being violated. 2. Have found a way to take DIRECT and public action in support of that group. 3. In addition, you need to write a protest poem or song from the POV of an important person in hte movement - an activist or a victim. You may take a known song and revise the lyrics.

April 4: 1. Julie's two groups that are behind on ACTIVITIES are finally going to get caught up this afternoon. All groups are staying caught up reading-wise. 2. Tomorrow we'll do Ch 6 reader's theater. 3. We want to weave in more rebellion stuff! 4. Discussed the research piece - we are thinking of a list of activists - we try to find as many good articles about them as possible - kids generate relevant research questions in class with our direction - they close read and annotate for the answers to the questions. Then they create a script for an iMovie documentary slide show with voice over, and write a protest poem about your person.

April 3: Half day - we met on SST kids and did Gr 8 homeroom groups. April 2: 1. Remember for next year - have kids do a better job keeping their ROT character chart filled out - have them take it with them for a book mark and keep up with it, esp for Ch 4 quiz bowl. 2. Thinking of Talk a Mile A Minute for Ch6, since Julie's kids are keeping up with their reading, but are behind in their activities.

April 1: 1. What activity do we want to do for Chapter 5? We developed a Jim Crow reflection question for a blog post. 2. Discussed NWEA motivation - we could set a class goal to beat our collective class target by so many points, or say on average we want everyone to grow by three points. 3. To cover before the end of the year: narrative writing, writer's voice as another trait, activist research, revisit Mother to Son, revisit annotating for fig language, mood, and other literary devices in poetry, writing a protest poem based on your activist, protest music and art, maybe a presentation of some sort, maybe show Freedom Writers and maybe some other Jim Crow/ Civil Rights movie, Giver and characteristics of dystopian/alternate society and maybe Harrison Bergeron or Do You Want My Opinion, more review of annotating info text (Julie needs to do a think aloud with Home on the Plains, and have kids do one or several more articles for summative assessments) 4. Also go back to Greek and Latin roots.

March 29: 1. Talked about protest poetry! March 28 1. Michelle came to talk about NWEA scheduling for 7th grade. 2. Reminder that there are two witnesses in Dani's trial activity for Ch 3 who are lying. 3. Talking about an ROT Ch 4 Quiz Bowl to help kids with the Logan Family History. Homework - come up with some questions!

March 27 team meeting March 26 1. Reader's Theater for Ch 2 went really well! We have to deliberately help certain kids with the dialect - they do not automatically translate in their heads when they read, so they get confused. 2. Talked about the frustration of getting behind! 3. Current Event discrimination or rebellion - we need to come up with our Questions in Style, and we were thinking of finding a couple articles for the kids for their first ones, as it might be hard for them to come up with them on their own. We need to show kids that in order to understand certain articles, they really need BK.

March 25 1. Discussed the connection between Thoreau, Gandhi and MLK. We want to do something with this - 2. Also talked about the mini research project about a black or white activist - we need to develop questions that will help guide kids' thinking about activism and rebellion, but also have kids generate some of their own questions to meet the research standards, which we also looked at. Julie is not sure there is a research strand in our Powergrade, so we will have to ask Cathy to help us with this - reading or writing or both?

March 22 1. We need to tie in rebellion and art - poetry, protest songs, literature, painting 2. We looked at Civil Disobedience, tried to find some Mohandas Gandhi writings that we might use with the kids, and listened to some Malcolm X speeches.

March 21: After School: 1. we talked about how we were going to hold kids accountable for vocab - our idea so far is to create a wiki glossary of Tier 2 ROT words by class. Kids will have to enter 1. Discussion of literary shortcomings of John Green as an author! 2. Chris Hardwick, Jonah Ray, Matt Mira - Julie, look them up. 3. Barbara Johns article - Julie had kids annotate and is going to assign the INW ONLY and wait to write the essay later. Dani went right to INW, but she only got to 7-1 before the snow day, so we are both a little behind in terms of the article. Was this rebellion acceptable - why or why not? 4. Research questions for Activist Research: We need kids to develop these research questions themselves: What if anything in their background helped them to realize that action was needed? What civil rights were they fighting for? What did their rebellion look like and can you find any info about how they decided it would look that way? Conclude with whether or not, in your opinion, you thought their rebellion was a "good" one? We should have them read Thoreau or Gandhi, both of whom have very clear ideas of exactly when and how to rebel. So we help them annotate these hard texts and then they have to decide if their activist would be more a follower of Thoreau or Gandhi.

