Dolphin Tank

We are the Dolphins (Fear the Fin!), so we decided to hold Dolphin Tank projects this year. Similar to the hit show Shark Tank, our students create a product, project, or service and present their idea to the community during Fine Arts Night. The winning group continues on to have their project funded using a crowd funding site.

This year the theme of Dolphin Tank was service learning. Students worked in groups of 3-4 to create something beneficial for our community. Project ideas ranged from products, like sunscreen machines (we are a beach community), to services, like a giving tree (year-round go to the fire department and submit a need then community members can pick your item to buy and leave at the giving tree for you to pick up), to projects, like hygiene bags for the homeless. They were extremely creative, and we were all very proud. (All 8th grade students completed a Dolphin Tank service learning project.)

I created an interactive center to help students prepare for and work through the Dolphin Tank unit:

Students presented their Dolphin Tank project through their ELA class. The top 3 groups from the entire eighth grade were selected to present at Fine Arts Night. Fine Arts Night includes a performance by the band and theatre students as well as an Art Show. It is always a wonderful night to show off the great things happening at our school! Especially since parents aren't as involved at the middle school level as they are at the elementary level. 

Our winning presentation group can be watched by clicking here.

This group has already spoken to many community members and started a Kick Starter. They are well on their way to making their project a reality.

I plan to post a Dolphin Tank bundle to my TPT store within the next few weeks! Keep your eyes open for this wonderful project! It can be used for realistic projects (like we did) or imaginary invention type projects.

Passion Projects, Genius Hour, 20 Time - Whatever You Call It - Part 4

WHEW! The last few weeks of school are always a whirlwind! We finished school on Friday, May 22nd. The last two weeks are full of finals, MacBook collection, and awards ceremonies. We stay busy, busy, busy!

We decided to do Genius Hour presentations after our final because those 3-4 days are always limbo days. Teachers end up babysitting and playing movies, so I was grateful to still be able to work and keep order in my classroom. However, there were some cons to trying to use the last few days ...

PROS: 

• The class was still working.
• This project was a fairly large grade, so they had to make it a priority.
• We could still keep order in the room.
• I don't feel like I wasted any of my class time for the year!
• It gave students a reason to show up. 

CONS:

• Not all students felt it was important enough to come to school for this project.
• It left a few with substantial zeros in the grade book.
• I'm the yearbook teacher, and yearbook issues caused interruptions to our presentations several times.
• Other teachers allowing students to roam the halls interrupted us a few times (before I put a warning on my door!).
• My students were very antsy with the constant hum of noise outside the door. It was hard for them to focus.

All in all - I will still be using Genius Hour presentations as the assignment for the last few days of school. I plan to announce this in August! It was a great relief for me to know I still had something planned and important going on in my classroom.

The Projects

I learned a lot from my first year of Genius Hour, and I look forward to revamping it for my classroom next year. Overall, I had many impressive projects (& my standards were set HIGH), and I was extremely proud of my kiddos! I was also very sad as I realized I had to send my eighth grade babies off to high school! I had numerous mediocre projects, but I did see areas where I could improve in guidance of struggling students. 

With all of the business going on inside my classroom and out, I forgot to take pictures! I took a few on the first day, but I forgot anymore after that. 

I begged to keep this mural, but the student wanted it. Her essential question was "What inspires me?". She used various art techniques to create this mural about life and things you learn along the way (follow the person at the bottom as they grow from a baby to a man). 

This student researched how taste buds work and why different people taste things differently. She taught the class about sub-tasters and super-tasters and put the lesson into action with a few blindfolded taste tests!

Another student wanted to know how food varies from culture to culture. She created a recipe book with meals from around the world, and she also brought in a few recipes for the class to try!

This student investigated what effects yoga has on the human brain. As a part of her presentation, she taught the class a few yoga poses as she explained how that pose affected their brain and body.

