Concept Map - Writing and Publishing a Halloween Narrative - 10

Writing and Publishing Halloween Narrative

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.3: Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.2.6: With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers.

I.       Read a Halloween Book

If possible, I will open each day with a Halloween story to set the mood for the lesson that day. If I cannot read a book everyday, then I will continue to teach with the same book that I can refer back to each day. This will give my students an example of how a story/narrative is set up.

A.    Students will listen for descriptive, Halloween words, sequence-of-events words, and other keywords to prepare them to write their own story.

B.    Enhance their reading, vocabulary, and listening skills.

II.     Writing Activities and Games

Students will do creative writing exercises and play interactive games each day that will build their understanding of writing stories and narratives.

A.    Each day, students will be given a different writing prompt after reading the Halloween story of the day to prepare to write their own story at the end of the week.

B.    The students will immerse themselves in interactive writing games. The games will incorporate fun into their learning process, ultimately motivating them to improve writing skills.

III.    Computer Day

At the end of each day, we will spend time on the computers to get students comfortable with using the Internet appropriately and improve their typing and writing skills.

A.    For a day or two, students will learn about computer etiquette and Internet safety upon starting their story and searching the Web for pictures to put in their story.

B.    Students will use various websites to play "typing" games to gain better skills when writing a paper or story.

IV.    Dress Up Day

Dress Up Day will be a fun, relaxed day where students will be able to dress up as a character from their narrative/story they have been working on throughout the week. DUD is rewarding students for their hard work and improvement in their writing. It is more of an incentive for them to work hard throughout the week and motivate them.

A.    Dressing up as a Halloween character will act as an incentive for the students if they do well with the lessons throughout the week.

B.    Having a "costume day" will give students something to look forward to and motivate them to do well throughout the week/unit.

V.     Create Your Own Halloween Book

Creating and publishing the students' book online is basically an assessment of all the writing and computer skills they have mastered throughout the unit or week.

A.    The final writing product is the student's story/narrative, which is an assessment to see how their writing skills have improved and enhanced.

B.    The online storybook is the digital tool in which the students will publish their story/narrative to see how their computer and Internet skills have improved and enhanced.

1.    Students will use a website called Scribblitt to publish their very own book. Ideally, I would like to be able to purchase the book they created for them to have a very  own copy for inspiration in their future writing endeavors.

2.    Students will make a physical, hard copy of their story before publishing it on Scribblitt using construction paper and pictures cut out from magazines or brought from home.

Safe Practices for Life Online - 9

1. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr
2. Actually, two girls at my school and a teacher at my school were sued for posting stuff about another student in a private Facebook message.
3. Sexting = sending explicit, detailed messages to another on a cellular device; cramming = illegally running up another person's phone bill; cookies = messages sent from a web browser to a web server; trojan horse = a harmful that is inside a seemingly safe programming and ruins the file allocation table on your hard disk (http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/Trojan-horse);
4. They are unprofessional and not names a potential employer would take seriously.
5. These screen names give the wrong impression. If you're a girl and your screen name is IMAHottie then a potential sex offender could try and contact you on whatever site you use that name.
6. With Tom_Evans34, he could be revealing his age as well as Missy-13. Revealing your age is unsafe because it could cause people to question you more about who you are and get you to reveal other information about yourself.
7. Some of those choices are good, such as: Soccerstar, Bookworm, 2BorNot2b - those seem harmless and don't quite raise any red flags. HOWEVER, KeKe1995 is a poor choice because the number may indicate a birth year, and that's a pretty young aged child which might attract some unwanted web freaks; gUn4hiRe is bad because not only is the alternating lower and upper case letters annoying, the "gun for hire" sends out the wrong message.
8. movie_buff00, black_n_gold4ever, pizzaluver
9. (a) no (b) no (c) no (d) no (e) yes (f) yes (g) no (h) yes (i) no (j) no (k) no (l) no (m) no (n) no (o) yes (p) no
10. Most Common = Students give password to friends, Students write password down where others can see it, other who know personal things about student guess their password
Least Common = password-cracking program, other studetns see password as student types it in

