Teacher's Corner

Welcome to my teacher’s corner! Currently I teach 12th grade English but I have also taught reading/English for grades K-2, 5, 7, and 11. I’ll be sharing resources and strategies that I use or have used in my classroom that were beneficial to my students. Many of the resources and strategies can be modified to fit almost any grade level.

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July 20, 2018

Digital Literature Circles

Connection King/Queen (Make two connections to the reading assignment)

Student	In the Book (Page number)	In my life	So what? How does that help you understand the book?	In the Book	In my life	So what?

Sensory Seeker (Draw a picture of something you visualized as you read)

Student Name	Picture (insert image)	Description (page number)

Question Cap’n (Ask two thick questions you asked yourself as you read)

Student	Question 1 (Page number)	Answer 1 (answered on page… was it inferred?	Question 2	Answer 2

Inference Investigator (Share an insightful inference you made as you were reading)

Student (Name)	In the book…. (what book did you read?)	In my head… (Question)	So what? (Answer) Is it a prediction? (future) or inference? (past)

Word Wizard (Find two words you didn’ t know or thought were interesting. Look them up, and draw a picture of them

Name:	Word 1:	Word 2:
	Definition:	Definition:
	Drawing:	Drawing:

Descriptive Detective (Find figurative or descriptive language. Write what you read, and tell why it was powerful)

Name	Type of descriptive language (Simile, metaphor, idiom, or other descriptive language) The descriptive language Why you thought it was powerful

I am always looking for creative ways to incorporate technology in my classroom. While surfing an educational community on Google+, I came across this template for digital literature circles. Students will each have an assigned role and be responsible for finding specific information related to the reading. They will type their answers in designated space for their role. This gives each student an opportunity to be involved and have a role in the assignment. From a teacher standpoint, you can monitor student progress from the Google doc and also use this as a way to check-in with groups/individuals who may be having difficulties. You can create a folder in Google drive for each group and share the template. I definitely plan to use this with my seniors this year!

**Please feel free to print or copy into your own Google form.**

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July 13, 2018

Book Pass Activity

How can you spark an interest in reading for students who claim to dislike reading or use the classic line “I can’t find a book that I like?” One possible solution is a book pass activity. This activity can be used with almost any grade level from upper elementary through high school. It’s also a great way to teach students about previewing text. My co-teacher and I tried this whole class with our two 11th grade English classes in order to help students find a book to read during independent reading. All of the students were able to find books that interested them and were appropriate for their reading level. It is important to note that many of these students had learning deficits in reading/writing and were English as Second Language students. The key to success is to have a diverse selection of books from all genres and appropriate for the reading levels in your class. You can execute this activity whole class or in small groups of about 4-5 students. It can also help create literature circles based on student's interest in certain titles.

How it works:

1) Explain the activity to students and let them know the purpose of the activity is to examine different types of books to determine which ones they find interesting and may want to read.


2) Have a brief discussion about ways to find info about the book (reading the summary on the back, skimming through the chapters, reading headings, etc.) Modeling how to scan a book or look for this info may be needed depending on the audience


3) Provide students with a copy of the Book pass worksheet and explain how to complete the columns (modeling may be helpful, especially the first time trying this)


4) Allow each student to select a book (from your classroom library) that interest them in some way (could be the title, cover art, etc). Have them fill out the title/author columns on the worksheet


5) Once students have filled out the title/author columns, set a timer for 5 minutes and allow students to examine the book.


6) At the end of 5 minutes, have the students write down a short summary (2-3 sentences) about the book based on what they read so far. I would give about 1 min for this.


7) Tell the students pass! Students will pass the book to the next student. Repeat steps 1-6.


8) After you have completed the desired amount of passes, have the students rank their top 3 books. The student should receive their #1 book as their independent reading book. If a student’s #1 pick is taken, then they would receive their 2nd choice and so on.

Helpful hints:

* I would recommend doing this at least 5 times so students have a chance to see a variety of books and a better chance at finding a perfect fit!


* It is ideal to have at least 2 copies of each book you are using in the book pass activity in case more than one student choices the same text as their #1 pick..


* Explain to students how to determine if a book is an appropriate level for them by explaining the 5 word rule. If the students read the first page and find at least 5 words they do not know, the book is probably too hard or not a “good fit”.

Book Pass Printable

*For Literature Circles*

Select a few titles you would like the students to choose from and group the students in groups of 4-5. Set up stations with the book titles. Follow the same steps as the regular book pass, except instead of passing the books at the end of time, students will rotate to the next table to review another title.  Once students have rotated through all the stations, group students according to their book rankings. For example, all the students that ranked the title in station 1 as their top choice would be a group.

Optional Reflection

After completing the activity, you may choose to have the students reflect on the activity and what they learned about themselves as readers. This could be done as a writing or oral activity. Students should discuss: what they learned about themselves as readers, how they determined a book was the appropriate level for them, what things made a book interesting to them. This will help reiterate the purpose of the activity and help students reflect on their learning about previewing text and selecting appropriate books to read.
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July 9, 2018

Math Key Words

I am mainly an English/reading teacher, however during my elementary days I did teach math from time to time. One of the problems I saw my students have was being able to determine what operation to use to solve a problem. This was especially problematic with multi-step word problems. Once again a Pinterest idea came to the rescue! I created these posters that contained key terms that the students would see in the word problems to help them learn to associate the word with the corresponding operation. I would have the students put the symbol above the word in the word problem. This was extremely helpful with multi-step problems because it would remind the students they needed to do 2 or more operations to solve the problem. On top of everything else, it allowed me to sprinkle my team pride in with the “Keep pounding the problems” slogan. The vocabulary can be modified for upper levels with words that are appropriate for the type of math.
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July 6, 2018

Stretching sentences

As a special education teacher, many of my students have difficulty with long-term memory and retrieval which hinders their abilities to learn and retain information throughout the year independently. One of my goals is to make my students as independent as possible with their learning and teach them how to utilize the extra resources provided to them in order make sufficient academic progress. Visuals serve as great reminders for my students and it allows them to independently find solutions to their problems. I discovered the idea for the stretching sentences poster on Pinterest and created it for my 5th grade students. Many of the students were learning to edit and revise their writing and this poster was a great reference for adding details to their writing. When I told them to “add more details” they could check their writing against the poster and expand their sentences. The students can make sure their sentences answer the 5 W's (who, what, where, when and why). While I used it with 5th graders, this can be modified for almost any grade level. The 5 W's can be changed to things such as the subject, adjective, adverb, verb, etc. for higher grades.