Let’s Get This Party Started…

I am so enjoying this time off from school–time to relax, to be with my family, to travel a little (we just spent the weekend in Chicago, which is a new favorite place of ours), and to think.  I’ll admit that I think a little too much about school when I’m away from it, but hey–it’s hard not to when that’s where you spend so much of your time!

In this last week I have before I get back into the daily grind again, I hope to spend reading and reflecting, look both back and forward to what is to come in the new year.  And one piece of that “reading” part happens for me on Twitter (and I KNOW I’ve mentioned that here before, so instead of telling you any more about it, I’ll just share a tweet I just found that I loved. 🙂 ).

And so as I get this last week of break underway, let’s get this party started–as I hope that I’ll have many other posts to share with you soon. 🙂

How Did I Not Tell You?

I just realized I’ve keeping something from you….so yep, I’ll spill the beans.

My kids are bloggers!  I am not sure what I’ve been doing the last month or so, but I’ve neglected to tell you that my kiddos (and some of yours, too!) have begun a fabulous new blogging journey, and we’d love you to join us on it. 🙂

I started blogging with this group of kiddos the same way that I have the past two years, which I wrote about here.  It has been a great thing for us as learners already, and I am so impressed with how so many kiddos have taken the ball and RUN!!

We’d love it if you could jump over to our blogs and have a look–and more importantly LEAVE A COMMENT or two to help continue the conversations we’ve started over there.

Check us out at www.kidblog.org/mrsbeardensclass2013 and join in on the fun!  See you there! 🙂

On-Demand? Give Yourselves a Hand!

I know, I’ve been talking about on-demand writing a lot lately, haven’t I?  Well, we did it again today, as the pre-assessment for our new unit of informational writing.

The directions were pretty much the same as the last time, but I threw in a couple of wrenches.  Instead of handwriting their piece, they were expected to use technology–either their iPad or a laptop.  Instead of writing about something they knew a lot about, they were to do some research–well as least look for some facts in a book from our classroom.

I also laid down the expectation from this rubric from our writing curriculum:

Screen Shot 2013-12-11 at 9.21.20 PMThe part about having to type a “minimum of 2 pages in a single setting” is new for us, and was a BIG STRESSOR for some of my friends.  We agreed that today was a try-it–that we would focus on trying to do our best and recognize that there were a lot of things to do (figure out the technology, think of what to write, find the information we’d use in our resources, editing, revising, publishing) and that we’d just give it our best shot.  So we chose our topic by deciding what book we’d use from our classroom library:

I put many options of science books (animals, weather, force and motion, etc.) out on the rug and we dug in!

I put many options of science books (animals, weather, force and motion, etc.) out on the rug and we dug in!

Kiddos also chose from a variety of other nonfiction texts in our room to use as resources for their writing piece.

Kiddos also chose from a variety of other nonfiction texts in our room to use as resources for their writing piece.

After we had chosen a seed, decided if they would us an iPad or laptop, we got busy.  And it was great!  I love how the pictures speak to what was happening–lots of multitasking and hard working kiddos!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And when we were finished, we breathed a huge sigh of relief and stepped back to see what we had done.

Look at all those words!  Do you see all that we accomplished?  I'm totally impressed! :)

Look at all those words! Do you see all that we accomplished? I’m totally impressed! 🙂

Here are some thoughts on the day:

And like the video suggested, give yourselves a hand, friends for a JOB WELL DONE!  YOU ROCK!!  I’m so proud and you should be, too!

Informational Writing Lessons

Remember when I wrote about what had been going on with Narrative Writing Lessons a little while ago? That post was actually one that I used in my class with my kids (an idea I stumbled upon last year in a grad class I was taking), and this one is instead a roundup-and-reflection type post that I do a lot around here after we try some new things.

We started our informational unit in a similar way that we ended our Narrative unit: with an on-demand writing piece:

2013-11-08 12.00.23

We began by looking at lots of nonfiction texts, recording what we noticed about them:

IMG_1929

Then we began a very exciting and learning-filled journey into the genre of informational text, focusing on how writers organize their writing, write for their intended audience and use text features meaningfully.  I’ll tell the rest of the story in pictures.  Be sure to check out the captions! (This is all about text features, after all!)

This was the first of two informational text units we're doing, and we focused on just things we knew alot about--that we were "experts" on.  Here is our Rm. 202 Expert List, compiled from everyone's individual lists.

This was the first of two informational text units we’re doing, and we focused on just things we knew a lot about–that we were “experts” on. Here is our Rm. 202 Expert List, compiled from everyone’s individual lists.

After we built our expert lists, we spent some time working with some ideas on those lists to see which ones we liked best.  We worked on deciding what our reader would be interested in knowing more about.  This chart shows how we focused on questions that we could answer, as well as creating trees or webs to organize subtopics.

After we built our expert lists, we spent some time working with some ideas on those lists to see which ones we liked best. We worked on deciding what our reader would be interested in knowing more about. This chart shows how we focused on questions that we could answer, as well as creating trees or webs to organize subtopics.

This was one of my favorite (and impromptu!) lessons from this unit.  As we considered what info the reader would be interested in knowing about, we had to think about who our AUDIENCE really was supposed to be.  This chart shows a strategy we tried: we picked two completely different audiences and recorded how the subtopics/questions would be different based on the reader.  Check out the difference between how you'd write about shoes for a fashion designer and a kid. :)  They had some pretty great ideas, huh?

