A Look Back at Personal Narratives

We are finally coming to the end of our first writing unit of the year.  The students have been working hard on writing personal narratives, which are true (or mostly true) stories that feature themselves as the main character.  The first part of the unit involved the students collecting ideas and moments from their lives that could be written like a story.  They learned several strategies for developing their personal narrative writing, including:

• Narrowing a topic from a "big watermelon," a broad, general topic such as "my trip to California" or "My dog" into a "small seed," which is a more specific moment in time - for example, instead of "my trip to California," the topic could be "my first time surfing" or "meeting Mickey Mouse at Disneyland." 
• Generating lists of ideas and then writing entries off of those lists.  The students thought of people, places, or objects that mattered to them, made lists of times spent with those people, places or objects, and then selected items off their lists to write entries in their Writers' Notebooks.  
• Generating ideas from the first times and last times they experienced things.  
• Understanding that their narratives didn't have to be about something huge that happened in their lives; just something that had some significance to them.  

Next, it was time for the students to choose a topic that they would expand into a published piece.  Students were encouraged to look back over their entries and look for repeated ideas; things they wrote about more than once.  The choice of a topic was not one to be taken lightly.  After they settled on a topic to write on, the students began the process of drafting.  During this bend in the road, the students learned ways to:

• Study published writing to get ideas for how to create the lead, or opening sentences, of their stories.  
• Tell the difference between summarizing the events of a story and actually telling the story. 
• Creating a "heart" to their story by thinking about what they really wanted to get across in the story and determining what would be the most important part.  
• Slow down the action by adding thoughts, action, dialogue, and description (or TADD) to critical scenes
• Use the closing of their stories to really drive home the central ideas of their stories.  
• Tell the story from their perspective and staying within that perspective throughout the piece.
• Adding even more detail to critical moments by bringing in memories of the past (flashbacks) and thinking into the future (flash forwards).

Now the students are beginning to see the final shape of their finished writing projects.  They have written several drafts, and are close to creating a final draft that will eventually be published in several formats.  Students are now putting the "finishing touches" on their writing by:

• Making sure they are breaking their texts up into paragraphs, with each paragraph signaling a new speaker speaking, a change in place or time, or a new key idea. 
• Varying the length of their sentences so their writing can give a sense of flow. 
• Checking their spelling, word choice, and verb tense.  
• Using commas correctly 

Soon the students will have completed their first writing projects of the year!  I'm very excited to see how they turn out!

-Mr. Ullman

Flipping Out in Room 211!

Lately, the students in Room 211 have been flipping out...but in a good way!  We have been working with "flipping the classroom." In the traditional classroom, the teacher gives the lesson to the class and then the students practice that skill for homework that night.  With a flipped classroom, the teacher presents the lesson as a recorded video that demonstrates the skill or concept that the students can view on their own.  When they return to class the next day, they will practice that skill or concept with the teacher in the classroom. 

Flipping the classroom has several important benefits.  First, when watching the lesson at home, students can pause, rewind, and watch it several times to make sure that they understand what it is they need to do.  Also, it provides more time in the classroom for students to actually practice what they have learned, with the teacher able to provide support and individual coaching. 

In my classroom, I have been using Educreations to record and upload lessons in math.  Each student has an account on educreations.com where they can download and comment on them!  With our schedule this year, with science and social studies split across recess and lunch, I'm also planning to flip a lot of science and social studies lessons as well! 

You can check out this infographic for more information on the flipped classroom! 

-Mr. Ullman

First Indoor Recess!

Yesterday was our first indoor recess this year.  In years past, I wouldn't really give a whole lot of instruction about how to "do" indoor recess beyond discussing the rules and introducing the games in my classroom.  This would lead many times to students clustering around the same games over and over again, or students simply sitting and drawing or reading.  Often, the kids wouldn't be able to finish their game of Monopoly or Scrabble in the 25 minutes we have for recess.

While I don't have anything against reading or drawing as a recess activity, I see this time as a great opportunity for students to practice social skills as well as a time to foster a sense of community in the classroom.  So, this past summer, I set out in search of games that could be played by groups of kids, needed little or no setup time, were easy to learn, and could be started and finished in 20 minutes.  I found quite a few, including Scrabble Slam, Pass the Pigs, Phase 10, and Ruckus...all of them are card-based, so there's no board to set up or pieces to lose, include up to four players, and can be learned and played quickly. 

I introduced the games during Morning Meeting and right before recess, allowed groups to choose one of the games to play.  Surprisingly, this was met with no resistance.  The students played the games and had a great time...several of them even told me as we lined up for lunch hire much fun they had!

I plan to give students more freedom in future indoor recesses, but I think it was great to expose them to these games and give them a chance to play with each other.  I'm looking forward to the next rainy day!

-Mr. Ullman