March 20 Snow Day

March 18 1. We found a great article on teens rebelling against unequal education - Barbara Johns and Linda Brown, as in Brown vs Board of Ed. Kids will do an INW about Is this an acceptable rebellion - why or why not? Later they'll do a compare contrast paper with Cassie and her rebellion against Lillian Jean or Stacey with the ditch and the bus, or even Mama, with covering the books. We also talked about Cassie and Malala - could we do a RAFT of Rebels? 2. We started a calendar for ROT.

March 14 1. We are trying to find a solid article, maybe a primary source, about Jim Crow, that isn't too hard for kids to read, but that would allow them to do some academic writing - they are really ripe for it. But we are using valuable time trying to find it! March 13: 1. Dani paid for Edublogs for us for 3 months. I owe her $7.50. 2. The plan is to finish the Jim Crow BK, including filling out some or all of the vocab organizer. Then move to the rebellion scenarios and post

March 12 1. Setting Learning goals: Learning Goals Blog Post from Us:
 * Now that you have considered some very basic facts about the Jim Crow Era, and created some hypotheses, which we will be researching further, what specific Jim Crow Era topics would you be interested in learning more about, and teaching to others? (We think they are ripe for presenting!)

2. How do we get kids to see or even CONSIDER other points of view? 3. Dani

March 11 Team Mtg

March 7: 1. Looking at Edublog to have kids be able to keep Reflection Logs for ROT and rebellion. 2. Discussed the "4" for close reading and annotating info text - find any and all FL and annotate for meaning, and note text structure and be able to thoroughly explain WHY the author chose it, and any CHANGES in text structure, and why the author might have chosen to change, and any author's bias/POV. 3.

March 5: 1. Discussion of mini research projects - maybe Jim Crow people and the events they were involved in? maybe a second on rebellion - or lump altogether and kids could choose historic or modern rebels or rebellious events? 2. need a graphic organizer for Jim Crow BK 3. The goal of rebellion is positive change - if that is not the goal then it is not acceptable/justifiable.

March 4: 1. We revised the Rebellion Scenarios worksheet - decided to split into two days so kids are not overwhelmed with the number of scenarios.

March 3: Sunday night - kids should also know that there is a point at which even activism goes too far and becomes militant. Where is this point?

March 1 1. Close reading and annotating Info text - still annotate for some same stuff - vocab, FL Vocab - content specific words are marked in the text with a text feature (bold, italics, asterisk, glossary, margin notes. Need to still annotate for Tier 2 words that you do not know. Tier 2 words - restate Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the human body. You have more calcium in your body than any other mineral. In this FL analogy the bank account is your body and the money in savings is calcium - you want to get as much calcium into your body as you can before your bones start to deteriorate and the calcium gets used up faster. If you have enough "money"/calcium in savings, you'll have enough later when your body starts using it up. Also note the extended metaphor/analogy - she keeps going with the bank account simile. quotes from people: Note it as supporting evidence. Note any expertise/professional BK on the subject or experience/personal BK with the issue. good writing - good leads that are interesting and pull you in - good conclusions 2. We don't want kids to believe everything they read, but we want them to recognize when a good faith effort has been given to find experts, facts, be truthful - healthily skeptical but not cynical.

