Let's Share Thursday - Creative Writing

Today is Thursday, and you know what that means. . . It is time to SHARE again!!!!!

I found two resources for teaching creative writing that are both very different, but also very useful.

http://www.creativewritingprompts.com/ is a list of 329 creative writing prompts that can be used in the classroom.

http://teacher2b.com/creative/createwr.htm is a wonderful site that has many, many complete lesson and unit plans to teach all aspects of creative writing.

If you would like to share a lesson or site that has worked well for you or offers great ideas, comment below or e-mail an attachment to me at danielle.mickelson@sendit.nodak.edu . I will compile them and send them out to all that participate. Have a great day, everyone!

Education Should Be Fair

Hello. Sorry I missed yesterday, but I was not in school yesterday. I had a day that I am only willing to 'replay' on my Out of Control Life blog!!! Yes, it was that bad. Maybe by tonight I will be far enough from the trauma that I will be able to document it. :)

Back to education.

One thing that I truly believe and always will is that education needs to be 'fair.' I know that there have been times in my own career when a lesson that I have created has been unfair to one student or another.

Sometimes I am too focused on lecturing, at the expense of my creative types.
Sometimes I am too focused on creative writing, at the expense of my technical learners.

Sometimes I am too focused on my special education students, at the expense of my high achievers.

I could continue this list, but that is not the point.

What is most important about my growth as an educator is that I recognize these 'truths' and work constantly and consistently to change my preparation and teach in a way that is fair to all.

Fair is when everyone gets the instruction they need to succeed - not when everyone gets the same instruction.

My critics will inevitably be thinking or saying that it is impossible to individualize instruction for each and every student who comes through the classroom door. I agree. It is easier for me than it is for many of my colleagues across the state and nation because my largest class is twenty-one, and my smallest is twelve. I also have the advantage of teaching the same students from the time they are in junior high until graduation.

I am only at a disadvantage in the number of levels I must prepare for each day. During a normal school year, I prepare for grades 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 daily. That is a lot of preparation, especially when small schools are notoriously understaffed in special education areas.

None of this matters. O.K., I will clarify. It does, and it does not. These factors matter in the day to day challenges each and every teacher faces. The factors do not matter when the education of students is concerned. Each of them deserves what they need to be successful. Period.

Do I have all the answers? No way. Do I have some suggestions? Yes. I cannot pretend to know what will make each and every individual teacher a success. I do know what has worked to help me improve, and I want to share.

1. Know the standards and benchmarks. Having a healthy working knowledge of the standards and benchmarks of the curriculum you teach, along with the ones above and below your grade level/levels allows for a consistent scope and sequence of curriculum. I am not saying 'memorize' them word for word. Just be able to attach one or more standards to each lesson you teach. It will keep you grounded.

2. Be open minded to new brain research and actively seek out the new discoveries. Try not to get stuck in the belief that, "If it was good 20 years ago, it is still good now." This may be true, but think of it this way. Would you want the doctor operating on your two year old child who has tragically been diagnosed with a brain tumor to use the technology and resources that were available 20 years ago, or those on the cutting edge today?

3. Try to make a connection that establishes trust and respect with each student that you teach. This is not always easy, believe me! I have learned that common kindness and courtesy go a long way. Students notice when you take the time to say "hello" every time you see them, or reexplain an assignment without any condescension or sarcasm. Study their faces. A face can show understanding, confusion, sickness, worry, fear, or satisfaction. Taking the time to understand how they are feeling on a particular day may make or break the quality and quantity of the work they will do for you. (I do know they should be doing the work for personal benefit, not 'for me,' but many of them do not see it that way.)

4. Take classes whether you need the credit or not. I began writing lesson plans that focus on different kinds of learning and personality styles only after I took 4MAT training. I love 4MAT and recommend it, but there are many different, wonderful planning strategies that can clarify and improve your teaching. Find a class that peeks your interest and take what works for you from it.

5. Work closely with the special education specialists in your school. They know where to find the information you need about your special education students. They can give you strategies to help them that are easy to implement into your daily routine. Many of the accommodations for students with special needs are useful to regular education students.

6. Use authentic assessments.

7. Find assignments that are valid for assessing students of differing levels.

I feel like I am getting long-winded. No, I KNOW I am being long-winded. It is one of my weaknesses. I have other suggestions; I have been trying to improve my teaching for at least 13 years. I have been teaching 14, but I am pretty sure the first year I just tried to survive! :) I will continue and elaborate later. For now, I am off to enjoy my family for the evening.

