Tag:

writing

Classroom Magazines: Ready-to-Use Lessons for a Google Slides Project

by Ernest Gonzales June 2, 2022

written by Ernest Gonzales

Most educators are probably familiar with the expression, “if you can explain it, you know it.” But what does this look like in the classroom for our students? When our students explain and create new content, the learning deepens, and these types of projects become more engaging and memorable. Opportunities for students to explain content can take shape in a variety of ways, especially when we start integrating technology. For educators looking to strengthen student writing skills, consider a collaborative classroom magazine project.

What are the Objectives of a Classroom Magazine?

When implementing a classroom magazine, students work collaboratively to plan, research, draft, and design an article. In a project like this, students are working at high levels of collaboration to make decisions with one another and create work that can be interdependent. As students research and create outlines for their articles, they build up skills for becoming better writers. Students learn important tech-based skills like margin, alignment, readability, and more when creating the magazine layouts.

What Will Students Learn?

Ready to dive into a collaborative classroom magazine project? If so, start with the Let’s Make a Classroom Magazine lesson. In this ready-to-use lesson, students will:

learn what magazines are
how magazines are structured
how to plan an article
how to create an outline/draft
best practices about design, such as color and alignment

Although the lesson incorporates 4th grade writing TEKS, educators can easily adapt this project for any grade level or content area.

Once students are ready to design their magazine, use this Google Slides Magazine Template to help your students start designing quickly. The template comes with easy-to-use layouts that students can choose from.

Publishing Your Classroom Magazine

Publishing the finished magazine is a great way to get students excited about writing for a real audience. When the magazine is finished, simply publish the Google Slides to the web or download the slides as a PDF.

Collaborative classroom magazines are a great hands-on project for powering up learning via writing and design. With these ready-to-use resources, students can get creative and show what they know, and educators can implement immediately.

June 2, 2022 1 comment

Common Core State Standards Curricular Standards English Language Arts STAAR TEKS Testing Writing

A Practical Strategy for Teaching Editing Skills

by Emily Horn January 21, 2022

written by Emily Horn

How many times as a teacher, in any grade level, have you received a proofread writing assignment back from a student with, wait for it…errors? The horror! I think we’ve all been there. A student might spend a lot of time on their writing, but when it comes to proofreading, many will rush, barely take a look, and then hand it in. I’ll admit it, proofreading and editing is probably not the most fun part of the writing process. And I’m an educator turned editor! (Don’t tell my boss.) All kidding aside, it is truly a skill that takes guidance, starting with our youngest learners.

Today I’ll introduce an idea based loosely on something I learned at a Texas Second Grade Teacher Conference. But with all the Googling in the world, I’ve not been able to find the presenter. If it was you, please claim credit in the comments. We will also look at a creative solution for applying this strategy to the online STAAR test (and other online tests).

Adaptability of the Strategy

While I present a basic procedure for using editing marks with elementary students, this strategy can be adapted for any grade level. It can also be used as a support for students who need extra help. Depending on student progress and needs, aspects of the strategy can be dropped or added for students at any time.

Gradual Release of Responsibility

The end goal, of course, is for students to become independent, authentic, and accurate writers. So let’s take a look at a strategy that can support students in learning to edit with a gradual release of responsibility (GRR). With GRR, you start first by modeling. Then, students practice with teacher guidance. Next, they work with each other collaboratively to practice. And finally, they practice independently.

The Instructional Process

Step 1: Model the basic editing procedure in a five to 10-minute mini-lesson.

To start with, in second grade, we only checked for beginning capitals, ending punctuation, and did what we called “dot and say.” These are the foundations of this elementary editing process. It is important for students to understand that they are completing this process to find and correct errors. With that in mind, here is the basic procedure to teach students in the very beginning:

Put a blue dot under each word as you read it aloud (dot and say).
As you read, underline the beginning capitals in green three times, and
Circle the ending punctuation in red.

Using an interactive projector, you can model these three steps for the whole class with a few pre-selected sentences. After students have practiced this with guidance, together, and then on their own, you can restart this process and introduce a new mark based on whatever grammar and language mechanics concept you’re working on.

A Note about “Dot and Say”

“Dot and say” really helps students slow down and re-read their writing to check for errors. If something is incorrect or missing, they will start to notice and draw the appropriate editing mark to correct it. I observed a massive improvement in student attention to editing with just this one step. We started with everyone reading aloud (TIP: noise-canceling headphones are amazing!), and then students moved to silent reading when they were ready.

*Example Full-Year Progression for Grade 2 based on the TEKS* *(**download**)*

Step 2: Provide guided practice in small groups using pre-selected texts with errors.

Once you’ve introduced a new editing mark, it’s time to practice using it together in a small group. During small group, you can do a quick review of the newly introduced mark and provide students with a pre-selected text to practice on. An example that includes the errors you’d like students to find will ensure they can practice exactly what you need them to.

Step 3: Partner or pair students for collaborative practice using pre-selected texts with errors.

Once they’ve practiced enough in their small group, they can be strategically paired with other students to practice together. Pre-selecting the text to ensure they look for errors you’ve previously introduced is still best. Once students have practiced, coming back together to check their work is a great way to wrap up their collaborative practice time.

Step 4: Students practice independently, applying marks and editing to their own writing, or a peer’s writing, during writing workshop, and/or at an independent writing center.

