Literacy Retreat 2013

SECRET SITE

Text Structures | Student Engagement | Text-Based Conversations | Beyond the Text

Constructed-Response Writing | Complex Texts | Text Sets

Kristina’s favorite resources for this session included:

• Total Participation Techniques
• The Lesson Planning Handbook
• The Highly Engaged Classroom
• Student Engagement is Fundamental: Building a Learning Community with Hands-On Activities

Share the Signs of Engagement with your colleagues.

MAKE YOUR LESSONS FUN &/OR FUNNY

• Aww… Contests (to work on writer’s voice) and Single-Sentence Contests (to work on grammar skills) are fun ways to practice writing skills.
• Using an image with a lot of detail works great for a game of Prepositional Phrase Scavenger Hunt (to work on parts of speech). Download the block party, barber shop, or welcome home troops scenes.

MOTIVATE STUDENTS BY TELLING THEM WHY THEY ARE LEARNING WHAT THEY ARE LEARNING:

• This includes helping your students see the long-term benefits of becoming a strong reader with the comparison of annual salaries to reading skills.
• After sharing that same research, Tell City Middle School teacher Kim Strobel used her students’ new-found motivation to create a rubric for their future Reading Responses.

ACHIEVE THE 30:70 RATIO:

(Teacher talks 30% of the time; students talk 70% of the time.)

• Check out this video of students participating in a whole-class discussion that demonstrates the 4 Talk Moves Kristina mentioned during the Retreat session.

• If you want more strategies on facilitating conversations about reading, you’ll love The Comprehension Experience. It’s all about ENGAGING the students and their thinking.

MAKE YOUR THINKING VISIBLE WITH TRIGGERS:

• No student will look away as you pull out the Giant Magic Straw to demonstrate supersizing their writing.
• For more information on the power of visual triggers in your literacy classroom, read our article in the Learning Center.

EFFICIENT CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT:

Avoid Partner Purgatory and other time-management problems with efficient procedures for students to transition within the classroom.

• I love these fun partner-picking cards by Michelle Lundy. Check out her blog for many more fabulous management strategies and instructional lessons (especially for math and science)!
• Clock Buddies is a simple system that identifies 4 different combinations of students. Students, get with your 12 o’clock partner. Get in your 3 o’clock group. Get in your 6 o’clock group. Get in your 9 o’clock group.
• When students switch classrooms for various subjects or reading groups, consider this adjustable name tent for their desks. Students then know where their assignment seats are in every classroom they rotate to. This helps avoid Transition Quicksand!

ACHIEVE TOTAL PARTICIPATION WITH ESRs…EVERY-STUDENT RESPONSES:

• Expect students to gauge their level of understanding on a concept and communicate it to you quickly using the Four-Finger Rubric.
• Acquire more ABC Charts so you can execute ABC Carousel.
• Print the Hold-Ups so that each student has a set to use during class discussions, test review, etc.
• NOTE: Here is a Number-Ranking set of hold-ups that goes 1-9 (rather than only 1-4, as your Handout Appendix included).