It's Monday! What are you Reading?

Thank you Jen and Kellee for hosting this weekly!  To see what others are reading and recommending, or to participate, be sure to check out their blog Teach Mentor Texts :)

Here are some of my favorites from this week: 

I was excited to come across Edgar Allan Poe's Pie: Math Puzzlers in Classic Poems by J. Patrick Lewis.  I am not known as a "math person" at all - literacy is definitely my passion, but I am working hard this year to try to get more excited about math.  This book is a perfect segue into working on my math goal since this is a poetry book too!  Each page displays a math puzzle embedded inside of a poem with colorful illustrations and the answers on the bottom of the pages.  I plan on hanging up a poem puzzle each morning and giving students all day to try to solve the puzzle by putting their name/solution on a post-it and attaching to the poem display. At the end of the day, during our closing circle, we will discuss our solutions and unveil the answer. 

Sky Boys: How they built the Empire State Building by Deborah Hopkinson is a perfect companion text to Pop's Bridge by Eve Bunting.  Each year, I read Pop's Bridge during our character unit and now I will also read aloud Sky Boys and model thinking across the two texts.  Both texts show the importance of working together as a team to achieve goals and dreams.  

I am always looking for mentor texts to use for informational writing and this is a perfect series to use to study craft in informational writing.  VIP Pass to a Pro Baseball Game Day by Clay Latimer is part of the Sports Illustrated Kids: Game Day series.  I am a baseball fan (Yankees, of course!) so I enjoyed reading about the "behind the scenes" action we don't see watching the games - the pre-game and post-game action.  I learned many new facts about the umpires, coaches, and groundskeeper along with information about the bullpen, dugout, and the clubhouse.  I know this will be a favorite series in my classroom this year! 

I also read Smarter Charts by Marjorie Martinelli and Kristi Mraz this past weekend.  I am extremely passionate about the importance of using purposeful charts in our classrooms and follow Chartchums blog on a regular basis, so I looked forward to reading their new book.  Smarter Charts is for grades K-2, but the philosophy behind making meaningful charts can be applied to any grade level.  If you have not checked out their Chartchums blog yet, definitely head over there soon and be sure to add this book to your TBR stack if you haven't yet! :)


This week I am reading The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks and Energize Research Reading and Writing by Christopher Lehman - so excited to read both!

Happy Reading! :)

Thinking About Writing Conferences

As we approach writing conferences at the beginning of the school year, I think an important goal is to get to know our students. As workshop teachers, we want our students to believe that their lives have importance and small moments that are worth writing about. During the first couple of weeks, writing conferences have the potential of multi-tasking as powerful ways to get to know students as well as letting them know how worthy their lives are of written documentation!

In How’s It Going, Carl Anderson writes about how important it is for us to communicate to our students how much we care about them. He writes that “the reason that many students are willing to take on the difficult challenge of outgrowing themselves as writers is not because we ask just the right questions about their writing work, or because our feedback is right on the mark, or because we teach them brilliantly. In the end the success of a conference often rests on the extent to which students sense that we are genuinely interested in them as writers—and as individuals.” (p.22)

Writing conferences are a great way to get to know students. When a student writes about a New York adventure, it can segue to so many conversations that can help you get to know about that student as a person. Maybe your conversation will go in the direction of the importance of family; maybe it will turn into a conversation about favorite sports teams and maybe it will evolve into a conversation about climbing a rock in Central Park. Who knows? The important part is that you are establishing a relationship with that child which will be the springboard for pushing him/her as a writer.

So then, part of the hard work becomes how to be interested and how to show that interest. Maybe, then before the work of memorizing the types of conferences and the questions that go along with them, comes the work of setting up the classroom environment and routines so that you can focus on what a student is sharing with you and pay attention to it. That means that you are not managing student behavior or answering adult’s questions or thinking about what the next question will be that you will ask or what time the students should line up for lunch…it means that you are listening to student writing and responding as an interested and caring audience. In my yoga class, my instructor frequently challenges us not to think and just to clear our minds—it’s really hard! I don’t know about you but I am always thinking and I am usually thinking about more than one thing at a time so really listening to a student’s story, especially when it is in the early stages and difficult to follow, is hard!

