Welcome Back! Let Me (Re)Introduce You to FAT-P!

Those of you who have visited my blog before may have noticed that I did a little face-lift to the design. I've changed the name from Literacy Links to ACS Teacher Talk because this will be a place to share instructional ideas that span wider than just literacy. The URL address remained the same, just to reduce headaches. 

All of us here in ACS started the school year with professional development on project-based learning and writing instruction. I plan to use the first several blog posts to support learning and implementation in those two areas. If you have ideas, success stories, tricks, tips, or documents related writing instruction or PBL that you would like to share with others, please email them to me so I can share on the blog!

Here is a little something to get you started with keeping writing a focus:

One of the easiest strategies to try out in your classroom is pre-writing and reading analysis with FAT-P.  If you have forgotten, the acronym stands for:

Form:  What are you being asked to write? 

article, letter, blog post, proposal, instructions

Audience:  For whom is this piece likely written?

friend, classmates, teacher, employer

Topic:  What are you writing about?

Purpose:  What is the author trying to accomplish with this?

to inform; to persuade

These are a few ways to use it in your class:

• First, have students write the acronym in their daybooks. If you want a typed version for them to paste in notebooks, click here.   It is also a good idea for them to flag it with a small sticky note or highlight the edge of the paper since we want them to reference it often.
• Have students read articles or text and determine the FAT-P before they begin discussing or writing about the piece.
• It can be used to "attack" a writing prompt and help students to understand what they are being asked to create. (Sample below)

• After writing an initial draft, have students answer the FAT-P for their own writing. 
• During peer review/conferencing, have students read someone else's work and see if they can provide the FAT-P for their peer's writing.

If you have other ideas, please leave them in the comment section.  Have a great year teaching and learning!

Chandra Manning

DOGO News

AHS Media Specialists (Laura Holland and Carla Shinn) and Tech Facilitator (Tina Webster) shared a resource for using current events in the classroom. DOGOnews.com is a site filled with interesting news article postings from around the world. There are thousands of articles and new original content (some written by young people) in their library, and many more are added every day. The maps features is an interactive way for students to read news headlines geotagged on a world map.

There are also a couple of spin-off sites connected with DOGOnews.com:

• DOGObooks.com is a place where kids can share their reactions, thoughts, and opinions about books. 
• DOGOmovies.com is a new launch where students can rate and express opinions on movies (rated G, PG, or PG-13) in the DOGO library.  All reviews are moderated prior to being published online.

DOGOnews looks to be primarily geared for students K-8, but the text complexity can still be appropriate in high school based on the reader and task. I really like how most of the articles have lots of photographs and a quick video to accompany them along with a vocabulary bank, comprehension questions, and a critical thinking challenge.  

~Chandra

#ThankATeacher

National Teacher Appreciation Day is tomorrow, Tuesday, May 6.  Dubraska Stines, ESL Lead Teacher, shared a neat campaign from the U.S. Department of Education. They want us to tell the world what we would like to #ThankATeacher for doing.

It's pretty simple:

• Click here to download the Dept. of Ed's "#ThankATeacher" sign.
• Fill it out.
• On Tuesday, post the picture on social media using the hashtag #ThankATeacher.

If you want to do this within your class, skip the social media aspect and post around the classroom or school building!

Dubraska Stines

Dr. Julie Pack

Chandra Manning

Betsy Hammond

Actively Learn

Actively Learn is an online e-reader that allows students to interact with text in a unique way. Teachers can upload texts from PDF files and websites and insert questions, comments, and multimedia. Students can work through the text at their own pace, get help when they need it, and share their ideas with other students. Watch the video below to take a quick walk-through of the site.

Pros

·         It’s 100% FREE!

·         The kids love it.

·         Kids can see and respond to other peoples’ posts.

·         Inserting videos and pictures is super easy and adds a lot to the text.

·         You can assign different texts to different classes. If you wanted small groups you could easily create “classes” with just a portion of your students. (Just your AIG students, one literature circle group, etc.)

·         Kids can sign up easily using their ACS Google accounts and a class code or link. If they use Chrome and log into their Google account, they are automatically logged in to Actively Learn. I use a couple different websites with my kids that they have to sign up for, and this one is BY FAR the simplest.

Cons

·         Uploading a file can sometimes be tricky. Some PDFs don’t load or look right. Sometimes links, comments, or captions on websites end up included in the text. Occasionally I’ve had to upload a text multiple times in a few different ways before it really worked right.

