New Year Writing FREEBIE

As part of my New Year resolution, I decided to sort through some of the older files on my computer, those files that started out on another computer, got copied onto this one, and I haven't touched since who knows when. Sometimes when you do peek into these ancient archives you discover a treasure.

I created this writing activity about five years ago, used it with great success with my sixers, then promptly forgot about it until today while I was sifting and sorting the old, neglected e-files. With a quick update to the years, it's ready to be used with this year's crop of students. If you'd like a copy to use with your students, just click HERE.

Very First Writing Wednesday

I am very excited to be joining Lit with Lyns for her very first ever Writing Wednesday linky party! Writing is something that is near and dear to my heart in my ELA classrooms. Perhaps it's because although I was a very good writer throughout my own schooling, I was frustrated because I did not know what made me a good writer. I was never taught to write just directed to write and then graded on it. Thank goodness I was an avid reader, an enjoyable pastime that unknowingly gave me a writing foundation.

Because of my frustration, I am careful to TEACH my students HOW TO write, providing explicit instruction, repeated practice and support, and practical applications. With middle school students there is a shift to more nonfiction/technical writing than in previous years. Much of it is focused on extended response and providing text evidence.

PQA is the first writing lesson that I cover with my incoming fifth grade Language Arts students and review with my returning sixth and seventh grade students. PQA or Put the Question in the Answer is an acronym to help my students remember how to phrase answers to questions. I am very particular with student responses at this level. It is no longer sufficient to just give an answer that is only a few words. I expect them to be able to elaborate, cite text evidence, and write in standard English for nearly every answer. PQA is the first step in helping them achieve this expectation.

All of my classes utilize an interactive notebook for Language Arts. The very first foldable to be inserted is for PQA. An anchor chart is displayed on the board and mini charts sit on the tables to saturate my students with this important strategy. You can read more about this in a previous post and download a PQA notebook foldable for use in your own classroom. Here's a sneak peak at this year's anchor chart displayed in my new "Scrabble" theme. This will appear on all the tables in my classroom displayed in small stand-up frames that I purchased from IKEA (see previous blog post linked above).

After instruction, and loads of practice, my students generally remember to address their responses in this manner, at least while they are with me. However, my students see many teachers throughout the day, and for whatever reason, when they leave my class to go to another (Social Studies, Math, Science, etc.) they often "forget" to implement strategies taught in my class in another. Grrr! You have probably felt this pain a time or two yourself. I don't necessarily want to impose on the content area teachers to "reteach" my lessons nor to display my anchor charts for student reminders, but I do want my kiddos to carry this skill over into everything that they do. So, I came up with a solution: pencil topper mini-anchor charts. My students can carry these friendly reminders with them to other classrooms and hopefully be reminded to PQA away from me.

I created these toppers for many of the major skills and strategies that I teach in my Language Arts classes. The complete file will soon be available in my TpT Store, but until then I'm sharing the PQA topper as a forever freebie for you.

Here is what the PQA pencil topper looks like.

How does it work?

Simple and effective (I have used pencil toppers previously for various skills), just the way I like it, and I hope you do as well! Something else that I hope you like is this a-MAZE-ing little worksheet that I just created. I recently stumbled upon Hidesy's Clipart on TpT and discovered some wonderful maze graphics. I added some cute images from Educlips and a few text boxes to come up with a PQA practice sheet that doubles as an interest inventory. I'm planning on using this during the first few days of the new school year with my sixers.

To download a freebie INB foldable for PQA, click HERE.

To download the freebie PQA pencil topper, click HERE.
To download the freebie PQA practice sheet, click HERE.

To read more Writing Wednesday posts, click HERE.

Two for Tuesday: Writing Style

It's that time...Time for teachers around the bloggy world to discount some of their favorite teaching products just for today. #2forTuesday

This week I am discounting two of my favorite writing products. These two have stood the test of time with my students. I actually created the initial activities more than 30 years ago! YIKES! Back in those days everything was drawn free hand and colored with markers/crayons. As for lamination to make it last...pfft! Only if you were lucky! I remember using rolls and rolls of clear contact paper. Can you say "sticky situation"?