One of the reasons I write is to share parts of my life and develop pieces that have meaning and value to me so it is important to me to have people respond to the content and not just to how clearly or fluently or accurately or precisely I have written. Maybe the first few conferences you have are just to react to the content so that they realize that writing matters and as Carl Anderson wrote, that “they have lives worth writing about.”

Later, I will be sending you charts that show specific types of conferences and questions that align to them. Be on the look out for that. In the meantime, develop your relationships and convictions that writing is important, that your students’ lives have story-worthy moments, that their voices matter, and that their opinions have a respectful home in your classroom. Those messages are critical for launching the writing workshop.

First Few Days of School

This week was our first three days of school, so I've been away from blogging for a few days.  The first week of school is one of my favorite times of the year - full of energy, excitement, and a new beginning.  I love introducing all areas of the classroom, watching kids explore the library, and getting to know all of my new students as learners and as individuals.  I love hearing about the sports they play, which subjects they love or hate, and what interests them.  In the first weeks of school, I work hard to build a strong sense of community, create a safe environment where students feel safe to take risks as learners, and create a buzz of excitement for learning, reading and writing.

Here are a few highlights from our classroom this week: 

Creating our class expectations: 

On the first day, students had time to identify their individual hopes and dreams for this new school year.  Then students gathered in groups to share their hopes and dreams as learners and identify what our whole class needs to do to help them achieve their hopes and dreams (rule/expectation).  After five minutes, all groups gathered together to share the expectations they identified as being the most important for our class.  

As a class, we discussed the patterns they noticed in the group expectations and students discovered that respect, work together, and listen were shared expectations among all groups.  The class decided to have three expectations: Listen when someone is speaking, Be respectful, and Work together.  Below is "Our Classroom Expectations" chart that students signed, agreeing to follow the three expectations they wrote as a class.

Building Community: 

During the first three days, we did various team building activities such as the "Silent Birthday Line- Up" where students have to get in line in order of the birthdays from January to December without talking at all.  Students really have to be creative and work as a whole team to succeed at this challenge in the three minutes they are given. We did this as one of our morning meeting activities this week and the students loved it! At the end of the challenge,  I asked students to reflect on what worked and what they would change if they did the challenge again.  

Another activity that students loved was Save Fred!  I read about this team building activity, that also teaches the Scientific Method, on The Fearless 5th Grade Teacher Blog.   We did this activity during Science this week and I will definitely be doing this activity again next year!  For this activity, each group has to work together to save Fred, the gummy worm, from drowning.  Fred doesn't know how to swim and his boat (a plastic cup) capsized and his life preserver (gummy lifesaver) is underneath the boat.  The group has to try to get the life preserver from under the boat and onto Fred without touching the boat, life preserver, or Fred with their hands. The can only use the four paperclips they are given.  The life preserver is a little small for Fred so all students have to work together to try to get it on him and have to try over and over again before succeeding.  I love this activity because it teaches students how to work together, take risks, learn from failure, and keep trying.  It also teaches the steps of the scientific method which we will be using all year in Science.  

Before giving students the materials, I showed them a Prezi to introduce the experiment and had groups write out their plan and hypothesis for the experiment on a chart I created for each table group. 

Once their plan was ready,  they received their materials and the fun began!  Here are some photos of them working together to save Fred: 

Welcome Back to School! 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

First of all, I want to thank Jen and Kellee for hosting What Are You Reading at their blog, Teachmentortexts.com.  I have gotten so many great recommendations from them and from participants.


Over the week, I have been listening to the Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis and I've had a revelation about why I love books. I like seeing and touching and knowing how much more I have to read. In the case of this particular book, I want to know how much longer this sadness will continue. When I read the book, I know how many pages I have left and I have some control over how quickly I read them; I may even skim some in order to make sure that the character is okay, especially if I have developed a strong connection with the character. I find myself wanting the narrator to read faster or to fast forward the disc--but then I won't know if I've missed something important!

In any case, The Mighty Miss Malone is sad! Set during the Depression, this family can not seem to find a break. I am on the seventh of seven CDs so I'm assuming that there is going to be some sort of resolution for them, but I am still not sure what it will be. If I had the book, I would be tempted to read the last few pages to make sure that the characters turn out okay! (Yes, I snooped for Christmas presents, as well...)

Students come on Wednesday and reading time will diminish. Thanks again for all of the recommendations throughout the summer!

