Life of an Oxygen Molecule

This year I have a really great group of writers.  Many of them love creative writing especially when they can incorporate dialogue!  I try to take advantage of this whenever I can.  As we studied the respiratory system in science, we talked about how oxygen moves through your body and how the respiratory system works closely with circulatory system.  To assess their understanding, student personified an oxygen molecule and wrote a short story about its journey through the body.  I gave them a list of words that must be included to help guide their story.

Illinois State Learning Standards:
12.A.4b. Describe the structures and organization of cells and tissues that underlie basic life functions including nutrition, respiration, cellular transport, biosynthesis, and reproduction.

Letters to Santa

With teaching middle school, the magic of Santa is somewhat lost.  However, this year I came across a post (unfortunately, I do not remember where) that shared a lesson plan about writing letters to Santa from the perspective of a villain.  I thought it would be a perfect creative/persuasive writing assignment and I could also use it to teach students how to write a business letter.  So first of all, I had student select a villain of their choice.  Next, they had to brainstorm ideas why their villain would be worthy of a Christmas present this year.  From there, I told students they would be writing a letter to Santa asking for a Christmas present through the point of view of their villain.  The kids loved this and had so much fun thinking of reasons why their character was worthy.  I loved that my students had the chance to be creative and at the same time were learning how to write a business letter with a clear purpose.  The results were great and very amusing the read.  Here are some examples:

Common Core Writing Standards:

1.  Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.
      a.  Introduce claim(s), acknowledge alternate or opposing claims, and organize the reasons and evidence logically.

4.  Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.  (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1-3 above.)

Objectives:

Students will:

-write a business letter 

-create arguments that support the worthiness of their villain

-organize ideas to fit the format of a business letter

Assessment:

Students were assessed based on the final draft of their business letter.  They were evaluated on the format of the business letter, ability to maintain a formal tone, and the quality of their persuasive reasons provided in the letter.

Apples to Apples

  Of course I want to help expand my students' vocabularies, but I struggle to find a successful method.  Our middle school students have a vocab book which basically introduces 20 new words each week.  In my opinion, this is a lot of words.  These 20 words do not include the vocabulary words from the short stories or novels in reading.  With all of these words, I find that students simply memorize the definition and forget most of them the next week.  I try to encourage my students to use the vocabulary words in their writing for extra credit, but students tend to use the "easy" words or words that are already familiar to them.  I also try to play vocabulary Bingo to make vocabulary more fun.  I recently tried having my students create and play Apples to Apples using vocabulary words.
  First I had students play the real Apples to Apples game so that they could become familiar with the rules.  Next, I copied red and green blank Apples to Apples cards.  On the green cards, students put a vocabulary word from The Outsiders along with three synonyms.  On the red cards, students had fun putting random (and appropriate) words, people, events, or places with a simple explanation or quote.  After the cards were completed, students were able to play Apples to Apples and practice their vocab words.  This worked very well and kept students' attention.  They even played this with a substitute while I was at a workshop!

Common Core Standards:

Language Standards

4c. Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning or its part of speech.

5b. Use the relationship between particular words (e.g., synonym/antonym, analogy) to better understand each of the words.

Objectives:

Students will:

-identify synonyms for vocabulary words

-make connections to vocabulary words to encourage retention

Assessment:

Students were assessed based on the completion of their Apples to Apples cards.  They were formally assessed based on the final vocabulary test for The Outsiders.

The Outsiders Newspaper Article

Currently, our class is reading The Outsiders (one of my all time FAVORITE novels)!  One of the writing assignments the students work on is a newspaper article.  Students write an article describing the events of chapter 4 (when Johnny kills Bob).  Before students begin writing, we read published newspaper articles and discussed the components of a good article.  We also defined bias and students focused on being unbiased in the writing assignment.  After the pre-writing activities, students began their rough draft.  From there, I worked with the computer teacher to help students create a final draft using Microsoft Publisher.

Illinois State Standards:

Objectives:

Assessment:

Romeo & Juliet Completed!

