Do your students have a negative attitude about poetry? Do you wish you could change that?
One way to combat this is by showing students that poetry is cool (or whatever the latest term is for being awesome).
My interactive bulletin board displays–which also come with presentations and a fun quiz handout–show students that the music they may listen to is similar to classic poetry. Plus, they are sure to pique your students' interest and challenge them. I offer these packs on TpT; click on the images or links below to learn more about each in my store.
IS IT GREEN DAY OR WALT WHITMAN?
Your students will be surprised by how much lyrics from a Green Day song and lines from a Walt Whitman poem have in common. Whitman is the father of free verse and lover of retrospect and while Green Day loves a rhyme, they also go deep and reflective. Here are a few samples:
So, how did you do?
This pack contains 45 quote cards, 134-slide presentation, student quiz (45 questions--same as the quote cards), and teacher answer key. It also includes a brief bio of both Green Day and Walt Whitman to give your students some background information on both.
IS IT QUEEN OR EMILY DICKINSON?
Again, the similarities are very surprising! Dickinson's lines are lyrical and Queen's are creative and sometimes a little out there. A perfect pairing. See for yourself:
What did you think about those?
Like my other packs, this pack contains the same presentation, quiz, answer key, and 40 bulletin board cards.
IS IT TUPAC OR SHAKESPEARE?
Tupac made it known that he loved reading (and acting in) William Shakespeare plays. Some of his lines in his rap music are taken straight from the Bard:
It's guaranteed to bring a new appreciation for both Shakespeare AND rap music!
This pack includes 40 bulletin board quote cards, student quiz, teacher key, and a 122-slide presentation. Use whichever you like to suit your students. It's a fun way to introduce Shakespeare or to bring awareness any time during the school year!
What other pairings would you like to see? Drop me a suggestion in the comments and if I create it, I'll send it to you free!
FREE DISPLAY:
POEM IN YOUR POCKET DISPLAY
This free download features short poems that are easy to print, cut, and have available for students to take. I provide a fun pocket display in which you can stick the poems. I like to keep this up all year long so students always have poetry available.
You can find additional ideas at poets.org for Poetry Month or any time of the year. Also, check out my poetry Pinterest boards:
I had a classroom set of very old, falling apart To Kill a Mockingbird books. They were in too poor of condition to resell or donate (many were missing pages). Some of the pages we used for a blackout poetry project. But with 100+ of these books, I wanted to find another easy way to repurpose my favorite novel.
BOOK QUOTE ORNAMENT (Glued on outside of ball) I was inspired by images on Pinterest of so many book crafts; one that caught my eye that I knew I would be capable of making was an image of a holiday ornament made from pages of a book. I gathered up some old plastic colored balls and grabbed my Modge Podge glue and scissors and started cutting and gluing.
I quickly realized that my strips were too wide. If you are gluing the pages on the outside of the ball, cut the strips into two- or three-line strips. The skinnier the quotes, the easier they are to wrap around the ball. I found wrapping them vertically rather than horizontally worked best. But this way does take a long time. I also found out NOT to glue your favorite quotes first, because chances are, they will be covered up. The first layer of quotes will probably not show, so feel free to glue blank pages first, then your favorite quotes after. It took me several hours just to complete one. The more I made, though, the faster I became. Picking out the quotes probably took the longest.
They were pretty but needed a little sparkle. I purchased some Diamond Dust, clear glitter, and clear "vase filler" baubles that looked like little ice pebbles and figured I would experiment with each and see what I liked best.
Make sure to let the ornaments dry completely overnight or for at least 12 hours before adding any embellishments. I found my favorite look was to glue the ice pebbles near the top, then sprinkle the diamond dust on top and down the sides. I didn't want too much because I wanted to be able to read the quotes through the dust and glitter.
You can experiment with the amount of bling you wish to add.
BOOK QUOTE ORNAMENT (Filled clear balls or other shapes) I really love the look of the glued strips on the balls, but not the amount of time they took. So I purchased some clear balls and present shapes and decided to fill them instead. (This ornament is FAST and so easy!)