Thoughts on the First Few Weeks

Our school starts next week and yesterday, I spent some time with new teachers reviewing curriculum and workshop teaching. Our district runs a three day new teacher orientation where new teachers receive information on everything from curriculum to benefits to union information. Their agenda is huge and it is all  important and since they probably weren't sufficiently overwhelmed (I'm joking...), here are a few more additions:

• Have some go-to phrases for academic management. "What did you notice?" is a powerful phrase to get students thinking about the process. You can learn a lot about their thinking when they talk about what they notice. "Say more about that" is another one that works well when you want to push students' thinking.

• Have some go-to phrases for classroom and behavior management. I have always liked providing information--if Katy is talking when she is supposed to be listening, often times saying "Katy, you're talking" is enough to make the talking stop. I loved a recent post by Ruth Ayres where the go-to line was "What are you hoping to get from this behavior?" This post is a powerful one to read and think about! 

• Know how you want your classroom to look. It may not look that way in the first few weeks but have a vision and steer in that direction. This is the bullet under which I would say put the energy into establishing routines and systems for everything--unpacking bags, lining up, sharpening pencils, using bookmarks, putting tops back on markers.  This is also the bullet where I would say that less is frequently more during this time of year and there is the law of diminishing returns. Learning is exhausting and your students (and you) have a lot to figure out. Pay attention to the glazed over faces if they show up in your room and allow for some quiet time.

• Know the difference between an open-ended question and a closed-ended question and work hard to use open-ended ones in your teaching. How do you think the character was feeling? will give you much more information than Do you think Jake is angry?

• Establish a mentor who you trust--someone with whom you can wonder, analyze, wonder again, re-analyze... And have those wonderings be more than just wondering where to get more chart paper. Establish a relationship where you can wonder about the work you are doing with students and process what's working, what's not working and why so that you can make some intentional changes.

• The amount of information and resources for teachers is infinite. Between district curriculum, the internet, twitter, pinterest, blogs, and more, there are millions of free ways to supplement your teaching. Know where you can go for information and ideas but don't try to do it all at once. Just as your students need time to integrate knowledge, routines, and information, so do you. Take time to eat and exercise and honor your personal relationships. Don't under-estimate the importance of personal happiness and joy in your teaching.

Haim Ginott's quote hung on my bulletin board in my first classroom.

“I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.”

So true, isn't it?

Enjoy your first weeks of teaching. Your work is so important.

Oh! And as always--if anyone out there have other bullets to add, please share them!

5 of my Favorite Apps for Teaching

On Thursday's, we post a different app that we recommend for teachers and/or students to use in the classroom.  Since we are getting ready to begin the new school year, and some of you may have recently purchased an iPad, I am reviewing my Top 5 apps that I love to use!  Click on the app links below to read how I use the apps and why I love them! 

Dropbox 




Confer 

Upad 

Pocket 

PowerTeacher

I know I said 5....but here are two of my other favorites! :)

Goodreads

Common Core App 

Happy App Shopping! :)

Note-taking Strategies for Informational Writing

This is part two of my take-aways from Chris Lehman's section at the TCRWP Writing Institute.  For Part 1, click here.  

In addition to discussing ways we can support both striving and disengaged writers, we also spent a lot of time talking about informational writing and student research.  During informational writing units, it never fails that we face the challenge of note-taking vs. copying.  When students are researching a nonfiction topic, their notes sometimes look a lot like text whether they copied verbatim or restated the facts.   Chris taught us a strategy called, "Read, Cover, Jot, Reread," that helps deter students from copying and teaches them how to take notes effectively.  This is a simple, yet powerful strategy that I am definitely using with my students this year.  

To bring this strategy to life for you, here is a snapshot of what your demonstration may look like: 

• Read - Model reading a page from your nonfiction text using a document camera if you have one.  As you read aloud, model how you visualize as you read because getting images in our minds helps us understand our reading better.  
• Cover & Jot -  Cover up the page you just read and jot down, on the document camera or chart paper, your notes of what you remember from the text. 
• Reread - Stop jotting notes and open up the page to reread, looking for key concepts or vocabulary you may have missed the first time you read it.  Then model adding in the technical vocabulary to your notes so you can sound more like an expert when you share your learning with others.  