Feb 28: 1. Discussed revisions in the argument writing scoring guide. I added in the Marzano scale language. 2. Worked on Jim Crow notebook revisions. Feb. 26 1. Talked about classes who are not as capable of thinking about text structure. 2. poetry and short stories - Strange Fruit, Rita Dove, Langston Hughes, music from the Freedom March, Negro spirituals,

Feb 25 PLC and after school

1. Looking at rebellion on a continuum - activism - create scenarios and have kids plot them on the continuum of negative selfish rebellion to positive activist rebellion. It's not person vs person, like I'm rebelling against my parents rules, but person vs society, where I am trying to change my society for the better, to improve not just my life, but my whole community. 2. Idea - give kids an unformatted info text - they have to tease it apart, decide on the text structure, and then format it with appropriate text features that aid comprehension. 3. Take a Jim Crow event, assign the event to kids and an article - they have to write a short cause effect paper on that event. This might tie in perfectly with the What, So What, Now What posters. 4. Jim Crow photos and graphics - 5. Discuss the idea of communication and media in activism - what if Mama or Papa Logan or Big Ma had been able to take photos on their phones of discriminatory acts, and post them to Facebook, or blog about what the Wallaces were doing?

Feb 19: WE WANT DEPTH AND RIGOR. Not tedious, but //challenging//. 1. MLK speech - Mama's speech - pull out of the text and compare 2. One class spent analyzing oratorical style - get kids used to the deliberate use of the voice to emphasize certain points. 3. See if Julie can find NPR story about the March and MLKs speech - to give kids historical BK - Jim Crow and MLK and the South is all part of your history - you need to know this! MLK - he makes it everybody's speech - none of us are free until all of us are free. 4. Can we talk about the internment camps? 5. Other non-fiction info stuff to annotate 6. put together a quick intro to close reading and annotating info text - include text structure and make the connection to FL that either emphasizes or clarifies difficult ideas. 7. Vocab Negro spirituals, Gentile, MLK Tier 2 words and any Biblical or historical references 8. INWs for chapters of ROT - and quickie quizzes? 9. Mini research projects that the kids can do and write up that have depth and rigor. 10. Thoreau Civil Disobedience? 11. Theme of rebellion? Essential questions? Conflict - person vs society? 12. Idea of rebellion having two sides - give kids scenarios to plot on a positive/negative continuum? Nuanced issues? Taliban and Hitler are not nuanced, but maybe the nuance comes in with What could people have chosen to do in these situations? Do you think they made the right choice? 13. Malala Yousafzai - Time magazine article about her 14. Reflection - plot the scenarios on a continuum of Effective to Ineffective. Also maybe at what point to you change tactics? 15. Do rebellions need to be planned to be effective - how can you develop patience while you are carrying out your plan? And how can you also use unplanned events to further your agenda? 16. Essential Question - How do involved citizens decide whether a rebellion is "good" or not - how do they know what to support? We lay out Malala's situation, draw parallels between Cassie and Malala and have kids write letters.

Feb 15: 1. We did research on the KKK in Maine. Feb 14: 1. BIG discussion about next year - how to teach inference, close reading and annotating - we'll review inference quickly, then move to annotating poetry for vocab and FL, and really hit this hard with lots of practice - lots of reading aloud with mood, as well as. Then we can read Landlady as a group, with mood, annotate together and do the INW. Maybe when the kids read the short stories for the short story unit, they just have to write a summary of the text, or Step 4 of the bookmark, and do an inference notes wheel - they did get burned out this year because so much of their annotations were fruitless. We still need to help them "connect the dots", that... 2. We are talking about how and when we learned to read "with mood", that is inferring at the same time we are reading out loud - like we didn't need to get to the end of the sentence to see the exclamation point to know that it was coming. So how do we communicate this to kids. Because kids are still missing the text clues. So maybe we do some reader's theater, some drama ... 3. Heidi just came in to talk about Jim Crow. She did an Edcanvas about it.