I took the quotes and wrapped them around my pinky, then stuck them in the balls. Most of them retained their shapes. I experimented with wrapping them around skinnier objects like a colored pencil or just rolling them into a spiral helped keep their curls better.
While just the book quotes looked nice, they tended to just roll up together into one big curl. So I realized I needed another element inside the shapes to keep them from doing that. I added a mixture of the diamond dust, clear glitter, silver glitter, and some of the little ice pebbles. This worked well. Adding another paper element that wasn't rolled into a curl, however, worked the best. I had some crinkles--I don't know what you call these things, but they are like shredded paper folded in zig zags--left over from a gift, so I added some of those, and they worked. They kept the quote strips apart and added some color, too.
There are so many possibilities you can try with this type of ornament. As long as it fits in the ball, you could add charms, beads, and anything that fits inside relating to the novel.
I hope you enjoy this little craft and are able to repurpose your own old novel sets into beautiful ornaments. Feel free to ask me any questions in the comments.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!)
SURVIVING HOMECOMING WEEK: TIPS FOR SECONDARY TEACHERS For middle and high school teachers, Homecoming week seems like an endless struggle to get kids to focus in class while competing with pep assemblies, float building, dress-up days, hallway decorating, and last-minute dance preparations.
I've known teachers who took pleasure in punishing students with extra homework, tests/quizzes, and detentions just for being a little over excited. I've also known teachers who have a free-day every day and the kids have too much time on their hands and end up causing major discipline problems.
I think there's a happy medium. I try not to schedule homework during the week, but do have some productive class periods. Albeit, they are not as productive as in other weeks, but this is the ONE week students get to be kids and have fun, so I cut them some slack.
And despite what some may think about Homecoming week becoming a lost week of learning, valuable learning is still taking place that might be even more essential in the workplace: students are learning how to work as a team on large-scale projects, leaders are being developed, negotiation and problem-solving skills are at their peak. Over half of my years teaching I have been a class sponsor and have supervised more hours than I care to count (all unpaid). But one thing is certain: more students are able to participate in building these skills when they have a lighter homework load. Seeing students working together as classmates with only their pride on the line is a beautiful thing to witness. To help your students participate in more activities, consider relaxing your regular curriculum for a day or two during the week with some creative activities. Don't worry, they will still practice learning skills. Here are a few to try: GAMES, GAMES, and more GAMES BOARD GAMES: Playing games can be educational. I like to play word games like Scrabble and Boggle in class. You can set up stations and students can choose which game station they wish to participate. Taboo, Scattergories, Apples to Apples, Mad Gab, Pictionary, Bananagrams, etc. OTHER GAMES: These games get students up out of their seats. • Heads Up: Make your own version with words related to your content area or a unit you are studying. One student must hold the card with the word on it and the rest of the class (or divide into teams) give clues so the one holding the card can guess the word. • Charades: Again, make your own prompts related to your content area or unit you are studying. Students act out the words/prompts for their classmates to guess. • Who Am I?: Perfect for reviewing people, events, even concepts or vocabulary words. • Never Have I Ever: As a way to review characters in a book or story or historical figures, have your students pretend to be characters and use events from the novel for prompts.
Students play Quizlet Live in class.