We also talked about teaching students how to determine which note-taking strategies to use for different texts.  For example, if we are reading a compare/contrast article, we may want to set up our notes using a two-column chart or a venn diagram.  Chris shared a lesson we can use to help our students get their minds ready for note-taking.  During this lesson, you can read aloud the beginnings of different sections and ask students to turn and talk after each one to share how they might organize their notes for the text.  You can continue this to teach students how to determine which note-taking strategies to use for different text structures.  You can also have a bulletin board displaying different ways students are taking notes and how it matches the text structure/purpose.  

We explored other challenges we face during informational and essay writing during the week and shared strategies we can use to support all writers in our classrooms.  If you wish you were in Chris Lehman's section at the TCRWP Writing Institute, or want more information about teaching students how to research nonfiction, then check out his brand new book Energize Research Reading and Writing! It was just published by Heinemann this past week and I am anxiously awaiting mine to arrive in the mail - hopefully very soon! :)

Happy Reading and Writing! :)

Ways to Support our Striving, Disengaged, and Reluctant Writers

My morning session, at the TCRWP Writing Institute last week, was with Chris Lehman - I have lots to share!  During the week, we discussed ways to support our striving (instead of struggling), disengaged, and reluctant writers, as well as how to support students with informational writing and note-taking.  In this post, I will focus on strategies for helping disengaged writers.  Stay tuned for a second post this week on strategies I learned to strengthen and energize our students' informational writing.

We have all heard, "I have nothing to write about," in our writing workshop or have seen students go to the bathroom, sharpen pencils, walk around, talk, and everything else they can to avoid writing.  Below are some strategies Chris Lehman shared in both his book, Reviving Disengaged Writers, and during his session at the TC Writing Institute.

Some strategies for helping students who have no topics are: 

• Make sure you model for everyone by aiming for a variety of tones in your demonstrations (funny, gross, emotional, and so on).  Think about what topics are "burning" inside of your students that they may love to write about.  
• Model writing about topics and situations that happened around the same age as your students so they can relate to your demonstration and use it as a mentor. Chris also suggested that you can write about "now" moments, but repackage them by replacing people in the moment so it is set at a younger age (change spouse to parent or sibling, change adult friend to childhood friend, and so on).  
• Have compliment conferences with striving writers to help increase confidence since they probably have a lot of experience feeling like writing is not for them.  Compliment conferences help make writing a more positive experience.  In a compliment conference, you only compliment and don't get to the teaching part of the conference.  For example, you may reread a line from the students' writing like you love it; compare their writing to an authors writing; treat it like a teaching point, but just tell them what they did and how they did it; act as though you are the reader by explaining what their writing made you feel as the reader and point to a specific part. 

Some strategies to use with students who act like they are "allergic" to the writing process: 

• Make goals measurable since striving writers often find it challenging to name and understand the qualities of writing.  For example, students can make a goal/plan at the end of the mini-lesson for how they will use the time during writing workshop.  It helps if the self-assignemnt has both numbers and words (how many ideas will you collect? How many entries will you write? How far down on the page will you write? and so on).  Then stop mid-way during writing workshop to have students reflect on their goals to see what they need to do in the last 15 minutes.  
• Make writing about experimentation by trying to see what works and revising.  Have small sheets of paper available so when students want to try out things in revision, they can take two sheets of paper to try two different dialogue strategies, or two different beginnings, and so on.  

Some strategies to use with students who are worried that it's not "right": 

• Model uncertainty in some of your mini-lesson demonstrations by showing how you work through hard parts in your own writing. 
• Have students re-teach conferences to classmates. To do this, have a writing conference with a student as you normally do, but tell the student that they are going to reteach the conference to a classmate at the end of the conference.  When the conference is over, call over a second student and watch the first student re-teach the conference.  This is a great way to examine your own teaching as well as see what students transfer and internalize from your teaching.  

During his session, we also talked about strategies to use with "chatty" students who seem to talk, talk, talk, instead of write during writing workshop.  I wrote about Chris Lehman's idea, to have a separate partner spot in the classroom that writers can use during writing workshop, in my post about his book, Reviving Disengaged Writers (click here to read more about the idea).  If you have not read Reviving Disengaged Writers yet, I highly recommend that you move it to the top of your TBR stack! :) 

Happy Writing! :)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Thank you to Jen and Kellee at teachmentortexts.com for hosting the Monday ritual of sharing what we read. I love to head over to their blog on Mondays and see what others are reading and recommending. 