I love writing stations. So I incorporated editing practice into my class writing station by providing practice texts for students at various levels, pre-selected by error type. Students also worked independently on editing their own writing or a peer’s writing during our writing workshop. They practiced on their own writing once they were far enough in the writing process to begin editing.

Step 5: Repeat the process by modeling a new editing mark based on a recently introduced grammar or language mechanic concept.

Whether you are teaching the English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) TEKS, Common Core State Standards, or another set of standards, it adds meaning when editing is connected to the grammar and language mechanics concepts you are teaching. As you move through the year, students can learn new editing marks and look for more types of errors based on their growing knowledge of grammar and mechanics.

Editing Marks

Speaking of editing marks, this is an oldie, but it’s my favorite list for editing. Depending on the grade level standards you teach, you can adjust the list and determine which marks you’ll introduce and which marks you won’t.

Preparing for Online STAAR Testing

Since the STAAR test will be online for everyone in Texas in 2022, and writing will be incorporated for grades 3-8, I explored the available annotation tools. There will not be a pencil tool available for students to use for annotating text on the STAAR. Students will have access to a highlighter tool that enables them to highlight selected text, a note pad for note-taking, and an answer eliminator (strikethrough). You can look at training and practice tests to get familiarized with the online test and how these tools will work. But due to the limited annotation features in the online STAAR, transferring some strategies from paper to online will require some creativity.

How to Use This Strategy for Online STAAR Testing

I recently had my eyes on a thread in the Texas ELA Teachers Facebook group. Teachers were discussing strategies for the online STAAR test. In the thread, Lorin Roberts, a fifth grade teacher, proposed an idea that she and her grade level team came up with while brainstorming ways to help students with upcoming online testing. It’s simple! They cut sheet protectors to slide over the students’ Chromebook screens. Then, students annotate “on top of” the text using skinny dry erase markers. “It doesn’t work for everything, but for those students who need to physically work through the text, it is helpful. Then they erase their markings and move to the next question, “ Lorin said. She and her team have students practice with the sheet protectors during MAP testing and benchmark tests.

Do you have other strategies that work well for editing and proofreading in class and on the STAAR? Share them in the comments below, and thank you for reading.

Additional STAAR and TEKS Articles You May Find Useful

Reading Language Arts STAAR Test Resources

STAAR Prep: A K-5 Argumentative/Opinion Writing Strategy

STAAR Prep: Spelling Strategies, Resources, and Downloadable Posters

The K-5 ELAR TEKS and Free, Editable Spreadsheets

The K-5 Math TEKS and Free, Editable Spreadsheets

A Powerful and Easy Strategy for Teaching Text Evidence

January 21, 2022 3 comments

JoinPressto.com website Screenshot by author

Digital Literacy English Language Arts Writing

Pressto! Critical Thinking and Writing in a ‘Zine Format

by Miguel Guhlin December 27, 2021

written by Miguel Guhlin

Creating critical thinkers could be as simple as empowering young writers. Can writing improve critical thinking? In this blog entry, we’ll explore that idea and a new tool empowering young writers.

pressto Screenshot by author. — Screenshot by author.

Source: Screenshot by author. An introduction to critical thinking –

Clarifying What Critical Thinking Is

Like any writer, I often think through ideas while writing about them. That can include exploring my thinking through a simple critical interrogation.

pressto — Adapted from source (Wikimedia) by author

Adapted from Source by author | View in CMAP Cloud

That interrogation of self involves asking questions such as:

What evidence is there for an idea or assertion encountered?
Is that evidence trustworthy, relevant, and valuable?
How can I apply that evidence to the current situation and create an intervention?
How effective is that evidence-based intervention or strategy?

Some might suggest more complex critical thinking heuristics. Others may find a simpler approach worthwhile. For example, the RED Model suggests three key ideas:

Recognize assumptions. Understand what is going on, figure out the veracity of the information, and find evidence. This step involves identifying assumptions. (Are they true? False?)
Evaluate arguments. A systematic analysis of the evidence and arguments presented.
Draw conclusions. Pull together a range of information. Then arrive at a logical conclusion given the evidence.

Each of the key areas of the RED Model involves lots of questions.

When thinking about what level of critical thinking you want your students to practice, you may want to gauge your audience and ask yourself, “What’s age-appropriate?” You might find this periodic table of critical thinking interesting for adult learners.

Scientific reasoning and critical thinking are processes we use to solve problems, to identify solutions. How we do that depends on finding evidence and determining the quality of that evidence. Then we have to decide what’s next. Whether it’s the Big 6, the RED Model (diagram), or another process, each involves assessing consequences. Doing so in writing means going through this process countless times. These approaches can result in open-ended writing explorations suitable for generating blog entries and “newspaper” articles.

Critical Thinking and Writing

“Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly,” says David McCullough. A critical thinker writes clear prose. That idea has been around a long time. For some writers, it’s often seen a different way. Trying to write clear prose results in critical thinking. The reason why is that writers may start out with a fuzzy concept. Then they work through a series of questions that the act of writing demands.

Did You Know?

TCEA and Book Creator have partnered to create an online, self-paced course on how to use Book Creator in K-12 classrooms. You can earn twelve hours of CPE credit, a digital badge, and certificate. Register now for this amazing course.

Here are a few (not all) of the questions writers struggle with:

Why am I writing the document?
What does the reader know versus what new information does the reader need?
What change do I want to catalyze and/or what action do I want to drive?
What information and details should be included?
What information sources should I consult?
What points or message do I need to communicate?

