Sometimes I Want to GIVE UP!

Yesterday morning, I wanted to crawl back into bed, hide under the covers, and hope that everything that I needed to do would magically take care of itself.  The cold weather and dark clouds matched my discouraged mood, and I could hardly get myself going. I was frustrated about all of the test prep that must occur in order to help my middle school students experience success when there are so many wonderful and, dare I say, more important things I want to teach.  I was angry about the new testing format that contains questions that are so subjective that not even a room full of highly-qualified teachers can agree on the answers. I was saddened as I thought about how challenging the new passages are, especially for my students who are reading far below grade level. My heart shattered as I considered the look of defeat on the faces of my students as they tried to muddle through the passages and questions and just couldn't get it. I felt like a failure as a teacher when I remembered the low test scores from the last round of Acuity testing. The overflow of emotions suffocated me and I wanted to cry. I wanted to give up. I wanted to quit.
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But then I begin to think of the things that I could control. I could control my attitude. I could use my knowledge of best-practices and help my students move closer to being able to pass the test. Inch by inch we would crawl, but we would get there together. I could stop complaining about the new test, pool my resources, and teach my students to the best of my ability.

I prayed and asked the Lord to give me strength to help me through the day as I dragged my weary bones into the shower. By time I drove to work, I was still down in the dumps, but then, as my students begin to stream into the room, something wonderful begin to happen. Over the next two hours, my mood lifted as I saw their eagerness to learn. I was touched by their DESIRE to keep chugging along, even if the work was hard, and I knew that I shouldn't/wouldn't/couldn't give up.

If we all work together, I am confident that we can encourage one another and come up with ways of helping our students experience success. As a first step, I'd like to share a lesson with you that I completed with my study skills class.  Feel free to use this with your students as a way of helping them become familiar with the new Istep+  Language Arts test that they will have to complete in March. (Click on the picture to download the lesson.)

"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
~1 Thessalonians 5: 19

I will keep this verse in mind and give thanks for the educational situation that we face today. Be encouraged, my friends, and don't give up! Our students need us!

Naomi's Birthday = Great Deals for Teachers!

My sweet Naomi turns two in a few days. I know I sound like a bad cliche', but the time really has flown by.  It is amazing  to see just how much she's learned in just two years. I take great pride and joy in seeing her master new concepts. This comes from giving her plenty of opportunities to learn.

Naomi's learning reiterates  the importance of providing our children and students with quality educational resources, regardless of their age. I create products for middle school students and want to make sure that they are accessible to ALL TEACHERS, regardless of financial situations. Therefore, I am making all products in my TpT store 75% off for the first 48 hours that they are posted. My followers will also be notified of flash freebies. This will ensure that teachers get the quality resources they want without stretching their wallet. Follow me today! (Click the picture to go to my store.)

Follow Me Today in TpT!

Here's a flash freebie for all of my teacher friends. This product will be FREE for the next TWO WEEKS in honor of my sweet baby girl's 2nd birthday. Click the picture below to view the product.  ENJOY!!!

Point of View -FREE from November 8, 2014-November 22, 2014. Grab it today!

*Clip art frame by Cara's Clips 

Understanding Point of View

It seems that each year, my students struggle with the concept of point of view.  Last school year, I knew I needed to think outside of the box to help them SEE the differences between the view points. Therefore, I recruited the help of my colleges for a little improv. First, they acted out a scene from the point of view of a 1st person narrator. Then, they redid the scene from the point of view of a third person limited narrator and finally, from the point of view of a third person omniscient narrator.

Oscar worthy performances, yes?

Oh, how my students got a laugh out of the acting! But FINALLY they were able to see the difference between the points of view.

This year, my students will study the script of each scene to solidify their knowledge of point of view. They will respond to multiple choice questions similar to those found on standardized assessments, highlight words that indicate the point of view, circle information that reveals the thoughts of different characters, and fill in a chart that compares the information.  At the end of the period, I'll be able to quickly assess their understanding of point of view with my pre-made exit slips.
UPDATE: Since I teach 7th grade this year, students will also complete bell-ringers and exit slips over objective and subjective points of view.

I've packaged all of this together so that it can be used as a ready-made resource in your middle-school reading/language arts classroom. Grab the lesson here: Bellringers (or Minilessons) and Exit Slips for Point of View.

Check out my other Point of View resources to maximize student learning!

·         Introduction to Point of View-Direct instruction video and note-taking page-FREE!

·         Point of View Pretests-Forms A and B-FREE!

·         Point of View Posttests-Forms A and B-FREE!

