My path to English language teacher

For the #Ellchat_bkclub, we have been reading The 6 principles for exemplary teaching of English learners. Chapter 4 mentions that English language teachers "come to the profession by many different pathways" (67), making me wonder how we all got here, contributing to this book club that has grown exponentially in the past year and a half since I joined. Evelyn is the reason I am here. Evelyn and a district decision back in 2010.

Evelyn was one of my seventh-grade English students. She and I bonded quickly. School was not the biggest priority for her, as it is not for many junior high students. Her Mexican family expectations were stereotypical - find a boy, have his babies. Finish school or don't. No big deal. At least that's how I remember it.

Aside from boys, Evelyn was always mixed up in drama. I once pushed my way through 200 students (I swear I am not exaggerating; I even earned the nickname Ninja Foti for how I worked my way through those kids) to get into the bathroom to break up a fight with her and another student. I ran in just in time to see her slam the other girl's head into a sink.

I wanted more for Evelyn, and I do believe part of her wanted more, too. We worked hard on her classes, more than just mine. Until the day she was removed from my class.

The district made a decision to place all ESL students together with an ESL certified teacher. Despite having a masters with an ESL focus, I really did not know much about how things worked with these students at that time, including any laws or regulations that may affect their class placement. The only thing I knew for sure was that Evelyn was taken from my class and placed with another teacher, one whom we both resented.

Things did not go well for Evelyn in the new class. She and the teacher did not get along. Evelyn's ability to see me, talk to me, and work with me became more and more limited. We would only have a couple of minutes here and there to talk, for me to keep tabs on her. And it was then that I decided that I would never allow a situation like that to happen again.

I became ESL certified within a year, and doors and opportunities opened up for me like crazy after that. Years later and I have earned a local ESL teacher of the year award and been named the best of the best presenters for my region at a state TESOL conference. The ESL kids on my campus, those I teach and those I do now, are my kiddos, whether they like it or not. I am territorial and want the best for them.

Evelyn is a grown woman. She has three kids now. I'm not sure if she finished school. The last I knew, she had not. In the middle of writing this, I stopped to send her a thank you on Facebook for transforming my life. Because she did.

So now I want to know about your story. How did you get here?

Making time for Makerspace

I was recently out of the classroom for two back-to-back conferences. My reading students had to survive without me for four days of school. Certainly not an easy feat for my seventh-grade students. So prior to leaving, we made a deal: if they could behave and complete the work I left with no more than one off day, we would take a break from class to visit the library and explore the new makerspace activities.

I teach struggling readers, and I truly believe students who struggle in any way need rewards to build motivation. Makerspace time may not have anything to do with reading in and of itself, but makerspace time allows for my students and I to engage in a number of other ways.

Students collaborated in small groups to problem solve. In doing so, they had an opportunity to talk to one another, building relationships in a way that does not always occur in the general classroom setting. I observed students who never talk to one another in class working together and discussing what they were creating.

As students were working, I asked what professions they thought might use some of the same skills they were applying to their creations. The student below was building with blocks, when another student said an engineer would use those skills. The student actually doing the building said he felt that the process he was using might benefit an artist. Gotta love the kids who think differently!

One student exhibited some creativity that I had not seen in the classroom before then. When I asked what he was creating, he told he a portal - to take him home. I did ask if that same portal could take me to a tropical island, but I was denied.

In each class, I also played. I want my students to understand that "play" is not just for kids, no matter how much they criticize me for not acting my own age. They watched as I built a flower, only to have it collapse at the last second. Did they see me cry and yell and pout? Absolutely not. It was an excellent opportunity to model how to react when things do not always go our way.

I do believe that makerspace is underutilized on my campus. It is seen as play rather than being a tool for critical thinking and problem solving and so much more. And when did play become such a bad word? Are we so lost in a world of deadlines and testing that we have forgotten to give kids time to explore?

I am not simply doing my best to create better readers. I want to create writers and dancers and singers and artists, in addition to scientists and engineers and doctors and lawyers. And I hope our makerspace time ignites a spark that may not have been present before.

How are you using makerspace time with your students?

The Independent Reading Files - Student Choice

This year, I am teaching seventh grade reading intervention classes. Not every student in my class is a developing reader (a.k.a., struggling). Some are developing test takers. Others are developing stay-awakers. Some knew they would be promoted regardless of the test outcome. Others experienced morning events that affected their performance. Regardless of the situation, we have a year to spend together, and my goal is to help these students find enjoyment in reading via independent reading.

Cullinan (2000) writes that independent reading comes in a variety of categories: voluntary, pleasure, leisure, recreational, spare time, and outside of school, for example. Within the four walls of my classroom, however, I cannot say that independent reading falls into any of these categories. These descriptors indicate a willingness and desire to read. In my classroom, silent reading time is mandated by me, thereby contradicting the very nature of voluntary reading. My hope, however, is that by participating in daily independent reading, my students will begin to want to read as a means of pleasure and leisure.

