Showing posts with label secondary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label secondary. Show all posts

Using Holiday Ads in the Classroom

Using Holiday Ads in the Classroom www.traceeorman.com


During the holidays, advertisers ramp up their advertising, luring buyers to their stores. They'll use colorful, vivid words to snag new customers, which actually works in YOUR favor, English teachers! You can use their ads to teach a number of lessons.

Using Holiday Ads in the Classroom  www.traceeorman.com

1. CHANCE (or DADA) POEMS: Cut up the words and use them for an impromptu poetry writing session. I like to store the words in little plastic baggies and use them when we have time left at the end of the period. I'll have students work in groups and prompt them to create a poem based on the lesson we just practiced (or the book/story/character we are reading). Or if there is a fun event coming up (a holiday, a dance, etc.), have them create a poem related to the event. Give them a limited time to create a poem, then have each group share with the class.

Using Holiday Ads in the Classroom  www.traceeorman.com

Writing chance poems with newspaper ads  www.traceeorman.com


2. PARTS OF SPEECH REVIEW: Have students cut out the words themselves*, only with a twist--require students to find an example of each part of speech (noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection). You can make it a contest and see who can come up with the most (and the most interesting). *If the words are already cut out, they can just each take a baggie full and sort them by part of speech.

3. REVIEW IDIOMS AND CLICHÉS: Ads are perfect for containing overused idioms and clichés. Introduce and/or review the figurative phrases with your students. Have them find their own in the ads, old magazines, or in newspaper headlines.

Review Idioms and Clichés with Holiday Ads  www.traceeorman.com


4. ANALYZE THE MERIT OF MARKETING: Have students look over the ads, analyzing the marketing techniques used, including the word choices and design/aesthetics (colors, font, and placement of words and products on the page). Which phrases stood out to them? Which did they pay little attention to? Were others more effective? Why?

5. ANALYZE TARGET AUDIENCES: As students look over the ads, ask them to evaluate who might the target audience be for the ad. How did they come to that conclusion? Which words and/or phrases did they use as clues? Do the ads stereotype?

I've been using ads and newspapers in my classroom for years. If you do not have access to a newspaper or magazines, check with your media specialist to see if she/he has older copies that can be saved for you. Also, your school may be eligible for Newspapers in Education. It's a wonderful program that supplies classrooms with copies of newspapers, which are paid for by donations from local businesses.

My Magnetic Poetry Kit is also an option for activities #1 and #2 if you don't have access to newspapers or magazines.

You can keep collecting the ads through the spring: Valentine's Day ads are perfect for love-inspired poems; there's also President's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, and so on... Each holiday will offer different flavors of language to suit the occasion.

Use holiday ads in the English/Language Arts classroom  www.traceeorman.com


COMING SOON: Handouts for each of these activities, which will be included in my POETRY BUNDLE (a bundle of ALL of my poetry-related resources...past, present, and future!)

Poetry bundle: A growing bundle of all my poetry resources


Using Holiday Ads in the Classroom  www.traceeorman.com

Using Holiday Ads in the Classroom  www.traceeorman.com


Decorating Your Secondary Classroom {18 Things to Consider}

 
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  My friends over at Created for Learning put together an excellent blog post with tips from several secondary teachers on decorating classrooms. You'll want to head over there to get the entire blog post, but I'll share a few here as a tease. ;)


http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Created-For-Learning
It's weird how sometimes our decorations end up disconnected with how old our students really are. I teach 7th and 8th graders. Some of them come from fine, constant, healthy family and personal lives.

They are the 3rd and 4th sibling to come through our school and succeed. They play Flappy Bird, use Snapchat and Ask.fm, watch videos on Vine and play medieval phone app games before school.

However, while still maintaining privacy, I can share that just last year, I had students bullying each other, students sharing racy photos on social media to improve modeling portfolios, students cutting themselves, students attempting suicide, even students creating fake online profiles to bully themselves to gain attention.