Today, it's a cinch to make fun engaging teaching items to use with your students, what with desktop publishing and home laminators. Just find what you want/need on TpT, download it, print it, add the finishing touches... VOILA! beautiful, professional looking products in a snap!

If you are an ELA teacher in grs. 3-7 and need a professional-looking writing product then these two packets are just for you. Fun imaginative prompts will engage your students while helping them practice and meet needed Common Core Standards.

Peanutty Fun Writing Activities

and

Tales of the Talking Toothbrush

Click on the links to read more about each activity or to download your own packet. Then be sure to visit Chalk One Up for the Teacher to discover more #2forTuesday discounted teaching products. Be sure to hurry, though, since most discounts are good only for today.

Tuesday Writing PaWs: Living in the Past

There is such a wide variety of topics in the PaW (Paragraph a Week) line-up, from stories to letters, narratives to arguments. Some of my favorite topics are those that require young authors to do some research before they can do the actual writing. This week's Tuesday Writing PaWs is one of these. Assign a decade to your class (or allow each student to choose), adjust the controls of your time machine, and set your young authors free.

You can download your free topic sheet HERE.

Tuesday Writing PaWs 4.5.16

I looked back at my posts and discovered that it's been nearly a month since I last shared a Tuesday Writing PaWs. What with Easter break and special linkies that fell on Tuesday I took a brief pause from the PaWs.

When I think of April, I always think of Easter and when I think of Easter, I always think of new clothes. As a child I always received a brand new outfit to wear to church on Easter, including hat, gloves, socks, and shoes. There are countless photos from my childhood of me dressed in my Easter finery. So in honor of Easter and new clothing, here's this week's Writing PaWs. You can download your free topic sheet HERE.

Don't forget: All of the Tuesday Writing PaWs topic sheets are always available for your use. Just click the Paragraph a Week tab at the top of the blog. There you will find more than thirty topics free for you to use in your classroom.

Springing into Learning Blog Hop: Three ELA Freebies

It feels wonderful to be able to start a blog title with the word SPRING! It has been a loooooong winter, my friends. It's even more wonderful to be participating in this terrific blog hop hosted by Kim from Elementary Antics.

After a long, hard winter it is enjoyable to turn our attention to spring; to turn our classroom environment to a fresh look; and to fill our work sheets, anchor charts, and foldables with chicks, butterflies. and flowers instead of penguins and snowflakes.

One ELA activity that I like to do with my class each season and/or holiday is called a Take Three. This is a brainstorming/fluency of thinking activity that can be used as a pre-writing or stand alone assignment. Given a particular broad topic (in our case: spring), students add three details or supporting ideas for six sub-topics. Take Three's are easy to implement, need little instruction, and virtually no preparation. You can copy the worksheet so that each student has a copy, display the Take Three on a screen or board for students to work together, or have students copy the topic/sub-topics onto their own pieces of paper to save printing costs. Ready to give Take Three a try? You can download a freebie Spring Take Three HERE.

Another ELA Spring activity that I enjoy having my students do is adding spring foldables to their Language Arts Interactive Notebooks. INB's are just plain fun to begin with and remove the sting of having to take notes. In our Language Arts Notebooks we frequently look at how words work within a text: How do nouns name? What are the verbs and how do they display the time of the piece? How do the adjectives and adverbs lend to the description and imagery of the text?

Would you like a fun, little Spring foldable to use in your student interactive notebooks or just as a fun ELA activity? Download your freebie HERE.

When thoughts turn to Spring, it's often hard to keep students focused on work at hand. Let's face it- we would rather be outside in the fresh air and sunshine and so would they! So what's a teacher to do? Play a game, of course. One fun game to add to an ELA class is Boggle. Besides the obvious fun factor, Boggle is a super tool for practicing spelling and word recognition.