·         Once you upload a file, there is no way to edit the text or things like the title.

·         The site can be a little buggy at times. It occasionally freezes up or doesn’t load. Refreshing the page usually fixes it.

·         There are no alerts or anything to let kids know they haven’t finished an assignment. 

Submitted by guest blogger,

Carlie Abercrombie

7th Grade ELA Teacher at North Asheboro Middle

Wing Clips

Recently I was teaching my seventh grade language arts students how to identify the theme of fiction texts.  I wanted them to be able to identify the theme of both print and non-print texts.  We started by identifying themes in well-known fairy tales, and then moved to themes of songs.  Some of the students seemed to understand the concept of identifying theme, but most students were still struggling with the topic.  So, I thought about what kind of text I wanted to use next.  I decided to move to something most students can relate to and get excited about using in the classroom…movie clips.  I was going to use YouTube for the clips, but I always worry about what kinds of “other” videos will show up on the sides, or what kinds of advertisements will pop up before the video actually starts.  After a little research, I found a wonderful website called Wing Clips (http://www.wingclips.com).   Here, I was able to find appropriate and relevant movie clips, and I did not have to worry about “other” videos on the sides or any advertisements.  I created a LiveBinder of the clips I wanted my students to use, and then I created a graphic organizer for the students to use as they watched the clips.  This activity was a success!  During the lesson students were engaged in watching the clips, and after I read their graphic organizers, I learned that they finally understood how to identify the theme of fiction texts.  

Here’s the link to the LiveBinder I created http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=1276182    (the access key is “lamb”).   All the clips I used are in the blinder, along with the graphic organizer students were responsible for completing while they watched the clips.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Guest Blogger,

Kerri Lamb, NBCT

SAMS 7th Grade ELA Teacher

Reading and Discussing Are Perfect Partners

Although it has officially been spring for several days, we are just beginning to thaw from our challenging winter.  As we come out from the cold, hopefully there is a sense of rejuvenation emerging, too.  Here is a challenge to coincide with your renewal:  INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF STUDENT ACADEMIC CONVERSATION IN YOUR CLASS!

I know that several of you have embraced the idea of students doing close reads. Student discussion and writing have to be a part of the mix.  At the January mini-conference, I shared 40 Ways to Read Text, which was compiled by the ELA section of NCDPI.  I put the strategies together in a LiveBinder for ease of use. Start out tacking speaking and listening skills by studying cards #10-15; they contain simple discussion and questioning strategies. You will find that they are great for different grade levels and pretty much any content area.  

40 Ways to Read Like a Detective: Supporting Text–Centered Inst

Email me if you would like to co-plan or collaborate using these resources!

~Chandra

Speaking and Listening Anchor Standard 1

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL1
Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Last week, the 6-12 ELA Vertical Team met to discuss chapters from their book study on Teaching Students to Read Like Detectives.  We started by discussing the instructional implications of Speaking and Listening Anchor Standard 1:

• Students need time every day, in every class, to practice their collaborative conversations.
• Students will need to be held accountable for those interactions.
• It is important to provide students with instruction on how to engage in a collaborative conversation.
• Provide students with Sentence Starters
• Have students develop Rules of Conversation

Later we tried out two speaking and listening activities.  Try these in your classroom to build students up towards mastery of that first S&L anchor standard:

Facts in Five 

1. Have students individually generate a personal list of the five most important concepts or facts they have learned about the topic being studied or a list of five predictions, concerns, or areas of interest related to their learning.
2. Have student move into groups of five.
3. Have the group reach consensus on the five most important facts or concepts and clarify their rationale for selecting each.
4. Have each group present their selections and the rationale for each selection to the larger group.
5. Lead a discussion about the content identified, the similarities and differences and the process.
6. Post the choices on the bulletin board for later examination.

Another version of this activity is the 1-3-6 Protocol.

Inside-Outside Circle

It is a Kagan structure summarizing technique that gets students up and moving.  It provides a way to get students who normally would not talk to interact with others.

1. After students read a section of text, the teacher divides the group into two concentric circles containing the same number of students.  Students in the inside circle face a partner standing in the outside circle.
2. Students from the inside circle share something with their partner.
3. Students then reverse their role.
4. The teacher controls the timing, e.g. "Outside circle, it's your turn to share for one minute."
5. The inside circle needs to rotate and the students turn to face their new partner and share.

Inside-Outside Circle engages all students simultaneously and allows the teacher to increase or decrease the number of different pairings that occur. 

~Chandra