Feb 13: 1. Discussed teaching more MC test taking strategies - discussed the idea of teaching kids to annotate the CR question first, and then cross out to create the topic sentence. So a question like "Explain how each myth about herpes is incorrect. Use information from the passage to support your answer." Feb. 12: 1. Looked at Eye to Eye from Julie's low lab. The pre-assessment was to just underline unknown or double meaning vocab and it was pretty telling who could and could not do what. We need to remember this as a pre-assessment for next year. 2. May need to look at Sarah R.s past test results - has she been looked at for anything? She could not recall anything about figurative language. Feb. 4: 1. We are talking about kids not understanding that writers position their readers very deliberately to draw an inevitable conclusion - to infer only a certain ending of a short story, for example, or to infer only a certain emotion or character trait. Dani says kids read too linearly - without thinking back on the text, adding up the text clues. Jan 29: 1. more research on topics for informational texts and possible research topics to go with ROT 2. more work on Greek and Latin roots. Jan 28: 1. Talked about fitting in Greek and Latin roots and Inference Notes Wheel intro and practice, and waiting until after Feb break to start ROT. 2. We want to incorporate a brief but rigorous research project for ROT related to. We don't know what! We need a rigorous overarching question, and we also want to teach annotating for informational text, so we need to find some good articles, speeches, biographies, etc. Jan 24: 1. Thinking about presenting the Prezis - half the class presents at a time and the other half is the audience - then switch. 2. Talked about Inference Notes Wheel and practicing with a short story so we could use it as assessment for Roll of Thunder.

Jan 23: Gr 7 Team mtg - every Wed. Jan 22: Jan 15: 1. Finished Prezi scoring guide.

Jan 14: 1. Worked on the Prezi scoring guide on Google drive.

Jan 11: 1. Dani explained what she was doing with the Northern Lights review, and typed up some additional slides for the intro to the Book Review notebook. Julie HW: work on scoring guides for Prezi and for book review.

Jan 10: Finished the requirements for the book review. Jan 9: did parallel work - Dani on Prezi SG and me on book review nb

Jan 7: Worked on book review instructions We need: scoring guide for Prezi, Notebook for book review, book review instructions and scoring guide, also some more slides for some group thinking about the short stories - irony, group questions, a mini lesson on characteristics of short stories esp as compared to novels, and a couple of slides that take kids back to the Decision Making Matrix so they can decide on their favorite short story, and reflect on how they choose favorite media texts.

Jan 3

1. How are we going to help kids facilitate choosing their personal media criteria for the Short Story Decision Making Matrix? Think about htis. 2. Julie - keep putting together book review mini unit. 3. We need to decide on scoring for Prezis. 4. How are kids going to present their Prezis - maybe its embedded in a larger presentation but a short one about how thye make media decisions. Speaking and Listening **Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas** 4. Present claims and findings, emphasizing salient points in a focused, coherent manner with pertinent descriptions, facts, details, and examples; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation. 5. Include multimedia components and visual displays in presentations to clarify claims and findings and emphasize salient points. 6. Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Jan 2 - parent meeting during PLC - worked on Prezi after school until 4:30.

Minutes 2012

Dec 21: 1. Dani got Julie set up on reading-rewards. We looked on the Internet to find prizes for the "store". Dec 19: 1. Concept of "debugging" as a metaphor for fixing inferences - something with numbers, something concrete (cooking, putting an engine together, video games, the cars they have built in science) 2. Talked about where different kids fall down. Some kids infer in their minds, but don't write it down or know they are right - they need this outside confirmation from us. Other kids are asking the right questions (what IS the secret?) but not collecting the text clues and looking for the pattern. RQ - Dani says they are mostly why and how - these are the inferential questions. QAR will help and we will add it next year.

Dec 18: 1. Worked on the Prezi for Mother to Son. Dani did all of it! Dec 17: 1. Finished annotating scoring guide!

Dec 14: Julie and Dani worked on the scoring guide for student annotations of the short stories. Then Julie had to leave at 11:50 for a meeting.

Dec 13: 1. Looked at calendar for VPP 2. Revised scoring guide for annotating short stories. Dec 12: Gr 7 Team Meeting Dec. 11 - Julie gone to a conference in Waterville Dec 10 Snow Day Dec 7: 1. So the short story comprehension part of the VPP unit is a bunch of mini assessments - read and annotate, fill in chart, theme chart, start the matrix and look at each story separately. The unit as a whole is about the interconnectedness of media and how we make choices. So the Prezi is the summative assessment - the Prezi itself can have a small amount of weight for creativity, use of symbols, color, etc?, but the large weight is the new understanding. We want kids to be more deliberate, more discriminating and share more quality media in a quality way - we want kids to be good, discerning media critics - know what's good for them and why An important part of the SA is to show their new understanding of media and how we choose media and share our media choices - how has this changed your perception of media and decision making? Your perception of decision making around media. The presentation has to have the new understanding shared in it.

