Blog Topic Ideas For the Classroom

Spring Break is pretty much over and now that it's coming to an end I've had some time to reflect on some things in my classroom. A few weeks ago, I received a comment from a visitor asking what I have my students blog about. I thought that I would create a post about just that. Now that I've been in school for 3/4 of the year and my students have been blogging for that length of time, I feel that I can truly discuss blogging in the classroom.

One thing that I think is very important when your students are blogging is that they still have the freedom to choose what they write about. This is still writing but just in a digital way! I tell my students that this is their virtual Reader's/Writer's Notebook. With that, I do require certain things from them on the blog because I do know that:

1. Some students are not yet ready to produce their own topics
2. Writing assignments for my class are required from time to time

The writers in my class treasure their blog and have truly taken ownership of it by personalizing and freely sharing, posting, and commenting on one another's blogs hoping to develop the writing connection with one another. Other students need a little more help from me in what I want to see as far as writing goes. 

Exit Tickets- A great way to give your students an idea for a blog post is have them write a post in response to what happened during class. Just like a written exit ticket it can be about anything!

Quick Writes- This is a great way to start class when students first arrive. They complete a quick write over the topic that you want them to write on for a few minutes. This can be posted on their blog and then allow each other in the class to comment on these. Commentary is such a great tool for each student to see that their words are powerful!

Create a weekly blogging schedule- I have a weekly blogging schedule for my students to use if they wish. Every day of the week has a different theme like "Text Talk Tuesday." The way this works is if a student is blogging on a Tuesday and they need something as a topic they can use Text Talk Tuesday. Text Talk Tuesday (for my Language Arts class) just means that their blog post focuses on a piece of text where they thought it was meaningful/insightful/powerful, etc. and they quote it and then respond to it. This is a way for me to bring in reader's responses without calling it a reader's response. 

Book Reviews- If you teach a Language Arts class this is a great way to get the conversation about books going! Students love to talk about the books they've read (good or bad!). Just make sure you've gone over book reviews first. You may even keep a template for how to write a book review as a resource for them to follow on the blog.

Embed Web Tools- Sometimes I use web tools like Padlet to start discussions in my class and then my students are able to interact with it. I've also had my students use Smore recently and embed the Smore directly into their blog. Students learn how to embed basic HTML code this way. It really opens up what they're able to do and share. 

Keep in mind- if you can write it on paper, you can probably find a way to share it on your blog.

For more ideas check out my class blog here! Have a great week everyone!!

Northwest Reads

Do something different. That's the way to start your day. That's what I did this morning. I teach middle school- hardened 8th graders to be exact. They aren't always pleasant in the morning. Today I started with 3rd graders!

My district has a day for our community members to come together with the elementary schools and volunteer their time to read with K-5 kiddos. I didn't have a 1st period, so I signed up to participate. I'm glad I did because this made my morning!

I must say I was a little nervous this morning as I braved the bitter wind to walk across the parking lot between our schools. How were these 3rd graders going to respond to me? What were we going to talk about? Do I ask questions while I read with them? I mean, I would ask questions but is that what they expect me to do too? Absolute nonsense went through my head.

I walked into the library and there was quite a selection of children's books laid out for us to choose from. I chose Millie Fierce and Sheila Rae, The Brave (I'm a huge Kevin Henkes fan and make my 8th graders endure Kevin Henkes read alouds from time to time). Now more questions started: Would they like my choices? Are these too baby for them? What are they going to think? Clearly, I was over thinking and much more anxious than they were. My two little escorts finally showed up and guided me to their classroom where Mrs. Florence let me have the stage!

Well once I told them I was a teacher in the 8th grade (the really big kids) next door I had them. Their eyes went big and I knew the rest would be easy. We read Millie Fierce first. Amazing book!!! Such a great lesson. These kids were such great listeners and had great things to say about the questions I asked. I figured out what to ask while I read to them. I'm a Language Arts for goodness sake! At the very end when I was saying goodbye to these sweet faces I was asked, "Are you an author too?" That question probably was the highlight of my time. I told him, "No. I'm just a teacher." I thought to myself, "But maybe some day!"

What Have I Done? Or- What Kind of Blogging Challenge Have I Really Made For Myself?

In hopes and dreams of getting all of my 8th graders addicted to blogging I decided on a whim today (of course) that I would reopen EduBlogs to my students. Now, for those of you with me earlier in the school year remember, I started my students out on EduBlogs but abandoned it and switched over to KidBlog for the ease of the blogging platform. I desperately want to use EduBlogs with my kids because I have this dream that they will learn to love blogging as much as me!

So, today when a student who was "jazzing up" their KidBlog came to me and asked, "Ms. Bush, is there any way to customize these pages?" I knew immediately the time had come! It was time to go back to EduBlogs. Oh sure- not everyone is ready for this. Some of my students haven't even changed their avatar or taken any kind of ownership on their blog.

The plan is this: those students who are blogging savvy and ready for EduBlogs can begin using EduBlogs while the rest of the kiddos stay in their comfort zone on KidBlog. All the while I will be posting on both platforms and encouraging everyone to transition on over to EduBlogs.