David McCullough has won the Pulitzer Prize for writing, twice. What hooked him on writing and publishing?

“From a young age, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote for what passed as a little newspaper in grade school,” he said, “and I was the editor of the high school yearbook, the editor for our school literary magazine, and I wrote for the school newspaper.”

You can also read up on how writing improves critical thinking. How might we engage our children, our students in the same way?

Introducing Pressto

Need a way to motivate students to write and learn media literacy? Pressto seeks to do that. The goal, according to Daniel Stedman (CEO), is to create a micro-journalism platform for kindergarten through middle school students across the globe.

Watch a walkthrough of Pressto below:

Pressto Features

You can find several features that make Pressto attractive to students:

Simple template-based design
Educational skills sidebar. This sidebar provides insight into title length, image choice, reading level, and positivity. You can also find passive verbs identifier.
Copyright-friendly images (via Unsplash) to illustrate students’ texts

Once children publish their creation, they get an email with a printable version. They also receive instructions on how to create the newspaper.

Image: Email sent to students

Students have the option to share their publication with their friends. They also get a few more options, such as, a “Pay what you want,” see newspaper, and/or create another. Students can download their newspaper and the mini-journalists can print and fold their creation.

A user dashboard allows mini-journalists to access their user “zines:”

One of the disappointments of Presstois is the inability to adjust fit text to space available. This can result in truncated text in the print publication. You will also need scissors to make the print version of the “zine” or newspaper work.

View Pressto zine online

A Few Takeaways

Students often include sensitive information in their writing. Does Pressto protect student privacy? I saw that Pressto is a signatory on the Student Privacy Pledge. If you’re wondering about the Pay what you want, this is Pressto’s way of subtly asking for a donation of any amount.

Who Should Use Pressto?

Anyone who wants to publish a print newspaper could choose to use Pressto. You would need to have a printer or create content for online viewing only. Given the size of each panel, the zine lends itself well to mobile viewing.

Whether an individual, a homeschool environments, or classroom, Pressto offers a simple tool. To publish is to make known, and Pressto offers a resource easy enough for children to learn. For school districts, pricing starts at $999/year for schools.

The question is, in the presence of tools like Book Creator, Zigazoo, and Instagram Stories, will print and pictures suffice to keep student interest?

Feature Image Source

Screenshot by author, JoinPressto.com

December 27, 2021 0 comment

English Language Arts STEM/STEAM Writing

STEM + ELA: The Eight Building Blocks of Argument Writing

by Erik Murray and Casey Siagel November 3, 2021

written by Erik Murray and Casey Siagel

When they’ve been swirling around in my head, words never seem to come out the way I intend them to. Writing and getting ideas down on paper has always been a struggle for me. Even for this article, I’ve spent so much time thinking about what to write instead of just writing it all down! The prewriting process can be a challenge for adults, so it must also be for some of our students.

An ELA and STEM Collaboration

I’ve always been a good builder and engineer. And the idea of being able to physically “build” an essay before writing it appealed to me. I could see this as a way to help students get their ideas organized before diving into the task. So after a teacher-led “unconference” about merging engineering and other content areas, I met with an intrigued English teacher who wanted to approach writing differently in her class.

After a lot of brainstorming, drawing, erasing, sketching, lego construction, and laughter, we landed on a way to make students’ thinking and planning for argumentative writing visible and tangible in English class: 3D-printed blocks.

Organizing Writing Through Building

Students were learning about the foundational elements of argumentative writing, but they were struggling to understand the correct way to structure an argument. As a result, it was difficult for them to see how all the “parts” of the argumentative piece worked together to form a cohesive presentation.

To bolster student comprehension and confidence, we wanted to create an opportunity for them to literally construct their argument and then get feedback from the teacher before writing the first draft. We were determined to create an engaging, hands-on learning experience for students to help them plan and revise their writing.

We broke down argumentative writing structure into the following parts:

Central Idea
Thesis
Claim
Context
Evidence
Zoom In/Out Analysis
Conclusion

We knew that to help make students’ thinking visible, we had to be deliberate with our design and color choices. So we made our decisions based on the different parts of an argument, their purpose, and their relationship within the argumentative writing structure.

Colors were intentionally chosen to both highlight function and relationship to other parts of the argument. For example, the thesis was built to only fit into a claim piece because they are dependent on one another within the argument. The transition was designed as a smaller, red block because it should be a noticeable, short phrase that links two ideas together. The context was designed to fit between the claim and evidence. The central idea became a spindle since it is “the core” of the argument.

blocks for writing — *Students working together to analyze text structure using the blocks*

The STEM and Writing Mini-Unit

We planned for our two-week, co-taught, mini-unit to be broken down into eight lessons.

First, students were exposed to the argumentative writing vocabulary and how the parts of an argumentative essay worked in relationship to each other. After becoming familiar with the vocabulary and parts, they were given the blocks and an argumentative mentor text. They were asked to “build” the argument based on how the author structured it on the page. After building, students compared their argumentative “towers” with their peers while we circulated and gave feedback on their structures.

After getting teacher feedback and practicing with mentor texts, students began writing their own drafts, using the blocks for support. Then, with a partner, they participated in a peer review activity using their rough drafts. They were asked to build their partner’s essay using the blocks. From there, they gave each other feedback on their text structure about what was strong, missing, unnecessary, or out of order.