Finally!!!  We finished our modernized version of Romeo & Juliet!  The kids excitement really kept me motivated throughout this class project, especially because it took so long.  It was dragged out so much longer than our Romeo & Juliet unit because it was so involved I was only able to designate study hall time and recess time to do most of the filming.  Despite how long it took, the kids stayed focused and were determined to finish their project.  I am especially excited that we successfully completed this project because it is going to be part of our spring silent auction.  The DVD will be accompanied by a signed script for parents to bid on at the auction.  That will be one thing off my spring to-do list :)

I wish I could post a clip of the video, but I'll have to refrain in order to protect students' privacy.

Google Docs

As I mentioned, my class was super excited to create a modern version of Romeo & Juliet.  I wanted to get this project moving along because it will definitely be time consuming.  So on Friday, I set up each student with a Gmail account introduced them to GoogleDocs.  They were new to this feature of Google, but were eager to learn.  After creating a document with their small groups, I told them that I wanted them to finalize their script by Monday.  After leaving the computer lab, I was still apprehensive of how successful this would be.  Well, it is now Sunday and all groups have their scripts done on GoogleDocs so I am very pleased.  I look forward to talking to them tomorrow and getting their feedback.  If they thought it was efficient, I will definitely be using it again this year!

Romeo & Juliet Modernized

As I mentioned, we began our year by reading a simplified version of Romeo and Juliet.  To say that my class loved it would be an understatement.  They could not get enough of it and asked if we could read more of Shakespeare's work.  Of course, this was a simplified version, but for them to have a positive outlook on Shakespeare makes me so happy!  Anyways after we finished reading it, we watched West Side Story and students were asked to compare and contrast the two as they watched the musical.  From there, we discussed how West Side Story was a modernized Romeo and Juliet.  I presented them with the project to make their own modernization of the story and act out a scene.  I knew they would be excited because last years class already told them how much they loved it, but they were beyond excited. After I presented the project to them, they asked if they could all work together to make an entire play.  I could not turn down their excitement and creativity.  So today we started our modern version of Romeo & Juliet.  It is going way smoother than I expected and their enthusiasm is so encouraging.  I LOVE MY CLASS!!

Word Nerd

I am obsessed with breaking words apart to help myself and students understand their meaning and make connections to other words they know.  My first year of teaching I had a "Piecing Together Meaning" word wall with roots, prefixes, and suffixes.  This year, I took the same idea and spiced it up with a little bit more color and a few more examples.  This board was Pinterest inspired by these two fellow Pinners.
Root Word Foldable
Word Nerd Wall
Thanks for the inspiration!

Illinois State Standards:
4b.  Use common, grade-appropriate Greek or Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word.

Objectives:
Students will:
-identify words with their assigned root
-define identified words and connect the definition back to the meaning of the root

Assessment: 
Students were assessed on the connections they made from the root's meaning the definition of their identified words.  Students were also quizzed on the roots.

Elizabethan Era Project

Last week, my class worked on a pre-reading project for Romeo & Juliet.  First, we talked about what they already knew (or thought they knew) about Romeo & Juliet.  Next, we focused on the setting and author.  We discussed the time period of Shakespeare's drama and life during that era.  From there, I gave them information about different social classes, occupations, and education.  Each student chose an occupation that interested them and was asked to write a classified ad that advertised the type of work they did.  Within the ad, they were required to discuss their education, experience, and request a wage.  Something the kids really got a kick out of was choosing their Elizabethan name.  I had them choose from a list of common names from the Elizabethan Era.  I found some great resources at kidsloveshakespeare.com.  After the students finished their rough drafts of their ads, we aged paper with coffee and tore the edges to make it look old.  Here are some of the finished products!

Illinois State Standards:

CC.7.R.L.3 Key Ideas and Details: Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).

Objectives:
Students will:
-describe an occupation of the Elizabethan era
-compare and contrast education of today with education of the Elizabethan era
-identify social classes of the Elizabethan era
-relate the information of their classified ad to the characters in Romeo & Juliet

Assessment: 
Students were assessed on the accuracy of their final product.  They were to include their Elizabethan name, education, experience, requested wage, and contact information as well as a picture.