Fingers crossed!! Wish me luck!

Staff Development- But Wait! What a Great Day!!

I know what you're thinking already. Staff development? Are you serious? YES!! My district does such a great job organizing staff developments. I rarely feel as though my time is wasted and this is important to all of us as teachers. Well, today I had the opportunity to share information, my friend Lori, and myself have learned about blogging with our students.

We had 90 minutes to make addicts of hook the teachers on blogging in the classroom. Not to brag, but I really think we did a pretty good job! Lori uses EduBlogs with her kids and I use KidBlog, so between the two of us we had quite a bit of information to share about each platform. About half of the session time was spent allowing the teachers to play around with the blogging platforms. It was a great day!

The remainder of the day we were able to focus on technology at our home campus. I think I'm finally going to be able to correctly mirror my tablet/laptop after today. That's the part I struggle with the most. It seems so simple and yet I never can get it to work. Watch out 8th graders! Mrs. Bush is on a technology high! Yeah...those essays still aren't graded.

Book Clubs- Oh the Woes!

On this icy snow day in Texas I'm taking some time to reflect on this week. My students are working on our Media unit. I'm reading some amazing reflections from them over their views on the media and how it affects them. I'm starting to see them mature from 7th graders into full blown 8th graders. I love this time of year with them. 

While in my bubble, I took some time to talk to the other 8th grade teacher about her classes. I teach PreAP and she teaches the majority of the on level students. Needless to say, sometimes I get a little out of touch with the different struggles we have at school. Her classes are starting their book clubs with historical fiction books over the American Revolution and we started talking about how it was going. 

They already chose their books, had their role sheets, and this was supposed to be the first day for their discussions. At the start of the day only a few came to class prepared. This trend continued as the morning went on. I know she was disappointed and frustrated. Managing book clubs is never easy. Add on to that kids who aren't motivated makes an additional challenge. 

What's great about this teacher is that instead of getting mad at the kids or giving up and just reading a whole class novel she changed how they did book clubs. New role sheets were made up. These were more streamlined. There were questions to guide their thinking more. She met them where they were and what they were ready for. It was really great! I need to get a copy of what she did now that I'm thinking about it. 

So, how do you successfully manage book clubs or literature circles in your class? As a middle school teacher it's not an easy task when you have 150+ students and 45 minutes of time. 

Late Night Update-Well, For a Teacher During the School Year

I don't usually post this late at night. Anyone who knows me knows I'm in bed by 8:30. Tonight was the Twitter chat on student blogging and I would say it went pretty well. My HootSuite was giving me some problems so I didn't get to say everything I wanted but oh well! 

So now I'm still awake. With student blogging on my mind I started thinking about my own students' blogs. Where do I want to take them? What's going to be our next step? We have commentary down. My kids are responding to their peers with some really good stuff. We did a Socratic Seminar over The Giver the other day and I had them extend their conversations to the blog. I was impressed for sure!

The question remains- where do we go from here? I guess the next step is to take the blogs so they extend their audience reach and learn about readers and how to follow blogs. If I could get my students on Blogger we might be able to work it out. We might even be able to have real linky parties!

At this point I have even more in my head than I started with and will turn in for the night and probably dream about all this!

Oh It's Been So Long!

It has truly been forever since I posted. I had no idea just how busy I would be this year and how exhausted I would also be. Even though I haven't posted, I've been thinking daily of what I would say about this year. There have been many successes and some failures. Let's do a recap:

Successes:

• Blogging! Oh yes indeed. I'm excited to say that my students have taken to this and are getting the hang of it (finally!). I introduced it in phases. All of our students at our school are participating in the 25 Books Campaign (reading 25 books throughout the year). I had them in phase one just post book summaries of those books to receive credit. Then we would meet one on one about the book to talk. Phase two, which is where we are, I introduced a Weekly Blogging Schedule and Commentary Guidelines. Now I opened the blog up for anything my   students wanted to blog about and they had to provide commentary to one another. The commentary is exciting to see! Our superintendent has even been checking out the blogs and really liked one and wants to use it. For what? I'm still not really clear on that but it was so exciting to tell my student that her blog is being used by our superintendent as a model.
• Connecting with my students via Twitter and Instagram- Pictures that I take of them working and anchor charts that we create are posted to Twitter and Instagram. Parents mainly utilize Twitter and my students are all over Instagram. Bases covered!

Failure:

• Theres really just one right now and that is that I'm wearing myself out. I have to take some breaks and find time to not think about work and do work. There have been a couple of times these past couple of weeks that I've reached a breaking point or was close to a breaking point.

It sure does feel good to be back to blogging. It's been a long time. Hopefully, I'll be able to continue writing on a weekly basis. I think for my mental state I will need it. 

If anyone is interested in being part of a Twitter chat on student blogging in the classroom, I'll be moderating a chat on Tuesday (10/29) starting at 8:30. Search #nisdnov8. I'd love to have you part of the chat!