We then, as teachers, shared our design process for the blocks with the students, explained our reasoning behind the design decisions, and asked students for feedback on our designs.

new writing block design — *Students redesigning and creating their own 3d model of the argumentative model*

The result? They gave great feedback, encouraging us to:

Modify the blocks to allow for a notecard with writing to be inserted
Create different shapes
Ensure better fitting pieces
Reconsider color choices.

We tasked them with designing a better version. Afterwards, students used the upgraded design to work on constructing their final drafts.

Reflections on the Unit

We observed that students were invested in the lesson in a way they hadn’t been with writing before. They enjoyed having the ability to physically manipulate objects to assist them in the writing process. The color choices and block fittings also helped them interact with the writing differently. They truly internalized the function of various parts of a written argument. We heard things like, “You can’t have a thesis there because the blocks don’t fit together,” and “The central idea is missing. See, your argument is just falling apart!”.

There were several light bulb moments from the kids, and they began to speak confidently about the connection between the blocks and their writing. We heard, “That makes sense. Transitions should be short because their job is to take you to the next part!” and “The conclusion should have a little bit of everything in it, because it’s white, and white has a little bit of every color in it.”

Perhaps the most valuable part of the lesson for us was when we described our planning process, and decision making to the students and then handed them an opportunity to design their own, better model. Partnering with the students to bring their writing to life not only helped them deeply internalize argumentative writing but also forged an invaluable learning partnership between us teachers and the kids. It opened a critical dialogue about how students learn best and deepened students’ confidence and trust in themselves and their teachers.

About the Authors:

Erik Murray (left) is a Middle School STEM teacher in Lexington, Massachusetts. His focus has been on making simple, hands-on activities. You can follow him on Twitter at @mrstemurray.

Casey Siagel (right) is a middle school English department head and ELA teacher in Lexington, Massachusetts. She is passionate about making reading and writing accessible and meaningful for all students.

November 3, 2021 2 comments

English Language Arts Writing

TCEA Responds: Tips for Improved Student Email Writing

by Miguel Guhlin October 5, 2021

written by Miguel Guhlin

Dear TCEA Responds:

I receive atrocious emails from my college students! It never fails. They send a one paragraph missive that runs on and on. I am including an example for you. What suggestions do you have that I could pass on to help them write proper emails?
-Mark

Dear Mark:

Thanks so much for your email. One thing to keep in mind when you receive emails like this is that writing a good email, just like writing anything, is a learned skill. It takes time and practice.

Allow me to offer two quick tips you can share with your students, along with some lessons for them to use in practicing.

Tip #1: Online Editors

“Writing is visual. Keep paragraphs short,” says William Zinsser. Let’s take a look at the example you shared via the lens of the Hemingway Editor app, which will provide insights about how the email could be improved. The Hemingway Editor is my personal favorite, but we will review a few other options as well.

Here is your example student email with the Hemingway Editor results:

You can see right away from the program that there are three adverbs (blue) and passive voice (green). The paragraph also has three hard-to-read sentences (light pink). Those three sentences affect readability and make the whole email challenging to process. What’s more, there are only two paragraphs.

That’s incredible, isn’t it? I love putting something I’ve written into the Hemingway Editor to see what colors it turns. Even at first glance, this paragraph presents problems to readers. One way to end those problems is to use an online spelling and grammar checker. The Hemingway Editor is one option that is available as a website and also has a Mac and Windows compatible program ($19.99). I have personally invested in the Windows version of this program.

Here is an example of results provided through the Hemingway Editor:

SlickWrite is another website that checks “your writing for grammar errors, potential stylistic mistakes, and other features of interest.” It also includes browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. You can find several more proofreading and grammar-checking options available with a pricing plan.

Tip #2: Suggestions That Lead to Success

Here are three tips worth sharing with your students:

Focus on the reader, not yourself. The first version focuses on the student from the start. It should focus on the reader. Write with your audience in mind. Put your request in terms the reader prefers and understands.
Be concise. Cut long sentences down. Divide ideas into one idea per sentence. Provide a short greeting, say what you need to say, then leave it in their hands. Brevity and specificity are key. Follow up in person with a specific deadline, date and/or time. Avoid “several;” instead say “three” using bullets for each idea.
Chunk your ideas into paragraphs. Group short sentences focused on a theme into a paragraph. Organize paragraphs so they carry the reader from opening to ending. Here is a bit more on chunking in the classroom.

These tips will ensure your students don’t write emails or memos that will bog their readers down. When writers craft short emails, the world rejoices.

Make Email Writing Easier

An email that gets the desired result determines your success. Since many students rely on the shorthand of SMS/text messages, they need to write emails that get the job done. An online checker, like Hemingway Editor or SlickWrite, makes the job easier. Want more? See this blog entry on Email Writing for Students.

Sample Revised Email

Here’s my version of the revised email:

Know of any other editors? Leave a comment and let us know what helps you or your students with their email writing.

October 5, 2021 0 comment

Good Teaching Google Tips and Tricks

Celebrating National Poetry Month

by Lori Gracey April 15, 2021

written by Lori Gracey

April 2021 marks the 25th annual celebration of poets and poetry during National Poetry Month. Admittedly, there are few students who will jump for joy at that statement. But the love poetry is definitely a skill that we want to develop in all of, including those sitting in our classrooms. So here are some resources, activities, and lessons to get them engaged and “waxing poetic!”

