Cootie Catchers to Review Grammar

Let's face it: teaching and reviewing grammar with older students can be boring for the students and the teacher. Worksheets and power points just don't cut it. I'm a big fan of games that involve the whole class (see my blog post here for ideas), but recently I was looking for something that could work for pairs of students. I decided to take a chance on Cootie Catchers for my teen students. I called it "Throwback Thursday" because I was worried they would think it was silly or juvenile, but they instantly had smiles plastered on their faces, and more importantly, they were interested and engaged.

There are many ways to use Cootie Catchers. My favorite is to have a "speed round" where students, in pairs, go as quickly as they can to answer three different questions from a single Cootie Catcher correctly. When the first partner has done so, they switch places and the second partner has to answer three questions correctly from a different Cootie Catcher.  The first pair to finish wins.

Below are instructions for folding and using a Cootie Catcher, and some links to the ones I have made to review grammar. If you want to make your own, click here for a free template.

Should School Days be Shorter?

A second-grade teacher friend is facing a much longer school day this year. She will have her little charges from 8:15 to 4:30 every day. I suspect she's going to want to crawl under her desk at around 2:30. 

The most surprising thing, though, wasn't the change in her hours, but that the school day for her is actually longer. I've seen more arguments recently for a shorter school day.

There are many arguments for a shorter school day such as young people needing more time for extracurricular activities, jobs, family time, and just free play, but the most compelling argument I have seen is that kids aren't getting enough sleep, especially teenagers. Lack of sleep can lead to obesity, depression, and of course, lack of focus in school. 

I think it's a myth that teens stay up late because they want to. My own experience and my teens' experience is that there really is enough homework, music lessons, sports etc... to fill up all the hours after school until late at night. Chronic sleep deprivation is a real problem for some teens who are earnest in their studies and other activities. Teens are also wired for a different circadian rhythm than adults. One study showed that with a later start time for school, teens actually slept an extra hour rather than filling it with other things. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 hours of sleep for teens and 10 to 11 hours for younger kids, yet most kids do not get this amount.

While I can get behind a later start time for secondary schools for the sleep issue, I'm not in favor of a shortened school day. The average school day for an American student is 6 1/2 hours. This is not too long to cover all the different subjects and allow for breaks. Shortened class periods would mean less actual learning time because science labs, for example, still require set up and clean up, and some topics require review before moving on to the next topic. If class periods remained the same length, then classes such as music and art would likely be cut. This would be a tragedy. 

Shortening the school day would also make for a longer school year. State requirements for the number of hours in class would send many schools deep into summer to fulfill the required class time. This brings up what a shorter class day would be like for teachers. Less pay and/or teaching in July? No thanks. 

The students' education, of course if the number one consideration. The sleep issue is a real problem, but there must be other ways to solve it. Perhaps less homework or a later start with a later release time would be beneficial, but the current daily class time seems like the right balance to me. 

If you are interested in having your students take on this issue in a reading, writing, or debate assignment, I have a packet for grades 5 - 7 here. Kids have surprisingly strong opinions about this topic, and it's not always on the side of a shorter day!

Secondary ELA Seasonal Blog Hop: Composition Classroom Shares Halloween Activities

I like to bring in seasonal reading around Halloween more than any other time of year. Students are bombarded with the myths and traditions of Halloween, so I like to bring in some good non-fiction reading that helps them understand and think critically about some of these things. Where did candy corn come from? Are vampire bats really the scary, blood-sucking creatures portrayed in the movies? Here is my seasonal reading pack with four high-interest non-fiction passages, reading comprehension questions, vocabulary, and creative writing prompts. 

For my older students, I like an Edgar Allan Poe spooky story and an accompanying class discussion. To make it fun, I use a fast-paced activity based on the speed dating concept. You can use it for any short story. All you need are discussion questions and the instructions on my blog post here. Or you can get my questions and the story "The Black Cat" by clicking on the cover below.

