Teach Writing Right

Throughout the now-past school year, I kept having such a hard time choosing my "Mr. Stick of the Week" awards (because I was seeing so many great pages in my kids' notebooks).  I give those awards to select students based on their writer's notebooks during my monthly checks; I just love it when a short piece of writing is decorated with a clever use of Mr Stick--our notebooks' margin mascot.

When, in April, one of my students suggested we should have a "Mr. Stick of the Year" award, I wholeheartedly agreed.  I'm not big into class competitions, but my students are.  So I decided that, instead of a monthly writer's notebook extra credit challenge for May, we would have an extra credit contest: The Mr. Stick of Year Award!

I created this contest page at my website, which shared rules and gave suggestions as to what might make a new writer's notebook page stand out so that it might be deemed a "winner."  At our middle school, our kids are put into core teams for the three years they spend with us; our school has seven different teams of students, and when they told us we could name out own team, our kids chose "Team Phoenix" as our name.  I was thrilled to find--while serendipitously searching on e-Bay--a Boy Scout patrol patch that actually showed a stick man on fire--perfect for a Phoenix Stickman ribbon.

With rules and awards in place, we were open for business, and my kids spent the month of May creating multiple entries that they felt might make them deserving of one of the three ribbons I would be awarding on June 1st.  I warned students they would only be allowed to nominate one of their entries into the contest, encouraging students who were creating many entries to select their very best idea and spend some extra time on it.  Though this contest was completely optional, on May 31st I had over 60% of my students enter the contest.  Using my rubric from my rules page, I was able to narrow the search down to the twenty best looking pages, and my wife then helped me choose the three winners and the nine honorable mentions.

The winner (25 extra credit points!) was one of my graduating 8th graders--bass-playing Chris--who borrowed the "How To Be [insert character name here]" poetry format we had used as part of my World War Novel Unit, and Chris composed a charming poem called "How to Be Chris":

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Second place (15 extra credit points) went to a sixth grader, the amazing Mimi, who created a two-page notebook spread that shared the highlights of her entire year as a member of Team Phoenix--from the first day of school to her playing a large role in our school musical:

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And third place (10 extra credit points) went to a seventh grader--Andrea--who decided to offer a two-pages of Mr. Stick sharing advice on how to keep a great writer's notebook.  My wife and I both loved her simple but effective use of Post-it Notes to make the page stand out:

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There were also 9 honorable mentions which are featured at the webpage where I've housed the rules.  I've already purchased three more "Flaming Stickman" patches for next year's contest.


Can't wait to show these winners when I introduce Mr. Stick to my new sixth graders next year.  Ah yes, the value of having student-made models to inspire future success.


--Corbett

A great lesson is never truly finished.  As with a piece of writing, revision can always improve something--even if it's a pretty good lesson.  I learned that this last month.

I have taken one of my favorite lessons--Extended Metaphors Across the Curriculum--and added some new elements to it, which made my teaching of it better this last month.

One major change I made was that I taught a good friend's lesson (Holly Esposito) the week before I began my writer's notebook lesson.  Her "Four Metaphor Poetry Lesson" (with its use of Mem Fox's Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge) set my kids' brain in the right direction to do so much better with their notebook's metaphors.  This was the best set of metaphors I have ever received in my students' notebooks.  I totally appreciate Holly's lesson as a means of priming my kids' thinking, and I will always use her lesson the week before I introduce the lesson in the future.

I invite you to check out the new version of my Extended Metaphors Across the Curriculum lesson, which features new images of my students' notebooks after these changes.

Always remember...a good lesson (like a good piece of writing) can become better with a thoughtful revision.

We're still working on our "Life is a Cookbook" pages in our writer's notebooks (since it's the "center square lesson on our October Bingo Card).  In the last two weeks, I have photographed and added two student samples that did fun things--I thought--with "Mr. Stick," our writer's notebook "Margin Mascot."   My goal is to post a sample every week from (hopefully) a different student so that by year's end, I have 30+ great Mr. Stick samples in the on-line gallery I have set up.  Just having the page up and showing it to kids each week (plus awarding chosen students a special "Mr. Stick Badge" I created for my classroom Edmodo site) is proving to be a great motivator for my students.

Here is Sarah's personal recipe, which I posted last week:

Here is Ian's example from this week:


Take a look at the whole on-line gallery I've collected so far.  I think is going to be a pretty special page at my website when all is said, drawn, and done.

--Corbett

My third and final bulletin board in my new classroom has become a "Published Students" display.  It is going to be used to motivate my students to write hard and and revise well this school year.  With a promise of "fame" and a beyond-the-classroom audience, students do work harder during a writer's workshop.  I believe this, and I will use this belief to energize my students.

I believe one of the most motivating things one can do as a teacher is promise to publish your three or four of your hardest-working writers' final drafts in a public place.  A bulletin board is a low-tech way to do this.  A classroom blog ups the ante by increasing the audience possibility.  You can up the ante even more if you're using WritingFix lessons!

One thing I love about WritingFix is that most lessons come with a link to an online page where students' final drafts (up to three!) can be posted by their teacher; with WritingFix receiving over four million hits a year these days, this can be incredibly motivating (if not slightly intimidating) to your students.  To publish your students at WritingFix, you do need to be a member of the "Online Student Publishing" Group.

I challenge you to motivate your students this year by creating a new way to publicly publish your top three writers/revisers with each assignment.  I'm putting up both a bulletin board and I'm publishing at WritingFix.

You know, I've been in classrooms where--upon a student's writing having been published online--the teacher shows the entire class the final draft by projecting it on the wall.  I've seen the student who's been published beam.  I've heard the other students ask, "Will you choose someone else and put them online with the next writing assignment?"

Once I was invited to an assembly where the entire school sat and watched a published classmate's writing be "unveiled" on a huge screen that showed the page from the Internet.  That entire school of students pledged to work hard on their next writing assignment so that they might become the next featured writer from their school online.

This third bulletin board in my classroom features ten students who are not on my current class-list; I found these samples online at WritingFix, and they will slowly be replaced this Fall as my new students' writing is selected (by me) to be featured online.  If you click on the picture of the bulletin board, you can zoom in on the green sign that should pique my writers' interest in being the students who replace the ten samples I currently display here.

I hope you'll consider joining me this year in publishing your own writers at WritingFix!

--Corbett