The Padagogy Wheel V2.0 - 8

The Padagogy Wheel is a great to incorporate Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning with technology. The Padagogy Wheel V2.0 takes the components of Bloom's Taxonomy (Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation) a step further using iPad apps. I believe this is a great invention because it taking something that teachers have used for years and years and modernizing and adapting it into the how we are learning today. Technology is becoming a critical part of education (especially with Common Core) and I think that taking it a step further with this wheel will really help students engage more in their learning.

Use Arts Integration to Enhance Common Core - 7

The article "Use Arts Integration to Enhance Common" from edutopia.org discusses how teachers can still use the arts - may it be visual art, music, theatre, or dance - to better aid in their lessons under the Common Core Standards. Most teachers find it challenging to "integrate" because it is more than just merging two or more lessons together. When a teacher decides to ingegrate, he or she must have an end product (or goal, rather) in mind. There needs to be a purpose behind the integration.

I really like the points that were made in this article - access points and true equity.
Access points says that our society places a high emphasis on the arts. We see it everyday though advertising. If we, as a society, value it so much, why are we NOT placing an emphasis on it in our educational frameworks? As humans we are more likely to respond to something that stands out, like seeing a bright advertisement on a billboard rather a boring ''wanted ad'' in the Classifieds of the daily newspaper. True equity says that integrating arts help students learn in a way that meets their own unique cultural, social, emotional, and intellectual needs. So, why are we teaching and testing kids as if they were all the same? It is good to have the same goal for all students; however, reaching those goals will be different for each individual.

Personally, I LOVE the arts. And you can bet that I will be finding so many ways to integrate them into how I teach the Common Core Standards with my classes. Children respond better and learn better when they are able to express themselves through some form of art. They are up and moving around, and that registers better with them than just sitting at a table, reading.

John Hunter and the World Peace Game - 6

What he implemented in his classroom? 21st century wisdom table - world peace and other 4th grade achievements (chris) - upon watching himself in the film, john saw his self disappear, but instead saw his former teachers (as well as his parents who also taught him) shine through him - he said he was a continuation of their teaching gestures -

(Gifted 4th Graders) - Virginia - Not CCSS
He didn't want his students to have lectures or book reading, he wanted them to be emerged in their study of Africa - he wanted them to interact and be involved - so he made up a game - 4 dimensional plexy glass model with a civilization built around - he wanted to see if 4th graders could solve social, cultural, economical, political, environmental etc. problems in Africa by creating their own countries with a similar political, cultural, and social structure - he has a saboteur - he says his game is a sincere apology - "here's how we left your world (in a mess), we're sorry, we hope you can fix it"

a self evident assessment of his students being engaged (young girl who could forsee what was going to happen and planned an attack; young boy who said he was living what Sun Tzu wrote in Art of War) - Hunter said that was something he could not teach, that it was true engagement (spontaneous compassion) - he does not deny them the reality of being human and that they find out what is right their own way their own selves - if only they could pick up a critical thinking tool - these kids are motivated on their own and they take it upon themselves to learn more... deeper thinking (intrinsic motivation)

Common Core State Standards for ELA and Literacy - 5

1. What is the purpose of the college and career readiness standards? The purpose of these broad standards prepare students to keep the focus on where they are headed in the near future. (i.e. - as they prepare for college and field of work)

     2.  What are the benefits and challenges of the shift to reading and writing non-fiction texts? The benefit of this shift stems from the fact that 80% of what we read is informational text, anyway; most jobs require you to read and explain informational text. Thus, with the new college and career ready standards, students will be prepared to for future jobs.

    3. What are the benefits and challenges of having standards for Science, Social Studies, and technical subjects? - Bringing writing into these subjects, not only educates them in the subject, but it teaches them how to present their content or argument; instead of just relaying information, it is important that children can cite their information and support their arguments.