Greg here - and it's my return to the blog! Becky has dominated the posts recently (for which I am greatly appreciative), but I insisted on contributing this week.

No, this is not an IMDB review of the popular 2007 film The Bucket List. Although meeting Jack Nicholson or Morgan Freeman is certainly on my extended list of things to do before I kick the bucket. I'm referring to a new project I started this year with my AP US History class.

For those of you unfamiliar with the CollegeBoard or Advanced Placement courses, they made a concerted effort to shift the emphasis away from content and to historical thinking skills. Although I integrated long-term projects in to my AP curriculum for the past several years, the AP course revisions afforded me an unique opportunity to experiment with new ideas.

I wanted students to do research and writing on a regular basis. I also wanted students to see the value and potential experiences that exist in our community (before they leave for college). The bucket list project combined the two and reinforced a litany of standards from the Common Core, PDE, and the CollegeBoard.

The result is a blog that highlights the students work with weekly contributors and links that push out to each of the students' sites. (Check out the about section for a full description of the project.)

The students embraced the concept and have checked off a variety of items from their list. Some of the most interesting are a visit to the Shoe House, volunteering for a local organization, and praying at an abortion clinic. I am humbled by their efforts and am considering items that I need to check off my own list.

Have a great weekend!
Greg

Hi everyone, it's Becky! I've had this post saved for awhile now, but haven't found the time to finish it. So here I am, almost a month later, finally ready to post it! 

 Although I like to change up my writing projects from time to time, we always begin by writing pumpkin stories. They are an easy way to display the writing process in an introductory format. The first thing we had to do was read a variety of fiction and non-fiction books about pumpkins. As we were reading we filled out our pumpkin anchor chart.

From there I modeled how I completed a four square of my own. As I'm modeling, I stress that when completing each box, they should only be writing a few words and drawing a quick picture. The topic goes in the diamond, that is where we begin and end our story. From there, we have four details, so we number the boxes one through four. Box one will have the color of our pumpkin, box two is an adjective describing the pumpkin, box three is where we got our pumpkin, and box four is what we will do with our pumpkin. 

When it is the students' turn to complete their own four square, we do it one box at a time. For each box, we brainstorm possible ideas, and I write them on the board. After our list is complete, I read over them and have the students choose one to put in their square. They also draw their quick picture to go with it.

Once our four squares are complete, we are ready to write our rough draft. Because it is our first story, I scaffold a lot of it. As I stated before, we start and end at the diamond, so we first come up with a few choices for our beginning sentence. (I read some of the beginning sentences from our pumpkin texts to inspire us.) The students then picked one and wrote it down. 

We then went square by square thinking of a sentence frame for each one. The students then wrote the frame, adding whatever they had in their four square where appropriate. (Note: We will not always all use the same frame, but this is the best way I've found to introduce writing with my kiddos.)

Once we have written about all four squares, we then go back to the diamond for our ending sentence. We read ending sentences from the same books we looked at for beginning sentences, and used them as a jumping off point for our own endings. Students picked one choice and wrote it as their ending sentence. 

After they have finished writing their rough draft, the students read it to me as I type their story. I don't have them write a final copy early in the year because they just aren't ready for it yet. (As the year goes on, I alternate between typing their final copies and having them write them when publishing.) I also like to have them read it to me because as they are reading it, we can talk about any thing that may not sound right as they read it. We then make our revisions right there on the computer. Once all students have their stories typed, they make a pumpkin that matches the description in their story and glue the final product all together. We then have a sharing session, giving the students another opportunity to read and share their writing with their peers.

As the year goes on and the students have a better idea of how to go through the writing process, there is less and less teacher guidance. The students have the autonomy of creating their own stories. 

That's all I have for you today, have another great week with your students! It's conference week for me, so it's sure to be a busy one!
~Becky

Hello everyone, Becky here!  Do you have yearly action plans that you have to create on your own?  In my district, we have to come up with something new we want to try each year.  And while I always want to try new things, I am not always sure if they are “action plan worthy,” and so some years it can be difficult to find that one big thing to try.

However, this year I am excited because I have a plan that I think will really help my students write better sentences. I am going to try using (what I am calling) “Mentor Sentences”.  We are all familiar with using mentor texts to write, and while I love doing that, there are times where I want to look at just one specific sentence and see how we can use it as a model to write our own sentences.  I learned about this at Penn State York’s Summer Institute last year.  In their keynote session, Stephanie Romano, Dick Hayler, and Jolene Borgese talked about doing a lesson where you hand out a text to each student and have them all read aloud the beginning sentence.  The students then pick one that speaks to them and uses it as a model for their own beginning sentence. 

As much as I loved that idea, I had forgotten about it until last spring when my first graders and I were beginning our non-fiction animal stories.  They were having a hard time coming up with good beginnings and knew that “This is a story about owls,” just wasn’t good enough. So, while my kiddos were exercising away in PE, I pulled out a bunch of my non-fiction animal books.  I kept about 7 of them with me, and put the rest at their tables.  When the students came back from special, I asked them where they thought we should look for good non-fiction sentences.  They eagerly shouted out “Non-fiction books!”  So, I read them the beginning sentences from all seven of the books I had, and then invited them to read the beginning sentences from the books at their table with their group members.    

Once that was completed, I then had them write their own sentences.  I was floored by the results!  They wrote sentences like, “Wow!  Did you just see that cheetah zoom by?” and “Whoo! Whoo!  That’s the sound an owl makes.”  It was amazing to see such a difference from a short 20 minute activity!  We later did the same activity for ending sentences, and it went just as well!  

So it got me thinking of a few things.  1.What if I started this at the beginning of the year?  Could you imagine how good their sentences would be then?!  2.  What if we not only looked at beginning sentences, but also middles and ends?  I quickly decided that mentor sentences were going to be my action plan. 

This year, during our read alouds, guided reading, and any other time, when we come across a sentence we love, either I or the students will write it down and place it under the correct type of writing: narrative, opinion, informational, as well as under the correct story part: beginning, middle, or end. I have created labels for these, as you can see down below.  If you think you would like to try it, feel free to snag this little freebie from my TPT store!  This could truly be used at any grade level.  Be sure to keep me updated on how it is going in your room, and how your student writers are responding to it!

Until next time, be well and write often!  

~Becky