I’m taking part in the weekly Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by  Two Writing Teachers, where teachers write and share each Tuesday. Join in yourself or head over to check out what’s happening with other slicers. If you’re taking part in the SOL, leave a link to your post. I’d love to read it.

My second period students poured into the classroom.  Some sat down quietly in their seats.  Others bounced like pinballs between the desks before they found their places.  As everyone got settled, I started passing out supplies.

First, I hand out the wintergreen mints.  No, you don’t have to take one if you don’t want one.  No you can’t have all the extras.  Next I hand out pencils sans erasers.  It seems that if you erase anything on the test, it creates an unreadable dark blur when scanned for the scorers to read.  If they scorer can’t read what you write, you can’t pass.  Finally I pass out the test booklets.  No, don’t open them yet.

I glance at the clock and take a deep breath and start reading the instructions.  After three days, we all have the instructions memorized.  I try to put in as much enthusiasm as I can.  Yes!  You get to write today, but they aren’t buying it.  Then the first hand goes up.

“Why do you have to read these directions again?  We all know them.”

“Why can’t we use erasers?”

“Who scores these tests? Do you have to be smart to score them?  How much money do they make?”

After three days, I recognize these questions.  They are delaying tactics.  The more questions they ask, the longer it will be before they have to face this session of the test.  I glance at the clock, knowing that we have scheduled just enough time to get through the directions and leave enough time for the test.  I cut the questions short. (I promise my students we can talk about them after the test if they wish. For some reason, no one has any interest in these questions then.)

I instruct my students to open their test booklets.  It’s time to begin.  They clench pencils in their hands and begin reading.  I prowl up and down the rows of desks, smiling encouragement at anyone who lifts their head to look my way.  Occasionally, a hand goes up.  “Can you tell me what this word means?”  I shake my head and reply, “I can’t tell you that.  Read it again.  You can figure this out.”

As time clicks by, I mark the remaining minutes on the board:  30 minutes remaining, 15 minutes remaining, 10, 5.  The hands go up more frequently now.  This time pencils have worn down and become dull.  I wander up and down the rows with a handful of freshly sharpened pencils, trading them for worn out lead.    At last every student closes their test book.

Now we wait to see what strangers think of our work this week.

I’m taking part in the weekly Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by  Two Writing Teachers, where teachers write and share each Tuesday. Join in yourself or head over to check out what’s happening with other slicers. If you’re taking part in the SOL, leave a link to your post. I’d love to read it.

I have enjoyed reading a variety of posts with different variations of “10 Things Right Now.”  Since today has been one of those days where good things kept bubbling up and are still fluttering around my brain, I wanted to try to capture ten of those moments in a list of my own.

1. My very energetic, very excited students in my homeroom/1st period class helped me to rearrange the desks in a large circle this morning.  It is such a relief to have something different than the rows required for standardized testing.  In fact, they did such a good job, I’m going to ask them to help me move the desks back in rows tomorrow morning before our testing begins.  Just two more days and we can get back to our regularly scheduled classroom fun.
2. Since we are in the middle of state testing this week, my first two classes could not go to the library today because other classes were testing there during those periods (and our regular library day got snowed out last Monday).  Instead, I brought the library to them with the help of our awesome librarian/media specialist.  I couldn’t bring all the thousands of books to my classroom, but I did have a well-stocked cart of high interest, popular titles.
3. Our awesome librarian even gave me the super secret password (Okay, it may not be super secret since the 8th grade library monitors get it, too.) to the card catalog so I could check out library books to my students right from my classrooom.  Oops!  I forgot to put due date cards in the books for one entire class.  I hope she won’t fire me because I am way too excited about this.
4. My secret evil plan (to match students with books they are dying to read) worked.  Before my homeroom left, I spread books around the desks for a game of musical chairs–library style.  I have strict instructions that they could not look at the books.  Of course, they did, and before homeroom was over I was checking out books to students who couldn’t wait to start reading.
5. Musical chairs–library style.  Don’t worry, it is not a contact sport, and the only thing eliminated are books that aren’t for you.  While the music plays,  students walk around the desks.  When it stops, everyone sits down and grabs a book from underneath.  After spending two minutes getting to know the book, students rate it as “Love it!” “Maybe,” or “Not for me.”  Then the music begins again.
6. My most musical class got into dancing while they walked around the chairs.  They even broke out in song during our read aloud today from Gary Paulsen’s Notes from the Dog.  When I read the line, “Grandpa says we are a family of men,” I heard “Men, men, men”  in perfect harmony.  Wait a minute.  Surely 7th graders aren’t old enough to watch that show.
7. Both classes listening to Notes from the Dog laughed at all the right places.  Thank you, Gary Paulsen.
8. The class listening to Endangered by Eliot Shrefer hung on every word.  I savored that as most of the time no one wants to sit still for anything during the last class of the day.
9. While my students were getting to know books through musical chairs, I discovered a new book by Margaret Peterson Haddix that I haven’t read–Full Ride.  It looks exciting.  I’ve already peeked, but I’m trying not to read it until Saturday when I have volunteered to sit in a bookstore window to read for their Read Across America celebration this month.
10. Yesterday, I shared the awesome doodling that my students have been doing while listening to Moonbird by Phillip Hoose.  Today during lunch, I received an email that Phillip Hoose had left a comment on that blog post. OMG – You should have heard the students’ excitement when I shared it with them.  (And you should see the stack of doodles I have after today’s reading.)  Here’s the comment.  B95 is still flying!