ONLINE GAMES: If you teach in a 1:1 school, playing online games together can be fun. Plus, students love being competitive with one another. There's just something about a "game" that makes any type of review fun. • Kahoot: My students love playing Kahoot and searching the most popular games brings up fun topics like Disney movies, brain teasers, popular logos, name the celebrity, etc. You can also, of course, search in your content area for games. • FreeRice.com: Students compete in various educational content areas (vocabulary, math, grammar, art history, geography, etc.) and raise $ to feed starving families at the same time. • Quizlet Live: Use your existing word lists for students to compete in live competitions with one another. • Socrative: No need to type in any questions; just read review questions, random trivia, homecoming-related questions, etc. Students compete live against each other. CREATIVE ACTIVITIES WRITING PROMPTS: Writing shouldn't be boring or a chore. Make it more interesting by relating it to Homecoming. • Have students journal about their favorite Homecoming festivities (dress-up days, assembly, skits, game, dance, etc.). • Give them a prompt relating to the Homecoming theme (ex.: if the theme is related to fairy tales, ask them their favorite fairy tale or to come up with their own story; if it's a Western theme, ask them what life would be like if they lived in the Wild West; if it's about outer space, ask them if they would travel in space if they had the opportunity, etc.). • One of my favorite short writing prompts is one I share free. I have my students do it several times throughout the year and they LOVE hearing what their classmates wrote. You can find it HEREand read more about it HEREandHERE.
Students create found poems in class.
FOUND POETRY: I keep a collection of words from my Magnetic Poetry Kit and cut from magazines, newspapers, posters, etc. I store them in little baggies that I hang on the inside of one of my cupboards. These come in handy so often. I love to have students create spur-of-the-moment poems relating to whatever we are reading or studying at the time. Use this activity during Homecoming week and have students create poems relating to the theme or whatever you wish. BATTLE OF THE SEXES (Classroom Edition): If you aren't familiar with the party game "Battle of the Sexes," it is a game in which men and women compete against one another by answering questions that are stereotypically geared toward the opposite sex. I use this activity as a way to jump-start discussions on stereotyping at the beginning of the year. But I like to have my students come up with the questions themselves. It can take a while to compile enough questions for a full game, so I do carry over questions from year-to-year. This is a game that students usually beg to play throughout the year, so it's a perfect addition during Homecoming week. I hope these activities help you get through Homecoming week and have some fun with your students. Just remember: learning doesn't always have to come from a book. If you are a class sponsor, look for my next post about the best materials to use and how to keep your sanity while float building, assembly organizing, dance planning, and more.
Creating and Posting Assignments, Announcements, and Questions in Google Classroom™ Now that you've set up your classes and invited your students to join them, it's time to start posting content. Your class "stream" will look like this (make sure you have the "Stream" tab selected in the middle of the header):
When you click on the plus (+) sign in the lower right-hand corner, your options for posting appear:
Google Classroom gives you four options for the types of content to post: an Announcement, Assignment, Question, or ReuseaPost. In this post, I'll discuss Announcements and Assignments with examples. In my next post, I'll cover posting a Question and Reusing a post. ANNOUNCEMENTS: Use this to announce to your class any important or pertinent information, reminders, supplemental materials to help them, etc. You can use this feature right away to welcome students to your online classroom and give them any class news, instructions, advice, or whatever. Share a link to a vocabulary list in Quizlet or No Red Ink assignment (more on that below). I also used "Announcement" to share funny memes or videos related to our unit of study.
After you click on the "Create announcement" choice, a pop-up window appears, which looks like this:
You have several decisions to make: Decide if you want to share it with just the one class or multiple classes. If you want it to be shared with multiple classes, click on the drop-down menu for the class and you can check off the other classes you want to share with.
Another option is if you want to just share with certain students. For example, if three students were absent from class and you want to share some lecture notes with them, you can select just those three from that drop-down menu. If you choose this option, you can NOT share the announcement with other classes; you'll have to go into each one and create a new announcement for individuals from those classes. Normally when you click on "All students," a list of your students will come up. (The screenshot below was taken before students joined the class.)
TIP: You can also create "Topics" for your announcements or assignments. These are like tags that will allow you to click on the tag and find all the other posts under that topic. Example topics you could use might be for different units of study (a specific novel, short stories, argument writing, poetry, etc.), or for general topics of study (reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, etc.), types of work in class (bell ringer, homework, essay, reading assignment, etc.), or for time periods (1st quarter, 2nd quarter, or September, October, etc.). Whatever you choose, just remember that you can only choose ONE topic per posting, so make it something that will make sense for your students (or you) to use as a tag.