There were so many cool projects! I'm kicking myself for not taking more photos. Thankfully, there is always next year!

Passion Projects, Genius Hour, 20 Time - Whatever You Call It - Part 3

Genius Hour is progressing wonderfully! Every student has experienced a hiccup or two (I'll write more about hiccups and detours in my next post), but Daily Reflections on Google Drive have been a God send! We use the last ten minutes of class for silent cleanup and reflection time. Students are required to answer:

What resources did you use today? (Cite in MLA format)

What did you accomplish today?

What questions do you still have? (What's the plan for tomorrow?)

Is there anything you need teacher help/guidance with?

Other Notes:

Our classes are about ninety minutes long, so students have been warned that if they do not have enough information for strong paragraphs on each response, they are NOT working hard enough or fast enough. I can access their Google Doc whenever it is convenient for me and leave comments. I usually go over reflections in the evening, and I make notes about who I need to make sure I touch base with next time in class. 

We're GROWING plants, DRAWING murals, INVENTING self-casting fishing poles to assist the elderly and disabled, BUILDING photography skills, CREATING profitable YouTube channels, STARTING an online business for charity, LEARNING about electricity, and so much more!

The end of the year always seems to be "blah" for everyone. The year is pretty much over. We're wasting time until the end - trying to wrap up little assignments and finish finals. This year has been especially rough for me. Thankfully, Genius Hour has changed all of that! Students are excited to come to class. We all have a renewed energy inside the classroom. They want to research. They want to read and write and create. I want to see them use these skills. I want to see what they are accomplishing! It's incredible!

Now-

As much as I am loving Genius Hour, we all know it isn't for every student. Not all students are good self-motivators, task accomplishers, or 'follow throughers.' Unfortunately, Genius Hour requires a great deal of self-discipline on the student's behalf to be successful. 

When we started Genius Hour, I met with each student individually to discuss their essential question and end product goals. A few students did not seem motivated and from past history we were concerned about the grade they would receive through Genius Hour. These students were offered an alternate project for the Genius Hour time - Nonfiction Book Studies. 

I have inherited bits and pieces of a nonfiction book set complete with guided reading workbooks. They walk students through making predictions, making inferences, reading charts, ETC. The books are pretty interesting too! Pirates, aliens, race cars, inventions, cooking, animals, ETC. In order to help assure all students could be successful, I offered students the option to complete three guided, independent book studies instead of Genius Hour. (Students who do not meet deadlines in Genius Hour are removed from Genius Hour and placed on book studies without an option.)

The book studies still require use of skills we have learned throughout the year: research, reading, writing, analyzation, vocabulary, comprehension, ETC; however, they help students with a more directed way of learning as opposed to the free, open learning taking place in Genius Hour. 

I don't treat either assignment as "beneath" the other. One is "stupid." They are simply different. During Genius Hour presentations, students who completed a book study will present summaries of the books they read. 

Are you doing Genius Hour? Have you done Genius Hour? I'd love to hear what (if any) alternate activities you used! Comment below or shoot me an email. 

Passion Projects, Genius Hour, 20 Time - Whatever You Call It - Part 2

Update: I have had NUMEROUS request for my rubric and information on the inspiration stations. I very nervously took a step outside my comfort zone and placed these items on Teachers Pay Teachers. Thank you all for your support and interest in my work. You have definitely put spring in my step and a bit more confidence in my soul. You can find the items here by clicking here. Thank you!

Genius Hour is in full swing! A fellow 8th grade ELA teacher and I are working through this unit together. It's refreshing to have someone with which to plan, bounce ideas, fail, and SUCCEED! Collaboration makes teaching much more fun. If you are looking to do this unit (or any other unit), please feel free to contact me! I'm always looking for other teachers with which to chat or pair our students for a project. (In fact, we've got some BIG ideas for this Fall involving Coastal Cleanup. If you live in a coastal community, I need you!)

