It Takes a Community to Keep Literacy Alive
Pam Bazis and Alex Eichel Melissa ISD Melissaisd.org pbazis@melissaisd.org aeichel@melissaisd.org
Learning Communities
One of the most successful and exciting approaches to educating staff in cutting edge, research based best practices is through the use of whole faculty learning communities. Learning Communities are a proven way to successfully improve and transition schools to meet tomorrow’s needs for our students. It is our strong belief that we as educators must be perceived, treated, and held accountable as educational professionals. I am proud to say this is the fourth year Melissa staff is participating in professional learning communities. Our staff meets with their Professional Learning Community every other week. During these meetings they share best practices, document and share what they have learned with fellow colleagues, and discuss their progress on their action plans and action research. In order to provide continuity, each learning community is also on an action team to support our Campus Improvement Plan. Learning communities align activities to achieve campus and district goals. Based on what teachers are learning from their work in learning communities, they further develop a personal action plan. This plan will include what each teacher will do in his/her classroom and how documentation will support their learning.
Storybook Character Day
Teacher Costume Judging in Library: Grade level team costumes will be judged at this time, so each team will need to come by and get their picture taken and let the judges see all the costumes- winners will be announced over the intercom later in the day. Parade of Characters: Students should line the hallways outside the classrooms, and then join on to the end of the parade after it has passed. Students will continue the route until they are back to their rooms, where they once again take their seats in the hallway and watch any of the parade that joined behind them. Book Buddies: Any activity below can be done with buddies or just reading with your buddies Read-In: Bring books and read all day, could also watch Tumblebooks Guest Readers Character Interviews: partners can conduct interviews, those in costume can respond in their character’s point of view. Write about their favorite character from the parade-Why were they your favorite? Create a graph of the characters in your room or grade level: could sort by genre, gender, etc. Make posters of your favorite character-label with character traits Oprah Game Show: You could set up your classroom like the Oprah Show, students dressed up like characters can be the guests and you can ask them questions. They would answer in their character’s point of view. Maybe we could do some kid of oral reading, where the kids choose a selection from a book they like and practice reading it aloud to the class. Their final presentation will be on Storybook Character Day with a costume or prop to accompany it if they’d like. I’ve seen it done, too, where they have mood music to go with the selection.
Reading & Writing Day In order to make the reading writing day a big success we have put together a few school wide activities, as well as several activities for your grade level to choose from. If you have any other ideas please feel free to use those as well, be creative and have fun! Whole School Activities: every classroom will participate
Bulletin Board Door Decorating Contest: each class will decorate their door like their favorite book. * Winning door will receive a “POP” Party (Popcorn, popsicles, pop music and a special guest reader will “POP” in and read your class a story) Vocabulary Hat Contest: each student will participate in making a hat demonstrating/illustrating a vocabulary word. Kids choose any word they want OR each class has a topic (metaphor, simile, personification, etc.) Prizes will be awarded for best adjective, best noun and best verb. Some of the prizes will be pocket dictionaries, thesaurus, and book fair gift certificates School Wide Parade: We will conduct a parade to showcase our creations and view the door decorations. Write on school wide star mural in the cafeteria: students will choose star shape to write what their favorite book is and why it is their favorite book.
Flag or USA Picture - Dress in red, white or blue and come together as a campus to make a flag/USA for a school wide picture. PreK – white shirts K- Blue shirts 1 – Red shirts 2- White shirts 3- Red shirts for 4 classes & White shirts for 2 classes 4 – Red shirts for 3 classes & White shirts for 2 classes
Additional Activities: Your choice, feel free to do as many as you like
Silent Reading w/Pillows and stuffed animal Book Buddies: Any activity below can be done with buddies or just reading with your buddies. Novel in an hour: Choose a novel (chapter book), divide your class into groups of 2-4 students (or whatever size you would like), divide the entire book in sections (could be by chapter or several chapters depending on how many groups you need). Assign each group a section to read, after reading they will write a summary and create a poster or picture of the important parts in their section. When all groups are finished, each group will present their chapter in chronological order. Illustrate the Plot: Create a mural or storyboard of the plot of a story and then share with the class. Character Interviews: Partners can conduct interviews, those in costume can respond in their character’s point of view. Readers Theatre: You can perform or be the audience in the library on the stage. This could also be a choral reading. Guest Readers: Schedule guest readers. You could invite central administration staff, parents, military, etc. Reflection: Write about their favorite book, author or vocabulary hat-Why were they your favorite? You could also create various graphs displaying this information. Employ Writing Roulette (aka Write Around or Writing Circle) see p. 69 of Acts of Teaching by Carroll and Wilson; give the story starter and let kids group up to pass the story along. Your grade might consider doing this via their blogs. Conduct a Read Around (aka Author’s Chair) where each student reads something he or she has written. Conduct a mini-poet study: such as a Jack Prelutsky study.