This was one of my favorite (and impromptu!) lessons from this unit. As we considered what info the reader would be interested in knowing about, we had to think about who our AUDIENCE really was supposed to be. This chart shows a strategy we tried: we picked two completely different audiences and recorded how the subtopics/questions would be different based on the reader. Check out the difference between how you’d write about shoes for a fashion designer and a kid. 🙂 They had some pretty great ideas, huh?

After we spent a couple of days trying out seed ideas and strategies for nuturing htem, we were ready to pick a seed, plan around it and then draft!  Drafting was a quick process, and meant to just get the ideas initially down on paper.  We would begin the work of cleaning up the messy parts as the next step!  (and just in case you're wondering, I was out of the classroom this day and my sub made this chart instead of me. :) )

After we spent a couple of days trying out seed ideas and strategies for nurturing them, we were ready to pick a seed, plan around it and then draft! Drafting was a quick process, and meant to just get the ideas initially down on paper. We would begin the work of cleaning up the messy parts as the next step! (and just in case you’re wondering, I was out of the classroom this day and my sub made this chart instead of me. 🙂 )

 

After we had flash drafted our initial ideas, we worked on creating interesting leads...

After we had flash drafted our initial ideas, we worked on creating interesting leads…

...and then focused in on writing paragraphs to organize our subtopics into chunks that made sense to our readers.  We did this over several days because it was hard, confusing work for many of us.

…and then focused in on writing paragraphs to organize our subtopics into chunks that made sense to our readers. We did this over several days because it was hard, confusing work for many of us.

First try at a paragraph with topic sentence, 3 details and a conclusion.  We wrote this one together.

First try at a paragraph with topic sentence, 3 details and a conclusion. We wrote this one together.

Another paragraph.  This one is colored coded to try to help writers see each part (although I wish I had written the topic sentence in green since it's how you GO...too late now, I guess.)

Another paragraph. This one is colored coded to try to help writers see each part (although I wish I had written the topic sentence in green since it’s how you GO…too late now, I guess.)

One more paragraph.  This one was written several days later as another example to hang for kids to reference.

One more paragraph. This one was written several days later as another example to hang for kids to reference.

While there are lots of ways to describe the structure of a 5-paragraph essay (informational report, poster, etc.), the one I go to is always a sandwich or a hamburger.  Excuse my really bad attempt at art.  It did the job. :)

While there are lots of ways to describe the structure of a 5-paragraph essay (informational report, poster, etc.), the one I go to is always a sandwich or a hamburger. Excuse my really bad attempt at art. It did the job. 🙂

Before we published, we planned out what our posters (which they made under my suggestion) would look like.  They each created a "map" of where each paragraph and text feature would go.

Before we published, we planned out what our posters (which they made under my suggestion) would look like. They each created a “map” of where each paragraph and text feature would go.

One last step before we published was to edit (which we had a chart for, too, but I didn’t have a picture of just now).  We focused on how editing is a COURTESY TO THE READER so that they both read and understand our intended message.  Final posters were made and then we had a 5th grade writing celebration to showcase our hard work!

But wait–that wasn’t it.  Yesterday, after our celebration was finished, we sat down to do a post assessment version of the on-demand writing assignment.  It was AMAZING to see how their writing changed from the beginning to the end.  That led them to the post here,  where writers were reflecting on those changes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Info Text Writing Reflections

Ok, friends–here’s the post you needed to work on your blog reflections tonight!  Remember, this is the EQ we talked about in class:

Screen Shot 2013-12-10 at 3.12.12 PM

Your job is to explain the whole on-demand writing thing (because not everyone that reads your post will know what we’ve been doing!), as well as find as many ways that your writing is different as you can–using evidence from your writing to explain.  I hope to finish writing a post all about all the things we’ve learned, but here’s a quick list of things you might mention in your post:

  • paragraphs
  • length
  • use of interesting language or domain-specific vocabulary
  • how you added subtopics of more information than the first time around
  • how you used text features (more of them, more thoughtful, how you decided what to use)
  • if the writing experience was easier/harder for the post assessment than the pre assessment
  • anything else you notice about how your writing is different!

When I get the other post done, I’ll link to it here, to check back soon! Oh, and if you need a link to your blog, here’s one. 🙂

Can’t wait to see what you figure out!  Happy reflecting!

Mrs. Bearden

What an HONOR!

I have SO much to write and am SO back-logged with posts and pictures that I need to share around here, but undoubtedly the most important thing I need to write is a big

Screen Shot 2013-12-07 at 3.40.16 PM

to my friend Tam at 5SK in North Queensland, for the AMAZING news she shared with me the other day.  I got a tweet from her with a link to her blog.  It looked innocent enough, but then I looked and it led me to a nomination for a Edublog Award she’d written for me!  WHAT?!  How amazing is that?  I honestly didn’t know what to say (and still don’t think I have the right words to say thank you!).

Screen Shot 2013-12-07 at 3.36.17 PM

It seemed funny how really the words that came to my head first were “it’s an honor just being nominated.”  It sounds so cliche’, I know, but when I look at the list of other blogs in my category and see that they’re all blogs I READ too, it’s so cool.  We’re all in this together and no matter who wins, it’ll be great!

But…since I have you here reading this amazing news, can I ask you to vote for this blog??  I mean I might as well ask, right? 🙂  It’s super easy, and you can get to the Edublog page by clicking here.  I’d really appreciate it!

And I hope I’ve said this before, but if not–THANK YOU for coming and reading what I write here.  It really is a work of the heart and it wouldn’t be what it is (even the tiny ‘ole thing it is) with out YOU!!