What's a holiday without treats? I teach an evening class on Mondays, and this year, we'll be stuck there on Halloween, so I'll be making candied popcorn topped with these tags. Easy and cheap. Click here for a blog post with the recipe here, and click on the cover below to download the tags for free.

Happy, happy Halloween!

An InLinkz Link-up

Short Story Speed Round Discussion Activity

Discussion questions are a great idea to kick off a short story unit, but the participation of my students has been lackluster with the traditional format. Enter a fast and fun discussion activity based on the speed dating concept. This will be my go-to activity on Halloween with a spooky Edgar Allan Poe story. 

Every student participates, and the stakes are low for exploring the answers to questions because they are working one-on-one with each other for short periods of time. It gets students up and moving, a rare thing when studying literature. Below are the rules of the activity. You'll have to make cards with discussion questions, or if you want to save time and check out mine for Poe's The Black Cat, click here.

1. Arrange students in one of the following ways:

A. Have students form two circles, one inside the other, with an equal number of students in each. Have students face each other.  

 or

B. Have students stand in two equal lines, facing each other.

(If you have an odd number of students, you can participate or rotate one student out each round.)

2. Divide the cards evenly among one line or one circle of students.

3. Start a timer for two minutes. The student with the cards reads the question from the first card, and then the students facing each other discuss the question.

4. When two minutes are up, have the circle or line of students without cards rotate to the left (for a line, have the last person come to the front of a line).  The students with the cards will put the used question at the bottom of their pile.

5. Repeat process for about 10 rounds, or as time permits.

If a student gets asked a duplicate question, the student with the cards skips to a new question.

This activity is perfect for starting a unit, or as a stand-alone activity. I'll be using "The Black Cat" this year on Halloween, as Poe is the master of combining spooky and gruesome. The psychology of the narrator and the symbols throughout leave a lot of room for spirited discussion. Another favorite is "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. 

Pay for Grades?

Should kids get paid for good grades? As a parent, I did not offer any incentive for good grades, other than a trip out for ice cream on report card day. It was part of an overall philosophy about kids learning to be responsible without a dangling carrot. Along the same line, I never paid for regular chores, either. Doing well in school and pushing back your fair share of the dirt was just a basic expectation. This seemed to work, and I patted myself on the parental back.

Then along came some life experiences where I realized that my kids were a certain personality type that worked well with this kind of parenting. They had internal motivation to excel. I never had to remind them to do their homework, let alone nag, or come to the point where I considered offering incentives. Enter the life experience. What to do with students who lack the internal motivation? What to do with students who can't be encouraged or cajoled into doing their homework? What to do with students who didn't even care if they graduated from high school?

I started to read and study about motivation and incentives. The research is all over the place, and sometimes contradictory. Consider the different studies over the years cited by the good folks at Freakonomics. One study showed a program administered by a school offering cash and incentives for improved grades at the end of each term was marginally successful, at best. With only external motivations, and lacking intristic motivation, the incentives mostly failed. Another study showed that immediate gratification improved test scores. Dangle a $20.00 bill for a good test score, and scores improve. Better yet, tell the students they have $20.00, which will be taken away if they don't score well, and the improvement is even better.

The question remains, then, whether these immediate incentives pay off in the long run, or whether they damage the internal motivation. Many studies I've read, not related to grades, show that generally, when people think they are doing something to help someone else they perform better and complete the task more often than if they are receiving a cash reward.  I believe this, and I tend to think cash motivation for grades do more harm than good, for most kids, including the risk of creating a feeling of entitlement. I have learned, however, that one philosophy does not fit all. For students who lack the internal motivation, it might serve them best to offer the carrots to make some progress.

This is an interesting discussion to have with your students. I'm always curious to know what other parents do, and to compare and contrast how my students are motivated. When I've used this topic in my classes, I'm always surprised how much self-knowledge even younger students have about what makes them successful (or not).  I'm curious to know what you think, too. Do you reward your own kids for good grades? How about the students in your classroom? What works?

