Using Memes: Classroom Rules Edition

Hilarious. Ubiquitous. Perfection. 

Memes are fascinating for some unexplainable reason. I Other people spend hours combing through the interweb to find funnier and better memes. That's why there are about 17,000 different meme generators out there. 

I wanted to try them out and I thought what better way to use memes in my classroom than with the silly rules I make up each each year. So, I hopped on to a meme generator and in about ten minutes I had nine perfect memes. There was only one problem. I couldn't print them out because the images were just too little. I did some more googling, found another meme maker to no avail. There is nothing out there that just pops out memes in high resolution for teachers to print out. (WHY NOT INTERNET??) I thought about buying them, but then I would have to buy less for two reasons: #1 I don't have the wall space for nine posters, and remember how I'm a teacher? #2 I don't have the pocketbook for that kind of project.  

I had to take another road. My ten minute project turned into a four hour monster of a task, but I did it. I will save you the drama and heartache I had to undergo and skip to the "It is finished" part. 

Here are a few of my masterpieces:

 

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. (And I do.) If you want all of the images, you can purchase them here as pdf files. There are rules for talking, make up work, texting, lining up at the door (we don't do that because we are in high school), tardiness, name on paper, cheating, participating, and extra credit. I know what you are thinking: that's so many rules... what would Harry Wong say? I would say, Mr. Wong, they are cute and funny and totes adorbs, so I can have nine. 

If you'd rather make your own... then I wish you all the luck in the world. Just a quick note: a glass of wine might be a good idea.   

Happy teaching!!

Teach Romeo & Juliet with Concepts Over Content

We Need Change

If you don't already know the purpose of this blog, you can read about it here. However, the short of it is the English classroom needs a revolution. The heart of the uprising should be accepting we need to teach concepts instead of covering content. This idea isn't completely radical. I mean, the Chinese have been saying it for centuries: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." 

I know we aren't dealing in fish, but learning works the same way. Covering content is doing all the fishing for our students. We need to start teaching them how to fish for themselves. 

The First Step

Weaning ourselves off of reading every word of all the great literature available to us will be hard, I know. But, we can start small. I got started by skipping a chapter in Animal Farm in order to free up some time to practice more writing. And you know what? No kids were harmed in the process, no lighting bolts were thrown, my colleagues didn't pick up pitchforks and run me out of town. Somehow, it just worked. 

That experience gave me confidence to start chopping away at Romeo and Juliet. The first year, it began with small pieces. The scenes with the servants went first. Then a section from the Nurse babbling away endlessly, then parts of Queen Mab. And now, after four years of chipping away, I'm left with the best parts to teach symbolism, theme, expository structure, inference and so much more. These are skills the students can use on other Shakespeare plays or even sonnets. 

The Best Part

When you are ready, or if you already have made the leap to teaching concepts over content, you can find my one month long unit here or if you just want to try it out, here is the lesson just for the Prologue. I understand if you aren't ready to give up on every word of Shakespeare's beautiful language, but after going through this unit, my student's developed an appreciation instead of an aversion to Shakespeare. His name was no longer a curse word that incurred hissing when spoken aloud. You can find other lessons I did with Romeo and Juliet here.

Happy teaching!

Writing Strategies Galore

Look at all those tabs!

Last week I had the pleasure of going to a two-day seminar with Gretchen Bernabei. I can't even begin to explain how much I learned in twelves hours. True, most of the things we talked about were things I already teach, but the strategy to teach those things made me wonder how I didn't think of that in the first place. By the end of the seminar, I had a composition notebook full of stuff to take back to my classroom.



Here are a few of my favorite:

The Kernel Essay

Kernel: tiny yellow seed with the potential for yummy, buttery goodness when microwaved. 

Writing kernels are the same minus the butter and microwave. However, they can still be yummy. Sometimes. They are made up of four sentences that become the structure of the essay. 

Here's mine for the prompt "Write an essay about your favorite place" or something like that:

I have used this strategy in class in the past and the kids really latch on and get it. I am going to amp it up this year though. Also, this can be done with any type of writing, expository, narrative, or procedural.

You can go here to see a HUGE list of possible structures kids could use when writing kernels. Or, they could come up with their own. 

Expository vs. Narrative

When we did this together, I nearly face palmed myself. It's so simple and clear that I don't know why this isn't how we all show the difference between writing modes. It also employs our advice of "show not tell." My problem before was always just TELLING them the difference. Then, when I read essays, I would be so frustrated because I would be reading stories instead of essays. Then, I'd tell them again. Rinse and repeat. But this simple T-chart SHOWS instead of TELLS.

Before we did the chart, we chose an object from our childhood to write about. I chose a little stick man made of toothpicks that I used to decorate my Dad's "Over the Hill" cake when he turned 40.

Now, draw a T-chart like this:

We then wrote for two minutes. First on the left side, then on the right. Here's what I came up with:

I didn't finish, but you still get the idea. 

And, BOOM! There's the difference. The kids can actually see the difference in front of them. Then we took those short paragraphs and wrote kernel essays on note cards. 

Here are mine:

Gretchen then took them up and read them aloud having us guess which one was narrative and which was expository. So, the practice could continue from this one activity.


Expository











Narrative 

Pitchforking

Again, an oldy, but a goody. This strategy gives kids a more direct way to add detail to their writing. Take this sentence for instance: We baked a cake. Not terrible, but not great either. It offers so little explanation of my experience baking a cake, that you as the reader have to imagine a time when you baked a cake just to stay interested. That equals not good writing. That's where pitchforking comes in. 

Here's what my paper looked like at the end of this activity just for ONE SENTENCE!

I turned "We baked a cake" into "We laughed, decorated and sweated in the hot kitchen as we baked Dad's birthday cake, a moist, delicious reminder he was over the hill." Ummm.... wow!!

Just imagine if we could get our kids to pour over one sentence like that! But after a lot of practice, this strategy won't be a strategy anymore, it will just become natural.The great writers sitting in my classroom do this naturally, so hoping for that for the struggling writers isn't beyond our reach. 

These strategies only skim the surface of what I learned. For more, you can visit Gretchen's blog. A word of warning: combing through all the strategies there might take hours. So, make sure the kids are fed, all water facets are off, and there's no laundry to do in the near future.