In conjunction with my Learners' Reading Challenge , I have also decided to start the year with a writing challenge. Inspired by a student's blog post, shared by @intrepidteacher , about noticing the sunset and the importance of paying attention to our surroundings, I decided it was time to cajole my learners into noticing more about their world. Everything I read about writing starts with a) reading and b) observing. I think we have the reading part covered, so I want to get my learners to begin to be more present. Writers all say that we must take note of everything around us - to fuel our characters, plot, dialogue etc. But I am not sure how present my learners are. We have made a great start in writing, and spend time every lesson working on our Spilling Ink journals (see Christmas , Halloween , Inspiring a Writing Community and Spilling Ink Journal agreements ). This year, I am also going to include some mentor texts in Spilling Ink time, to develop close ...
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Creating and sharing books using iPads Literacy today is more than reading and writing. Reading today is more than print. Writing today is more than ink. To engage my second language learners, I developed a blended learning unit on picture books that utilised both traditional and new literacies, and both analogue and digital tools. The whole unit was delivered via Edmodo and Google Sites . Edmodo.com I booked out a selection of picture books from the library, including classics such as ‘ The Giving Tree ’ and ‘ Green Eggs and Ham ’. We began with traditional literacy in the form of analytical skills, such as examining sentence structure, and identifying language patterns such as rhythm, rhyme, repetition, and onomatopoeia. We explored characterisation , and developed visual literacy by analysing how the images enhanced and helped the text. We also looked at the cover, the style of illustration, the page turners, the main ...
At the start of the year, I began a writing initiative based on both my experience of teaching free writing, and following my reading of the book Spilling Ink . My post in August, Spilling Ink: Writing Journal Agreements outlines this in more detail. I try to make each prompt visible on a single slide, and we work on the same prompt for the week. We have written about all sorts of things, from shapeshifters to thunderstorms, garlic gum to invisibility potion. Learners are always given the option to choose the prompt, or write about something they need to write about. They can fold over any writing that they wish to keep private. They are also encouraged to go back and rework previous writing, revising to make it better, or making into something new. I ask them to focus particularly on areas we have looked at in lessons, such as narrative perspective, sentence clarity, adjectives or noun phrases etc. Sometimes I will give specific targets to learners as they need it,...
My recent explorations led me to complete two courses on Sophia.org. Whilst doing so, I discovered 'Playlists'. Sophia.org Playlists Playlists are a collection of tutorials chosen to allow learners to pick and chose a learning path that best suits their particular needs. For example, if I wanted to teach Story Writing, I could create a playlist with tutorials covering story -mapping techniques, the stages of story-telling , effective openers, and satisfactory endings. These may constititute the basics that all learners would need to know. However, as is evident in any classroom today, the needs of the population are diverse. I know I would need to include some tutorials on basic writing techniques too - such as using correct sentence punctuation, maintaining tense and narrative perspective, how to accurately use speech marks, and using strong verbs. Story Writing Playlist Sophia.org I would also want some tutorials to push some of my more accomplished...
This week, in Spilling Ink , we have been working on spooky writing for Hallowe'en. My cauldron, bubbling At the start of the week, I provided learners with a variety of writing prompts for stories, poetry and non-fiction, to stimulate their writing. They were, of course, also encouraged to use their own ideas. Busy writing We wore masks, hats and fangs; we shut the blinds and listened to a spooky soundtrack . I prepared a fire for my cauldron full of gruesome creatures. A witch, an owl and Count Dracula Vampires We wrote and edited and reworked until we were ready to share. Ghouls and wizards Writing poetry Today, we gathered on the mat, around the cauldron, to share our finished writing. We discussed how to build tension, appropriate settings and characters, the difference between a cliffhanger and an open ending, effective vocabulary, repetition and the effect of different sentences. Three witches around the cauldron Each contr...
I have started this year with a commitment to develop literacy through reading and writing. I dedicate the start of every lesson to ten minutes silent reading. Sometimes I listen to the learners read, sometimes I ask them to tell me about their reading. Read about this in my post, Inspiring a Reading Community . We also write for fifteen to twenty minutes each lesson. This writing is done in a separate book to their lesson work. It is an opportunity to explore and play with language and is a chance to write what they want to write. Read about how I set this up and where I got my inspiration in my post, Spilling Ink. Each lesson they are given the option to: - write something they need to write about - re-work or continue with something they have previously written - use the writing prompt. I provide a new writing prompt each week - and they can write a poem, a list, a story, a letter, a speech, a script - whatever they want. Some prompts I have used so far this ye...
Writing Journals I started reading an awesome book today. ' Spilling Ink' is aimed at children and encourages them all to become writers. I got about half way through by the pool this morning. I tend to fold down pages where there are great ideas I want to return to (I know this is will irk some people, but this is my method). As you can see, I folded down almost every page. It has so many great and workable ideas I can use in the classroom that I know will help them find who they want to be as a writer. I am so excited about sharing them with my learners and to see their progress. We start our journals next week - this weekend, learners are buying their own or decorating the one I gave them ready to be filled with their scribbles and musings. Learner Agreement As I launch, I will provide a writers agreement. This is a combination of ideas from both the Spilling Ink book and another book I read recently, ' Notebook Know How '. It consists of a learner agree...
English Language Arts teachers are constantly fighting the battle to instil habits of reading and writing into learners who have so many other options of how to spend their leisure time. Exacerbated by the influx and availability of technology incessantly at the fingertips of many of today’s learners, it is becoming even harder to lure them towards print. When much of today’s youth inhabit an interactive multimedia-rich environment, its no wonder the printed page appears somewhat cold, lifeless and unappealing in comparison. Weil (1997) suggests that learners are “natives in a place that most adults are immigrants” and to foster a culture of reading and writing for these “digital natives” (Prensky, 2006), we need to move our thinking about reading, writing, literacy and books beyond the traditions of the printed page to engage and motivate our learners to read in a way that looks recognisable to them. Educators need to explore the future of fiction. This paper explores the educationa...