The Barnes and Noble "My Favorite Teacher" Contest is an opportunity for middle and high school students to give their favorite teacher a shout-out. Using a maximum of 500 words, students can choose to submit an original essay, poem, or thank-you letter.
Need a reason to entice your students to enter?
The national student winner will receive a $500 B&N gift card and a Nook.
Need a reason to encourage your students to enter?
Five teachers will "win" on the regional levels, and each of them will receive a $500 B&N gift card. The national teacher winner will receive $5000 (!!!) and his/her school will receive $5000, as well.
Besides the fact that I really like pie (especially pumpkin or pecan!) and find Poe stories to be intriguing...nothing, really. At least, nothing on the surface.
Mathematician, software engineer, and author Mike Keith enjoys blending his passions by applying mathematics to music and the English language, the latter of which led to his interest in Pilish.
What is Pilish? Pilish is one approach to the idea of constrained writing where the writing adheres to a pattern based upon Pi. To write in Pilish, each word's letter count must match with the numbers found in Pi.
For example, Keith rewrote Poe's The Raven using Pilish. It begins:
"Poe, E.
Near a Raven
Midnights so dreary, tired and weary."
If you count the letters in each word and put them together, you have 3(.)1415926535. The first eleven digits of Pi!
You can find the entire Near A Raven poem and its 740 digits of Pi here. Keith also wrote Cadaeic Cadenza, another Pilish piece that usesnearly 4,000 digits of Pi. (Cadaeic Cadenza is a collection of shorter pieces modeled off of other popular texts; part one is Near A Raven.)
Perhaps a little something to tuck away for March 14th...(Is it too early to start planning?)
If you're intrigued, here are Keith's guidelines for writing in Pilish.
If you are a high school English teacher in our district, you are most likely already making good use of Turn It In and its many features, but did you hear about the newest feature?
Turn It In now offers an online discussion board!
I had the opportunity to view it in action this week with freshmen; I get to see it with juniors next week...and I am very excited about this new feature!
Why am I excited and using exclamation points? Don't we already have access to online discussions through Google Classroom?
Google Classroom does allow students to have discussions via questions the teacher posts to the stream. Turn It In takes it a few steps beyond the basics, however. Here's what you can do in Turn It In's discussion feature:
Teachers post questions using a screen similar to posting an assignment. There is a spot for the question, a spot for additional instructions, and a due date.
Teachers can have multiple questions posted at once, and they are easily viewed on the Discussion page.
Teachers can chose to moderate posts or not.
As students post responses and reply to posts, Turn It In visually tracks the thread and labels each response.
1 (or another single number) means the post is the beginning of a thread.
1.1, 1.2, etc means the posts are responses to the original post labeled 1.
1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc means the posts are responses to responses to the original post labeled 1.
(I'm not sure how far down the path it goes, but I did see a 1.1.1.1 yesterday!)
Teachers can manipulate how they view the posts. They can view the posts threaded (meaning the posts read like a conversation, in the order they were posted) or they can view the posts by student.
When a teacher sorts the posts by student, the teacher can see both original posts and replies to classmates posts. The student's every contribution shows up. (In contrast, Google only shows a student's original post.)
Students can post questions if the teacher allows. This could add an interesting dynamic to the conversation.
Thinking of giving it a go in your room? Please let me know how it goes!
Oh, the Reflections contest! Having a mother who was extremely active in the PTA, the Reflections contest was on our yearly calendar. Perhaps my memory is incorrect, but I do not recall there being so many categories. I hope if dance had been a category back when I was in school that I would have taken that opportunity!
If your students are looking for a creative outlet that can earn them a little scholarship money, encourage them to think about entering this year's contest. Entries need to connect to the theme "Let Your Imagination Fly" and fall into one of the following six categories: Dance Choreography, Film Production, Literature, Music Composition, Photography, or Visual Arts.
The local Sioux Falls deadline is Saturday, December 5, which is less than a month away. Access the printable registration form here. As I learn more, I will update this post,
The DWP Invitational Summer Institute is in the works! Very few details are out at this point, but here is what I know:
This has been some of the BEST PD in which I have participated. It is for ANY teacher who wants to look at using writing more effectively in the classroom. (The summer I participated, the teachers ranged from K-college, and included PE, science, social studies, and art, as well as English.)