I've put together a packet with a pro and con article on this topic at the fifth through seventh grade reading level (Lexile leveled) if you think this would be of interest to your students.  It has plenty of options for classwork, group work, and writing assignments.

Fall and Halloween Reading

Fall and Halloween are the perfect time to bring seasonal reading into the classroom. These packets contain high-interest reading topics relating to Fall and Halloween. They also have reading comprehension questions, vocabulary work, and a creative writing prompt. The reading level is in the Lexile stretch band for fifth grade through the basic level for eighth grade. These are zero-prep, so you will have more time to enjoy this spooky season!

Will "Ze" Ever Be?

In my last blog (click here) about my support for standardizing the singular use of the pronoun "they," I glossed over one of the central issues, which is the use of the gender-specific pronouns "he" or "she."

Using "they" is not a perfect solution to this problem because there are times it doesn't make sense. 

"Each student must turn in their assignment by tomorrow" is a sentence where "they" flows seamlessly and does not cloud meaning. There are multiple students and each is turning in an assignment. The plural here makes some sense, even if it doesn't traditionally agree. This is how we generally speak, and most would not even notice there is a technical error here. 

"Erin must turn in their assignment by tomorrow" however, sounds strange. Even worse, what if we are still talking about Erin, but want to avoid "he" or "she" (perhaps we don't know Erin's gender, or perhaps we are uncertain of Erin's preferred pronoun): "They need to pick up their reading log at the library."  This is where "they" doesn't work. It's not a matter of agreement, it's a matter of defining who we are talking about in the first place. We are talking about one person here, not a group of people. 

Enter the latest gender-neutral pronoun "ze." It would be nice to solve this problem that easily. Ze is not the first gender-neutral pronoun that has been proposed, but it has gained some traction. The problem is, I don't see it being accepted anytime soon in common usage. The reasons are not because it is not practical (it is on every level), but because this type of fundamental change in language is difficult.

There are words like "blog," "crowd fund," and "tweet" that didn't exist a few years ago but were easily accepted and widely used now, but those are different because they stand for new concepts that needed words. Changing our use of common pronouns is an entirely different matter. It would have to be conscious, careful, and widely understood and accepted. In other words, a deliberate cultural effort.

In addition, the learning curve is high. When ze (subject) is used as an object, it is "hir" (pronounced here), as a possessive pronoun, it is "hirs" (pronounced heres), and as a reflexive, it is "hirself" (pronounced hereself). The use of these unfamiliar pronouns is not intuitive or currently understood by most. (As I type these words, auto-correct is doing its best to "fix" them.)

A change like this is not going to come easy, even in academia. When I offered it as an alternative to my first-year college freshman class at a very liberal college, not a single student adopted the practice, even though some were careful to give me their preferred pronoun on first roll call.

I believe a gender-neutral pronoun will someday be adopted by English speakers, and should be for practical reasons, but I would guess it will be decades from now. In the meantime, "they" is the best we can do.

It's Time to Standardize the Singular "They"

I am a fan of the English language and all the messy rules that go with it. I resist change. In formal writing, I do not begin my sentences with coordinating conjunctions. I do not press "send" until I have proofread my text messages. Yes, I am one of THOSE people. I am, however, on the bandwagon to standardize the singular use of the plural pronoun "they."

Using "they" as a singular pronoun is, by far, the most common mistake in student writing, but perhaps it should not be considered a mistake at all, rather a better option than the clunky and binary "he or she."

Lately in class, I find myself telling my students that they can use "they" as a singular if they do it purposefully and consistently. I add "purposefully and consistently" because I am wired to teach correct usage, and "they" as a singular is still not widely accepted, especially in formal, academic writing. I want them to be aware of this and understand that they are deviating from what might be acceptable in other classes. (I also want them to be aware of how they are using language in general and not just writing what sounds fine in conversation.)

Besides the obvious binary gender issue, which is important to many of my students, there is one big reason why "they" should be an acceptable singular: efficiency of language.