Here's a Boggle board decked out for Spring. Just download the pic and display it for your students to use. While you're at it, make sure you play along with them... it will help you quell your own Spring Fever!

Not sure how to play Boggle? Click HERE for the original game rules.

Need a Boggle board that you can edit yourself? Click HERE for a free editable board.

Want a blank boggle board template for your students to use with classroom boggle? Click HERE.

How about a variety of editable boards to change with the seasons? Click HERE for a bundle of fifteen boggle boards that you can program yourself.

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Be sure to hop on over to all of these great bloggers where you will find more Spring freebies and tips. Hoppy Spring!

An InLinkz Link-up

Tuesday Writing PaWs: Reading

As teachers we realize the deep connection between reading and writing. However, our students don't often see the importance or make the connection. That's our job. Paragraph a Week (PaW) was one way that in the late nineties a group of connected teachers developed to help our students increase their writing skills. This week's PaW topic celebrates a favorite author's birthday and asks student authors to write about reading. You can download your free topic sheet HERE.

Do you have any topics that you'd like to see featured here on The Teacher's Desk 6? Leave a message in the comments. I will be glad to create a topic sheet to share!

Tuesday Writing PaWs: Catholic Schools Week

In honor of Catholic Schools Week being celebrated this week, the Tuesday Writing PaWs features a special CSW topic. You can download your free topic sheet HERE.

Google Me Junior High Digital Assignments

I am an old war horse! I've seen education fads come and I've seen them go. I've been teaching for 36 years and in that time have primarily worked with fifth and sixth graders in the field of English Language Arts. When I first began teaching all those decades ago I did work with 7/8th graders as well, but as we reorganized buildings and grade levels through the years I was placed with the younger students saying bye-bye to the junior high. So it was much to my surprise when three years ago I was asked to teach eighth grade English and then for the past two years seventh grade English, in addition to my 5/6th grade ELA classes.

I had new standards to learn, new curriculum to plow through, and terrible textbooks to try and conquer (I'm happy to say those are packed away now). With the help of TpT and some fantastic professional development I am loving my junior high kiddos! I think one of the things that I am enjoying the most about this level is that our seventh graders are each issued a laptop that they use for their schoolwork,  making technology integration a snap.

I really wanted to make technology an integral part of English class and set a goal that by year's end we would be a nearly paperless class. Something that has really helped is computing in the cloud using Google Drive. With the permission of parents, each seventh grader opens a Google account, allowing them access to Google Drive. What's that you ask.... OH MY, a whole host of computing tools: slides (like powerpoint), docs (like Word), forms, notes, AND SO MUCH MORE! The so much more is in the form of file sharing... this is the real gem of Google Drive!

An initial peek into my drive shows a series of folders in which I store files and assignments.

Notice the folder titled GRADE SEVEN ENGLISH. Let's look inside.

Inside this folder are assignments that I have collected (from TPT authors) or created for my seventh graders.  By using a special feature of Google Drive I am able to share these assignments with my students. The assignments will appear in each of my students' own drive folders. Let's look a little more closely at this file sharing capability and how it has energized my seventh grade English class.

We're going to click on the file WINTER WRITING CAROL... in the folder.

This is an excerpt from TpT Seller Louisa of Mrs. E's Literature Dreams Creative Writing Winter Digital Writing Pack, a series of writing prompts created especially for sharing digitally. I stumbled upon Louisa's materials and fell in love with them. It is obvious she has a love of teaching from her highly engaging writing prompts and a love of technology from the form she is developing. Her writing prompts were the first exclusively digital products that I discovered on TpT. Louisa and I have struck up a virtual friendship and in a recent email conversation she had this to say about digital writing and teaching...

"Technology is everywhere. Even though most adults use computers at work. Kids' use of technology is often relegated to social media and games. For me it seems logical that if we want teenagers to be tech savvy - we need to provide learning experiences that are also digital experiences. Not games. Not fluffy add-ons. But rigorous, well designed digital learning."