Dani's Reflection questions

1. Do you feel you can use the DMM by yourself? Why or why not? 2. How well do you think you know the cake format? Do you believe you could apply this organization to other writing topics and other types of media? 3. What is media? What is mass media? What is the difference? 4. How do you create media in your everyday life? Who is your audience? 5. How do we choose media and how do we deliberately share media - how do we know the media we are choosing is quality for US and not just something someone else picked?

4 - your new understanding is profound. You pulled in lots of different media and you communicate your new understanding clearly in your presentation.

Dec 6:

1. Deadlines chart - we reviewed chart - Dani also made it in calendar form. I wonder of we should put the lessons on there, too, so kids can see how the learning leads to the assessments. 2. We looked at the Prezi website.

Dec 3: 1. Talked about the task rotation for VPP 2. Looked at steps for the Decision Making matrix 3. Talked about the interesting twists that new media brings - raw, unedited media like tweets and blogs that are personal and go out to a mass audience (although it may be limited by Friends), and really polished blogs and websites that are quality, there are even sites/groups that monitor and rank the quality of media. 4. We are making a What's Due When chart/calendar so kids know what they have to finish and how it will be scored. 5. Story elements chart on one side, theme with evidence chart on the other. 6. Summarizing the plot and summarizing the setting are similar. 7. JULIE HW: be sure to set up annotations of short stories and check with Dani. 8. Discussion of how to be fair to kids who have longer stories, and/or who want to take their time annotating. 9. We talked about the idea of differentiating - providing audio files that they can listen to while they read. Also differentiate by amount of prompted annotating?

Nov 30: Met with Mr. Jones to discuss a new student. 1. . HW Julie and Dani - write in places to annotate on short stories. 2. Copy Cask of Amontillado

Nov 28 and 29 - Worked on setting up reading-rewards groups. Worked on Visual Playlist Project.

Nov 27:

1. We need to do a little research on the definitions and types of mass media - how have the definitions and types changed with the boom of the Internet and digital technologies - there used to be 8 or 9 types of media - is New Media (digital) now the 10th? And where is new line between media and MASS media? I have questions! 2. Worked on a task rotation for introducing vocab for the Visual Playlist Project. Nov 26: 1. Talked about using the cake model to help kids organize their book reviews. Talked about maybe 3 or 4 parts of the book review that would be required, then offering kids several other choices of what else they could add. 2. Julie just barely started a requirements/checklist for the book review part of the Visual Playlist Project - for HW someone needs to do a notebook or do some pages that can then be put into Dani's notebook that she started, and a requirements/checklist handout. 3. We think we will be ready to roll out the Visual Playlist Project next Monday.

After School 1. We researched virtual personal libraries for kids - found Reading-Rewards. 2. We talked about the idea of adding a 4 Square in Styles worksheet to help introduce the VPP unit - Mastery - describe any of these terms that you are familiar with Understanding - compare a Like button to a playlist. Interpersonal - which of your personal values come into play when you are choosing favorites or making a playlist? Self Expressive:

Nov 19: 1. Talked about where we are with lessons.! 2. Dani worked on a hook for our Short Story as Media unit and I revised the literary text annotating bookmark, which is now on the Documents page under Close Reading.

Nov 16: Made plans to host an after school computer club to teach kids to write code. We are so excited!

Nov 15: Worked on our short story unit - made a practice decision making matrix with pizza places in Lincoln - sound familiar?

Nov 14: SST Meeting

Nov 13: 1. Talked about the bad annotating examples and process. We need something that's as clean as checking your answer in math - Dani is not sure we can!