Update on Practice State Assessments

As I stated before, ND does not purchase practice tests for the ND State Assessment. ND also does not release the questions from previous tests as other states do.

BUT, I do have some good news. The released tests from many other states' assessments are available online. Although these tests are not exactly like the one North Dakota administers, they are very similar. Remember, most of our questions come from a bank of questions that are available to the entire country and are nationally normed.

Am I saying you should download them and teach to the test? Of course not. I am just simply saying that it makes sense to know what kinds of questions kids are going to be asked. It also makes sense to give them a section or two to practice on. Kids do better on assessments they are familiar with.

Making yourself familiar with the types of questions asked on nationally normed tests can assure that you are using language that is the same as that used on the test. Also, giving kids a sample test or two could uncover an area or two where your curriculum is lacking.

To find the released test questions from other states, visit this website http://www.edinformatics.com/testing/testing.htm . If you have used any of them in the past, please comment on the pro's and con's you noticed.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Let's Share Thursday - Rubrics

Why use rubrics?

When we consider how well a learner performed a speaking or writing task, we do not think of the performance as being right or wrong. Instead, we place the performance along a continuum from exceptional to not up to expectations. Rubrics help us to set anchor points along a quality continuum so that we can set reasonable and appropriate expectations for learners and consistently judge how well they have met them.

1. Well-designed rubrics increase an assessment's construct and content validity by aligning evaluation criteria to standards, curriculum, instruction, and assessment tasks.

2. Well-designed rubrics increase an assessment's reliability by setting criteria that raters can apply consistently and objectively.

3. Evaluating student work by established criteria reduces bias.

4. Identifying the most salient criteria for evaluating a performance and writing descriptions of excellent performance can help teachers clarify goals and improve their teaching.

5. Rubrics help learners set goals and assume responsibility for their learning—they know what comprises an optimal performance and can strive to achieve it.

6. Rubrics used for self- and peer-assessment help learners develop their ability to judge quality in their own and others' work.

7. Rubrics answer the question "Why did I/my child get a B on this project?"

8. Learners receive specific feedback about their areas of strength and weakness and about how to improve their performance.

9. Learners can use rubrics to assess their own effort and performance, and make adjustments to work before submitting it for a grade.

10. Rubrics allow learners, teachers, and other stakeholders to monitor progress over a period of instruction.

11. Time spent evaluating performance and providing feedback can be reduced.

12. When students participate in designing rubrics, they are empowered to become self-directed learners.

13. Rubrics help teachers move away from subjective grading by allowing them and others, including students themselves, to assess work based on consistent, often agreed upon, and objective criteria.

(Fiderer, 1999; Goodrich Andrade, 1997; SRI International-Center for Technology in Learning, 1997-2002; Eighmey's Think Tank; Kasman Valenza, 2000; TeacherVision.com, 2000-2002; Tedick, 2002)

Find a rubric you love and e-mail it to me at danielle.mickelson@sendit.nodak.edu. I will change them all to PDF's, and send them out to everyone who contributes.

Bismarck - Day 2 - A Long Road Ahead

Yesterday we reviewed questions from past CTB tests. Many of them seemed mediocre in quality.

Today, we reviewed new test questions that were written specifically for North Dakota. I was impressed. The questions matched our standards and benchmarks, and even more importantly, assessed what we really teach.

Now, the bad news. There were only about fifteen of them. Trust me, we asked where the rest were. There weren't any more.

New questions that are written specifically for North Dakota cost money, lots of money. It is much cheaper to use the questions that are nationally normed.

It is time for North Dakota to ride a little faster down the Mah Dah Hey Trail (the picture above) and pay for more questions that assess what we teach. North Dakota teachers have always held themselves and their students to the highest standards (and benchmarks!). It is time for DPI and the North Dakota Legislature to hold themselves to the highest standards and find the funds to do it.

Until NCLB dies, we will have to push to make the best of a 'not so great' situation. I hope it is not a long road to an assessment that is as high in quality as the students it assesses.

Just a Little Humor

In researching the standards and benchmark documents of the other states, I came across this benchmark that gave me a good chuckle. This is an actual Tennessee benchmark.


CLE 3003.2.3 Identify the thesis and main pints of a complex speech.

I do not know about the rest of you, but I prefer quarts in my complex speech!

Have a good day tomorrow; I mean today. I did not realize how late it was. I will update you all on the second day of our conference tomorrow night. I mean tonight. Oh, I don't know. I need sleep.