Most of my reading has been professional this week, but I did squeeze in a couple of fiction books. One of my favorites was Shooting The Moon by Frances O'Rourke Dowell. Set during the Vietnam era, Jamie Dexter is a self-dubbed army brat with strong opinions and convictions. Throughout the book, her voice is clear and honest, reflective and funny. She and her brother loved the army so TJ enlists as soon as he turns eighteen. Since he is a photographer, TJ sends rolls of film from Vietnam and Jamie learns by developing them that war wasn't how they had envisioned it. Some of the descriptions of Jamie developing the pictures or of her looking at the pictures would serve as great mentor passages. Frances O'Rourke Dowell also does a masterful job of creating dynamic conversations--I especially loved the conversations that Jamie had with people while playing cards.

This would be a great book for an upper elementary library--some descriptions of violence and injuries would worry me for younger students. While the family conflict centers on the Vietnam War, Shooting the Moon is more about family issues, friendship, and personal growth and could be used during a social issues unit as well as a historical fiction one. I have found myself missing Jamie Dexter, an indicator of a great book.

It's Monday! What are You Reading? Everyday Editing by Jeff Anderson

Thank you Jen and Kellee for hosting this weekly!  To see what others are reading and recommending, or to participate, be sure to check out their blog Teach Mentor Texts :)

Last week, I was at the Teachers College Summer Writing Institute so I missed sharing my reading last Monday, but stay tuned this week to hear more about my learning at the TC Writing Institute! 

One professional book that I loved reading last week is Everyday Editing by Jeff Anderson. One of my goals this year is to integrate editing instruction into writing workshop more often, to help students develop their editing skills as writers in meaningful and purposeful ways.  This is the book I packed with me for my train ride into NYC last Sunday and am so glad I did! It is a practical, user-friendly, organized text that will be a go-to resource for me this year for editing instruction.  

In the introduction, Jeff Anderson explains how editing is more than just the checklists we hang in our classrooms or the ones we give to students and it is more than just a stage in the writing process.  Throughout this book, he explains and shows us how editing is a process, not a stage, and that we need to invite students into editing.  I love his point that authors don't spend time looking at sentences with errors on overheads or worksheets, so why are we teaching our student writers that way?  Instead, Jeff says we should collect great sentences from books to share with students and invite them to notice and imitate how the sentence is written.  Then he invites students to collect sentences from their own reading to see how the authors of their books use the conventions they are noticing and studying.  Students can share and celebrate their sentence findings with their classmates on a bulletin board, in their writers notebooks, or charts.  Then students are invited to try out the conventions in their own writing during writing workshop.  

In this book, there are ten complete editing lessons that include commas, colons, capitalization, apostrophes, paragraphs, and so on.  love how Jeff Anderson shows us how editing is a process and how we need to invite students to notice, imitate, and collect great sentences using a particular convention being studied to help them try it out in their own writing.  I will definitely be doing more of this, instead of simply showing students incorrect sentences where they need to find the errors and correct them.  

We need to remember that we teach students editing skills to strengthen them as writers, not just to pass the "test".  Some students fear editing because they are always afraid they are going to get it wrong because "they aren't good at editing" but with this approach they are invited to take risks as writers.   With this approach, students are invited to notice and experiment what they see other authors doing in their writing, like real writers do.  I'd love to hear your thoughts about Everyday Editing by Jeff Anderson or how you teach the process of editing in your classroom so please share. :)

Happy Reading and Editing! :)

Families Write: Clare

Clare is my third daughter and will be in eighth grade this year. She has been the easiest daughter to inspire to write. Clare has always liked to write and we have all always loved her voice. When she was in second grade, she wrote a poem called "I wonder", listing many of her wonders and ending with "I wonder about you." She had loved Eloise Greenfield's Honey, I Love and had modeled it after that.

Clare has been working on a novel this summer and I have to say that she has been a major source of inspiration to me. In an earlier post, I mentioned the prototypes of writers that we sometimes have in the classroom and Clare is the child that sometimes writes and writes and never quite has time enough to get her entire story out within the time limitations of class. Teachers love to read her stuff but sometimes don't have time for it because there is so much of it.