Consider this sentence:

Kelly or Brennan will organize the committee, but ? or ? will need help with the finances.

The names Kelly or Brennan are gender-neutral, but require a singular pronoun, according to the rules (if it were "Kelly and Brennan," then the plural "they" would be the correct pronoun), so what if the writer doesn't know whether "he" or "she" is appropriate? Consider the sentence, written according to the rules, even if the writer does know the genders:

Kelly or Brennan will organize the committee, but she or he will need help with the finances.

Clunky. It would be easy to make a case for the plural "they" here instead of the "she or he," or guessing the gendered pronouns (or the untenable "...but he/she or he/she...).

The stickler on my shoulder says, "There could be a misunderstanding! Someone might think Kelly and Brennan are working together!"  Granted, the first part of the sentence is clear that one or the other will organize the committee, and the second half states that both of them will need help, but to me, the flow of the sentence with "they" trumps any confusion.

Also consider the most common situation where "they" would make sense:

If a student wishes to enroll after the deadline, he or she will need to take his or her petition to the academic counseling office.

There are a lot of extra words in that sentence and the flow is not good. Previously, if I saw this sentence in an essay written like this, "If a student wishes to enroll after the deadline, they will need to take their petitions to the academic counseling office," I would suggest changing "a student" to "students" rather than changing the pronoun "they" to "he or she" and "his or her." This is a cop-out, because it's simply a workaround to a greater problem. Now, I just let it be, because, frankly, the pronoun "they" works better.

It will be an uncomfortable shift for those of us who make our livings sussing out the small errors of the written language, but I suspect for almost everyone else, they will be surprised (if they give it any thought at all)  that using "they" as a singular was ever incorrect.

Group Writing Project Resources

I'm always looking for group writing activities. Writing is most often a solitary, even lonely, experience, so any time a collaborative project is useful, I'm on board. Here are three I intend to try this year:

First is an excellent group writing activity that is especially good for freshmen at the beginning of the year, and as a bonus, it integrates technology. This blog explains the professor's project for college freshmen, but it could be easily adapted for a younger crowd.

Faculty Focus Real-World Writing Project

Next is a video of group writing in action from a high school English teacher. It shows her whole process, which is easily adaptable for whatever topic you are addressing, and gives tips to make the whole thing effective. It's interesting that although it is a writing project, the teacher says that the discussion in the most important aspect of the activity.

Teaching Channel - High School Writing Lesson


Last is a fun collaborative poetry project from the Literary Maven. I'm not sure how I will work this into my curriculum yet, but I'll figure something out because it looks like a lot of fun.

The Literary Maven - Collaborative Poetry Writing

The group writing activity I use most often in my class is one on figurative language. I go over the definitions of six or seven types of figurative language and then show a piece of art. Groups have to come up with an overall thesis, then write one of each type of figurative language relating to the thesis about the artwork. It's easy enough to set this up yourself, but if you want my teaching packet, you can see it here:

  

       

Avoiding Plagiarism Handout for Students

Plagiarism is a big problem in my classroom, and it probably is in yours, too. I do my best to teach the concepts; the students know how to avoid blatant copying, but they are often tripped up on the finer points.

Recycle a paper from a previous class? Nope. But it's my own work! Still nope. Paraphrase a source without a citation? Nope. But they are my own words! Still nope.

I made this handout so there could be no confusion. For the first paper after my complete lesson on avoiding plagiarism, I have them attach this sheet and sign it.  Ignorance of the rules (meaning they tuned me out when I was teaching!) is no longer an excuse.

You can download it for free by clicking on the cover below. I hope you find it useful in your classroom!

If you would like a complete lesson plan that includes comprehensive handouts, a worksheet, and a quiz, click on the cover below. Two versions are included: MLA and APA style.

High Interest Reading - Extreme Sports

Of all the original reading passages I've used in my classroom, the most popular, by far, have been on extreme sports. The appeal is obvious to the athletes, but even students with no interest in sports find the topic fascinating. Why would someone participate in such dangerous and extreme behavior? How did these sports start? What drives the athletes?