Update from Bismarck

I guess I should have taken a picture of something so this post would have a little flair. What would you all have liked to see? The front of the Doublewood? The room we were in? The chicken enchiladas we had for lunch? Really, there was not much to see today. We did work.

Today CTB-McGraw Hill representatives were present to go through a selection of questions from previous state assessment tests. These were not the questions from the tests that our students took this school year, but rather they were questions that have not been in the test for several years and could be used in the near future. These questions were already aligned to the North Dakota State Standards and Benchmarks. Our task was to read the selections, review the questions, and decide if we agreed with the Standard and Benchmark that each question was assigned. Then, we decided if the level of difficulty was assigned correctly to each question.

That was long and wordy. In a nutshell, what I learned today is:

1. Each question on the ND State Assessment assesses one benchmark from the standards.
2. We should remind students before they take the test that the 'topics' of the reading selections are relatively unimportant. It is the 'skill' that each question is assessing that is important. Let me clarify a little. When a student reads a passage, they will not be questioned on their background knowledge of the topic. They will be carrying out skills from the reading or writing benchmarks (identify a particular literary term, analyze a small part of the passage, edit for content, edit for purpose, edit for parallel structure, etc.) As a group, we got caught up in whether or not our students would know a lot about the topics the passages were about. The topics are irrelevant. It is the skills that are assessed.
3. Questions are constantly being written to fill gaps in covering the benchmarks.
4. Many states purchase practice tests to give their students the chance to be comfortable with the type of test and review any gaps they may have in knowledge. ND does not.
5. In the next few months, ND will be going through the process of choosing a vendor for the state assessment (RFP). The contract with CTB is up. Contact DPI if you know of a test vendor they should consider.
6. There are tests available (some states are already using them) that actually assess a student's ability to write, not fill in a dot. Acuity Writing is an example that West Virginia uses and loves.
7. We are the ones that need to push for change. E-mail me, each other, DPI, ND Representatives, whoever - just start pushing for the changes we need in testing in our state. We are - SUPER TEACHERS!

I am sure there is more I will think of as I process the day's work. I will update as needed.

We did not and will not be doing any revisions of the ND State Standards and Benchmarks during these two days. The two days are strictly for aligning assessment questions with the standards and benchmarks. I will try to remember to ask if there is going to be any revision work in the future. I better make a list :)

We tried to stress that research shows that students do better when they know the expectation ahead of time. As we were reviewing each item, we were able to see what standard and benchmark each had been assigned to. We stressed that students would do better if they knew which standard and benchmark each question was assessing. Isn't that why we use rubrics and show the students the rubric before they even begin the paper, project, speech, etc? I will try to find someone to listen who has the power to make this happen. On the list!

For those of you who study the individual test reports that come (ours just came a few days ago), you know that the test is broken down by benchmark and the number of questions for each is shown. We voiced serious concern about the benchmarks that are only assessed by one or two questions. One or two, whether right or wrong, does not show mastery or lack of mastery. They swear more questions are currently being written.

The content of the materials my group worked on today is strictly confidential, as it should be. Please do not ask me or any of the team members what questions we reviewed. We signed confidentiality agreements, and we certainly do not want to go to jail!

More tomorrow. Remember - you can contact me at any time via e-mail. My Palm gets all my e-mails as soon as you send them to my sendit address.

What are the Standards in Other States?

As I lay here, contemplating the work that I have to do tomorrow and Wednesday on the ELA Standards and Benchmarks, it occurred to me that I have never read the standards from other states. If you are in the same boat as me, here are the links to a few of the commonly talked about states.

Texas
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter110/ch110c.html
Alaska
http://www.eed.state.ak.us/contentstandards/English.html
Florida
http://etc.usf.edu/flstandards/la/index.html
New Jersey
http://education.state.nj.us/cccs/?_standard_matrix;c=3

If you have a chance, take a look at them. I found the differences compelling, not to mention the amount of time it took me just to find them!

I Was 'Almost' Famous With This Idea!

I was at a curriculum mapping conference with Dr. Heidi Hayes Jacobs a couple of years ago and told her about this spelling activity I do with my seventh graders. She promised to put it in her next book. She never did. Boo Hiss! Regardless, I still think this is a great idea that can be used in any grade that has spelling tests.