·         Point of View Flow Chart-FREE!

·        Multiple Points of View-Newest product! One story rewritten from multiple points of view; student activities included

      Point of View Analysis Pack-One of my top sellers!-In this story, the writer is all mixed up between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person points of view. Students have to figure out what the story is supposed to be saying and then rewrite it from various points of view. 

·         Point of View Posters/Anchor Charts in English and Spanish-One of my top sellers!

    

          Happy teaching!

The Effect of Eliminating Social Studies and Science Classes

"Who knows about the Titanic disaster?" I eagerly asked my 7th graders. I had selected this story because I was sure that they would have quite a bit of background knowledge about this tragedy from 1912. I was wrong. A few students raised their hands, and the extent of their knowledge was that there was a ship that sank.

Sadly, I find this to be the case quite often as I select passages for my students to read. They are lacking in background knowledge, which makes it more challenging for them to make inferences and understand what they are reading. They are unable to make connections to information that they don't know. I certainly don't blame the students. I don't blame the teachers. I don't blame the administrators. I blame this system that wants to test kids to death, grade schools on the test results, and threaten the jobs of the hard working teachers and administrators if the scores aren't up to par. Up until now, the school grades have been based on student performance in language arts and math. Therefore, time in social studies and science has been drastically reduced so that students can focus on these "critical" subject areas. But now, teachers are faced with a dilemma:

So in the long run, has anyone really benefited from the reduced time in social studies and science? I contend that they have not.

As I was reading about the new Common Core PAARC assessments, I noticed that the authors reiterated that the passages would not only test students' knowledge of the reading and writing standards, it would also test their understanding of social studies and science related material. However, THIS IS STILL UNDER THE LANGUAGE ARTS TESTING UMBRELLA! Oh joy. So all of those days/months/years of reduced social studies and science curriculum will now effect student performance on the new assessment.

So what are we going to do to combat this issue? As Kristina Smekens has stated, "We have to stuff their background knowledge bag with information." So that is just what I do with my units. I will no longer expect students to have the background knowledge needed to understand the text. I will plan to take a day or two to teach the historical or scientific context behind a story so that they are able to grasp the text.

Before we read about the Titanic, I took students on a video field trip with National Geographic.

Video Field Trip: A free resource in my TpT store. 

This provided them with the background knowledge they needed to understand our story. They moved through my unit on the Titanic beautifully, and by the end, they were able to analyze the individual factors that contributed to the sinking of the ship AND use details from the video field trip and the story to make a judgement about who to blame for the disaster.

A student analyzes the text in order to understand the chronological text structure of our story. 

A student analyzes the factors that contributed to the sinking of the Titanic. 

Now, more than ever, we HAVE to provide students with lots of opportunities to add social studies and science related information to their background knowledge bag. This is the only way to bridge some of the gaps that are an effect of eliminating these subject areas.

        My entire unit on the Titanic; available now in my TpT store!

Remembering 9/11

from http://notesfromgail.blogspot.com/2011/09/remembering-911.html

In all of my years of teaching, I've always left it up to the social studies teacher to cover important events from history. This year, however, with time in social studies being cut due to increased time in other subject areas, I decided to spend some time weaving these important lessons into my curriculum.

My first opportunity came the week of September 8th when one of my favorite teacher-authors posted this lesson in her blog. When it showed up in my Bloglovin' news feed, I knew that I wanted to use it with my students.

On September 11th, I took my students to the library and showed them parts of a video about 9/11 that was provided by Ms. Ignelzi, our school librarian.

Students engrossed in the viewing of video coverage on 9-11

On September 12th, we went to the computer lab, and students had the period to peruse this 9/11 interactive timeline and fill in the timeline of events.

Students reading, listening to audio recording, watching videos on the interactive timeline from 9/11

On September 15th, Shannon Stanley, the language arts teacher on my team, had the students use their timelines to fill in a graphic organizer and write a summary of the events.

I was moved by the maturity and empathy that my students displayed during the lesson. Strange as it seems, most of my current 7th graders were not born on September 11, 2001. They had heard about airplanes flying into the twin towers, but the tragedy took on a whole new meaning when they saw a video and engaged in the interactive timeline.  On this day, they learned the true meaning of a hero. After this lesson, I am sure that they will always Remember September 11th.

Thank you to Erin Cobb for putting together this lesson and posting it as a free resource in her Teachers pay Teachers Store. 

