Slice of Life-Taking My Own Advice

On Tuesdays, the writing community at Two Writing Teachers hosts the Slice of Life. Everyone is welcome to join in by writing, commenting, or just reading slices from around the world!

With the encouragement of my writing group and my family, I paid for a professional critique on the middle grade manuscript I have been working on over the last year. The expertise and critique exceeded my expectations,--if anyone is looking to pay for editorial services, I have an amazing recommendation to give--but it left me with a LOT of rethinking and reworking and rewriting. 

Over the last few weeks, I have been working with students as they have been generating, planning, and writing narrative pieces. One of the strategies I have taught several students involves using sticky notes to plan. This morning I decided to take my own advice and I began to plot out the chapters with purple sticky notes. 

 As I got going, I had to go find some different colors because I wanted to capture what I was figuring out about each main character. The yellow sticky notes are my realizations about my characters. I have to be honest--a couple realizations surprised me, and they will definitely help to create tension in the story.

I think my favorite set of sticky notes are the green ones, and they are my "somebody wanted but so" notes. One of the comments from the editor was that I needed to be very clear in my own head about the main plot and the sub-plots. Therefore, I wrote out each of the secondary plots on a note.

Have I mentioned in this post how much I depend on sticky notes? Maybe my take-away from this process should be starting with a board full of different colored notes before heading to the keyboard!

Using Technology for a Kindergarten Student's Planning Process

Sometimes, our kindergarten students can say so much more than they can write. Sometimes, they can think of such great ideas, but they just can't remember those ideas when they get to the third or fourth page. (Sometimes, maybe even the second page. Okay, sometimes, maybe even the first page...)

This morning, I stopped by one of our kindergarten classrooms and the teacher, Hayley Brown, excitedly showed me how her student was working on her writing. This student had a clear story to tell about the first day of school and the read aloud that she remembered. This young student explained to me that sometimes she forgets what she's going to say, but her recording helps her remember. Her teacher walked away as the student showed me how she could find her video, locate the place where she needed a reminder, play it a couple of times, and then write. 

Wow.  WOW!

She impressed me enough to blog about it tonight. Her teacher asked her mom if we could share this young writer's voice and finger as she plans her story. 

The pages that you will watch her plan in this video are full of words now. Enjoy the planning and process of this young writer!

Thursday is App Day! Using Planbook.com

At the beginning of each school year, I create a new personalized plan book binder with lesson templates, sections, and schedules.  Over the years, I have lugged home the plan book binder each day to review and/or revise the next day’s plans as well as have it home with me “just in case” I needed something from the binder.  Last summer, I was determined to go as paperless as possible this year by using my iPad for conferring, planning, and grading.  My search for an online planbook was underway and my search was over when I came across Planbook.com.  This is an online planbook accessed via the web using any computer, iPhone, or iPad.  The cost is $10 for the year and is worth every dollar!

Using this online planbook at planbook.com, I can:

·   Develop custom daily schedules that are color-coded by subject and include events

·   View lessons by day, week, or subject (can also print lessons)

·   Create templates to use for each subject, morning meeting, and/or homework assignment

·   Adjust my lesson schedule by bumping lessons to the next day or extending lessons for more days

·   Share my lessons with Special Education Teacher Melanie Meehan, other teachers, and students if they are absent. This definitely makes team teaching and collaboration much easier.  To share lessons with others, you create a password which is referred to as the "student key" and share the "student key" with colleagues/students you want to have access.  I also like how I can share only certain parts of my plans that are relevant to the viewer (lessons, homework, events).

I now have my lessons at my fingertips at any time of the day and anywhere I am.  With one click, I can now adjust my plans daily to make revisions and changes based on new events, student learning, and the every day disruptions that occur in an elementary classroom.  I also love that I have a digital record of my plans for the year to refer back to for reflection, intruction, and coaching purposes. 

There are many helpful tutorials on the Planbook.com website that walk you through the process step by step.  Planbook.com also provides teachers with a 30 day trial period to try it out before making the purchase for the year.

I’d love to hear about different online systems others are using to help with planning in the classroom. 

Enjoy!