This is the middle school world we teach in. These are the students we are decorating our rooms for. These just might not be clip-art kids. And high school is another giant leap forward (or backward), but it's a giant leap somewhere. What would our classrooms look like if we designed them to engage these minds and attentions?





http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/The-Teacher-Team
As a teacher, you can use words in clever ways to ìdecorateî your classroom, not only to fill up walls but also to make your students wise. One idea is to title specific areas of your wall in a
http://createdforlearning.blogspot.com/2014/08/18-things-to-consider-when-decorating.htmltargeted/meaningful way.  Carol used an idiom over her writing wall to teach idioms and open the door to the fundamentals of figurative language. In Johnís class, he uses ìCognitive Content Dictionariesî to be placed in a prominent locations which teaches key academic vocabulary as well as ìTier 2î vocabulary to aid in understanding text for EL learners.  Inspirational or humorous posters and quotes can also be used to fill smaller spaces and give students ideas to ponder on their own.

 http://createdforlearning.blogspot.com/2014/08/18-things-to-consider-when-decorating.html
http://createdforlearning.blogspot.com/2014/08/18-things-to-consider-when-decorating.html




http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Tracee-Orman
I have several items that I have in my room from my first year of teaching in 1999. Why do I keep them around? Mostly because they are either funny, sentimental, timeless, or related to a favorite book. Here are some examples: 

• (Funny) Close to Home (by John McPherson) comic: It has hung on my classroom door for many
years. I like to show my students that no matter how strict I may seem, I'm nothing compared to Mrs. Mutner. 
Classroom Pictures from www.traceeorman.com

• (Sentimental) Pictures of former students: Students love looking at pictures of past students. Plus, it helps me remember the names of my former students.
Classroom Pictures from www.traceeorman.com 

• (Timeless) This quote is timeless (and a great lesson on perspective), funny, and sentimental: my brother was an assistant coach for the St. Francis baseball team at the time (April, 1996). Robert Morris threw in the towel after the fourth inning, but the fact that they persevered until then also shows
character.
Quote on Perspective from www.traceeorman.com 

• (Favorite Book): My To Kill a Mockingbird framed pictures. TKaM is still my favorite book and I love being able to share my love for it with my students. My framed pictures and book review from 1960 are probably my most prized classroom items.
TKaM prints from www.traceeorman.com





http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Created-By-Mrhughes
As a 14 year teaching veteran, I have tried countless ways to create bulletin boards for cheap. Cost does become a factor, and something a teacher should think of- we spend enough money on our classes without adding the extra cost of bulletin board decorations.  

I have found that some of my most engaging and most talked about boards were not the ones with flawless borders and themed decorations. Actually, it was just the contrary- Black butcher paper background, with the titles and words written in chalk with borders that were hand-drawn, got quite the reaction from my students. These example pictures will help explain what I mean:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Created-By-Mrhughes
 http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Created-By-Mrhughes
Also, don't forget to use items in your room. For example, when teaching about a topic, I hang mentor texts from my bulletin board so the kids can "see" examples of published work that supports the topic. 

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Created-By-Mrhughes  
Remember to keep it simple, engaging, and useful!



http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Created-For-Learning
All praise and adoration to my teachers growing up, but I can't remember a single one that decorated their room for us guys. And I probably lean toward decorating for the boys...I tend to teach novels that will engage boys. So we deserve it to both genders to take a good long hard look at our rooms and decorations and ask if the boys and girls will be entertained and informed, tantalized and taught.

"But what if I think it's good? What do I do then?"

  Ask our students. They will be honest. Sometimes too much so. But we'll always find out what they think. If we need to, we can do a quick anonymous poll or ballot or something. But we can find out what each gender thinks, if we ask.


CLICK HERE to read ALL the tips for secondary teachers!