Clare is very clear about her audience. She is writing from the point of view of a 12 year-old girl who is injured in a car accident caused by her mother's texting. (No, this is not auto-biographical!) While she is in the hospital, the girl becomes friends with another girl who has leukemia and not much of a family--I think that she is going to establish that this girl was a foster child but the family could not deal with a serious disease. I know what her plan is for the plot and resolution but out of respect for Clare, I'm not going to reveal it. Maybe you'll read the published version one day. :)

From spending time with Clare, I know that she thinks about her writing during the day. Because of the family dynamics and activities, I have spent a lot of time alone with her and she and I have talked about her book. She has verbalized the plot, the important aspects of the characters, and the background information that her readers should know about prior events. She has used these conversations to propel her nightly writing and, more than any of us, she is the family member who continues to write after we have all shared and sometimes writes during the day. What has struck me the most is how well Clare knows her character and that Clare was not initially sure how the story would resolve itself. When we have talked about her plot, she has sometimes answered that "I haven't quite figured that out yet. I have to see what happens first."

Because I am a special education teacher, I have worked with many students who write too little or lose their way in their writing. Therefore, one of my fallback teaching strategies has been to have students fill in their stories but first determine  the first event and the last event. Clare's work this summer has reminded me that sometimes, writers discover what happens in their stories as they write it. Please be clear--I don't think that this happens for all students or all writers. One of the members of my writing group is extremely plot-driven and I don't think that she deviates much from her initial outline. However, in On Writing (LOVE this book!), Stephen King shares how he creates situations for characters and then writes in order to see how those characters will resolve the situations. When I read this part of his book, I understood and appreciated Clare's uncertainty about her plot so much more!

In my own writing, Clare has reinforced for me the importance of knowing our characters. She and I have spent time answering the questions that Kate Messner posed in a post about creating characters that we loved. I have been working on revising a novel I started a few years ago and it has changed dramatically this summer because I have, like Clare has, taken the time to get to know my character. What great inspiration from my daughter!

Pop Culture can Make Minilessons Come Alive in Writing Workshop

Today is day three of the TC Writing Institute and I have so much to share already!  Each afternoon, I can choose a closing workshop to attend out of a pretty extensive list of choices (wish there were more of me so I could attend them all!) Yesterday afternoon, I attended Kate Roberts' closing workshop on Pop Culture, Media, and Technology in Writing Workshop. First, I have to say that Kate Roberts is brilliant and my district is extremely fortunate to have her as one of our staff developers.  When I saw that Kate was teaching this workshop, I circled it immediately because I am now ready to try out incorporating media into my mini-lessons this school  year.  

Kate started off by stating that our students are immersed in pop culture in their daily lives so we need to think about how we can tap into that and use in our classroom instruction.  She shared the great idea of giving students a questionnaire at the beginning of the year that asks for their favorite TV shows, movies, music, and video games so we can then use that information to help us search for videoclips of media that interests our students.  

Kate shared four categories of work we can do with pop culture: 

• Using Pop Culture for Engagement - Think about how we start off our mini-lessons and fold some pop culture into our connections. For example, we can connect trying hard to get to the next level in a video game to having that same spirit in our writing. We can use the information from our media questionnaires to help us search on YouTube for short scenes to use. 
• Transferring Literacies - use what they do when they watch TV and transfer that into their writing.  We can use videoclips as a demonstration text to show how writers use a particular skill or strategy.  For example, to show how writers use backstory in narratives we can show a video clip and have students pay attention to the dialogue and how people act to help them gather information about the backstory.  Can also show a videoclip and have students pay attention to the character's claim and reasons and then chart them with boxes and bullets.  
• Creating Materials for Publication - We can get our students to make comics using ComicLife, make iMovies, create podcasts, and so on.  One option is to have students work on this for homework so it doesnt eat all classroom instructional time.  We can also devote time at the end of the writing unit for this kind of media work and ask students to translate their writing piece into a different form of media.  
• Building Community or for Assessment - Some examples of ways we can incorporate more technology and media in our classrooms is to use blogs, wikis, Edmodo, and Flip Cameras.  

I would love to hear how you incorporate pop culture, media, and technology into your mini-lessons so please share!  I look forward to trying out all these ideas in my minilessons this school year - Thank you Kate Roberts!