We've got great projects going, and I am beyond excited to see how the progress. I have never been this excited about my classroom at the end of the school year (19 school days left, but who's counting), but this project has renewed by energy and drive to finish out the year STRONG! 

Last week our wonderful ITS* came in and taught my students about Essential Questions. These things are difficult for most teachers! I was really worried about trying to get eighth graders to write their own, but Katie did an ah-mazing job as always. She broke down the difference between essential and non-essential questions with great examples and activities that had the students up and moving. The students left on Friday saying they had a pretty good idea of how to write their own Essential Questions.

*We are a 1:1 county. Each student has a MacBook Air. Part of our Digital Renaissance is having ITSs. They help teachers with collaboration, teaching ideas, tech ideas, and so much more. They will even come in and teach your class (like she did here). It's a wonderful resource!

The truth came out today, and they really did understand! I was so proud. Several needed tweaking, but overall they did better than I do with essential questions. Here are a few I remember off the top of my head (I'll get full list to upload later this week):

• How do dreams define our emotions? 
• How are human brains tricked by optical illusions? 
• How are resources and knowledge used to create music? 
• How do I use my knowledge of art skills to create art? 
• How can a fishing pole be designed to make fishing easier for the elderly and disabled? 
• How do yoga poses affect the human brain? 
• How does what is considered “good art” vary from culture to culture?

For some reason my brain seems to remember the "how" questions, but I'll post a better variety later this week. 

Their final products/presentations vary from tricking the class with optical illusions to creating their own natural make up to painting a mural as long as my classroom wall. These next few weeks are going to be a serious buzz!

After I approved their essential questions and final product ideas, they created a 60-second pitch. I got this wonderful activity from Laura Randazzo on one of her 20 Time Updates! I highly recommending checking out all her ideas and posts about 20 Time before attempting this unit. She is pure genius and a ton of amazing. 

This activity gave students a quick opportunity to practice speaking to the class and see how the class perceives their project idea. It also turned into a great brainstorming session where the class gave the speaker more ideas and questions to consider as they go forward. More times for the students to take control of their learning and the teacher to smile at what they've accomplished this year!

"Don't forget your paperwork Wazowski."

There are four key paperwork items I feel were definitely required for this project:

• Parent Letter - Letting students complete a project on make up or fishing can sound a bit ridiculous to parents (especially when students start asking for supplies!). Thankfully, Laura Randazzo is pretty incredible, and her parent letter is spot on! I used her letter as a template for mine. 

• Rubric - I'm a big advocate for giving out the rubric before I even introduce the project. Students should know what is expected of them from the get go, plus it makes life easier when the project is due - there are no excuses for "I didn't know what I was getting graded on." It's all in the rubric!

• Contract - This contract made sure each student laid out exactly what the student intends to do. This contract is actually tomorrow's class activity. I will conference with each student, and we will compete the contract together. We are a 1:1 school, so they will keep a copy of the contract in their Google Drive folder (that I have access to as well), and I will keep a signed copy in my Genius Hour folder. 
• Timeline/Checklist - On the back of each contract, I have a chart set up with deadlines. During the conference, I plan to work with each student to set manageable goals. It's really hard to give class wide deadlines when the projects are so different! The checklist helps break it down by student.

Well! That's a bunch! Check back for my next blog post on what students are doing when they miss deadlines for Genius Hour or aren't staying on task. 

Passion Projects, Genius Hour, 20 Time - Whatever You Call It - Part 1

Whoa - I can't say I have ever had a lesson go as beautifully as it did today. Today was one of those Holy Grail of teaching days. The class is a beautiful hub of learning, excitement, and engagement. My 8th graders, after days and days of state testing, were no longer brain dead maniacs - they were participating and ready to learn! If you haven't tried Genius Hour (or whichever name you want to give it), it's high time you get started!