Nov 9: 1. Had a discussion of finding poets reading their poetry for the kids. 2. Next poem we do - take the title off the poem and ask the kids what it's about. 3. Dani HW: write up some bad annotations, maybe even let the kids score them in partners or whatever - what does it need to be a 3? Open your own assessment and revise it. 4. Holes to fill in in the FL annotating scoring guide - over-inferring and over-annotating for FL. 5. We talked about how VERY explicit we need to be with kids - they read the titles of these poems but they never used the text clue! Titles are like the PSS of a text! 6. HW - either one of us can fix the FL scoring guide. 7. Step back with one of the poems next week. 8. Rewrite marshmallow as a negative - use to teach mood. THEN go onto Eragon and annotate for mood. 9. HW: Find some more poems for a summative assessment

Nov 8: 1. One of Dani's students thought that in First Snow there was no real dog at all - that the whole poem was symbolic/metaphoric. So how do we teach kids to think about when something is actually NOT symbolic, but may be highly descriptive. How to look for other clues, and not over-infer. In this case it's the difference between the inside - homey, everyday, relatable details, and the outside, kind of magical. What kind of litmus test can we teach kids to see if they have over-inferred? How many characters are there? What is the setting? Are either of them symbolic/figurative?

Or is it a matter of self-correction - fix up strategies - when you read far enough it ought to occur to you that you over-inferred or had a misread.

So let's add an RQ: What does or could the title mean?

Julie HW: revise again the bookmark - add Step 2: Does everything I inferred make SENSE? Have I fixed up any over-inferences or misreads. Put parts of bookmark in order of annotating - BK/RQ/BK, character, setting, vocab, FL, other literary devices. BOTH: Find a simple poem with an obvious title and write it up with over-inferences and misreads.

2. We need to look at the annotating for FL scoring guide. 3. Create some comprehension check questions and get back to an argument essay.

Nov 6: 1. Started to flesh out our short story unit - worked on the house, looked at the CC standards and started to choose the ones we want to teach to, created the Media Project for the assessment at the end. Talked about ways to make this digital, ways to make new groups on Edmodo based on the short stories they are reading - we want some other exploration of media to grow organically out of this, to have kids communicating with EACH OTHER about their texts and playlists and favorites, not just because we require it. Reflections can be all about decision making around media, how we choose it, why we choose it, how others influence our choices, how we can be more discriminating in our choices, how we can create strong, justified opinions that others respect and believe in.

Nov 5: 1. Discussed students who are having attendance problems - we will bring them up at team meeting. 2. Discussed how some teachers are not monitoring what kids are writing on their content area slides - they should be perfectly edited and substantive. 3. Discussed the idea of a short story unit as decision making, from the workshop Julie went to last week. We want to tie it in with media literacy, media choices, etc. We are going to make a matrix of short story choices by genre/topic and complexity, so that kids have to choose from each section. This means Julie will have to do some work around the house plans and the unit, or at least enough to stay a week ahead of the kids!

Nov 2: Discussed How TO party, vocab - maybe review vocabulary of vocabulary with them; synonym, antonym, etymology, root, prefix, suffix. Talked about kids scoring each other's descriptive pieces and giving feedback on Google docs - rubric, comments, feedback letter.

Talked about how to help kids create essays that are based on textual evidence but honor their voices, their personal experiences where possible.

Nov 1: Julie at a conference Oct 31: Julie at a conference Oct 30: 1. We are still discussing lab - we are not giving up! We will continue to lobby for an assessment tool that we can use to help diagnose and show that kids are ready to move on, and a teaching tool that will help us actually laser instruction. 2. We are close to having kids write their first few descriptive pieces - the groundwork has been done! Julie is a little behind and still needs to teach the Observation Guide with kids. We should shoot for turned in by end of next week. 3. We need to design some comprehension questions that go with some annotating text that is more complete - longer than just the excerpts - like Eragon, Eye to Eye, and other texts from NECAPs or other standardized test. 4. Scoring for Ideas and Development - there is a scoring guide but Julie forgot to teach the frosting, so we could make that the 4. 5. LABS!!! Next Tuesday - party for How Tos! All How Tos must be complete and ready to put into the Dummeez book and show the video. 6. When we start to get written pieces, we need to inject the writing process into the learning. The 6 traits are the what, but the writing process is the how. 7. Read and annotate, then read again - THEN step back, make metaphors, notice craft, other poetic/literary devices etc.