Independent reading also includes personal choice, writes Cullinan, and I am making that available to my students. Every day when my students come in to class, they are welcomed by hundreds of books.  I am fortunate to have received two grants in the past that allowed me to build a classroom library, and already this school year (we are three weeks in), I received a Scholastic library that another teacher decided she did not want. Her trash is my treasure because that library helps me provide my students with more reading options. 

It is my job to get the books into their hands by providing them with as much choice as possible. According to Skeeters et al. (2016), student choice empowers and values, leads to deep and meaningful conversations, deepens relationships, and leads to independence. I keep trade books that I have checked out from the public library in my classroom, refreshing them as they hit their due dates. I have novels of every genre. And I have informational texts and drawing books and brain teasers and graphic novels and comic books.

To date we completed fourteen days of daily independent reading, and although not all of the kids are completely on board yet, each day gets a little better. They are looking at and reading books. They are asking to keep reading once my timer goes off. They are starting to ask to borrow novels. They are starting to discover what they do and do not like about the books they are reading. This past week, a student called me over and said, "Miss, I don't find a lot of books I like, but I like this one" (in reference to Ghost by Jason Reynolds).

In addition, my English language arts teammates are starting to catch the bug. One seventh grade and one eighth grade teacher have now added a silent reading day to their weekly lessons. It may only be one day, but that provides more time that students may not read otherwise. And since my students are also in those classes, their reading time is expanding even more. The rest is yet to come.

References 

Cullinan, B. (2000). Independent reading and school achievement. School Library Media Research,3, 1-24. Retrieved September 1, 2018, from http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol3/SLMR_IndependentReading_V3.pdf

Skeeters, K., Campbell, B., Dubitsky, A., Faron, E., Geiselmann, K., George, D., . . . Wagner, E. (2016, February). The top five reasons we love giving students choice in reading. English Leadership Quarterly, 6-7. Retrieved September 1, 2018, from http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/ELQ/0383-feb2016/ELQ0383Top.pdf

Nine Box Grid - Modified and Magnified

This week, I have returned to school to assist with our third annual incoming seventh-grade student orientation camp. I volunteer my services for this camp every year for numerous reasons: it gives me a chance to start building relationships with students I may or may not teach later on; the sample of students who participate usually reveal what we can expect from our new student population (so far, so great), and I get the opportunity to try out lessons on a smaller scale before the school year begins. 

As part of the Twitter ELL book club, I  read The ELL Teacher's Toolbox by Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski. I love being part of this book club, as I have been exposed to strategies for working with ELLs - and ALL students - that I might not run across otherwise. The unfortunate part about this particular book was that we started reading it at the end of the school year, and I did not have time to implement all of these ideas that had my brain swimming in excitement. 

One activity I have been anxious to use in my classroom since last spring is Katie Toppel's Nine Box Grid. The authors acknowledge that they have modified this strategy, and I have to acknowledge that I, in turn, modified and magnified the strategy for my own needs based on the time constraints of the camp.

The Nine Box Grid involves creating a nine numbered boxes. A word is entered into each box, and they are used one at a time in a writing activity. During the school year, I am likely to use related words that we are learning in class, but due to limited time with my camp students, I chose to use a random word generator to come up with the nine words. These are readily available online. Some allow you to choose the words you want; others provide a set list. I used different types of generators for different groups of students to test out how I could make this activity work. My higher level classes received a specific set of words; my still-working-on-it groups were able to choose words from those provided to build our own list. 

I also turned the activity into a writing challenge by adding in rounds, For each round, the students received a topic (I also used an online generator for this). We started by writing about a topic with one word from the nine box grid. After completing a round, I changed the topic and increased the number of words. Most of the classes completed four rounds. 

_________________________________________________________________

• Round 1
• Run topic generator 
• Pick a number on a card (the book says to use dice, but I don't even know where anything is in my classroom right now)
• Write a sentence with the word in the box matching that number that connects to the topic
• Share out 
• Round two
• Run topic generator
• Pick two number cards
• Write a sentence with both of the chosen words, connecting to the topic
• Share out

_________________________________________________________________

My camp classes consist of English language learners (I have one student who has been here for two years, and she speaks eight languages), 504, special education, Pre-AP, and academic students. Within all of these groups, there was a great deal of groaning when I said we were going to write. I am happy to report that this was not the case by the end of the activity. The kids truly rose to the challenge. If we do not find ways to make writing fun for our kids, regardless of which student groups they fall into, those groans will never go away. We have a responsibility to light a fire within our students. 

In addition, I have a special education co-teacher with me during one of my class sessions. She loved this activity, and her final class of the day joined mine in order to participate. She took lots of notes and said she is excited to use this with her kids once we return to school. When we model these activities for others, and they get to see how the kids respond, we spread the wealth. 

Do not be afraid to take risks and try new things. Be contagious. Our kids deserve it. 

