Categories
Classroom Grammar Writing

Glow & Grow

“Miss Smith I’m so excited, I can feel it in my toes.” It’s not everyday an eighth grader admits to that level of engagement in their language arts classroom, but today was not an average day. Today my students had the privilege of writing with my neighbor, Evan. Evan is a talented writer and is featured biweekly in the local paper.  He started working with my students in the fall via video and has been our class hero ever since.

Today was their first face to face meeting; excited doesn’t even begin to describe the kids or Evan and the buildup to this moment. For the minilesson the kids and I helped to edit some writing that Evan had done “live” for them in the moment. They saw first hand that Evan breaks grammar rules purposely and that he doesn’t always listen to his editor. Evan stressed to the kids that as long as he understands the rule and knows why he’s breaking it, it’s ok to break rules every now and then. My kids giggled at this because they know I’m his editor and that I struggle with some of these broken rules.

Then came the best part of our day: writing conferences. I was nervous to handover the reigns of my conferences to Evan for the day. After all he may be a writer, but he is not a teacher. I even wrote him a careful script to follow, but within seconds of his first conference I realized he wouldn’t need it. His eyes lit up as kids read their writing to him, he told them what he loved specifically and then followed through with gentle tips of how to grow as a writer that had worked for him. My student’s were glowing at the end of their conferences; many even ran over insistent that I hear what Evan had said about their writing. Oh, the joy that filled my teacher heart as I realized the importance of this authentic writing experience.

Evan is not a teacher but maybe that’s the best part of the story?

Categories
Classroom Writing

Snow Day Delight

Today our district had a snow day. Having heard the weather report and anticipated this, I collected a larger than normal group of student journals. Around noon I gathered the journals in two large bags and made a trek up the street to the local Starbucks. There I grabbed my grande-extra-hot-soy-chai-latte and began to read though about ten days of journaling per student. Since I normally only have one much smaller group, this broad picture of all my writers together was a snow day delight.

I read through journals where students we using appositive phrases correctly and incorrectly. Having recently taught this lesson, I was proud that almost all of my kids were trying the new skill. I praised them in my notes back to them, for taking a chance and for finding new examples in their independent reading books. Then I made lists of kids who: have it down, need some help, and lack the concept altogether. Now I can pull them in groups and reteach where I need to. Journals are my favorite formative assessment and Starbucks is my favorite place to fall in love with my writers.

Categories
Writing

risky writing

“Writing is a risk,” I often tell my students. In the beginning of the year, they would just laugh at me when I said things like this. Now I hear the whisperings around my room, “this feels risky.” Room 302 is a place where we applaud risk taking, especially in writing.

a new blog= a new risk