National Poetry Month Activities

The fabulous Eric Curts has created a Springtime Magnetic Poetry template using Google Drawings. This is an easy drag-and-drop activity that features a blank, spring canvas in the center of the screen where students can drag words. On the left side are 100 standard (non-themed) words in alphabetical order pulled from the Dolch Word List. On the right side are 78 springtime-themed words in alphabetical order. Students simply begin to “play” with the words to create their spring poem. The words can be copied and pasted if needed more than once. You can make a copy of the template to use with your class here.

Eric also offers more “Googley Poem Projects,” including a Random Text Prompt Generator in Google Slides, Black Out Poetry in Google Docs, and a beautiful Haiku Poem Template. He also shares how to create Pi Poems using Google Sheets and a study of Pi.

Students in grades 5-12 are invited to write letters in response to poems written and read by award-winning poets. They can submit their own responses or have their teacher submit for them. The site includes video walk-throughs for teachers, writing prompts, a lesson plan, and a short assignment, as well as samples from the 2020 letter writing campaign.

TCEA’s own Diana Benner shares how to turn your face into a PoemPortrait. This technique works with Artificial Intelligence to craft the poem. You then take a selfie and use that the background for the poem.

High school students might want to try Poem in Your Pocket Day, which will be held on April 29 this year. Select a poem chosen by the Academy of American Poets from this PDF and then share it with the world in a variety of ways. Students can read the poem on a Flipgrid, illustrate it using Google Drawings, or make a video of themselves reading the poem and share that via Google Classroom or their school LMS.

Shannon McClintock Miller has a wonderful Poetry Month Choice Board. “On the choice board, I included three different places where we can read and listen to poetry; a fun video with Kwame Alexander as he teaches us about the ingredients of a poem; two sites to create magnetic poetry; and The Poetry Machine which allows you to create dozens of types of original poems. ” You can share the board as is with your students using this link or make a copy to edit for yourself.

Verse by Verse from Google allows students, with the help of artificial intelligence, to create their own poem in the style of a famous American poet. Students can accept the recommendations from the AI or use their own phrases. To begin, you select up to three different poets whose style your poem will be based on. There are 22 different American poets to choose and each one provides information about the poet. You then design your poem structure (quatrain, couplet, free verse), the number of syllables for each line of verse, and the pattern for the rhyming sequence. You next enter a first line for your poem that your “muses” will use to help create the rest. The AI will then offer several suggestions for each line. If you don’t like any of them, you can use the Refresh button and see new choices. You can see my quick example below (don’t judge!).

National Poetry Month

Finally, Richard Byrne has more ideas for helping to get students to enjoy poetry. These include hand-selected, shorter poems to be read aloud, YouTube videos highlighting the works of six famous poets (Frost, Shakespeare, Yeats, O’Keefe, Gibson, and Elhillo), and poetry lesson plans for grades K-8.

What will you do to help your students develop a love of poetry?

April 15, 2021 0 comment

Good Teaching Special Needs

Multi-Sensory Literacy Activities

by Andrew Roush April 9, 2021

written by Andrew Roush

This post is part of a series celebrating National Library Week. Learn more about NLW events, activities, and resources here.

The idea behind multi-sensory learning is fairly simple. These learning/teaching techniques allow students to use multiple senses, not just sight and sound, to convey knowledge. This can have obvious benefits for students with learning disabilities and special needs. In particular, multi-sensory literacy approaches can help many students improve reading and writing skills.

Let’s look into multi-sensory teaching and learning, and check out some suggestions and activities that can boost language learning in your school or classroom.

Defining Multi-Sensory Learning

In a world that has connected digitally for so long, we can sometimes need a reminder that human minds are built to exist in a physical environment. For many learners, finding ways to engage the senses of touch, and even smell and taste, can bolster learning.

The approach involves consciously including sensory ways to engage learners.

For example, let’s say a class is studying apples. Kids might have the chance to visually examine, touch, smell, and taste apples — instead of just reading and listening to their teacher speak about how they grow. Then they might hold a halved apple and count the number of seeds inside, one by one.
That’s multisensory teaching. It conveys information through things like touch and movement — called tactile and kinesthetic elements — as well as sight and hearing.
Amanda Morin. “Multisensory instruction: What you need to know.” Understood.org

The idea has been discussed and practiced since at least the 1930s, and studies suggest that this practice works well with how human brains are wired to process information.

These results indicate that multisensory training promotes more effective learning of the information than unisensory training. Although these findings span a large range of processing levels and might be mediated by different mechanisms, it nonetheless seems that the multisensory benefit to learning is an overarching phenomenon.
Shams L, Seitz AR. Benefits of multisensory learning. Trends Cogn Sci. 2008 Nov;12(11):411-7. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2008.07.006. PMID: 18805039.

Further, these practices are endorsed by groups like International Dyslexia Association (IDA) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD), and can be used in particular to teaching reading and literacy.

Multi-Sensory Literacy Techniques and Strategies

Here are a few suggestions and ideas for putting multi-sensory learning into practice.

Understood.org, a nonprofit focused on students with learning disabilities, recommends these eight multi-sensory activities for teaching literacy:

Sand or shaving cream writing
Air writing (or “sky writing”)
Sandpaper letters
Word building (color-coded tiles or letters)
A “Read it, build it, write it” mat
“Tapping out” sounds
“Story sticks” (color-coded popsicle sticks)
Shared reading

The Literacy Nest suggests the use of phonogram cards to help students’ literacy skills, as well as several other activities and practices.

