Writing Wednesday: The Random Dialogue Assignment

Writing random snippets is a challenge for young writers (and old) that helps to focus on voice.  This particular assignment is timed, so the writer must think fast and not be hung up on being "perfect".  

First, on paper or computer, students write down four numbers between 1 - 10.  They can be the same numbers. 

Got them?  Now, scroll down below the picture and you will find that your first number will be the first character.  The second number will be the second character.  The third will be the setting and the fourth will be the subject of the dialogue.

First Number - Character number one

1. a mom
2. a kid
3. an alien
4. a dog
5. a rich man
6. a grocery store owner
7. a soldier
8. a baby
9. a superhero
10. a vampire

Second Number - Character number two

1. a dad
2. a teenager
3. the President of the United States
4. a cat
5. a poor woman
6. a cowboy
7. a spy
8. a wizard
9. a super villain
10. a werewolf

Third Number - Setting

1. morning at the beach
2. in a grocery store
3. in the White House
4. on a city building rooftop
5. nighttime in a graveyard
6. on a golf course
7. by the pool in winter
8. in a school classroom
9. in a fast food restaurant
10. Christmastime in a house

Fourth Number - Dialogue Subject

1. how much something costs
2. the latest video game
3. deciding on where to go for a date (not necessarily with each other)
4. politics
5. a dream the first character had last night
6. what to have for the next meal
7. character two is not happy about something character one did
8. character one is excited about something that just happened
9. a sporting event
10. a movie they just watched

Now, you decide if they are arguing, being silly, serious, discussing, fighting, happy, etc.  You had ten minutes, so no time to think ready...  GO!

 

Have you got any fun writing prompts that you would like to share or did this in your class with some good results?  Let us know in the comments!

Tech Tuesday: Copying Events onto Multiple Google Calendars

 Hey guys!  Exams are this week, so I'll make this post brief.  

If you have multiple class calendars for your class and you want to add the same event to multiple class calendars, you can't do it in one swift click, but you can at least use this short cut to save you some typing time.

Good luck with your exams and the start of a new semester!  We are about to try out hybrid learning.  I can't say I'm too thrilled about the new challenges that is going to bring, but at least we can say teaching is never boring!

Ace the State Test!

 Do you have a state mandated reading comprehension test for your course?  At this point you have done everything you can do to increase their ability to read, now it is time to supercharge their test taking ability!

There is no charge for this activity, just download it from the Extreme English Teacher Teachers-Pay-Teachers store.  If you like it, I would appreciate a positive review.  Those really do help!

Standardized reading tests are a joke, if you ask me.  We are requiring students to spend an hour and a half to two hours focusing on boring reading passages. What this activity does well is to give students the ability to focus a little longer to get another passage in before their brain fries from your oh-so-wonderful state test.  The methods in there were honed in my classroom and I consistently had my non-motivated non-readers score higher than expected on the NC English II EOC and the NCFE for English IV (my scores were in the blue repeatedly, if you are a fellow NC teacher and knows what that means).  The method works! 

If you used it, let me know in the comments and again - positive reviews on Teachers-Pay-Teachers is ALWAYS APPRECIATED!

Common Lit

 

Want a pretty easy-to-use, but also effective reading comprehension activity?  You need to look no further than https://www.commonlit.org/

Common Lit has thousands of reading passages with questions ready to go.  Once you set up an account, it is pretty easy for students to use.  You just give them your access code.  You can make a separate code for all of your periods to help keep that grading from getting muddled.

Fiction Passages - Unlike many other online reading comprehension sites out there (I'm looking at you, Newsela), Common Lit has fiction as well as nonfiction.  In fact, they have a lot of fiction - and from well known authors too.  The passages are from classic authors like Frost and from contemporary authors like J. K. Rowling.

The Difficulty Level - You choose how difficult you want this to be.  Passages are labeled by grade level, but the students do not see that.  My seniors are not strong readers and I usually give them passages between 8-9 grade level.  They do not know.  Sometimes I'll go as low as 4th grade and as high as 12th grade.  Whatever level I find useful for the moment.

Passage Length - How long do you want it?  Some passages are poems as short as three lines long.  Some are full length short stories going of for pages.  For my purposes, I usually find ones that are about a half to a full page in length.

Selection - You can sort passages by a variety of filters - Lexile level, grade level, genres, themes, literary devices.  You can even search by the novel you are reading in class and find supplementary texts that pair nicely with the book (they even suggest where you should be in the book before assigning the article).

The Questions - They have some that are multiple choice and some that are short answer.  You can choose to assign both or just the one or the other.  The multiple choice questions are automatically graded while you need to grade the short answer.  Students will not see the grades until you release the scores.  That way you can make sure everyone has had a chance to submit the questions before the correct answers are floating around.  You also have the option to exempt students or assign a passage to a particular student or group.

