Skip to main content

Kicking Off!

Tomorrow the students will once again fill the halls and classrooms!

This year I am teaching four different preps:

8th Grade Language Arts 1 (Reading/Writing)
8th Grade Language Arts 1 ET (Reading/Writing) *ET is our gifted program
7th Grade Language Arts 1 ET (Reading)
7th Grade Language Arts 2 ET (Writing)

Thank goodness I've actually done all these preps before. Last year was my first time with four preps, and it was a nightmare in addition to my first year as co-department chair. Thank goodness my bestie is my co-chair or I would have been a total mess! I had to give up Poms this year since I'm still directing the play and musical, so I figured I'd give myself a few months off in the winter to catch my breath, lol!

At our school we teach six periods a day, plus an SLC (small learning community), lunch period, and one prep period. I've never had a second period plan before, so I'm kind of excited to see what it's like to have my prep in the morning!

In looking at the schedule for tomorrow, I realized that I have a full period with some of my classes, mostly my LA2, and a very shortened schedule with others. I decided at the last minute that I should probably just get started with our writing curriculum immediately since I have the time, and I'll do all of the orientation stuff in their LA1 class. (I have the same students in 7th grade LA1 that I do in LA2, which is great!) So, I pulled out my Nancie Atwell book, Lessons that Change Writers, and took inventory of how many composition notebooks I already had on hand. In addition to those I'll use Kelly Gallagher, Teaching Adolescent Writers and Write Like This, Teaching Argumentative Writing by George Hillocks Jr., as well as our Grammar book. Of course the copy machine was broken, so I have a nice pile of copying to do tomorrow.

Side Note: I found this today in my bag, and it made me smile :)


In fact, I have my next novel sketched out on a Chipotle napkin right now, I'm hoping the hubster doesn't accidentally throw it away!

I located my writer's notebook from last year, and went to Walmart to pick up some notebooks for the kiddos. Why do I buy the notebooks? Because then we can start right away, they are all the same size, and have the exact same number of pages. I'm kind of a control freak, yikes~

Walmart was a madhouse, so I scooted over to target and picked up 30 (I already had about 20 at school from last year) composition notebooks, and went to check out. Turns out, they had been marked down to $.50, my lucky day!! :)

Here's what mine looked like from last year.


Tomorrow, we'll put names on the covers, number ALL of the pages (takes awhile but it's worth it), and complete the Writing Survey. This page will go in on Thursday, it's Nancie Atwell's Writing Territories guide. I'll post more about it after we do it!


Here's a look at our first couple of entries...


Finally, I ended my night by working in my Erin Condren planner, it made me feel better :)


I've got to go to bed, the alarm in seven hours will come too soon I'm sure!!

Comments

  1. Do you have another post that I'm not finding that shares more about the contents of the Writer's Notebook? I'd love to see copies of all of the things listed on your Table of Contents!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't and I need to! I will try and get a post up soon about it!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by! JW

Popular posts from this blog

Before the School Year Begins...

I decided that before I can start posting about what I'm doing this year, I needed to share some of my favorite strategies from last year that went really well with the students. I was completely inspired by Kelly Gallagher after reading devouring all of his books at the beginning of the school year! I had the opportunity to go to a Kelly Gallagher workshop at Judson this spring, and it was absolutely amazing! He was so nice when I went up to him (I was terrified and starstruck), and even wrote "You're Welcome" on this piece of paper, because my students actually asked me to THANK HIM for changing the way we read novels in class.  Students + asked me + to say thank you to an author + about school stuff = UTOPIA! Here are some of my abbreviated notes from the day: His TOP Points: Kids should write 4X more than you can physically grade  Students suffer from word poverty. Must get students reading more in order to be exposed to vocabulary. We ne

RAK Classroom Kit + Enjoy the Magic of The Holidays at Oakbrook Center!

Last week The Middle School Mob hosted a FB Live Holiday Hop, and I shared how I do a RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) activity with my students during the holiday season . This was my first time doing a FB live and I had so much fun! You can check out the RAK Classroom Kit here If you live in the Chicagoland area and want to have a fun family outing this Christmas season, be sure to check out my post over at Modest House, Extraordinary Home ! Save Save Save Save

Writing Notebook: Finishing up "Write Ideas" and first Invitation: AAAWWUBBIS!

Happy Monday!! Today I am continuing on with the Writer's Notebook! Last time I left off, students had just finished their "100 Things I Love". After that, students completed their writing territories, which I got from Nancie Atwell's book   Lessons That Change Writers.  We spent the first day discussing writing territories out loud, going through the list in detail, so that students had ideas of what to write about. I told them to think of it like the caption for a picture. One to two sentences that could become something more. Students had to complete this for homework. We also completely numbered our table of contents so that we could add in sections and start working in other parts of the notebook.  Students wrote their writing territories on these pages. Then we moved on to the Writer's Eye (I). Students had to place terms that described them within their "I" or around their "Eye". I created my o