P.S. The man on the Slacklining cover is of my friend's son. He's a an out-of-the-box athlete who has also competed on America Ninja Warriors. He's only landed in the hospital once : )

The Top Five Reasons to Use a Seating Chart

Over the years, I've learned that seating charts are beneficial for older students, especially with larger classes. Although some would argue that after reaching a certain maturity level, students should have the freedom to sit wherever they want, I'm still a fan of assigned seating for the following reasons:

1. It makes attendance easy. It also makes it easier to monitor who comes in late and who leaves early. Tardy students can't slip into a back corner seat and hope you won't notice, and it's more difficult for someone to slip out early if he or she knows it will be obvious from the empty seat. It also alleviates the problem of attendance when there is a substitute.

2. Studies show that a carefully crafted seating arrangement can enhance learning, especially for those who are struggling.

3. Assigned seating creates structure and sets a tone of order at the beginning of the school year.

4. Students are less distracted if they aren't sitting next to their best friends or social groups.

5. Students get to know other students that are not in their social group, and loners or those who feel left out are not as isolated. This is especially enhanced when you assign projects to small groups sitting close together.

Of course with a batch of new students, you don't necessarily know who should be seated together for optimal academic performance, or who should be separated. Reserve the right to change up the seating chart at any time, or at times, I've even had a regular schedule for a seating chart shuffle, say once a month.

Depending on the class, the seating chart has been a life saver, or proven unnecessary in a month or two. Either way, it's a good start to the new year.

New MLA Guidelines - 8th Edition

When I heard the MLA guidelines were changing, the emotion I felt is best described as "Ack!"  I have spent countless hours teaching and developing resources for the seventh edition guidelines, and re-learning and changing my resources seemed like a laborious task.

When I ordered the new book, however, and sat down to read it, I immediately lost that bad feeling. Although I was comfortable with the old guidelines, I immediately saw the wisdom in the changes. In-text citations are the same, but gone are the days of the nitpicky works cited entries, where each type of resource had particular, not necessarily intuitive, specifications.

In a nutshell, the new guidelines for the Works Cited page ask for the most important features of each source. What should be included is flexible, based on the purpose of the source, and any source fits into the general formula. With more varied sources available with technology, it's a plus that you only need to know the basics to figure out how to document the entry.

Here is the list of items you should find, if applicable, for documentation, for any source:

Author
Title of source
Title of container (meaning the journal, magazine, search engine, television series etc...)
Other contributors (translator, editor, producer, etc...)
Version
Number
Publisher
Publication date
Location (URL or doi)

Once you've got these items, you can easily put together the citation, and you can add any additional helpful information.

In the MLA Handbook, they include a handy chart that also shows what punctuation to use after each entry. I've re-created the chart with some modifications for my classrooms.

For detailed information, examples, and an overall great free reference source, go to The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

I've also created a product with all the basics for the classroom: guidelines, examples, and charts for both in-text citations and the Works Cited entries. What I thought was going to be laborious turned into a labor of love!

TPT Back to School Sale

It's that time of year! The big teacherspayteachers Back-to-School sale is August 1 and 2, Monday and Tuesday. All products are 10% off site wide, and I'm adding another 20% off, for a total savings of 28% (I know - the math is weird, but it works!)  Time to stock up for the school year.

To celebrate, I'm giving away a ten-dollar TPT gift card that you can use for anything on TPT. To enter, check out my opinion reading and writing units here:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Laura-Torres/Category/Opinion-Reading-and-Writing-245658

Then go to my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/LauraTorresELA

and comment on the contest post with your favorite unit.  The lucky winner will be announced on Monday, August 1, at 8 pm PST.

Here's a link to my store to check out my other products. It's a great time to get a HUGE discount on bundles. Click on the photos below to see my popular bundles. Fill up your wish list today and shop on Monday and Tuesday!

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