As we all know, some kids are just natural spellers, and some of the little sweethearts just are not. I know we do everything in our power to help them get better at it, but some never quite catch on. Trust me, I have a phonetic speller in my family. He can study and study those words, and even sometimes come up with a 100% on the spelling test. The next time he goes to use the word in his writing, it is right back to phonetics. :(

On to my 'almost famous idea.'

When my seventh grade class takes their spelling test, I give it in the normal manner. I say the word, use it in a sentence, and say it again. When the test is over, I ask the students to look at the words they have written carefully while I repeat them all slowly, one after another. I tell them to circle any of the words they have written that they are sure are not spelled right, but at the same time they cannot think of how to spell them correctly. For every mistake they can find, I give them 1/4 of a point back on their final test score.

Although I am sure everyone has figured out what I am doing, I will repeat it just so I can get my entire famous idea published!

For students who cannot spell, the best skill they can acquire is self-editing. If they can tell which words are wrong, they know which ones to look up in the dictionary or pocket speller they carry. Of course, they can always use spell-check, but computers are not available in situations where one has to fill out a job applications sitting on a chair in a corner of a store.

The final thing I do is call up each student individually to talk about the ones they got wrong. I take the time to individually reinforce the rules that would help them spell the word right. I also congratulate them on finding their errors. They walk away feeling good about themselves. Even if they cannot spell, they can edit and fix their writing in the future before a final draft is do.

Oh, watch out for the smart ones who try to circle every word. There is always one of them in the class!

Who Am I?

This is a post from my original blog http://www.grammaticallydelicious.blogspot.com/. I thought it would give those of you who do not really know me a little insight.

After nearly 37 years of wondering how I would describe myself if asked to do it in a succinct and perfect fashion, I have found it in the words of Jack Kerouac. Forever, I will be changed by his words.

“Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Thank you, Jack, wherever you are, for writing what I couldn't say myself, and for bringing those of us who want a different and better world together to make real change.

The Word Wall

Although I am not new to blogging, I do still hate the first post. It always feels like it should be a culmination of entertainment, information, and wit. I probably will not succeed at all three, but here I go.

One of the initiatives that Rolla has put in place this year in the high school is 'The Word Wall.' We decided that there is a bank of words in each curricular area that students need to have a good working knowledge of to be successful in that class. Each teacher was asked to put words that fit their content area on the wall and review them with their students on a regular basis.

I wish I had a picture of my first word wall. I decided to let my students create it.

I do not know why I do this to myself. I know I am a perfectionist. I know what I want. I even think I know how to get my students to create an adequate reproduction of what I want. Sometimes I am very wrong, but I try to follow the motto that students will learn more about a topic that they have invested time and energy into. High school students smell this, I swear, and do the opposite!

Since it was the beginning of the year, I decided to review rubric use. I gave each student a ELA term they would need to know for proficiency and assigned them the task of putting their term on a piece of paper in a clear and easily visible manner, learning the definition of the word, finding an example, and sharing with the class. I developed a simple rubric that would assess these areas.

I did everything I thought I was supposed to do. I gave them the rubric ahead of time, I created a couple of word wall examples myself, I demonstrated how to present the definition and the example, and then I set them loose.

Good Lord. I got a disaster. I forgot to include SIZE in my rubric, so some were tiny and some were huge. Some were colored, and some were not. Some were handwritten (AARRGG!), and some were typed. It was the most horrendous mish-mash of creativity (I use that loosely) I had ever seen.

Resigned, I let them put them on the wall. OOOHHHH. I hated that wall. How do you rip down all that work and effort? And besides, the requirement was to just have a word wall, right? No one said it had to be nice!

Then, Devine intervention. I suddenly remembered my one colorblind student. He couldn't read the word wall!!! Yeah! I took down the offending mess and replaced it with a black and white version that is interactive, not only visible to a very colorblind little boy.

My word wall now consists of white legal sized envelopes separated into groups that are labeled with the ND State ELA Standards. Each envelope has a term written on the outside in easily readable black letters. Inside the envelope is the definition of the term on an index card. As my classes move through the school year, we have been utilizing the word wall, not just for the definition that lives in the envelope, but every time we find a very good example of the term, we write it on a new index card and include it in the envelope. I have to say, we are compiling quite a comprehensive set of definitions and examples that span all grades from 7 to 12.

The lesson. Who knows? Be better prepared. Do not be a perfectionist. Do things yourself if you are going to be really picky. Rejoice in the wonder of revision. All that aside, the 'word wall' concept is a great one if you create a wall that you can use with your students. I love mine . . . now!