From *Acts of Teaching* by Joyce Armstrong Carroll, ratiocination is a systemic revision strategy: "Students through a process of coding and decoding clues, manipulate sentences, consider syntax and diction, activate verbs, vary sentence beginnings, avoid weak repetitions, refresh cliches, develop and clarify their thinking, and revise the writing." This printable allows teachers to pick and choose or use all the revision techniques to help students revise their own essays. This laundry list is suitable for most writing modes. Reduced, it is a nice addition to journals or writing portfolios. Enlarged, it makes a nice anchor chart. Click Here to View My Store! Click Here to View My Blog!
Differentiating your instruction can be overwhelming. I get it. When you hear the word "differentiation" do you automatica...
Hi y'all! This is Stephanie from The Learning Chambers and I'm here today to talk to you guys about small group instruction. Let me start off by saying that I love love LOVE small group instruction! I try to teach in small groups as much as possible. I'm a strong believer in individualized instruction and I believe that small group instruction is the way to achieve that. Today I wanted to share with you guys about how I keep track of and monitor my small groups. It's no secret that I love sticky notes! During small groups, I take short notes on my observations to help guide my instruction when we meet again. I normally write short notes and use student initials to help save time. I stick the notes on my small group binder and then later I move them to the individual student pages. That saves me time because I don't have to keep flipping back and forth to each individual student page. Here is an example that I made to show you guys. My school has four nine-week semesters, so I print four copies for each student for the year. I circle the nine-week semester that we are currently in and use it until the end of the nine weeks. When the next nine weeks starts, I start on a new documentation form. I keep these document pages in my small group binder and they are perfect for documenting RTI. You could also staple the pages together and make a small group flipbook. I love using these because they are quick and easy and provide me with the information that I need to help support my students. Want to use these in your classroom to document your small group observations? I'm super excited to share this freebie with you guys! You can even type in your own students' names to save even more time! There are forms that include the nine weeks line and some blank ones as well. You can grab these small group student documentation forms HERE.
Are your worksheets contributing to meaningful learning, or just keeping students busy?
When assessing writing, the fine line between expected standard and greater depth can be challenging and raises questions such as: What tips a child’s writing into that greater depth band? Is…
A data chat with a professional learning community can be a powerful tool to increase teacher proficiency and student achievement. Having a process in place to lead a productive and successful discussion is imperative to achieving the change you desire. Get Ready for a Data Chat Before diving into a data chat, there are…
ELL Bathroom Briefs are one page infographs offering quick, easily accessible ELL strategies that can be used across cross-content areas.
Enlgish teachers, gIve yourself back some free time: with these strategies you can grade student responses quickly and easily.
Padlet is a superb tech tool in which a virtual ‘wall’ can be set up by a teacher and then the class can post and share ideas on it. Comments can be made and collaboration becomes simp…
The acronym PLC refers to Professional Learning Communities, which are organized collaborative structures among educators. Many schools have PLC’s, but how they are set up and run vary greatly. A discussion recently came up in the Instructional Coaching Connection Facebook group where a coach was looking for advice from other coaches on how PLC’s are…
Sometimes it feels crazy overwhelming to keep assessing students and know exactly what they do/don’t understand. That’s where these quick and easy formative assessment ideas comes in! M…
You have so much good stuff to share, but to get anyone to actually look at it, you need to give it some polish.
This blog post offers a step-by-step guide about how to write a rhetorical analysis essay for the AP Lang exam.
A multiple choice quiz after reading is a quick and easy way to check student comprehension, but it doesn't allow you to assess deeper understanding and it certainly isn't fun or creative. If you are looking for more meaningful and engaging activities to use with students during literature circles or a novel unit, here's twelve ideas that are favorites in my classroom and the Common Core standards they align with.
The four domains of the Danielson Framework rubric are Planning & prep, Classroom environment, Instruction, and Professional responsibilities.
This technique puts five students in the hot seat to debate a question while the rest of the class watches and takes notes.