The writing that you notice on the prompt page above was placed there by me and is the directions for my students. I won't bore you with the minute details but please notice the blue SHARE button in the upper right hand corner, by clicking on it and inputting my student Google account names I allow each seventh grader access to the file. They make copies of the file, save it in their own drive, and subsequently share their files with me.

If I return to my drive (see the left side of the pic) and now select SHARED WITH ME I can see all of my students' assignments. You will notice the myriad files for the WINTER WRITING CAROL assignment, but now notice that each has a student name on it. You will notice additional files scattered within this window as well. These are other assignments that my seventh graders are working on.

I can read any student assignment by simply clicking on the file. I can also comment directly on the student paper, or...

I can open a comments tab and write additional remarks there...

... all without a single piece of paper being exchanged. Students can email me with questions about assignments or simply share a message with me via Google Drive. I can give them suggestions, help edit, make changes and corrections all from the comfort of my rocker. Assignment turn in times can be extended to late evenings or weekends. One terrific feature allows you to see the work/editing history of a piece.

I can see who is and who is not working. Excuses such as forgetting homework at home are eliminated. I sure hope digital assignments are not a new fad that will come and go because Google Drive and digital teaching products are just the BEST THING since sliced bread!

Be sure to check out Mrs. E's Literature Dreams on TpT for loads of engaging ELA activities, including her newest digital product New Year Creative Writing Pack.

I'm linking this blog post to the Teaching Trio's weekly Tech Thursday blog feature.

Be sure to stop by the Teaching Trio to read more technology tips and tricks.

Tuesday Writing PaWs: Presents

One goal of the Original Paragraph a Week Program was to grow our students' writing skills in a progressive manner. We began with the student goal of independently writing a well-organized, detailed, literate paragraph and gradually pushed our students into writing well-organized, detailed, literate essays. This week's PaWs features a topic for one such essay. You can download your free instruction sheet HERE.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Tuesday Writing PaWs will return with a brand new topic in mid-January.

Tuesday Writing PaWs: Advent Traditions

This week's Paragraph a Week topic draws our attention to Advent, the beginning of the Church year and the time of preparation for the coming of our Lord. I am including a little extra freebie for you and your students that might serve as a brainstorming or preparatory piece prior to assigning the PaW for the week.

Called a Take Three, students are given a topic (in our case ADVENT) and six subtopics for which they must supply three details. Take Threes are terrific pre-writing activities as well as time-fillers, morning work, or just those few minutes left at the end of a class. Here's an Advent Take Three that you can download HERE.

Now for the PaW topic for this week. Please download your free instruction sheet HERE.

December Pinterest Pick 3

Uh, what happened to Dec. 1, 2, 3, and 4? Blink, they must've been here since it's now the fifth! Truly, is every teacher that busy or is it just me that misses days? It couldn't be my age, could it? I don't remember being this harried when I was younger. Ah well, although I missed the target date of Dec. 3rd for this my favorite monthly linky, I am here now with some great Pinterest finds for the month of December.

Let's get started with the December Pinterest FUN!

Just click the link below each graphic to be swept away to the pin.

I am a STEM gal! I thoroughly enjoy the simple, engaging, and fun activities. A STEM activity usually requires little prep, uses materials you normally have or that are easy to procure and is totally learning packed for kiddos. My sixers have STEM-med their way through building towers, vehicles, and bridges with plastic cups, index cards, toothpicks, and candy corn so far this year while learning about engineering and science principals. I can NOT wait to try this great STEM activity with them next week.

STEM Christmas Trees

I really enjoy sharing creative writing activities with my students. Here's a fun and engaging Santa activity guaranteed to inspire creativity in even middle school students while sharpening their writing skills.

Design a suit for Santa

This time of the school year can be difficult for both teachers and students. Holiday excitement and thoughts of the holiday break ahead often interfere with our ability to focus... GUILTY! Here's something that just might help.

Christmas Brain Breaks

Be sure to visit all the terrific blogs below for MANY MORE terrific Pinterest Picks for December!

An InLinkz Link-up