The dates are set: June 8 - July 2, 2015. The group meets Monday through Thursday.
The ISI takes place on USD's campus. Typically, teachers can choose to commute each day or to arrange housing in Vermillion. (I opted to commute each day with another Sioux Falls teacher, which I really enjoyed. We were able to spend time bonding and processing the information from the day.)
One of our own SF teachers will co-direct - Meghan WoundedHead!
Teachers can earn 6 graduate credits for completing the ISI.
As I learn more, I will try to send out information. In the meantime, you can watch the DWP ISI website or contact DWP director Michelle Rogge Gannon at mrogge@usd.edu.
The University of Sioux Falls offers numerous topics for personal professional development. If you are in need of graduate credits for a lane change or renewal credits for re-certification, USF offers both opportunities for their courses.
Some of the upcoming offerings that might be of interest include:
*Writing from Middle School, High School to College (Starts June 3)
*Discipline with Love and Logic (starts June 5)
*Literacy and Gender (Starts June 8)
*Teaching with the Brain in Mind (Starts June 10)
*Grammar 101: Beginners to Advanced (Starts June 10)
Click on the links below to view the full spring and summer listings.
"Since 2003, writers from all over the United States have gathered in an intimate lakeside setting with award-winning authors and teachers to practice the arts of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction."
This year's Northwoods Writers Conference is set for June 20-26, 2015. Participants will be able to "create, collaborate, and commune" on the lake at Bemidji State University. Throughout the week, participants will hear from and work with five authors: Aimee Nezhukumatathil (poetry), Tayari Jones (fiction), Matt de la Pen (YA fiction), David Gessner (creative nonfiction), and Joni Tevis (creative nonfiction). When applying, participants select their particular genre for workshop sessions. Other scheduled events include author readings, craft talks, consultations, and editor's talks. (See the whole schedule here.)
The full conference costs $545 if you register before April 15 or $585 after the early bird date passes. This cost covers all events and three meals. Participants can also opt to audit many of the events for $125. View more cost details here.
The Dakota Writing Project has posted the registration document for the annual student creative writing camp: The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The camp is March 27-28, but early bird registration is due March 16. Read more about the camp in this previous post or visit the DWP website.
Last spring, I put together this Research Project Blendspace for English IB students who needed to work more independently for various reasons. It is geared more towards the English I level in terms of introducing some of the concepts, but there may be pieces that can be spliced out for other classrooms, depending upon student needs.
If you'd like to use the Blendspace in its entirety, there is an accompanying Google document that provides students with places to record their learning, think critically about the content, and apply the information to their specific research topic.
The Dakota Writing Project's Sorcerer's Apprentice Creative Writing Camp is set for this spring! It typically takes place in the fall, but this year, it will be in March and expanded as the Dakota Writing Project pairs up with the Vermilion Literacy Project.
The camp itself is a one-day workshop for high school students with a genuine interest in writing and will take place on Saturday, March 28. This workshop is intended to bring "together high school writers with dedicated teacher-writer professionals...for a day of writing and collaboration that promises to be a magical apprenticeship." Throughout the day, students will have the opportunity to explore a variety of creative genres and partake in revision exercises. The day culminates with a chance to perform the day's work.
New this year is an expansion to include a few Friday events on March 27th. A 3-hour writing marathon will kick-off the day at 12:30, followed by a reading by USD faculty member and published author Natanya Pulley at 4 pm. The day will culminate with a poetry slam that evening.
If you have a student who may be interested, please encourage them to explore this writing opportunity. The camp website has not yet been updated, but eventually, more information will be available here, along with the registration form. In the past, student registration fees have included the workshop, a camp t-shirt, a copy of the Vermilion Literary Project magazine, lunch, and workshop refreshments. There are scholarships available for students with financial needs; please email dwp@usd.edu for more information.
This Sunday, some people will actually watch the Super Bowl for the game. These people will hoot and holler at the screen, perhaps rooting for the lesser of two evils because their team was not fortunate enough to make the game.
I am not one of these.