What is Genius Hour? 20 Time? Passion Projects? This is the video I showed my students to introduce the unit:

This unit, as explained in this video, is giving students 20% (hence the name 20 Time) of their class time to research something they are passionate (hence the name Passion Projects) about and become geniuses (hence the name Genius Hour) on that topic.

For the sake of our classes (I'm working with a fellow 8th grade ELA teacher on this unit) we're calling is Genius Hour. Instead of giving my students 20% of our class time, I'm giving them a little under 20% of the school year at one time. We've learned how to write, read, analyze, paraphrase, summarize, cite, infer, discuss, collaborate, and so on and so forth - but did they really get it? Can they really do all of those things at once without my guidance? We are about to find out! These last few weeks of school my classroom will be completely flipped! The students pick their topics, their research methods, their collaboration techniques, and their end product. It's their turn to teach me! We are oh-so excited about it too!

My goal is to post blogs each week from now through the end of the unit. We're going to fail. We're going to mess up. 

We're going to learn!

We kicked off the unit today by going over the basic requirements and the general rubric. I introduced deadlines and gave very specific consequences for not being activity involved in Genius Hour (independent book studies of the nonfiction books of my choice). Then we got to the fun part!

To help students get their creative juicing flowing, I set up 

s!

I had 11 different stations set up around the room where students could get a small peak of hands on experience in different areas. Examples:

1. Bubbles: What types of soaps make the best bubbles? Use the water and soaps at this station (foaming hand soap, dish soap, laundry soap, and shampoo) to create your own bubble formula. What worked? What didn't work?
2. Cooking: Taste the two types of chocolate at this station (one was unsweetened baker's chocolate and the other was semisweet morsels - this station was so funny!). Use many, varied, unusual words to describe the taste of each chocolate. How do you think each chocolate it used in cooking? What could you cook with each chocolate?
3. Calligraphy: Watch the instructional video on calligraphy and practice writing your name following the instructions using the calligraphy pens at this station. Was it as easy as the video showed it to be? What proved to be most difficult for you?

Using their sense to decide what type of plant this was (mint).

Practicing origami.

Analyzing different types of rocks and deciding what natural events could have shaped them.

Practicing drawing.

Working on photography and changes in F-Stop and ISO.

Comparing/Contrasting a fleece blanket with a crochet blanket. Could you crochet?

Make your own bubbles!

They were moving. They were talking. They were working. They were thinking! We debriefed at the end of class, and I was blown away at project ideas these students already have.

Tomorrow we have a wonderful Guest Speaker coming to teach the students how to write their own Essential/Guiding questions as they begin narrowing down their project topic.

In my next post, I will include the rubric, full list of Inspiration Stations (I left that file on my school computer desktop and not dropbox), and the parent letter.

Do you Close Read?

I'm pretty sure I've never been apprehensive about any pedagogy. Being a new(er) teacher, I usually embrace new ideas. I'll try anything once!

This was far from the case with Close Reading. I attended a workshop last summer on NMSI and AP English. A good part of the workshop focused on close reading. It seemed cumbersome and confusing. If I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around it, what was going to happen to my eighth graders? YIKES!

Listen carefully - this does not get said often - I was so very wrong.

My kids loved it! My advanced students and my inclusion students were on a roll. They had so many ideas. Synapses were firing. Communication and collaboration were on happening without prompting! Education on steroids! If you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend it!

That is the best summary of close reading I have found. There are many different 'steps' or 'approaches' to close reading. The key is finding/creating steps that fit your students' understanding and standards. Below are our steps:

1. Read the passage silently.
2. Listen to the passage read aloud.
3. Circle details in the text that make an impact (on your understanding, your views, your imagination). Make a note next to the circle that tells why this stands out to you.
4. Underline words with connotative diction (positive or negative meaning to you). Place a plus (+) or minus (-) sign about the word to illustrate the meaning.
5. Block off imagery (words appealing to senses). Make a note next to the block on what imagery is brought to mind - what image appears in your mind? what emotion does it make you feel?
6. Highlight comparisons (similes, metaphors, personification). Make a note to explain what is being compared and what information is gained from the comparison. 
7. Put an asterisk next to word(s) that illustrate the point of view.

