Writing Contests for the 2013/2014 School Year

Making  writing assignments relevant to your students is the only way to truly inspire them to dig in deep and create a high-quality product they can truly be proud of.  Writing contests offer an exciting way to accomplish this.  Below I have listed a few for the upcoming 2013/2014 school year. Many of these contests have amazing prices ($1000-say what?) and chances for students to publish their writing in an online or print format. I am so excited to introduce these to my students and make it a part of my writing curriculum this year.

The YES Magazine National Student Writing Competition asks students to read a non-fiction (yay Common Core!) socially relevant article and respond to a prompt regarding the article. Winners will have their response published in YES magazine in their print edition and online. TEACHERS win a classroom set of YES posters.

Due Date for teacher registration is October 18th and student submissions are due November 22nd.

Totem's Head Story Contest is an exciting (and 21st century skills) chance for a student to create an amazing fiction story using an interactive webpage. Students must start their story with this line "So there I was.." and following several steps complete a 1500 words or less adventure story that models Poe or Hitchcock. My kids are going to rock this assignment out.

Due date for submissions is December 31st.

The Letters to Literature contest from Read.gov combines  reading with a writing assignment and offers a $1000 reward.  Yes please! Students must write a letter to an author of a book, poem or speech and tell them how the text affected them personally. The best part? It has to be a persuasive letter!! I'm so excited I could crush a grape!

Finally, The Legacy Project is offering the Listen to a Life Contest for students ages 8-18 years old. Students must interview a grandparent (or grand-friend) about their life and write a 300 word story about this person and their legacy. Grand Prize? A computer! I swear!

All of the websites include previous winner entries to use as exemplars for students. These are great ways to show students what a high quality WINNING piece of writing looks like. We can't reach the top bar until we know how high we need to jump!

Have a great weekend! Work week starts on Monday!! I am spending the weekend with my high school best friends and the boys in Baltimore for an Orioles game and a trip to the Baltimore Aquarium.

One last summer hurrah before reality begins!

:) P 

More Classroom Pictures!

Technically, I am not supposed to be back at work until next week but today felt like a full work day! Now I am awake and wired, thinking of the gazillion things I have to do at school. It's going to be a long couple of weeks. The good news is I have finished setting up my classroom. Here are a few pictures:

The hanging folder holder on the right contains Absent Folders/Samples of Figurative Language/ Grammar Examples/Quotes/Editing Checklists & Genre Book Lists. Schedules for Reading and Writing Days are next to it.

 The pictures above the counter  are different reading strategies and writing traits. I will create anchor charts for these throughout the year as well. My entire back wall is blank. This is where the anchor charts will go. I am going to post writing contests on the Contests Wall.

My desk. Hopefully I can really make an effort to keep it like this all year long! If not, at least I have a picture to remember it before it gets paperwork thrown up all over it! The file box on the window holds papers I need to file and papers I need to print. Their is a TO DO list for each day of the week next to it. It's a sticky dry erase sheet. So cool!

This is where my three class blocks will turn in their work. The white drawers are for Read Aloud Notebooks.

The Graffiti Wall is where students will put interesting quotes they find while reading their IR books. Students will put favorite book recommendations under the Books We Love board. On the far right (you can only see one) are 3 pieces of chart paper titled Books We've Read. This is where the students will put down EVERY book they read this year. I hope to make it a friendly competition amongst the classes.  The empty shelves will house Writing Binders. There is a small whiteboard and marker where children will sign out when they leave the classroom for the bathroom or whatever else.

 My co-dept chair/partner in crime Lindsey sent me this great YouTube video to share on the first day of school. It is so RELEVANT and really something our middle schoolers need to really hear and hopefully will motivate them to really push themselves this year.

I hope this helps!

:)
P

Amazing Blog Shout Out

Stumbled across this gold mine this morning! Mrs. E's Literacy Daydreams is about to become my favorite blog. She has practical, useful, RELEVANT advice and tools for not just English teachers but all content teachers. I shared a few of her free downloads with my Social Studies teacher husband. 

http://literacydaydreams.wordpress.com/

Plus she's British so I already love her :)

Motivating Relucant Readers

My co department chair and I are planning a Parent Coffee at our local Barnes and Noble in October. The topic is going to be on How to Motivate Your Reluctant Reader. Unfortunately, I can relate to this because my two very active boys do not necessarily embrace reading. While they love being read to (and we do that a lot) they can't stand sitting down and reading a book on their own. My husband and I are both avid readers so our modeling obviously hasn't worked. I am always searching for books for my almost 8 year old to read on his own. I hit gold this week when I found a Spongebob joke book. He has been reading and giggling all week. He will also occasionally read a few pages of Diary of a Wimpy Kid but it's really hard for him to get into "the zone" as Nancy Atwell, my hero, would say. 

I pray he has a second grade teacher next year who really sets that flame burning and inspires him to WANT to read on his own. Teachers play such an important role in their students lives. My students absolutely love when I have read a book they are reading and I can discuss it with them on their level. They think that I am actually a person and not just a teacher.  My hope with the parent coffee is to give them some pretty grim statistics

(thank you The High-Tech Teacher) and hopefully show them amazing books they can not only get for their kids but also read with their kids to inspire them to read!

If you have not read The Reading Promise, I highly suggest it. Not only is it an amazingly sweet story, it will really make you see how important reading aloud to your children continues to be even as they get older. 