Conduct a mini-author study, using the author’s work as a model and attempt to write in his/her style. List of author websites: http://dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Humanities/Literature/Authors/Children_s/ Upper grades might have fun doing Bad Writing. Have kids try to write a really bad story – full of misspellings, trite beginnings and endings, shallow characters, lack of details, etc. Then you can use the worst to try and revise and edit as a whole class or groups. Write a Silly Story; this works like Mad Libs. Funbrain has Mad Libs Jr. you can do online at http://www.funbrain.com/brain/ReadingBrain/ReadingBrain.html and Teachnology has 10 printable Mad Libs at http://www.teachnology.com/worksheets/language_arts/madlibs/. Or you can make your own easily using common nursery rhymes or folk stories such as Little Red Riding Hood. Upper grade students might enjoy doing Mad Libs with well known songs –available online at http://www.madglibs.com/ (teachers probably need to screen this site). Spend some time writing in a genre not usually practiced in school so much, such as song lyrics, recipes, grocery lists, reviews, advertisements, permission requests, invitations, etc. These can be fun when tied to a book and writing from a character’s perspective.
If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact The Writing and Reading Learning Communities
The Reading/Writing Learning Community is excited to announce the 4th annual Melissa Cardinals Anthology! This year Melissa Ridge Intermediate will publish its own anthology! This will be a beautiful bound book that includes writing from each student of Melissa Ridge Intermediate.
What each teacher needs to do: During writing workshop in the months of March and April, allow students to work on a piece for the anthology. This can be a brand new piece the student takes through the entire process or a previously written piece that the student revises and edits for publication in the anthology. Give students time to type their piece in MS Word and teachers save to: - Staff Drive , MRI 08-09, Anthology Folder, Teacher Name (find their teacher’s name) - File should be saved as “last name” space “first name” (Ex. Granger Hermione) - 12 point Times or Arial ONLY and PLEASE NO CLIPART. - Name after Title (ex. Horses by Jane Doe) IMPORTANT – Chosen work must be saved on network by April 17, 2009 in order for us to have them ready for sale by April/May.
We need help in the theme and name of our 4th Anthology. So, we would like to present two contests for the kids: Contest 1 – Students can submit name suggestions to the container in the library. The winner gets their names credited for their creativity in the front of the book PLUS a Subway or Sonic lunch! Name submissions are due by March 27, 2009. Contest 2 – Once a title is announced, students can create a front jacket illustration based on the title and submit to Mrs. Eichel in the library by April 10, 2009. The winner will have his or her name credited for their artwork PLUS a Subway or Sonic lunch!
Let’s get the kids EXCITED about WRITING and proud to say they will be published authors here in Melissa!
Please contact any member of the Reading/Writing Learning Community with any questions. Please contact any member of the Writing Community with any questions.
Bibliography
Boushey, Gail, and Joan Moser. The Daily Five: Fostering Literacy Independence in the Elementary Grades. York: Stenhouse Publishers, 2006. Carroll, Joyce Armstrong, and Edward E. Wilson. Acts of Teaching: How to Teach Writing, Second Edition A Text A Reader A Narrative Foreword for First Edition by Janet Emig Foreword for Second Edition by Edmund J. Farrell. Westport: Teacher Ideas Press, An Imprint Of Libraries Unlimited, 2007. "Dress Up in Words." Instructor Sep. - Oct. 2007: 58-59. Dufour, Rebecca, Richard Dufour, and Robert Eaker. Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work: New Insights for Improving Schools. Bloomington: Solution Tree, 2008. www.lulu.com
Created at www.bibme.org