Change Can Be Good

Panicked incredulity set like a heavy bolder in my chest as I was told, with less than a week to go before the start of the school year, that I would be switching classrooms. After 10 years in the same classroom, I had no idea how I was going to get everything packed up and moved into a new room before our August 13th start date. I received permission to start packing up my old room, but was told that I couldn't yet begin work in my new room. I was overwhelmed and less than thrilled. I already have a hard enough time handling change, but I was afraid that this would put me over the top. I took a few deep breaths, prayed through my anxiety, and begin packing up 10 years worth of materials. 

Ten years of materials, packed and ready to be moved

Discouragement bubbled up more than once, especially when I realized that the room I'd be moving to was smaller than my room. I had purchased a love seat and recliner for my seating area before I found out about the move, so I really didn't know where I would put everything.

   

   

           

                                               My first views of my new room

 I scoured Pinterest for ideas and formulated a plan. Once I had permission to start moving,  I recruited some former students, and we made the transition to the new room. I still have several boxes that haven't been unpacked, but I am satisfied with the results, and, most importantly, my 7th graders love the room.

My Classroom

Students sometimes work in groups, and I have desks for the first time ever, so this is the configuration that I went with. 

I absolutely love the windows and all of the natural light. Eventually, I'll hang my reading posters and charts on the windows as we cover our standards. 

My back board has a place for announcements, student work, and word work. See the cover that the student computers are on? There are TONS of boxes of books and listening centers housed underneath the workstations. I had nowhere to go with them in the room and settled on this as a storage solution. (Idea from Mrs. M. Nowak.) The boxes contain books for which I had multiple copies, so I put a few copies out for the students and left the rest in the boxes. I replenish the supply as these books are checked out of my library.

Front Board-I used my letters to label different parts of the board.

View behind my desk-The printer/copier/scanner was my gift to myself so that I don't have to go home and remember to print/scan stuff. It has saved me so much time! The candy, gum, and snacks are rewards for my student. The blue bookcase (from Ms. J. McDonald) houses my teaching materials. The organizational unit on top of the bookcase was an idea from Erin Cobb. The labels were a free download on her blog.  

Nonfiction books and resources for my students

         

I love that this room has these draws to house some of my nonfiction books. I used my self-created labels so that students know the genres of books in the draws. 

My fiction books are housed in these colorful baskets from Dollar Tree. Once again, I used my labels so that students know the genres of the books in the baskets.  

More books-Is there any such thing as too many books?

These labels are inside of my books. This way, students know the genre and level of book they are reading. They also know where to put the books once they've finished reading them. (The ones in my TpT store do NOT say Mrs. J. Miller!) You can download your free sample of the leveled labels here and the free sample of the genre labels here.  

Students have binders, spiral notebooks, and composition notebooks that they keep in my room. The counters are a perfect place to keep them. I am very strict about their materials staying nice and neat. There is a student in each class period who makes sure that everything stays organized. Another perk of my new room is the cabinets under the counters. I have more book than would fit into the baskets on the shelves, so the overflow is in baskets in the cabinets. They are also labeled by genre.

My comfy reading area: the carpet was donated by a businessman in Merrillville, IN. The love seat and recliner (in the far left corner) were purchased at a local Goodwill. Too bad I had just missed the 50% off Saturday, but the price was still unbeatable. I purchased the bean bags (only 1 in view) from Big Lots the previous year. The book spindle was donated several years ago by the parent of a student. The wire shelving unit came from Walmart. It had been at my house, but I didn't need it there, so I brought it to school last year. It's been nice to have the extra storage. The brown cushions on the floor under the window were from a couch that I used to have at home. The small brown side table used to be my husband's, but we didn't need it at home. This reading area is a favorite of my students.

Now that I've been in the room for a few weeks, I must admit that the change has been good. I have loved the opportunity to reorganize my classroom library and get rid of some things that were taking up space. It's true that I wish I would have had more time to get things done before the year started, but everything has worked out just fine. 

So maybe the next time I am faced with change, I won't feel anxiety and apprehension... 

Free Back to School Gift for YOU!

Welcome to the start of a new school year! We are filled with the joys of setting up our classrooms, the high expectations we have for student success, and the anticipation of meeting our kiddos. It is going to be a great year!

It seems that every time I set up my classroom displays, I inevitably run out of a letter, number, or symbol that I need. I then have to either change the display, have mismatching letters (gasp!), or go to the store and buy an entire new set, all for one little item! I hate when that happens! Well now, that problem is solved. I created my own letters, numbers, and symbols so that I can print off exactly what I need when I need it, and I'd like to share it with all of you as you prepare for the year. Perhaps this will make your task of setting up your room just a little easier. Enjoy!

Click the picture to access this item.