I finished the book 180 Days by Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle earlier this week. It was amazing- definitely lived up to all the hype I saw on Instagram and Twitter.
For those of you that haven't seen it, 180 Days is a one year story of Gallagher & Kittle's 9th grade classrooms. They walk you through how they set up their reading and writing units for the entire year. It's geared towards ELA classrooms, and more towards high school, but I found it adaptable to middle school.
I'm excited to implement more independent and choice reading this year, something I was planning before I read this book. I plan on pretty closely following their timeline for reading. It suggests independent reading, then book clubs, then a core text, and then you repeat the whole thing, and then you finish the year with either independent reading or book clubs.
The writing units are more geared towards high school standards, and include more units/topics than our curriculum requires, so I'll have to make some adjustments from their schedule. Still, the pacing is nice to see and they go into detail about how they work through the major units- narrative, informational, and argumentative. Those are the ones I will be keeping, so that section of the book was really helpful.
The one thing I didn't like about the book is that even though they recommend reading and writing conferences, they don't go into depth on how they get those done. (I haven't watched/reviewed all of the online resources yet though.) I think conferences will make a real difference in the classroom, so I'm looking forward to finding more resources to help with that.
Have you read 180 Days? What did you think?
Friday, July 13, 2018
Sunday, July 1, 2018
Why Do I Teach?
I was asked this question as part of the Adventurous Teaching Academy challenge I am participating in this year. I immediately came up with this sentence: I teach because I love reading and writing and I want to share that love with my students. I feel like it's kind of cheesy, but really those are my favorite parts of teaching- introducing students to books I know they're going to love, talking about books and reading with my kids of all reading abilities/loves, and getting kids excited about writing through silly activities or fun ones like NaNoWriMo.
Even though it is kind of cheesy, that is the reason why I teach. And, unfortunately, I feel like I forget my reason a lot of the time. I get caught up with trying to learn a new curriculum (like this year) or trying something new that is harder than I thought, or simply focusing too much on curriculum and standards. Those things are important, and I believe I grew a lot as a teacher last year (Especially in terms of what just doesn't work with my babies! lol) but I moved away from independent reading and sharing books & reading with my kiddos. Part of that was learning a new curriculum and figuring out a new school and a new grade, and part of that was seeing how other teachers in the building ran their classrooms, and part of that was me thinking it was "too hard" to fit it in. But honestly, I missed it. I missed all of my book talks and students actually checking out books from my classroom library, and seeing my students fall in love with books.
So this year, I'm determined to go back to that. I'm reworking our curriculum to meet the needs of my students. I'm making sure to carve out time for independent reading. I'm planning on book talks and sharing what I'm reading (plus actually reading during the school year, which I drifted away from the last few years) and so much more!
I really think that if I truly focus on fostering a love of reading and writing in my classroom, the other things will fall into place. It's a lot more fun to discuss theme or characters or narrative writing if students are engaged or tying it to books they love. I've re-found my purpose as a teacher and I am SO excited!
So why do you teach?
Even though it is kind of cheesy, that is the reason why I teach. And, unfortunately, I feel like I forget my reason a lot of the time. I get caught up with trying to learn a new curriculum (like this year) or trying something new that is harder than I thought, or simply focusing too much on curriculum and standards. Those things are important, and I believe I grew a lot as a teacher last year (Especially in terms of what just doesn't work with my babies! lol) but I moved away from independent reading and sharing books & reading with my kiddos. Part of that was learning a new curriculum and figuring out a new school and a new grade, and part of that was seeing how other teachers in the building ran their classrooms, and part of that was me thinking it was "too hard" to fit it in. But honestly, I missed it. I missed all of my book talks and students actually checking out books from my classroom library, and seeing my students fall in love with books.
So this year, I'm determined to go back to that. I'm reworking our curriculum to meet the needs of my students. I'm making sure to carve out time for independent reading. I'm planning on book talks and sharing what I'm reading (plus actually reading during the school year, which I drifted away from the last few years) and so much more!
I really think that if I truly focus on fostering a love of reading and writing in my classroom, the other things will fall into place. It's a lot more fun to discuss theme or characters or narrative writing if students are engaged or tying it to books they love. I've re-found my purpose as a teacher and I am SO excited!
So why do you teach?
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