While I enjoy the Super Bowl, I have always been there more for the food. That's not entirely honest. Most of my Super Bowl Sunday enjoyment stems from the commercials. However, the food is typically what makes it so that I am actually in a room where the game is on the screen. If it weren't for the food, I would miss the commercials as they were strategically revealed throughout the game; without the beckoning of the food, I would most likely end up perusing them later on via YouTube.
Originally, I enjoyed Super Bowl commercials simply because they were often well-done and witty. Since becoming a teacher, however, I have also looked at them with a critical eye for the classroom and considered them a type of digital literacy. Most years, there is at least one commercial that is applicable to the classroom in some way, like the Kia Optima "One Epic Ride" from a few years ago.
I recently came across these two resources that can help educators utilize Super Bowl ads more effectively in the classroom.
The first, Super Bowl Ads archive, is simply an easier way to browse past Super Bowl ads.
The second, Teach Media Literacy with Super Bowl Ads, is a blog post by Frank Baker (creator of the Media Literacy Clearinghouse) where he encourages teachers to look at these expensive commercials as persuasive digital texts. He includes some ideas for application to classrooms across the content areas (including thinking like an advertiser), but you can also view some more lesson ideas for close readings of digital texts at the MLC website here.
I stumbled across this tutorial yesterday on my Google+ stream. Apparently, it is quite easy for students to create interactive digital timelines! Students use this Google spreadsheet template to chart the progression of an event, including event start and end dates/times, event headings, descriptions of each piece of the event, and links to images or videos that go along with the event. Once the template is filled out, the student publishes it to the web (under "File"), and then copies and pastes the published link into a box on this website created by Northwestern University (IL).
Voila! Interactive digital timeline created!
Here is a small example timeline that I made using Act I of Romeo and Juliet. (I took some liberties with the date and times...)
Bonus: Students don't have to go through the publishing step each time they update their spreadsheets. The default settings make it so the timeline is updated any time the spreadsheets is altered.
Turn In?
There are many ways students could turn in their finished products. Here are a few:
*Post an assignment to your Google Classroom, and have students share the timeline link via the assignment. (This option would keep the link sharing private between teacher and student.)
*Create an announcement on your Google Classroom stream, and have students paste the timeline link into a comment box. (This option would allow students to view each other's timelines.)
*Create a Google Form asking for two things: Student Name and Timeline Link. (Perhaps the easiest for grading?)
*Have students post their timelines to a Padlet page.
*Have students email you the timeline link.
Possible Uses?
Have students create a timeline...
*for a short story, novel, or play
*for a famous person's life story
*to brainstorm for or draft a personal narrative
*to outline an event in history
Overall, this combination of tools has the possibility to be quite powerful in not only helping students visually see an event's progression, but also showing their understanding of the event. Why not let them chart it out?!
It looks like I may have been a little eager to share the Goobric updates! Another update was released this weekend that allows users to leave voice comments on a Google Doc via the Goobric app. Yippee! The 10-minute tutorial (posted just today!) walks users through the Goobric steps for leaving feedback. If you are familiar with Goobric, you can skip to 5:43 to view the steps regarding how to leave voice comments.
Spring semester often means the start of research paper season around here. If you're looking for a new approach, here are three resources you might want to peruse.
Virginia Tech Library's "How Do I..." Research Resources
Virginia Tech's library website has a "How Do I..." page that offers a variety of research tools and resources regarding topics such as "Conduct Research" and "Find and Use Articles." Some tools are geared specifically for their library, but a number of them can be tweaked to assist our students.
Using "A Google A Day" to Build Research Skills
Google has started offering daily mini-research challenges. Each day, Google posts a research topic through their "A Google A Day" for students to practice their researching skills. Google's challenge topics fall into four categories: culture, geography, history, and science. Each challenge question comes with a few Google slides for the teacher. The slides include the challenge question, hints to get started, the challenge answer, at least one explanation of how to research the answer, and other pages like background information and/or further discussion/follow-up questions.
*Picking the right search term *Understanding research results *Narrowing a search to get the best results *Searching for evidence for research tasks *Evaluating credibility of sources
Each lesson comes in three levels (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) so that you can select what best fits your students' knowledge level.
Giving students timely, useful, and clear feedback is a vital piece of the writing process, and of the classroom in general. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be enough hours in the day sometimes. Ok, not sometimes. Ever.