I am off to go work on my classroom for a few hours! Shamelessly, I have bribed my 14 year old sister and her friend with Chic Fila and Starbucks to come help me! My hope is to at least get my chairs and desks in order! Baby steps!

:)
P

Classroom Pics and Donalyn Miller!! What a Great Day!

Today was amazing! Not only was I able to get a ton of work done in my classroom, I was also fortunate to be able to meet and listen to the incredible "Book Whisperer", Donalyn Miller. It was a terrific day!!

Here are a few classroom pics:

My desk: The polka dot folders make me so happy.  I have a To File and To Print holder attached to the window. The drawers are for Monday-Friday papers. My cute little $4 lazy susan is holding paper clips, post its, binder clips and rubber bands.The organizer hanging on the right is holding sharpies and other teacher supplies.

 My classroom library (certainly not as big as Donalyn Millers but I am working on it!)The books are numbered to correspond with the number on the tub and it's separated by genre. I'm going to have a library helper in each class to help keep it organized. 

I am 1/2 British and love this mantra.Every teacher needs to be reminded of this constantly! More pictures will be posted as I keep working on the room.

OK, here are a few key points from Donalyn Miller today.  She was so gracious by the way. During turn and talk times, she would walk up the aisles and thank everyone for being there. So down to earth!

But here are the grim facts she presented:

"The number one reason kids drop out of school is because of poor literacy skills." Obviously if they can't read, they can't comprehend, not just in English class, but Social Studies, Science, Math and even Health class are going to be difficult to be successful in.

"If you are an avid reader at 16, then you are 3 times more likely to have a professional job than a non-reader." Stephen Krashen The Power of Reading

DM is all about increasing children's exposure to books. Her classroom library has THOUSANDS Of books in it. She hits up yard sales, Goodwill  and subscribes to this website Booksalefinder.com. It tells you where local libraries and other places are having CHEAP book sales. I signed up today and have already found a great sale going on in September literally 2 minutes away from my house!!!I also hit the local Goodwill and yard sales. If you are fortunate to work in a middle class area you can ask parents to donate books. If not, ask a local church to do a book drive for your classroom or school. My church is always doing outreach projects like that.

DM's students typically read over 30 books a year. She sets high expectations and reads the books that her students are reading. I have talked about how important this is for a Language Arts teacher. Children want to know that you are interested in what they are reading.

Another great suggestion  was to ask your other content area teachers to expect their students to always have their IR books with them. I am definitely going to suggest that to my team next year. If they are always held accountable for having this book then it will make keeping up with the book into something they do not want to lose or forget.  It's also a great "busy activity"  to do in the other classes when children have finished their classwork early. It's helping everyone! 

DM was truly inspiring and I was so grateful for the opportunity to meet her. Now I just need to go pop some tags at the Goodwill!

Polka Dots!

I've gone a little overboard with the polka dot theme in my room but I don't care. Our school colors are red, white and black which is a combination I LOVE.  I have ordered polka dot border..polka dot file folders..polka dot sentence strips. My room is going to look like it's throwing up dots! Sorry for that visual.

I wanted to have a really cute cork board to hang over my desk so I searched and searched and got an idea from this website. 

My dots are bigger and I painted the inside dots too. I'm not very crafty so this is kind of a big deal for me! This is also the first time I have ever used a can of spray paint! 

Also hit up my new favorite shabby chic store (if you live anywhere near Chester, VA). 

The Lazy Daisy has adorable items for home and school. I'm a little bit obsessed with it. Today I got this bright red lazy susan to put on my desk at school. I plan to put my paper clips, rubber bands, post it notes etc in it! I'm really getting too excited about the beginning of the year! I start setting up my classroom on Monday and will post more pics. 
:)

P

On My Nightstand August 1, 2013

I just finished Divergent last night by Veronica Roth. It started out a little slow for me but man it really gets going about halfway through the book. I stayed up super late reading it and then had to immediately order Insurgent, the sequel, on my Kindle. Technology rocks. I would have loved having a Kindle when I was 12 years old and waiting days and days for my mother to take me to the library! 

Anyways, Divergent is a great book if you love The Hunger Games and other Dystopian Tales. There is a great interview in the back of the book with Author Veronica Roth. I love when books add this special touch. It's so nice for students to read how an idea is formed and how the novel comes to life. They even show Veronica Roth's music play list that she listened to when she is writing the book. Writing to music is a great way for a writer to get into the mood of the piece they are writing. 

I am almost halfway into Insurgent and it's pretty exhilarating too. I get sucked into a good love story and Tris and Four have a lot of that great on again/ off again... are they? aren't they?will they last? stuff that keeps you hooked!  It also poses an interesting question about society like most Dystopian tales. Are we better off separated into sects of people that think and act like we do? Or is a mixture of personalities the way God intended us to be? Great discussions to have with students!!

 I am sure it's going to kill me to have to wait until October to read the final book Allegiant!! I might have to go ahead and pre-order that sucker now..

There is a lot of buzz about the Divergent movie too which is out March 21, 2014.  This is is such a great year for great books that have been made into movies.  Ender's Game will be out November 1st.  Catching Fire is November 22nd (already on my Outlook Calendar-my husband thinks I'm really sad) Maze Runner hits theaters February 14th.
I will be having a lot of great conversations with my sixth grade babies about whether or not the movie is better than the book! 

It never is right?

So that's what's on my nightstand now. After Insurgent, I plan to start Unwind by Neal Shusterman, Prodigy (The second book in the Legend Series) and then move onto a few grown up books!

:)

P