Activities and Classroom Approaches

The Institute for Multi-Sensory Education (IMSE) recommends “Blending Board” activities in addition to those recommended by Understood.org, as well as links to other resources.

Creators of the Touch-type Read & Spell course outline the background behind the multi-sensory approach to reading and provide three reading-and-writing strategies here.

The Center for Effective Reading Instruction and International Dyslexia Association also promote a multi-sensory approach specifically for phonics instruction.

You can find an in-depth exploration of the multi-sensory approach, as well as several literacy activities, in this document from the Minnesota Literacy Council (PDF).

Do you use multi-sensory techniques to teach reading, writing, and literacy? Share your experiences in the comments!

Photo by Tatiana Syrikova from Pexels

April 9, 2021 0 comment

English Language Arts Writing

Make Student Writing Known: Publish

by Miguel Guhlin February 19, 2021

written by Miguel Guhlin

Teaching from home, my wife works with second grade students and is always encouraging them to write in their digital and paper journals. She also sees to it that the students have ample opportunity to publish to each other. As second graders, they prepare their work and share it in Seesaw. This fantastic portfolio tool makes it simple to share student work. In this blog, we’ll explore the important but often forgotten requirement in writing of how to make students’ work known to a global audience.

Kindle the Mind

People share stories, tales that warm the heart, embolden the spirit, kindle the mind. You have the power to amplify children’s voices, to create a platform from which they can reach the world…and your stories and lessons can as well. As a writing teacher, I encourage students to write from their experiences. The act of writing can enrapture. Writing for publication motivates. I always ask teachers who work with K-12 writers “How are your students connecting with a global audience?“

“In my 40-year career as a middle school English teacher, the simplest and most powerful innovation was to give my students time and choice as writers and readers,” says Nanci Atwell. In a writing-reading workshop, students choose the topics they write about and the books they read. Because they decide, they engage. Because they engage, they experience the volume of committed practice that leads to stamina and excellence. Each year my students read an average of 40 books and produced over 20 pieces of writing. They won writing contests, were published, and earned money.

Some may ask, “How do I get started?” Here are a few steps you can take.

Step #1: Build a Classroom Community

How do you begin? Start with a classroom community of writers. You must build relationships and connections. Susan Fields points this out in her article, Classroom Writing Community as Authentic Audience.

By turning the classroom writing community into an authentic audience through inquiry discussions, teachers can develop students’ deep and flexible understandings of a potentially unfamiliar writing genre. Classroom writing communities can support students as they move through moments of struggle.

A classroom writing communities allow teachers to implicate students’ expertise as academic writers, thereby facilitating their willingness to take on academic writing identities

I love how Susan invites teachers to implicate students’ expertise as writers. Implicate in this sense means “to connect to or relate to intimately.” What a powerful concept for young writers to learn as they learn to trust their budding expressions.

There are several ways to get the ball rolling. The first is to create your writing community’s virtual presence. Students are online and you can begin to model appropriate use of virtual tools and have leading conversations. Take advantage of learning management systems (LMS) available. I have already mentioned Seesaw as an excellent tool, but here are a few others in alpha order:

Avatar Creation Tip from Peggy Reimers (@preimers)

Although this is a less of a concern now, parents often fear students putting their faces online. So why not have students create an avatar that will represent them next to their published pieces? Create an avatar using the Doodle Buddy app on your mobile device (e.g. iOS/Win10). Learn more about the idea.. Some tips to get you started:

Use the camera under the backgrounds tool and snap a selfie.
Use the chalk tool to sketch the main features of your face.
Replace your selfie with the white background.
Under the wrench, you have several save options.

You can also connect your writers’ community with others. Consider this perspective from my colleague, Diana Benner:

“A project I had my students do is to create real estate websites in Spanish. We were studying parts of the house in Spanish. I went to a local real estate agency and they displayed the websites on a laptop in their office so their customers could view what the high school students were doing,” says Diana Benner (@diben).

“There are many ways to have student publish items for the community or to at least have their publications on display. This will bring a real sense of purpose to their publications,” asserts Diana Benner.

In general, a writer in my family says, “publishing keeps you writing,” and also “can result in more connections with people interested in whatever you’re interested in and I think it’s definitely worth the effort.”

Step #2: Publish Student Writing

Combine “bookcasting” (creating multimedia ebooks) with traditional lesson ideas to spark learning. A class blog can feature bookcasts, podcasting featuring student writing, and facilitating learning in your classroom, no matter your students’ age. Ready to explore what apps and tools you can use?

Do you help students uncover the sequence of an enchanting tale?

Sequencing refers to the identification of the components of a story — the beginning, middle, and end — and also to the ability to retell the events within a given text in the order in which they occurred. The ability to sequence events in a text is a key comprehension strategy, especially for narrative texts (source).

There are many tools that can facilitate sequencing, as well as go well beyond. Let’s take a quick look at them.

Tool #1: ToonTastic 3D

One way to create bookcasts is to use tools like ToonTastic 3D:

Use Toontastic 3D to give students a creative outlet while teaching them the basics of a story arc and plot points. Since there’s only a basic introduction to each part of as story, teachers can help walk students through the basics of the story arc (setup, conflict, challenge, climax, and resolution) and explore each point in more detail (source).