Enter Diigo's Clipboard Add-On for Google Docs. You start by adding on the Add-On. Then, create a document that contains feedback on the general areas where you anticipate to see student's struggling. This feedback could contain a quick explanation of how to fix the issue, a link to an online resource, both pieces, or anything else you desired. After creating your feedback snippets, you add them to the Diigo Clipboard, which appears along the right-hand side of your Google Doc. When you open a student paper, you can view this same clipboard. As you add a comment to the paper, you can copy the pre-generated feedback from the Clipboard (link and all) and paste it into the comment box. The video below is a quick, 2-minute tutorial if you would like to see it in action.
This tool is obviously not the silver bullet for feedback since it is basically a way to give more detailed canned comments. It does, however, allow you to give more feedback in a faster manner, which saves you time for adding those individualized comments for each student.
Bonus: Students do not need to add any apps or add-ons to view your feedback because it is all right there in the normal Google comments box. Yea!
Kaizena is a Google extension and Google Drive add-on that allows teachers to provide students with more formats of feedback than the traditional Google comment tool. In a nutshell, Kaizena takes the basic Google comment, pairs it with TurnItIn.com's GradeMark tagging feature, and adds in the ability to record a voice comment. Not all of their feedback options seem to be working at the moment, specifically the ability to link a piece of feedback to an online resource. BUT, the feather in their hat - the voice comment feature - appears to be one of their strongest features, and it has worked perfectly for me.
If you are interested in trying it out but would like a little guidance, you may use this Kaizena: Steps for Getting Started instructional/tutorial document I made.
(Feedback Add-On Tip: If you are interested in leaving voice comments, I would highly recommend a program like Kaizena. However, if you are more interested in leaving detailed comments with links to online resources, I would recommend using a program like Diigo Clipboard, which you can read about here.)
Google is celebrating NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which is November) by inviting three authors to collaborate on a short story live via Google Docs on Tuesday, November 18: Edan Lepucki, Tope Folarin, and Mike Curato. Google is giving the authors one hour to complete the collaborative writing project. (Time is yet to be announced.) There is also an opportunity to submit ideas for the first line of the story. Read Google's post about it here.
There are a number of ways to possibly incorporate NaNoWriMo into the classroom during November, and no, they don't all include writing an actual novel. Here are just a few ideas:
1. Present the challenge to your students and let those who are interested run with it. (That's the obvious one. And who knows? Maybe our school libraries will soon have displays of books written by students!) PS - If you or a student take on the challenge, you can use Cameron Matthew's NaNoWriMo word-count spreadsheet to stay on target.
2. Encourage writing every single day, like the NaNoWriMo writers. Model this by starting each class with writing. It could be for a certain amount of time or you could have students aim to write a certain word-count each day. Bonus points for doing it with them. If you want students to be able to track their word-count throughout the month, give each of them access to this spreadsheet.
3. Tune in to all or part of Google's one-hour short story challenge on November 18. It is followed by a Question/Answer time with the three authors.
4. Have a journal prompt or assignment where students submit a first-line suggestion to Google's collaborative short story challenge. (Due November 12.)
5. Mimic Google's collaborative short story challenge. Use a recently read short story as a model text and let the students be collaboratively creative.
6. Although many NaNoWriMo "novels" are never published, there are some that have spent time on the NYT Best Seller list. Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen and Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern are just two examples. Create a literature circle experience using NaNoWriMo novels.
7. If there is no time for a literature circle during November, encourage students to read published NaNoWriMo novels for independent reading.
Any other ideas? Please leave them in the comments!
Turnitin is offering a number of webinars this week as they focus on their "Student Success Week." You can find the whole listhere, but I've also included the links for a few that may be of higher interest regarding feedback.
(It is unclear if they will archive the webinars for all to access, but the registration pages do say that all registrants will be emailed a link to the recorded webinar. If you are interested in one, you may want to register just to have access to the archive.)
Education Northwest recently revised their 6+1 rubric, the one we commonly use around our district. They have cross-walked it with the Common Core, and released this new version. As a teacher, it breaks down the traits in a way that allows you to give more specific feedback to your students.