Writing these steps out remind me why I tried to hide from close reading. It can be a lot to take. It can have several large words that may require a bit of reteaching, but it is worth it! 

The typical student response to "read this piece of literature and tell me what you think" is to read it quickly and say it was "nice." Close reading removes the ability to do this. It requires the student to think deeply on several levels. The end result is a deeper understanding from analyzation and creating your own opinions. Many parts of close reading cannot be copied from a friend because your emotions and understanding is not the same as someone else's emotions and understanding. 

Yesterday my students close read "Masks" independently. Today we reviewed as a class. This is what they came up with:

In previous years, my students have read the poem and replied "she doesn't show people the real her, and she wants someone to try to see the real her." Well … this is a general summary, but you are missing SO MUCH when you only read the surface. 

This year my students came up with the theme that is written in black on the sheet. "Every person you meet is facing problems you can't see. Love and encouragement from you will help others feel better and overcome their problems." I'm so proud!

Through close reading they had a good ten minute conversation on the power that "love is stronger than strong walls" brings into the poem. Their ideas brought me to tears! They also noted that you can't say "he" or "she" because the author is unknown and the last stanza blatantly states that the poem is about everyone. 

Earlier I noted that it is hard to copy someone else's close read. This was definitely brought to light with the term "masks" in this poem. Some students thought of Mardi Gras masks (fun, playful, party). Others thought of Halloween masks (scary, hiding things, monsters). Another group thought of masks as covering something. Your history shapes what you bring to the conversation. 

If you close read or you try close reading, please comment below and let me know how it goes! 

Busy Beginning

The school year is in full swing! We have officially completed three weeks of school, and I survived picture day (I'm in charge of picture day - it goes with yearbook territory). These weeks have been a HUGE success! I am unbelievably proud of my students and their hard work. 

We started off the first week with the general 'getting to know you' activities, but by the end of the week, we had jumped straight into the deep end!

My students deconstructed their standards. We worked through the Common Core/College and Career Readiness Standards to make them understandable for everyone. Now we are all on the same page about what needs to be accomplished this school year!

By the end of the first week, we began Close Reading. I was VERY hesitant about attempting this with my eighth graders, but I was also VERY wrong. They rocked it! Completely took over and ran with their thoughts! We barely scratched the surface on day one, and day two was even more incredible. I teach a regular ed class and an inclusion class. Both classes were remarkable. They really took the texts and made relevant, interesting connections. Many that never occurred to me!

During the second week of school, we began our first PBL unit: "How can we use history to solve a current issue?" Students will end the unit by creating a proposal to solve a current issue in society. 

We kicked it off with QFT (Question Formulation Technique)). My students ran with this activity too! They got so much out of it. Their ideas and creativity were more than I could have ever hoped for. 
They worked in groups to narrow down their questions to their best open ended questions. Then they worked as a class using "Keep it, Junk it, or Cloud it" to narrow down their final questions. 
Their final questions go into the "Want to Know" column of our unit K-W-L. (They were so enthralled and ON TASK with the QFT, we never made it to the K-W-L that day - and our class period is one hour forty-five minutes long.)

This year has so much to hold! It's fantastic!

As a part of our first unit, we are reading The Diary of Anne Frank. Prior to reading the story, my students used a virtual tour of Anne Frank's Secret Annex to complete a virtual quest. They enjoyed seeing everything first hand and hearing how everyone lived. It was eye-opening for my students to see, travel through, and hear the living situation and conditions that surrounded the Holocaust. It was a great opening activity!

We are only three weeks into this school year, and it is already incredible. It will be a fantastic experience to see my students grow this year. I look forward to continuing our student-center classroom using project based learning!