UBD Lesson Plan Template UBD Lesson Plan from ubd lesson plan template, image source: pinterest.com
Hi there! It’s Deb Hanson from Crafting Connections, and I’m going to share a free context clues lesson with you today. This lesson is arranged in a similar way to a character traits lesson that I shared with you last year! If you do decide that you want to try this activity with your students, be sure to click on the image below. The cup labels and sentence strips for this lesson are available in the FREE download. I almost always start my ELA units with a PowerPoint presentation to introduce the topic. Therefore, on the first day I would show my Context Clues PowerPoint to my students, and this lesson would occur on the second day of the context clues unit. To start this lesson, I would use an anchor chart to review the five main types of context clues. After distributing a white board, marker, and eraser to each student, I would present five plastic cups by spreading them across a table or chalkboard tray. As you can see, the cups have been labeled with the five types of context clues, and each cup is assigned a number. I also have the small strips of cardstock printed and cut apart. These strips contain short sentences with underlined words. Before I begin reading the sentence strips, I will explain the sequence of the activity: I will place one of the strips beneath a document camera and read the sentence aloud. Students will attempt to use context clues to determine the meaning of the underlined word. They will jot down a simple definition on their white board. They will also document which type of context clue they used by writing a cup's number on their white board. Students will discuss their answers with a partner. If students wish to change their answer at this time, they can certainly do that. As a class, we will discuss the meaning of the word, and the type of context clue provided.** We will drop the sentence strip into one of the cups. **It is important to note that context clues can often fit into multiple category types. For example, a context clue could fit as both a definition and a synonym. Furthermore, according to your students' language levels and background knowledge, different students may use different strategies to determine the meaning of an unknown word. For instance, a student who does not know the meaning of the provided antonym may have to infer to the best of his or her ability. In terms of deciding which cup to drop the sentence into, you may want to let the majority determine your class's final answer. After we work through all fourteen sentence strips, I conclude the lesson by having students add a context clues page to their interactive notebooks. Students glue the title and the magnifying glasses into their notebooks, and then they write their own sentences that show examples of each of the five types of context clues. If you have time, hop over to my blog, where I explain how I use two published books to further analyze how context clues are used in books. If you are looking for additional resources for teaching context clues to your upper elementary students, feel free to check out the following resources. I have placed my bundle images here, but all of these items are also available for individual purchase. A Context Clues Bundle designed especially for students in 2nd and 3rd grade: A Context Clues Bundle designed especially for students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade: Thanks for stopping by today! FREE Newsletter! Blog TpT Store Instagram Facebook Pinterest My YouTube Video Pin for future reference:
Want your students to have rich, complex conversations about the texts they read? This method leads to the kinds of classroom discussions you thought only happened in college.
This is another one in the series of Tell All's. OK...that's kinda funny. I will be honest, this turned into an Affirmation of Thoughts. Reading
I created a couple of sheets at the beginning of the year to teach inferencing. I googled "Inference Photographs" and downloaded many imag...
Have you seen this fabulous book? (Click the picture to see it on Amazon!) Wow! What a treasure trove of fabulous ideas to make co...
Getting kids excited about annotating text is a challenge. Using SNOTS not only helps students annotate text, it's engaging and fun.
This week I introduced visualizing to my little ones with a super easy and powerful lesson! Visualizing is such an important comprehension standard in primary grades! As our students delve […]
The first few weeks of school are all about setting the foundation. We're establishing routines and procedures, encouraging a growth mindset culture, building classroom community, etc. I also like to spend some time laying the foundation for what students will need to be successful writers throughout the year, especially since writing is a focus that threads through all subject areas. In second grade especially, sentence structure is a great place to start. We review the 4 parts that every sentence has to have in order to be a complete sentence:
Teaching and assessing writing can be challenging, and even more so when you’re trying to identify effective ways to scaffold writing instruction for struggling students. Set teenagers up for success...
What is independent reading? Independent reading is where students are encouraged to choose their own reading material (fiction books, non-fiction, magazine, other media) for their pure enjoyment. This is an essential component in my opinion in building reading literacy. It allows students to be exposed to various topics of choice and increases fluency rates, vocabulary and various reading skills. There are
NWEA resources for using the assessment's data to help you target your instruction based on individual student needs.
This week in the Get Ready for K Through PLAY! series we are focusing on activities that develop the social and emotional skills needed for Kindergarten. The ability to follow directions, especially oral, multi-step
This post features ideas and ways to use Plickers in your class. No matter what subject or grade level you teach, the FREE Plickers app is an educational tool you can use for quick assessment and fun review. This post may contain affiliate links that pay a small commission to this site when they are
Discover engaging ELA activities, teacher resources, and classroom ideas for middle school and upper elementary at Mrs. Beers Language Arts Classroom.
This #Fliphunt movement has absolutely been an evolution of ideas. It started with: EdTech? On a Field Trip?… which led to … I Had a Flipiphany!… which led to…. So whatR…
Foolproof way to improve reading comprehension Foolproof reading strategies for helping your students be better readers! At one time, I honestly believed that if I only presented my students with a
I found this Character Book Report Project on Pinterest, It was all kinds of amazing & I knew I had to give it a try! It was created by R...
