Awesome Grammar Site!

This year I'm trying out Grammar Keepers with my ELA interactive notebook. I've decided to have two separate spirals, one for reading and one for grammar/writing. In the grammar/writing spiral, I will be following (for the most part) Bernabei's list of grammar concepts. While these are not in our standards, they provide great writing practice for my students. On the left side of each page, we'll have a warm-up Grammar Keepers lesson, and on the right, students will have writing practice to incorporate the grammar concept. I'm excited to try this out this school year, and see how students do. My big focus this year is to have students really examine their writing.

Adorable Backgrounds for Classroom Posters

I've always loved the creativity of posters I've seen on TpT with the adorable chevron backgrounds, yet I could never figure out how to make them myself. Thank you Google! Below is a link to a fantastic blog that takes you step by step to create everything from labels to full pages for posters. Extremely user-friendly!

Thanks Just a Girl and Her Blog! 

Who knew rubric making could be so easy???

So as I'm perusing Edmodo and looking for better ways to keep in touch with students, I came across ThemeSpark on the Edmodo app page. Since I'm about to give a presentation on easy rubrics geared toward non-ELA folks, this app definitely sparked my interest. As I watched their brief overview video, I definitely became intrigued. What would be me sitting at the computer typing out my rubric in Microsoft Word, ThemeSpark has all the Common Core Standards for you to check off based on which standard OR substandard you are assessing, and it also fills in your grade boxes for 1, 2, 3, etc. Every box is editable for full flexibility. I will definitely be adding this to my teacher toolkit next year!

CSRA-RESA Summer 2015 Conference: Celebrating Student Voices: The Power of Instructional Shifts

June 24-25 @ GRU Summerville Campus

Writing in Middle School for Non-ELA Teachers Presentation

Answer Document

Blank Rubrics

Literacy Standards

Practice Rubric and Prompt Handout

Check out the post above for more info on ThemeSpark!

Noise Control

Love this post on classroom noise control from a fellow blogger. Check it out!

Keep It Down Folks!

Attention All Book Nerds:

7 Books to Read Before They Are Movies in 2015

Incorporating Writing from Authors of all Racial Backgrounds to Meet to Needs of ALL Students

There has been a lot of attention lately about "white washing" book covers and crazy disproportionate numbers of white protagonists to well, non-white protagonists. And at first, I thought to myself that what did it matter as long as kids were actually reading??? 

But as I thought about it more and more, I began to wonder what does that say to all those kids out there that might be Asian, African-American, Latino, Native American, etc?? That their race and identity doesn't merit main character status? That something is wrong with the way a non-white character might look that it's just "not good enough" to make the front cover? 

This got me thinking about what I incorporate in my own classroom via reading assignments, and what I encourage my kids to pick up and read off my bookshelves. As I looked around my own classroom library, I realized that my own book collection didn't reflect the diversity I want my students exposed to. But beyond just having a more diverse book collection on my shelf, I want to be able to recommend books to any of my students based on their interests. 

Long story short, I came across the following articles with some awesome ideas and suggestions for expanding diversity in literature for students in my classroom. So my plans for summer vacation just filled up with some exciting reading lists!

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/02/living/feat-newbery-caldecott-youth-media-awards-2015/

http://www.whatsoproudlywehail.org/10-short-stories-poems-black-history-month

http://librarybooklists.org/fiction/ya/yadiverse.htm

http://bookriot.com/2014/05/22/30-diverse-ya-titles-get-radar/