Category Archives: my classroom

(see the animoto)
Some of you may know that I had to leave my school year a few days early to help lead the Massachusetts New Literacies Institute in Boston. That meant not only not being able to say goodbye on the last day of school to my students but also, I didn’t get the traditional “meet and greet” my incoming students, either. Instead, I made them a DVD that my substitute teacher showed them and asked them to contribute a piece of writing and an illustration of themselves on a sticky note to a “wall” I created in the back of the room.

Yesterday, I finally got to my classroom to finish up some paperwork and cleaning, but I was just fascinated by the wall of notes, writing and pictures the soon-to-be sixth graders left behind for me.  In particular, I loved the self-portraits (which say a lot about a person). They only had a few minutes to work, but still … pretty neat.

I’ll hang the wall back up in August, to give myself a glimpse of the class that is coming in.

Peace (in the image),
Kevin

Two things happened yesterday that had me reflecting on my classroom environment as a learning space.

First, I was in the midst of a low-stakes evaluation by my principal, who is very supportive of my work around technology and writing. We got to the point in our new rubric around classroom management and here is what I had running through my head: my students right at that moment, sitting all around the classroom, laptops in hand, writing their Make Your Own Adventure stories while chatting away, helping each other out. Some were no doubt fooling around. Others were intensive focused.

My room is often sort of chaotic, but in a good way (I think). My students are active learners in whatever we are doing — whether it is tech work, or making and performing puppet plays, or doing collaborative activities. It’s not the ELA class that I grew up in. We don’t sit still for very long. And while it may seem to outsiders that there is no method to the madness, there indeed is. I am always in tune to student dynamics, always encouraging students to help others when help is needed, always engaged in mini-lessons in small groups that then filter out to the whole, always pushing students to take risks beyond their comfort zones.

My principal looked at the evaluation rubric and acknowledged that my class is not the traditional class and that makes it difficult sometimes to find the right substitute teacher when I am out. I don’t give my students busywork at their desk for an hour. Even when I am not there, I expect creativity to be happening. Then, my principal said that he liked the engagement of the students, the energy level of the activities and he gave some praise to me in this area that I often consider a possible weakness in my teaching. That was nice to hear.

A few hours later (same scene: students, with laptops, writing around the room on a wiki), a family of  potential School Choice students comes into my classroom on a tour of our school. Yeah, it’s a bit noisy and active, and the school’s administrative assistant who is acting as host explains that she wanted the family to see technology in the school on both ends of the spectrum (I think they were down in kindergarten first? Gail?). I can’t tell what the parents are thinking as I say hello — they seem to be trying to take in exactly what the heck is going on in this sixth grade classroom — but I could tell what the kids in tow were thinking: “We want to join in on the activity, whatever it is!”

So, yeah, my idea of classroom management is allowing for movement and voices and some chaos, and I still every day try to find the balance between students listening and learning, and students engaged and active. Some days, I am more successful at that balance than others. It doesn’t always work and it doesn’t always work for some students. I adapt as I go. Some days, I wish I were a traditional teacher with a traditional classroom. Then, there wouldn’t be so much noise. But I don’t think there would be as much creative exploration, either.

And I can’t imagine doing things any other way and getting the same results from my young writers and composers.

Peace (amidst the chaos),
Kevin

Yesterday, on my last day with my students (before I head off to the Massachusetts New Literacies Institute), most of them finished their Make Your Own Adventure Stories. I’ve written about this project for a few days but we used Chris Van Allsburg’s Mysteries of Harris Burdick as a writing prompt and then we used our classroom Wikispaces site to create stories with “branches” that the reader chooses. I have noticed that this writing activity has really sparked some critical thinking skills and basic Internet skills, too, such as how to use  a wiki and how to create hyperlinks and navigation of text.

I wish I had two more class periods with them (note to self: this project takes about 5 or 6 class periods to accomplish) because I could tell a good number of students really needed a bit more time. They were all working so hard on their writing yesterday, which is something to see at the end of the year for 12 year olds.

I now wish I had been able to have them move the images from the prompt they chose (the Mysteries book is a series of illustrations and captions, and the stories are “missing”) into their stories. Right now, it is all text driven. Another cool possibilities: what if they could have added a podcast (of the story or a mysterious introduction?) or a video? Some things to ponder for the future.

Anyway, here are a few of the stories that did get completed:

• Mia’s story
• John’s story
• Samantha’s story
• Delaney’s story
• Nathan’s story
• Maitri’s story

Peace (in the many branches of imagination),
Kevin

(This is a map that I began to create for my own story example, showing the paths of the narrative.)

We started working on our Make Your Own Adventure Stories yesterday, using a wikispaces site. The students used a short story they started writing the other day and then began to plan out “story branches” that will become hyperlinked pages on the wiki.

Here is what I noticed: some kids “got it,” some just didn’t.

What I mean by that is that this idea of creating alternative paths for a story really taps into critical thinking skills. You have to envision possibilities and move beyond the linear telling of a story (lord knows how the authors of full-length Make Your Own Ending novels do it). Given our limited amount of time left in the year, I told my sixth graders they only had to create one branch, but that the ambitious of them should try multiple branches.