Watch this video on creating topics using the "Topics" sidebar:
After you have decided on a topic (and you don't have to--I didn't use them at all my first year), you will notice there are options below on whether you want to attach a document or link. The icons represent attaching a file (paperclip), attaching a file from Google Drive™, linking to a YouTube video (play button), and adding a link from the web:
If you click on the first two (attaching documents), it takes you to a window where you can choose to upload from your computer/device or from Google Drive™ using tabs at the top ("Recent" pulls your most recent files you've uploaded or modified in Google Drive™ and "Starred" are all the documents you have marked with a star in your Drive*--see below):
Whatever you insert, it will create a copy of it in a special Classroom folder. (More on that in another post.)
*TIP: To mark a document with a star so it is easy to find when attaching to posts, select that file in Google Drive™, then go up to the document settings and select the three dots that indicate more options. In the drop down, you'll see the option to "Add a star." Select that and then it will appear in your "Starred" options.
Finally, you can either "Post" the announcement, "Schedule" it to be posted later, or "Save" your draft and edit and post later. I often used either the "Schedule" or "Save" feature when I created a post late at night and did not want to wake my students with a notification. Be aware that unless students have turned off those notifications, they will get them on their device when you post something.
Once you post it, it will appear in the class "Stream."
ASSIGNMENTS:Use the assignment feature to post something that you want to distribute and collect from students for a grade. This should be something that also has a due date. If there isn't a due date or work to collect, consider just using the announcement feature instead.
To post an assignment, follow the same steps as an announcement, but select "Create assignment." You will see a pop-up window that looks like this:
You have the same decisions to make as you did with posting an announcement:
1. Who do you want to assign this to? All classes? Just this class?
2. All students? Just certain students?
3. What do you want to title your assignment?
4. Would you like to file this under one of your topics?
5. Would you like to attach a document or link to this assignment? (More on this in #8)
6. Would you like to assign immediately, schedule it, or save the draft?
In addition, you will also need to decide the following:
7. Due date: You can select a day and a specific time by clicking on the drop-down menus.
8. Attachments: Do you want to share a document that all students can view, or do you want each student to be able to collaborate and edit the same document, or allow each individual to have their own copy?
If it is something they are going to turn in to you, make sure you select that each student has his/her own copy. (I can't tell you how many times I forgot to select that option and I would hear several students call out, "I can't type on this!!")
TIP: I mentioned this in my last blog post, but it is worth mentioning again: If you make a copy for each student and you have a co-teacher, it does NOT make a copy for the co-teacher. Therefore, if your co-teacher opens the document, any edits she/he makes happen on your template and appear on every student copy. Several times I had an aide typing the answers onto what she thought was her own copy as I was lecturing. Instead, she was typing the answers on every single student's copy. And do you think those students told us right away? Of course not!
The only fix for this is to make sure your co-teacher makes her/his own copy manually. She/He can open the file, then select File > Make a copy. Right now, this is the only way to ensure your original template remains intact. The students DO NOT have to do this; only a co-teacher if you have one in your Google Classroom™ class.
If you have a co-teacher in Google Classroom™,
she/he will need to make a copy of the file in order to make changes to it.
You can review how to create an assignment in my video:
Thanks for stopping by for this tutorial. I will post next time on using the "Ask a question" and "Reuse post" options.
Tips for secondary teachers on how you should set up your classes (pros and cons of having one Classroom per subject or one Classroom per class period).
Includes tips and tutorials for creating new classes; customizing the look of your classes; adding new materials/online text; adding students; and adding co-teachers, teacher aides, or access for special education teachers.
Includes tips and tutorials for creating assignments, announcements, and topics. Also has tips on how to save and delay posting and collecting work for students.
Includes tips and tutorials for creating questions, the types of questions available (multiple choice & short answer), allowing students to interact and respond to one another, and how to easily reuse posts from class to class and year to year.
To see all of my tutorial posts for using Google Classroom™, click here:
Google Classroom™ is a trademark of Google Inc. Use of this trademark is subject to Google Brand Permissions.