Common Sense has storytelling with Toontastic resources available for you to use:

Screenshot by Author, Toontastic

Monica Burns (ClassTech Tips) suggests these ideas:

Retell a passage from a story. Students can examine an excerpt from a chapter book or short story to retell the story with a partner. As they read, children can pull out evidence from the text, create a storyboard, and make a plan for their video clip. Students can bring the characters to life while diving into the text.
Bring narrative writing to life. The same literary elements you teach during a unit on narrative writing can be incorporated into a digital storytelling activity. Students can use Toontastic 3D to combine dialogue, descriptive language, flashbacks, or any element that you are focusing on during your writing unit.
Demonstrate math applications. Sometimes it is hard for students to understand how a math topic connects to the real world. With Toontastic 3D, students can create stories that show how fractions come in handy during an animated adventure.

Tool #2: WriteReader

This is a web-based ebook creation tool. Students create ebooks and publish them on the web. WriteReader offers a free program that provides teachers with six weeks’ worth of lesson plans. The lessons, inspired by a third party efficacy study conducted in 2016, introduce your students to WriteReader.

The lesson plans also provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to get started using WriteReader with the young authors in your classroom, all the while promoting literacy and collaboration. Explore lesson plans for WriteReader.

Tool #3: Podcasting

Make conversations happen as you encourage students to engage in podcasting. Before you explore the resources, listen to Dorothy Burt share her effort from 2005. I had a chance to meet her and discuss her work in 2007.

Her insights remains as accurate today as ever.

Listen to Marie Schmidt share her insights
Listen to PT England School podcasts about ramping up engagement and reading outcomes
Learn more about Tara Martin’s BookSnaps
Why Listening to Podcasts Helps Improve Reading Skills
Teens Create Podcast as Final Exam
Fifty Creative Writing Prompts for Student Blogging (contributed by Dr. Bruce Ellis)

Tool #4: Six-Word Memoirs

You can blend a wide variety of technologies into Six-Word Memoirs. Memoirs are more than sad stories. One teacher describes the assignment for students:

My students had just finished a unit on the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution. I asked them to create six-word memoirs for the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment. If people like Voltaire, Newton, and Diderot only had six words, how would they describe their accomplishments? I made the project and requirements simple (source: Jonathan Olsen).

Jenny Rich (@jdrich219) suggests five ways to use six-word memoirs in the classroom. Check out some of them in this companion blog entry. You can also incorporate music and images to enhance six-word memoirs.

Tool #5: Online Publication Outlets

I still remember Ronald K.’s eyes opening wide when he saw the letter in my hand. It was a response to the one he had sent the previous school year submitting his writing for publication. At the time, I hated the fact it took so long for students to find out if they had been published. Now, however, publishing can be a much quicker process.

Teen Ink
Skipping Stones

Tool #6: Visual Storytelling

Today, you often have only about eight seconds to tell a story. Here are some tips for creating short content:

Engage with image/video
Offer a call to action
Be quick–get to the point
Don’t compress, reduce
Inform, entertain, or both

In Instagram, write a short tale that describes the photo with more than three sentences. You have a 2,200 character limit before Instagram switches to ellipses. You can string several Instagram posts together with hashtags. Here are some more suggestions in Storify Your Success.

There are many more ways you can encourage student publication in your classroom. Pick one and get going.

Feature Image Source

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

February 19, 2021 0 comment

Chromebooks Content Areas Good Teaching Google Tips and Tricks Professional Learning

Tips, Tricks, and Tech Tidbits: Attitude, Choice Boards, Coaching, and ELAR

by Lori Gracey February 11, 2021

written by Lori Gracey

I just got back from attending the virtual TCEA 2021 Convention & Exposition and I’m thrilled to share some of what I learned there with you. Hold on to your horses and let’s go!

An Attitude First Aid Kit

tips and tricks

What resonated with me most this week was not a new tech tool or website, although I did see lots of those (and I share a few at the end of this blog). It was, instead, a remark from one of our thought leaders, Bonnie St. John. Bonnie told us that she found the need to “Create a first aid kit for my attitude, a collection of things on hand that can quickly shift my attitude from negative to positive.” Wow, what a game changer! I need to have on hand a kit of items that can help me take charge of my negative attitude when it springs up and get back into positive territory. The kit may include, for me, specific musical pieces, dark chocolate, a photo of my children and husband and another of my chickens (it makes me laugh).

What might be in your attitude first aid kit? If you’re not sure, here is a guide for you and your colleagues to use as a team-building activity in creating your attitude first aid kits. And Kylie Lloyd liked this concept so much that she created a Jamboard template that you can make a copy of to help her students to this.

tips, tricks, and tech tidbits

Digital Choice Boards Out the Wazoo!

The fabulous Janet Corder and Joan Gore provided a wealth of examples and best practices when using choice boards with students. They even included some choice boards for administrators, choice board templates, choice board assessment ideas, and so much more. You do not want to miss this!

The Coaching Continuum

Ashely Parker shared this continuum of coaching an adult learner (image below) that makes a lot of sense to me. And, what’s more, it allows me to plan what my next step with a teacher I am working with should be. I’m afraid that sometimes I stay on Level 1: Connection too much as I keep trying to provide the learner with resource after resource and don’t provide any follow-up and coaching to get to Level 2: Consultation.