Again, thank you Created for Learning for putting together this great blog post with fabulous tips from our fellow secondary teachers! The contributors are listed below:

Blog Contributors Cliff's Notes

Laura Randazzo
>>> Blog ||| TeachersPayTeachers Store
The Teacher Team
>>> Blog ||| TeachersPayTeachers Store
Tracee Orman
>>> Blog ||| TeachersPayTeachers Store 

Created by Mr. Hughes >>> Blog ||| TeachersPayTeachers Store
Julie Faulkner
>>> Blog ||| TeachersPayTeachers Store
Students of History
>>> Blog ||| TeachersPayTeachers Store 

Created for Learning >>> Blog ||| TeachersPayTeachers Store

Back to School Sale: Secondary Teachers Blast From the Past Yearbook

Back to School Sale: Secondary Teachers Yearbook Blast from the Past!


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  Oh, remember the days of middle and high school? How much simpler life was back then? Join your fellow secondary teachers for a blast-from-the-past celebration as TeachersPayTeachers kicks of its Back-to-School sale early this year!

  Life can be simpler for you using resources made by teachers.  The TeachersPayTeachers back-to-school sale is August 4th and 5th (yes, this coming week!). Use the code BTS14 at checkout to get the best savings.

  Stock up on tons of back-to-school/beginning of the year resourcesclassroom decor, Common Core-aligned lessons, activitieslesson planning, and so much more.

Special thanks to Danielle Knight who compiled all the secondary teacher's pictures and made the *totally awesome* photo above. Comment below with your graduation year (if you dare!) and attach a link to your favorite photo from school (optional...but it's so fun to see all the old pics!).

Here's mine (well, probably not my favorite, but it's my senior picture):

Mrs. Orman's Classroom: Back to School Yearbook!

It took me hours to crimp, curl, and tease that hair. I hope big hair is never back in style... 

You'll find everything you need for a successful school year in these secondary stores:

Brighten Up the Winter Blues with a Poetry Cafe

Have a poetry cafe event in your English class www.traceeorman.com
Host a poetry cafe this winter!

For me, January through March seems to be the hardest part of the school year to get through. The students are either restless (or just plain tired), the weather is always cruddy (I live in the Midwest), and there's really no holiday breaks to look forward to. (Not that I don't love my job, but you know what I mean...)

To break up the monotonous routine and get students excited for literature, my colleagues and I have put on "poetry cafes." The students all gather during their English class period in the media center and take turns sharing their favorite poems, songs, and other literature. Some of them share their own original poems, others read old favorites. The Foods classes make coffee, cocoa, and treats to sell and our librarian put together packages of books, writing journals, candy, and gift cards to give away toward the end of each class period. Every student who reads aloud is given a raffle ticket. Each class period we drew several tickets for the prizes. It has always been a favorite event of students in English classes.

It is important to give students time BEFORE the cafe to actually write some original poems. I like to use my Write Like Poets activities with my students because every single student in my class ends up with an entire book of poems they have written. Yes, it gets even the most stubborn "I hate writing and I'm never going to write a poem" students to actually write poems. Guaranteed!

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You can easily host a poetry cafe in your own classroom before doing a school-wide event. We tend to do the school-wide cafe every-other year or once every three years. During those off-years I host my own in my English classes. We move all the desks out of the way and have pillows and beanbags so students can relax on the floor (I do have carpet). Then I put up holiday lights. Students sign-up ahead of time to bring goodies and bring their own beverage. I usually pick up small gifts of pens and journals/notebooks from Target's $1 spot.

Poetry cafe raffle or door prizes ideas www.traceeorman.com
Find clearance items in the school supplies section for door or raffle prizes.
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This past fall I found some great magnetic poetry kits at WalMart for 50¢ each. They were 75% off from their back-to-school sale. I also picked up some locker white-board kits, cute post-it notes, and locker fresheners. It's so much easier to find things the girls would like, but the boys seem to like anything they could use in their car. Of course, candy always works for them, too. (I teach high school, so if you have any suggestions for other things that boys would like, please share!).

Do you host a poetry cafe? Share your ideas or a link in the comments below. Thanks for stopping by!

For more information on my Write Like Poets, click below:




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