iTouches Have Arrived

Friday was teacher work day, and we spent it getting the new iTouches that we received ready to roll out on Monday. For now each classroom gets ten iTouches, but eventually we will build to have a 1:1 ratio. The prep school students (grades 6-8 - the grade levels I teach) will be filled up to a 1:1 first. Eventually, next year the older students will be assigned an iTouch that travels with them instead of having them assigned to classrooms. Students will be able to take them home as well. However, we will not be checking them out this year as we still need to figure out exactly what our procedures will be related to that. One of the huge areas that I am excited about for the touches is using them as a response system for data. I am also looking forward to the possibilities with content creation, including having some of my students create audio books as a service project for the younger grades. We are not quite there on understanding exactly how to do these pieces yet.

For now I am thinking about how I will use them for the last five weeks of school. There are some applications for Spanish that students will use once we are back to our last two Spanish weeks. In the meantime, I am planning on launching them by having student read on them during reading workshop. There is one App that has a dinosaur montage and students can zoom in to individual pictures and then read information about them. One of my 6th graders is fascinated by dinosaurs, so I am going to offer this to him first. Then, there are a couple of other Apps with information about notable people and another with history classics*. I also want to add a link for University of South Florida's Lit2Go to the home screen of each touch.

I have also been considering putting some of my classical music into iTunes. This year my class has been pretty lucky. Because my classroom was the only one completed at the start of the year, we spent the majority of the year with out many distractions during reading and writing workshop. Even though I thought the construction that started up in the winter was a distraction, I quickly realized that amazingly enough, it was still relatively low on the distraction scale in comparison to having another class in the building.

As there was a higher level of noise in the building I talked to the students about how we still had to be productive but that we could experiment a little with ways to help us remain productive. For example, students have been able to give feedback on whether they would like to have classical music playing in the background to block out some noise, or if they prefer to block out the other class on their own. Students have had differences in preference, so the iTouches could be an opportunity for students to make decisions for themselves.

I was just reading Ruth's post about noise level in writing workshop. I had originally been thinking about having the music on iTouches available for reading workshop, but she got me thinking about how it would also be a great option for writing workshop. There are so many possibilities. It will be amazing to see different ways I will be able to maximize the benefits of iTouch in the classroom.

Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices

Ralph Fletcher's Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices had caught my eye for some time now. Recently I ordered a copy and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Aside from all of the writing advice/thoughts, I was thrilled that it talked about boys in general. Growing up in a family of all girls and being a mom of two girls, I can't say that I have a strong grasp on boys. Of course, I have observations from my years of teaching, but I don't think that makes up for the lack of having a brother or a son. Thus, the book got me thinking about myself as a teacher and if my classroom is an environment where boys can reach their full potential or if it more easily accomodates girls and their learning styles and preferences. It was pretty fascinating to me, and it sparked my interest to delve deeper. Eventually I would love to read other books that he mentions, such as Thomas Newkirk's Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture. (I just saw the front cover for the first time when I was getting the link for the post - I absolutely love it!)

One of Fletcher's comments early on in the book was, "Let's create the kind of classroom where every boy who enters can say to himself: This is a place where I can write, a place where I can bring all of myself to my writing" (25). The book outlines just how teachers can be more mindful of creating this environment. I especially loved the What Can I Do In My Classroom feature at the end of each chapter to list out the main classroom implications from each individual chapter in a succinct manner.

Since technology and literacy is a current area of high interest for me, I also enjoyed reading Fletcher's remarks about texting. While some people do not see it as a valid means for developing literacy skills, he said, "But it's making these boys into better writers [...] I mean, you can't spend hours working on a skill without getting better at it." What a great reminder!

Aside from the book piquing my interest in the field of gender studies, I am also excited to read more of his books about writer's notebooks. I already have a copy of his Breathing In, Breathing Out on my to-read shelf. I can't wait to get a copy of his Pyrotechnics on the Page (expected to come out later this month) as well. I might just have a Ralph Fletcher mini-marathon reading this spring. He also helped me to recenter and reflect as I am creating and re-working my 3 year curriculum map. After reading a recent post from Two Writing teachers, I had already been noticing my flaw of not leaving enough room for student choice in genres, and reading this book hit that message home. This was an excellent book on so many different levels.

What's Missing in my Writer's Workshop?

As I am starting the third quarter tomorrow, I have been mapping out this next phase of the year. I will be busy preparing students for their state writing assessment and/or work sample that they will complete in February. At the beginning of the year I decided to take the suggestion of others to teach prompt writing/writing assessment writing as a genre. I am also doing a lot of groundwork to begin student blogs with my 7th graders in the near future.

While there is much to celebrate with different components that I have incorporated and put into place this year, there are also areas where I have definitely been lacking. Although in many respects I have more fully integrated writing workshop this year than last, one area that I actually did better last year was peer revisions. Back in August and September I was trying to start all components of the writing workshop at once and realized that I needed to take a step back and firmly establish each piece of the process. One area that I stepped back from was peer revisions; however, now I am at the third quarter, and I never implemented it back in! This quarter creating more opportunities for my students to share and confer about their writing with their peers will be a major area that I will focus on improving.

I am looking forward to next year because I feel like I have been figuring out so much this year that next year I will have a smoother start from the beginning of the school year. It is always nice to feel a sense of making progress and figuring out different components.