That concept clicked with some of them and they were off to the races with their ideas. The others, though, seemed very befuddled. They understood the concept of Make Your Own Adventure, but they could not envision it for their own stories. The had difficulty imagining any moment when the reader might be asked, should it go THIS way or THAT way. These are the same kids whose critical thinking skills have not yet developed on pace with peers, something we notice with them in other areas, but never so dramatically, I think. This project really delineated a critical thinking dividing line for me as the teacher.

In some ways, the fault is mine.

This project requires more time than I can give it, and more modeling (which Tony asked about in my other post), and more experimental time. I did show them my story map (see above) that I made in Google Docs (with the flow chart template) for my own story sample and pointed out the ways the story that I wrote unfolded. Still, I was hoping that by this point in the year, they would all be ready for this kind of story adventure. I guess not.

I can’t wait, though, to see what they complete on Friday, which is our last writing day of the school year and my last day with my young writers (I head off to a New Literacies Institute next week).

Peace (in the branches),
Kevin

Time, I realize, is running out but I am determined to do one last interesting writing activity with my sixth graders. Although I was off from school yesterday on some family errands, I had them writing a short story inspired by The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg.

Today, I am going to show them how to create “branches” for their stories — alternative narrative paths — and use our class wiki to create Make Your Own Adventure style stories in which the reader chooses which branch to take and follows the story. I don’t imagine the stories will get too complex, given the time frame, but I do want to show them some of the possibilities of using hyperlinks to your advantage when writing in an online space.

I did a sample story this morning based on the image called “Oscar and Alphonse,” if you are interested, and if any of the stories really rise to the surface as superior, I’ll share those out, too.

Using the wiki seems right for this, although I had to set up a visitor account for my students to use. While I have it set that anyone can edit a page on the wiki (which I will lock down later), only visitors with a wikispaces account can create a new page, which is how you create the story branches. So, it got a little more complicate than I had expected.

But not insurmountable, and once again, my own experimenting with the writing activity paid off, as it allowed me to do some troubleshooting as if I were writing like one of my students.

Peace (in the branches),
Kevin

This is the tenth year that our art teacher has been able to secure funds to bring a local woodcarver to our school to work with the entire sixth grade on a large project that is their “legacy” to our school. It is such a phenomenal concept — getting kids to learn about art while using their hands to create something majestic and beautiful.

But Elton Braithwaite, originally from Jamaica, turns it into something more. He teaches them about life — about hard work, and success, and disappointment, and about keeping a focus on the goal. He inspires our students beyond the woodcarving project, and he reaches kids who are often difficult to reach with that message.

Meanwhile, the carving is done in the cafeteria, so the entire school has a view of the work underway, inspiring the rest of the students and creating a positive spotlight on the sixth graders. It’s fantastic.

This short video documentary is part of a larger DVD project that I did over the course of the week for our art teacher so she can show our PTO what their generous donation and funding of Elton has done for the school and the students. The art they are making this year is part of a multi-year project around the Arts and the six panelled woodcarving will eventually hang over the school stage.

Peace (in the arts),

Kevin

By now, all of my sixth graders have read the book Flush by Carl Hiasson and we have talked and worked around environmental themes in the book. Yesterday, we talked about the Gulf of Mexico, oil spills, and the habitats and ecosystems that were being affected. I had deep, insightful questions and concerns from my students, most of whom were aware of the spill but not the extent.

I began the lesson with a listening of an NPR story from back in April, about a week after the spill happened, and I had a sheet of basic questions ready for them to fill out as they listened. What is the name of the company? How much oil is coming out? What was the name of the oil rig? etc. Then, we talked about what has changed since April.Back then, the estimate was around 1,000 gallons a day coming out. Now, of course, the estimate is around 500,000 gallons per day. I shared with them the running Oil Spill Ticker to get a sense of how much oil is now in the gulf (estimated: 22 million gallons).

A quick glance at the popular live stream of the oil piqued their interest, too.
Streaming .TV shows by Ustream

We then looked at an interactive map from NY Times that shows the area of the oil spill as it progresses over time. Most noticed the outlines of the Gulf Stream, which sparked the discussion of oil moving towards Florida (where Flush is set and where endangered turtles are at the heart of the story) and whether the oil will move up the eastern seaboard towards our neck of the woods (possible).

At another site about wildlife in the Gulf, we gathered information about the pelicans and seabirds, the turtles (again), plankton and other animals in the Gulf ecosystem, and how both the oil and the chemical dispersants might impact the area for decades to come. A slideshow of images, including birds drenched in oil, sparked outrage among my students, who asked all sorts of questions about attempts to contain the oil (I did my best).

Finally, to give them a sense of the scale of the spill, I took them to a website called If It Was My Home that overlays the spill’s geographic contours on a map of where you live. For us, the spill would cover most of Massachusetts, parts of Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine, and into New York. I could hear some gasps as students began to comprehend the scale of things.

All of this brought us to discuss the need for alternative energy and ways that people can help the disaster relief effort (a handful of kids came up to me afterwards and asked for ideas for summer projects to raise money to send to Gulf Relief. I wish we had more time in the school year to launch something ourselves, but I don’t think we have time).

The message I sent to them: pay attention to current events and be engaged in the world, as the decisions being made today by politicians and companies will impact the world they are moving into as young adults. I hope — I think — they have been getting the message. Sometime, you plant a seed and hope for the best.

Peace (in awareness),

Kevin