TRAILBLAZERS
PUSD Writing Project - Volume 1 Issue 14 - November 16, 2015
Writing Workshop November Goals
- To implement daily writing conferences using the Research-Decide-Teach format.
- To create a system to keep track of daily writing conferences.
- To take time once a week during independent writing to write (collect, plan, draft, revise, edit...and not necessarily in that order) alongside your students.
Shout Outs
First Graders Celebrate Their Writing
Time for Reading
Writing Nooks Makes Writing More Fun
Immersion in Informational Text
Writing Lab #2: Conferring
PEF Grant Recipients
Online Food for Thought
Writing Lab #2: All About Writing Conferences
Websites & Blogs Worth Following
- Two Writing Teachers - https://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/
- Nerdy Book Club - https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/
- Read Write Think (NCTE) - http://www.readwritethink.org/
- Chart Chums - https://chartchums.wordpress.com/
- Choice Literacy (some free and some paid here) - https://www.choiceliteracy.com/
- There's a Book for That - http://thereisabookforthat.com/
- Teachers Write - http://www.katemessner.com/teachers-write/
- Read Write Reflect - http://readwriteandreflect.blogspot.com/
- Watch. Connect. Read. - http://mrschureads.blogspot.com/
- A Teaching Life - https://ateachinglifedotcom.wordpress.com/
- The Goddess of YA Literature - http://professornana.livejournal.com/
- Kid Lit Frenzy - http://www.kidlitfrenzy.com/
- TC Reading & Writing Project - http://readingandwritingproject.org/resources
- Growing Educators - http://growingeducators.com/events/
- Heinemann - http://www.heinemann.com/blog/
- Stenhouse - http://blog.stenhouse.com/
- Scholastic - http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/teaching-ideas
Columbia University's Teachers College Reading & Writing Project has a collection of classroom videos on Vimeo that take you inside reading and writing workshops at various grade levels. Check them out here: https://vimeo.com/tcrwp/albums
This Month: PiBoIdMo and NaNoWriMo
PiBoIdMo
NaNoWriMo - Young Writer's Program
Scholastic's Kids are Authors!
Enter the Kids Are Authors annual competition to encourage students to use their reading, writing, and artistic skills. Children work in teams to write and illustrate their own book. The contest is open to students in grades K–8 in the U.S. Two grand-prize-winning books will be selected in both Fiction and Nonfiction. Winning books will be published by Scholastic and sold at Book Fairs throughout the country!
Books You Won't Want to Miss
Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving
We the people of the United States...
Almost Lost Thanksgiving
Yes. That's right!
Way back when "skirts were long and hats were tall" Americans were forgetting Thanksgiving, and nobody seemed to care!
Thankfully, Sarah Hale appeared. More steadfast than Plymouth Rock, this lady editor knew the holiday needed saving. But would her recipe for rescue ever convince Congress and the presidents?
Join acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson on a journey of a woman and a pen that spanned four decades, the Civil War, and five presidents, all so you could have your turkey and eat it too!
The Soul of an Octopus
Note: This is technically an "adult" nonfiction read. One of my favorite books this year, it would make a powerful mentor text for narrative nonfiction in Middle/High School. Pair this with Montgomery's The Octopus Scientist book (for 10 to 14 year olds).
Sy Montgomery explores the emotional and physical world of the octopus' surprisingly complex, intelligent, and spirited creature: and the remarkable connections it makes with humans.
Sy Montgomery's popular 2011 Orion magazine piece, "Deep Intellect"; about her friendship with a sensitive, sweet-natured octopus named Athena and the grief she felt at her death, went viral, indicating the widespread fascination with these mysterious, almost alien-like creatures. Since then Sy has practiced true immersion journalism, from New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, pursuing these wild, solitary shape-shifters. Octopuses have varied personalities and intelligence they show in myriad ways: endless trickery to escape enclosures and get food; jetting water playfully to bounce objects like balls; and evading caretakers by using a scoop net as a trampoline and running around the floor on eight arms. But with a beak like a parrot, venom like a snake, and a tongue covered with teeth, how can such a being know anything? And what sort of thoughts could it think?
The intelligence of dogs, birds, and chimpanzees was only recently accepted by scientists, who now are establishing the intelligence of the octopus, watching them solve problems and deciphering the meaning of their color-changing camouflage techniques. Montgomery chronicles this growing appreciation of the octopus, but also tells a love story. By turns funny, entertaining, touching, and profound, The Soul of an Octopusreveals what octopuses can teach us about consciousness and the meeting of two very different minds.
Between the World and Me
Note: This is another adult nonfiction book but this one deals with race - particularly what it means to be black in America. It is a powerful read, and will likely win a National Book Award this week. It would be a great discussion starter for teachers.
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
Important Dates - Mark Your Calendars!!!
Join us for our 2015-2016 Trailblazer Writing Labs! You won't want to miss these ongoing opportunities to come together as a community of writers and teachers of writing to dive deeper into various aspects of writing instruction.
These labs will be held on the B Mondays listed below from 2:00 to 3:30 P.M. at McKInley TK-8 School of the Arts. Attendance is voluntary. Goodies will be given away at each lab to those who participate. Let's keep the energy alive!
#1 September 21, 2015 ~ Architecture of a Minilesson
#2 November 16, 2015 ~ Writing Conferences
#3 January 25, 2016 ~ Qualities of Writing/Mentor Texts
#4 February 29, 2016 ~ Small Group Work
#5 April 18, 2016 ~ Student Work & Resource Share
WRITING UNIT PLANNING RELEASE TIME (see calendar invite for details)
November 2, 2015 ~ Norma Coombs Grades 4 & 5
November 9, 2015 ~ Norma Coombs Grades 1 & 2
November 16, 2015 ~ McKinley & Wilson Grades 6 to 8
December 8, 2015 ~ McKinley Grades 2 to 5
December 9, 2015 ~ Norma Coombs Grades 1, 2, 4, 5
December 10, 2015 ~ Madison Grades K to 2
February 16, 2015 ~ McKinley Grades 2 to 5
February 17, 2015 ~ Norma Coombs Grades 1, 2, 4, 5
February 18, 2015 ~ Madison Grades K to 2
Note: If you don't see your school or grade level listed, we're likely still working out the details.
SCHOOL VISIT PD DAY:
We have finally secured subs to provide each of you with a day to visit a school that is deep in writing workshop implementation. You will see writing workshop in action in the classroom, walk-through a handful of classrooms to get learning environment/room arrangement ideas, and participate in a writing PD with us. It will be a great day of learning together! More information to come in the calendar invite.
December 1, 2015 ~ All NCES Trailblazers + Madison Kinder Trailblazers
December 3, 2015 ~ McKinley & Wilson Middle School Trailblazers
December 15, 2015 ~ McKinley Gr. 2-5 Trailblazers + Madison Gr. 1-2 Trailblazers
Alyson Beecher
Email: beecher.alyson@pusd.us
Website: http://www.kidlitfrenzy.com
Location: Pasadena Unified School District, South Hudson Avenue, Pasadena, CA, United States
Phone: 626-644-1642
Twitter: @alybee930