After School Labs - We are going to do a vocabulary module using Daily Academic Vocabulary. We realize it will involve another prep, but we like the book. We also think we will weave in some Thoughtful Ed vocab CODE stuff.

Oct 22: 1. We reviewed Intro to 6 traits - Julie added the game of deciding in a group which trait the sort answer matches (justification) and holding up the appropriate card, and keeping score. 2. Also reviewed introducing Ideas and Development. Read the top para of the scoring guide, then have kids read the descriptors and ask for clarification of vocab. Score My Pellet Gun and teach kids to use the LANGUAGE OF THE SCORING GUIDE. Validate their justifications - they must annotate for the descriptors. Also Julie has them write a feedback note as the teacher with a praise and a polish specifically coming from the scoring guide. Then do Snakes. 3. Then Julie introduces the Observation Guide and has them write the Marshmallow piece. 4. We need to develop an Annotating for Figurative Language assessment - they've practice the Easy worksheet, with help - now we need something with Easy, medium and hard, and maybe a poem for the 4, that they can tackle independently.

Oct 19: 1. We are still liking the station idea for labs - choice, skills we might not get to in ELA. But we also want to tie these in with the NWEA needs. How do we blend the the station ideas we have with the 4 strands of the NWEA? How- to is already there - could Dani and I set up CR questions for the how-tos the kids actually produce. Visual Puns is Inference - we need some paragraphs and more troubleshooting sheets. Literary Text - poetry station. Read and write poetry, then we design CR questions for poems, both published and kid-generated. Reading Fluency station - 2. We can teach text complexity to kids through this lab work as well - we need easy, medium and hard texts for each. 3. We are looking on the web for inference games or on-line inference stuff kids could do, and for on-line fluency programs. 4. What about readling aloud to each other - reading picture books aloud, reading into your laptop, and then earning BADGES!!

Oct 18: 1. We looked at NWEA scores to get our labs straightened out - they are supposedly leveled, but the test scores do not bear this out, so we are seeing if we can group between the two of us. We are frustrated! 2. Now we are talking about how we can run labs as interventions - can we set up modules for kids according to the NWEA strands, that kids can move in and out of? But if kids need lots of teaching, how can they ever move OUT of a module if we have to keep teaching them? 3. Dani mentioned setting up a webquest where kids do on-line work that we have set up for them. Oct 16: 1. Kids did a great job finding GLs of FL in RED books. I think they were just insecure about it. 2. We looked at the Intro to 6 Traits notebook and cleaned up some slides. We will teach the intro, which is short, as soon as possible this week.

Oct 15: 1. We discussed where our kids are with figurative lang - kind of all over the place! they seem to able to identify the type when given a sentence that is definitely fig. and given the 4 types to choose from. But Julie found her kids were VERY unsure about picking FL out of their RED books. Dani started the annotating worksheet, so we'll compare notes and see if either one or the other works better. 2. Labs - with low level, concrete readers in low labs, we might pull out the figurative literal Thoughtful Ed comparison unit. 3. HW - Let's find some on-line figurative practice - see if we can find some that has literal language mixed in, or make up some practice worksheets and put them on Edmodo. 4. Dani figured out Google Docs!!! Go to my Google mail page and go to Drive. Then go to Shared with Me to find anything Dani has shared with me. If I want to share with her, go to Create and then document or whatever. If I have already created the doc, I have to copy and paste, create a new one to share with her. We assume Presentation is only for Powerpoint, not Notebook! But it's better than nothing. 5. The doc will come up as Untitled Document - click on that, and it will allow you to change the name. When you are ready to share, hit the blue Share button. Then enter who I want to share it with. On the right is a drop down menu that allows you to choose the degree of editing you want. 6. We will start to nag about kids getting gmail accounts so they can get on - we want kids to start to collaborate. Another HW is to research what and how other teachers are using Google Docs with middle school ELA. 7. We looked at leveld reading labs - dani has one lab with mostly Lo/Avg kids and one who is High in all area. We have to have help with this!