Emoji Writing Prompter

Ian Byrd designed this quick and easy Random Emoji Generator writing prompter for busy teachers. Opening the page will produce an emoji that the student should write about. When he runs out of things to say, he can select “And Then” and another random emoji will be produced next to the first one to continue the story. This can go on for as long as the student likes. (Note: Some of the less than perfect emojis are included in this, so your student might get a toilet or the poop emoji.)

Reading Vine

Finding good reading passages that have comprehension questions and Lexile ranges can be difficult. And finding them for free is almost impossible. But luckily for strapped educators everywhere, there is Reading Vine.

“Rather than a one size fits all curriculum, Reading Vine offers supplemental reading practice that can be personalized to fit a student’s or group’s exact needs. Teachers, parents, and tutors simply choose appropriate passage text/questions as desired, and then save, download, or print it out and share with the students.” The site has reading sets and reading passages for grades K-12 and for Lexile ranges from 0 to 1300+. All of it is searchable by skill set, age, word count, Lexile, genre, and topic. And did I mention that it’s completely FREE??? The teacher has to register to use the site, but there is no other charge for its use.

Tech Tools

Finally, I do want to share with you a few of the technology tools that were new to me from the convention. Have you heard of these?

Body Synth – Move different parts of your body in different ways to make music with this fun site. It uses your device camera to track your movements and it is so much fun! You can hear the music as four different instruments, use your voice to play a chord, and adjust the sensitivity to make it work for big or small movements. I can see this being used in PE, obviously, but also as a movement break in all other classrooms.
Chromebook App Hub – This website has lots of resources, as you would imagine, about teaching with Chromebooks. But the really wonderful part of it is that it has an idea section called Idea Sparks. These are already-created lessons from other educators that work great on a Chromebook and they are, of course, free to use. You can also filter them by category, subject area, age range, and general learning goal.
Newspaper Front Page Template – There’s no such thing as too many templates. So add this one that has students create the front page of newspaper to your collection. This can be used in almost any content area, as well as working on determining if a news story is fake or real. The template is available for Google Slides and PowerPoint. (By the way, the provider SlidesMania has literally hundreds of great templates to use the classroom. They are created by educators and are ALL FREE!)
Wordwall – This is another site that helps teachers create a variety of interactive teaching resources such as quizzes, match ups, word games, and more. Each resource can be completed online or printed out. The Basic (i.e., free) plan is limited in that you have access to only 18 types of interactives and, more sadly, can only create five total resources. However, there is no limit to how many of the more than 10 million interactives already created by other educators that you can access and use with your students.

I hope you found at least one new tip, trick, or tidbit in this blog. If so, please drop me a line in the Comment section below about what you found interesting or useful. I’ll be back soon with even more!

February 11, 2021 2 comments

Uncategorized

What Is NaNoWriMo?

by Andrew Roush November 3, 2020

written by Andrew Roush

Creative writing can be a challenge. Faced with a blank sheet of paper, a blinking cursor, or a stack of ideas, we might balk. This feeling is the dread specter of writer’s block — a feeling that, no matter how prepared to write about something we may be, putting words to the page in the right order (and in the right amount) can be paralyzing, even for seasoned writers.

Archers often experience what’s called “target panic,” where their body and mind lock up when the archer aims for the target. Golfers get the “yips,” a sudden inability to carry out the fine motor skills required for the sport, especially when putting. Aviators, motorcyclists, and race car drivers sometimes fall victim to “target fixation” — becoming so focused on a target that they increase their likelihood of unintentionally colliding with it.

Unblocking the Writer

Over the years, many solutions and aids have been developed for creative block. Mind mapping, discussion, journaling, and more have proven effective. And sometimes, forcing oneself to put something on the page, no matter how unrefined, can help.

A writer friend of mine recently offered me advice on starting a draft: Just write it. Write it all down, and when you’re done, you can edit what you have into something closer to your goal. Sometimes, the best way to write is to simply do it.

That’s the idea behind National Novel Writing Month, known colloquially as “NaNoWriMo” (naa-no-rye-mo). Started in 1999, it’s an event and a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people create their first book, novel, or other creative writing endeavor. To do so, participants agree to do their best to write 50,000 words — a novel’s worth — during the month of November.

It’s a tall order, and many don’t succeed, but that’s not entirely the point. Regular writing can help prompt students to explore writing in new ways, write about topics they care about, or simply learn what it takes to explain their ideas in writing.

Inspiring Young Writers during National Novel Writing Month

To help teachers and students engage in the month-long writing binge, NaNoWriMo has developed the Young Writer Program, designed to inspire young people to write under the theme “Your Story Matters.” Educators can check out the FAQs about the program here, learn more details on the Getting Started page, and walk through the sign-up process here.

Educators should also check out The NaNoWriMo Classroom, an online resource made specifically to get students involved in the month. The NaNoWriMo Classroom offers daily agendas to help build young novelists, as well as thoughtful questions to consider, FAQs, and tech tips to help you keep the writing process going.

I have never in my life tried to do something so daring and adventurous. I am a pretty daring person, but I do not think I would try to write a novel on my own without any support or encouragement. So thank you.
— Julia, 13 http://www.nanoteacher.org/student-testimonials.html

Have you ever taken part in NaNoWriMo? Are you trying it this year? Let us know in the comments!

More Creative Writing Resources from TCEA

Photo by Stas Knop from Pexels

November 3, 2020 0 comment

Newer Posts

Older Posts