Visual Note Taking with Poetry

Over spring break, I managed to read another chapter of Keep it R.E.A.L!: Relevant, engaging, and affirming literacy for adolescent English learners by Dr. Mary Amanda Stewart. Chapter 3, "Read in a literature-rich classroom," offers strategies that are applicable to the middle school classroom, and today I was able to teach poetry in my STAAR class, a supplemental reading class consisting of various types of language learners, including ESL students. And let me tell you, I hate teaching poetry as much as the kids hate learning how to read it. But today, we all enjoyed it. 

Stewart writes, "Consider using poetry to develop students' listening skills...read the poem aloud without allowing students to see the words...Then, read the same poem while displaying the words for students and ask them if they now understood more" (54). I decided to combine this with a lesson on visual note taking (many of these students are also in my regular English classes, and I did not want to burden them with two class periods of standard note taking on our first day back from spring break). 

Introduction to visual notetaking

I began by showing my students a video from Youtube that addressed three components of visual note taking: decorative words, images, and connecting elements. Youtube is filled with videos about Sketchnotes and visual note taking. I chose the following video, as it is short enough to provide a general overview without overwhelming my students. 

Multiple "readings" of the poem

Because visual note taking was a new skill, I started with an easy poem, Jack Prelutsky's "Be glad your nose is on your face." One of my students recently informed me that I have a witch's nose, so I figured it was a good one to use in class. 

I wanted to engage in the note taking process with my students, so rather than reading the poem aloud to them, I found an audio recording on Youtube that did not display the text of the poem, forcing my students - and me - to use their listening skills. 

We listened to the poem multiple times, breaking our visual note taking into different rounds. While the students worked on their notes, I displayed my own paper via the document camera, modeling each step. For our first listen, we focused on words that caught our attention, adding them to our visual notes. We then listened again, drawing images that stood out to us. On the third, fourth, and fifth listens, we drew connectors between what we had drawn. 

Displaying the poem

The final layer of the visual note taking was the most complicated for my seventh graders, so I displayed the poem for them after we could no longer gather the information we needed by listening. The students and I referenced the text, adding more to our words, images, and connectors, adding more to their understanding of the poem. 

Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face

Jack Prelutsky, 1940

Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,

you might dislike your nose a lot.
for if it were where it is not,

Imagine if your precious nose

that clearly would not be a treat,
were sandwiched in between your toes,
for you’d be forced to smell your feet.


it soon would drive you to despair,
Your nose would be a source of dread
were it attached atop your head,
forever tickled by your hair.


your brain would rattle from the breeze.
Within your ear, your nose would be
an absolute catastrophe,
for when you were obliged to sneeze,


be glad your nose is on your face!
Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
remains between your eyes and chin,

not pasted on some other place--



The results

For a first try, I was really impressed with my students. Not only did they enjoy the note taking strategy, they were actually invested in the poem, something that usually turns them off completely. I worked hard to remove the pressure of getting everything exactly right, focusing on building my students' ability to listen well.  For ELLs with beginning and intermediate English skills, I think pairing them up with students with higher level skills might help connect the words and images together to convey meaning. 



Tomorrow I am going to give them a more difficult, grade-level poem to work with to determine if they can garner meaning through visual note taking with a bit less support from me. Again, we will begin by listening to the poem without seeing the words. I am hoping that in the long run, the kids will start to hear how poetry should sound within their own minds without relying on the voice of another. 









This one is mine. I think the kids did better. 

Random Word Stories

Winter break was a long 18 days, and I did not think about school one time, as I was in the process of selling one house and buying another. Fortunately, the AVID community on Facebook came to my rescue as I scrambled to figure out what I was going to teach the first day back to school with everyone suffering from back-to-school-itis. 

Another AVID teacher posted that she uses random word generators to spark collaborative writing. Easy enough! I set up the lesson by explaining to my students that I would be providing them with six words from the generator. After discussing word meaning, I would provide them with six minutes to write a VERY short story with their table mates, using all of the provided words. We would then share out to practice listening and speaking skills. 

Apparently, there are a significant number of random word generators online. I clicked on the first one. I generated a different list for each class period. For some of the classes, I had to click through a few times, as there were words that I did not even know popping up. Sure, I could have used those words as an opportunity to model my own learning, but I was tired! 

The lesson went quite well. The time limit helped to keep students engaged. Many of the groups were amused with themselves for what they had created. Some wrote a couple of sentences, working in the words as quickly as possible. Others managed to write short novels in the time provided. If I had not been discussing new procedures for the second semester, I probably could have worked in a second round of this activity. I did have requests from many students to do this again, and I am pondering how to use this to inspire my seventh grade students for their STAAR writing test in a couple of months. 

If you find yourself in need of a fifteen to twenty minute time filler (or you are having an off /I-can-barely-keep-my-eyes-open day and need to improvise), this requires little energy and planning on the part of the teacher. Give it a shot.