Oct 12 1. We talked about a process for getting kids to annotate about FL - like what part of the BK + TC = I is related to inferring the literal meaning of FL. Step 1: Identify that the piece of language is figurative Step 2: Identify type - there is a slightly different process for hyperbole and personification that metaphoric/comparative language Step 3: If the language is metaphoric 3A: Ask yourself: what two things are being compared? A literal thing that's in the text (TC) to an imaginative thing (also a TC but you have to picture it yourself - it is not actually in the text) 3B: BK - What are the qualities that the imaginative thing has that are being put onto or layered onto the literal thing

Oct 11 1. We started a lesson on annotating for figurative language. Julie did some

Oct 10 - Julie met with Gr 7 team with parents.

Oct 9 1. We discussed the next step in teaching kids to annotate - we are looking at The Book Thief, to get to annotating for narrator with a harder text. We are warning ourselves not to have the kids work on the these skills in isolation for too long - they will "stick" better once they have to actually use them for a reason, in an applied lesson. 2. We talked about going to figurative language, simple to complex. We wonder if it would be good teaching to say pull 10 pieces of figurative lang out of context, annotate for their literal meaning, then put them back in context for the "aha" moment of comprehension. 3. We looked at Hetch Hetchy Valley by John Muir, and Aldo Leopold - looking at descriptive essays on nature - info text but with lots of figurative language. 4. HW both - Find sentences of FL that can be explicated literally as they stand on their own, but that can be put back in their context for even more meaning.

Oct 2 1. We looked at a bunch of multi-cultural books that Dani had to find annotatable sections of gradually increasing text complexity. 2. We got talking about a unit on humans and their complex relationship with animals, both domestic and wild - we stated with Percy and Pete poems as context text and textual text, with maybe with the A Secret for Two piece as the Fulcrum text. We talked about the idea of a service learning project - kids have to see the need, and decide how to fill it, but we want to bring them far beyond "let's raise money for the animal shelter" into responsible and respectful pet ownership, responsible and respectful stewardship of animals in the wild, and responsible and respectful use of animals for scientific research. We could include research about the wisdom of animals, the line between PETA and GreenPeace being helpful and radical, and maybe include a presentation piece about responsible relationships with animals. We're also talking about interdependence and science - deer herds, ranchers vs wolves, etc.

Oct 1 1. Set up a new literacy station for labs - poetry. We think we'll start with I poems - Cheddar Cheese and Chocolate Cake. 2. Talked about upcoming units - Fluency/Writer's Notebooks, going back to Close Reading with Annotating and adding in some historical fiction pieces, and the Eragon piece to teach mood, and then some multi-cultural pieces such as Julie of the Wolves, Island of the Blue Dolphins, or other! Also the Trouble Shooting close reading and annotating worksheet - and we should do more of these. 3. Julie - HW either get close reading and annotating stuff on the wiki, or email to Dani.

Sept 27 1. We discussed how Constructed Response was going - some ideas to help Dani's kids: maybe her expectations are more high school, add an extra annotating step to list a few BK pieces in between underlining text clues and starting to write, going back to the cake to review. 2. Next Tuesday will be the Math NWEA, followed by Thursday and Friday NECAP Reading test. 3. We discussed trying to recreate with kids as close to the testing conditions as possible ie giving them a text and one class period to answer the MC and the CR completely independently with NO help. Also taking the template away and having them just write. 4. Julie is also having them practice drawing the cake in under 60 seconds.

Sept 25 1. We divided up Writer's Notebooks and looked at the Fluency Notebook for Gr 7. We are planning on introducing writing fluency next week while the NECAP testing is going on - it's something different, something less strenuous, etc. 2. Dani helped me get her on the wiki! Now she can access all the files! March 4