I’m taking part in the weekly Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by  Two Writing Teachers, where teachers write and share each Tuesday. Join in yourself or head over to check out what’s happening with other slicers. If you’re taking part in the SOL, leave a link to your post. I’d love to read it.

I struggle to find time to read aloud to my seventh grade students.  I value its importance, but there is only so much I can squeeze into 46 minutes.  Now that we have extended our day by 45 minutes to help make up the fourteen snow days we’ve missed, I have an additional ten minutes for each class period.  During this week of standardized testing, I started reading aloud a book to each class.  Each class got to vote on the read aloud selection from my choice of books.

Much to my delight, three of my classes chose Moonbird by Phillip Hoose.  (It was a close second in several other classes, too.)  I introduced the book by telling students that I didn’t want to read it at first.  What could be interesting about a bird?  But once I started reading it, I couldn’t stop.  I also became quite obnoxious, sharing everything I learned as I read.  I don’t know how many conversations that week began with “Did you know….?”

This is the first nonfiction text that I’ve read aloud, and I’m learning again along with my students.  Where is the best spot to stop reading the main text and share the information in the sidebars and photo captions?  I wish I had a document projector so I could more easily share the illustrations and maps on the big screen, rather than walking up and down the rows.  (At least when this week is over, I can rearrange the furniture to make sharing the pages easier.)

I allow students to doodle while I read. (But not play games or pass notes–and yes, writing a letter is the same as writing notes.)  Yesterday, one of my students asked if they could share their doodles afterwards.  Since I’ve been playing around with doodling as a form of note-taking, I offhandedly mentioned that some people doodled to remember what they read or hear.  I suggested that if they wanted to share doodles, it would be about the book.  I mentioned it to each of the classes that listened to Moondbird yesterday, and I was blown away by what my students came up with.

Here is another doodle that didn’t fit into the Tapestry story very well, but wowed me with all the information capturesd:

Now I’m even more convinced that doodling can be a powerful tool to help my students learn.  I’m ready to learn more and share with my students.

PS – I used the Tapestry app to showcase my students’ doodles.  It’s my first time using the app.  (I learned about it from fellow slicers during the past year.)  I’m not sure how it will play on all devices, but there is a website, too.

I’m taking part in the weekly Slice of Life Challenge sponsored by  Two Writing Teachers, where teachers write and share each Tuesday. Join in yourself or head over to check out what’s happening with other slicers. If you’re taking part in the SOL, leave a link to your post. I’d love to read it.

I look forward to Friday’s in my classroom, and not for the reason you might think.  Friday’s are the day we set our reading goals for the week.   For 10 minutes we all read together.  Since students need to read for the entire 10 minutes to set their reading goal, I don’t feel guilty for not conferencing with as many students as I can during this time.  Instead I get to read along with my students and share with them from the books I am currently reading.

I also take time to watch my students while they read.  While each class is different, there is nothing I love more than to watch my students read, each lost in their own world within the pages.  Some students on some days still look for distractions, but most of them eagerly look forward to the time of uninterrupted reading.  Here are some of the scenes from yesterday:

• A boy who finds it difficult to sit still in a desk perches across the top of two desks pushed against the back wall, reading Gary Paulsen’s Flat Broke.
• A girl who had not read much this week finally got her hands on John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars Thursday.  When she came in Friday, she had read 170 pages and couldn’t wait to dive back into the story.
• A girl in a different class is also reading TFiOS.  She came in and told me, “I’m in love.”  I asked, “With Augustus Waters?”  She nodded and I answered, “Me, too.”
• A boy in one of my morning classes groans when the timer goes off at the end of the 10 minutes.  “We can’t stop now.  I’m at a good part.”
• After I shared the book I was starting this week–Hollow City by Ransom Riggs–one student shared the first volume he started yesterday.  Another student quickly snapped up a second copy of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children that another student had just donated to our library.
• While students share a summary of what they’ve read, I hear students claiming dibs on classmate’s books as soon as they’ve finished.  As students enter class, I hear a common refrain, “Have you finished ____ yet?”

Now I’m off to finish Hollow City this weekend so I can give it to the students who are waiting to read it next.  I hope your weekend is filled with good reading and writing.