Here's How I Use It - Each Monday I assign two articles for students to work on that week.  They have until Sunday at midnight to work on them (well, that is what I tell them - it really is until Monday morning when I come into school).  On Monday morning, I go through those assignments and exempt students who haven't attempted it yet (it's an easy two click process).  This makes it so that they students will no longer have access to those articles.  Then, when I have the time, I input their grades into PowerSchool and release the score tot he students.  I also, each week, assign one optional make-up article to replace a bad or missing grade.  With this set up, if I have a sub or need to fill some time, one of my go to lesson plans is to give students time in class to knock out a Common Lit article or two.  

Oh, I may have forgotten to tell you this - IT'S ABSOLUTELY FREE!  Guys, it doesn't LOOK like a free site.  There are no ads.  They could easily - EASILY - charge school a few thousand a year for access to this tool.  But they don't.  They are EXTREME!

I'm interesting in hearing from anyone else who uses it or has another online reading comprehension tool that they use.  tell me in comments!

Wireless Microphone

 My district is looking at returning to in-person, but we will be teaching a virtual class at the same time.  Teaching virtually ties me down to the laptop since if I move too far away from it, the remote students can't hear me.  Sticking right at the computer diminishes my ability to teach the kids in the room.  So what to do?

I decided to look into a wireless microphone that would work with my computer.  I found this one on Amazon and a video of a guy testing it out.  He was a whole block away and I could hear him perfectly!

Now if you only watched a portion of video, you may have seen him using it, but his mouth not synched up.  Later he said that was because he was using the phone instead of the laptop.  He then recorded off his computer and his voice was synch with his mouth.

The downside?  It runs about $50.  

You can find it on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Microphone-Alvoxcon-Podcasting-Conference-Recording/dp/B08DV5NJJM

I'm going to keep looking to see if I can find one a little cheaper, but I'm thinking that $50 might be worth it if it works and gives me some freedom to move around the room.

I'd love to hear from any of you who are teaching both in-class and remote at the same time and hear what your problems are and solutions, if you've thought of them yet.  Or if anyone has used a wireless mic - are they worth it?

10 Day Blitz

 Just a quick thought here - many of us are working in some sort of remote or hybrid schedule and it is difficult for the students to sometimes get their head around it.  Even though they are doing (most likely) less work than what you would be assigning if you were in class as normal, they are feeling like it is more work than ever.

We get that.  We see it in our own daily schedule.  Who would have thought teaching remotely would take this much effort?

So I've been doing something to help my students get their head around their work.  I looked at what was still left to do and what was most commonly needed to be made up and I broke it down for them by days of the week.  This way, it doesn't feel so overwhelming.  It went something like this:

Monday - do the first Common Lit article; work on vocabulary.com for 5 minutes

Tuesday - do the second Common Lit article; work on vocabulary.com for 4 minutes; if you did not complete the vocabulary crossword then do that today (link to online crossword)

Wednesday - If you are missing a past Common Lit article, do the make up article; work on vocabulary.com for 3 minutes (test tomorrow); work on Author Revision paper for 10 minutes

Thursday - If you did not do the Edmentum Reading Diagnostic test, do that today; if you are missing the Quizizz for chapter 25, do that today (link); if you did not need to do any of the above, work on you Author Revision Paper for 10 minutes

Friday - If you did not do the Grammar Blast, do it today; work on your Author Revision Paper for 15 minutes (you should be done with the 950 words requirement); I will give a make up vocabulary list 2 test at 12:00 - look in your email for login information; Vocabulary 3 test make up will be given at 12:30.

Saturday - If you are missing the Email Etiquette assignment, know that out today.

Sunday - Take a break!

And so on for ten days worth of work.  

This does a few things:

• Helps the student who is feeling overwhelmed to get his/her assignments together.  It is much better for them than to just give them a list of missing and upcoming assignments.
• Model for students how to keep up with assignments, especially those who are looking to go to college in a year or two.
• Helps the parents to assist their child at home by giving them what to remind their child to do (I send this to the students AND parents).
• Helps you in case an administrator wants to know what YOU  did to help the student.

I try to get the students to Zoom with me one on one and work out a specific schedule just for him or her.  that's always better than a generic one, but a generic schedule is better than no schedule.

It is a bit more work on your already overloaded shoulders, but in the long run, it is time spent that pays off in several ways.

Friday Film Festival: The Lord of the Flies - Modern Classics Summarized

Overly Sarcastic Productions breaks down literature classics in a rather sharp manner!  Watch their take on Lord of the Flies:

Check out my Lord of the Flies survival game you can play in class (if we ever safely get back to a classroom setting, that is). http://lordalford.com/lotf/lotfframeset.htm

Do you do anything special for Lord of the Flies when you teach it?  Let us know in the comments section!