Author Archives: Julie

Jun 5 2012

Scripted Minilessons

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If you asked me to name the most common request I get from visitors to julieballew.com, I could do so without a bit of hesitation. Minilessons. At least once a day, I get an email asking for more specific lessons to go with the charts I’ve posted.

I am fortunate to work in a school district with a robust, thoughtful curriculum, but unfortunately, I don’t have permission to share the curriculum documents with the world wide web. I can however, share lessons that I’ve taught based on that curriculum. Last year, we focused on scripting minilessons. We didn’t ask teachers to script every single lesson, but many of them found that the lessons they scripted went MUCH better. To model this good habit, I began scripting any lesson I taught, whether it was for reading workshop, writing workshop, or a strategy group.

Soon, I will add a new page to my site, where I’ll post some of those scripted minilessons. I’ll be sure to include the grade level in which I taught each lesson, but they are all adaptable for any grade level. I hope this is helpful for you. Let me know what you think, and I will add to it.

Happy summer! 🙂

Update (6/6/12): Minilessons are up! Click here to see them.

Jun 2 2012

Book-a-Day Challenge

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For the 4th year in a row, Donalyn Miller has issued her summertime Book-a-Day Challenge. It’s as simple as it sounds – catch up on all the reading you meant to do during the school year by reading (an average of) one book every single day throughout the summer! Read more about it here and follow me on Twitter (@literatelife) to see what books I’m reading! Today’s choice: The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.

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Katherine Applegate stole my heart with The Home of the Brave, and my expectations were sky-high for this book. I can tell you – she did not disappoint! Here’s the blurb:

Ivan is an easy-going gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all.

Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he’s seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line.

Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home – and his own art – through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it’s up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.

Katherine Applegate blends humor and poignancy to create Ivan’s unforgettable first-person narration in a story of friendship, art, and hope.

May 10 2012

Book of the Month

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One of my favorite projects at school this year was definitely our Book of the Month program. We got this idea from PS 277 in New York City. My principal and I had the opportunity to spend a week at that very special school back in February of 2011 while attending the TCRWP Institute on Literacy Coaching and Whole-School Reform. I fell in love with the idea right away, and my principal did too.

Last summer, she secured enough funding for me to order 47 copies of nine different picture books. I tried to choose books that would be appealing to all students, from our youngest three-year-olds to our oldest fifth graders. This was an even bigger challenge than I expected, so I compromised on a few titles, knowing that one age group would possibly enjoy a given title more than others. Good books are good books, though, no matter how old you are, so I just focused on choosing great books! 🙂

On the first day of each month, I was able to put a new book in every single teacher’s box, along with a letter explaining why that particular book was chosen. In return, teachers were asked to read the book aloud to their class, allow time for a meaningful discussion, and display it somewhere in the room. (The photo above is a display in the front office that I created throughout the year by adding the new letter and a picture of the corresponding book each month.)

The opportunities this provided for common conversation around texts was amazing. I could go into any classroom in the building and know some texts that I could use to activate their schema. It created a common (mental) “books I’ve read” log for every single student in the building.

One of my favorite testimonies for the program was a conversation I witnessed during a writing celebration. A class of second graders came into a Kindergarten class to share their latest pieces of published writing. They were sprawled all over the room in groups of two or three, and the Kindergarteners listened attentively as their 2nd grade buddies read their pieces aloud. I leaned into one partnership (two boys) just as the 2nd grader finished reading. The Kindergartener clapped (so cute!) but obviously didn’t know what to say, so I prompted him to talk about his favorite page. (I knew this was in his comfort zone, as this is a prompt card strategy they use to talk about books in literacy stations). The 2nd grader handed his booklet over, and the Kindergartener immediately flipped to a page near the end.

“I love this page the most,” he said. “It has a lot of words, and the picture looks just like a picture in a book that we read about a roller coaster.” I notice that he’s pointing to Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee (a previous book of the month), so I grab it from the chalkboard rail where it is displayed and hand it to him. The 2nd grader’s eyes lit up as he explained how Roller Coaster had been his mentor text for that piece.

“This book is a small moment, and we were writing small moments, so I used it to help me!” he shared.

The boys went on to discuss the book further, and that 2nd grader seized the opportunity to teach his Kindergarten buddy about using mentor authors. What a powerful confirmation for him!

While I don’t know how long we’ll be able to continue the Book of the Month program, I’m thrilled with the idea that when August rolls around, every teacher will have a stack of picture books that almost every single student in his or her class has already read. I hope that this will allow for deeper literary thinking to begin on day one of instruction!

I know that funding is definitely a roadblock to a program like this, but even if you start with one book that goes into every single classroom, I think you’ll be amazed at the connections kids can make. If you do decide to try it (or you already have), I’d love to hear which books you’re using!

Happy (almost) Friday! 🙂
Julie

Apr 19 2012

Strategy Rings

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When I confer with students (in reading or in writing), I really like to leave them with some tangible reminder of the strategy I taught them. That way, I have a record of what I taught them, and so do they.

I used to rely on Post-it notes, which was fine in the moment, but it was often difficult for the kids to find them when I came around to confer with them the next time, so I ended up referring to my notes most of the time. This left me wondering if they were really using the reminder at all.

As I thought about this, I wondered if a more lasting reminder system would lead to more transfer of the teaching done in conferences. That’s when I thought of strategy rings. I love the ring system – the rings are relatively cheap (and even cheaper if you use half of a pipe cleaner instead), and they are easy to add to but definitely durable. This system isn’t groundbreaking – it’s exactly what I was doing with Post-it notes, but it lasts longer and is easier for the kids to use.

Every time you have a conference, just hot whatever you teach on a (pre-hole-punched) notecard, and let the student at it to their ring of strategies. This makes it easy to hold them accountable, and they can trade with their partners when revising.

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Apr 7 2012

Mail Call

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I have been getting lots of emails from fellow educators who’ve stumbled across my site.  I love getting these, and I try to answer them as soon as I can.  It’s common for me to get several e-mails with the same question, so it occurred to me that there may be more people with the same wonderings who just haven’t clicked the email button.  So, here are a few questions I’ve received, followed by my responses.

 

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 I love your readers notebook. I really want to try using them next year.  Can you help me explain how they organize it? Do they skip pages to make the different parts? I really love love love it!!!  Do you tab it?

–“Teacher”

I use a four-section reader’s notebook, and I do have the kids count the pages and tab it before we ever start using it.  The sections are as follows (page numbers are based on a 100-page composition notebook):

  • My Reading Life (~15 pages): Identity-building work is done here. (reading timelines, home-run books, identity ladders, last ten books I’ve read, etc.)
  • What I’m Learning (~20 pages): Notes or copies of key anchor charts (as they are retired from the wall) go here.
  • Read-Aloud (~30 pages): Post-its or writing long based on read-aloud with accountable talk go here.  This work is guided heavily.
  • Independent Reading (~35 pages): This section looks much like the read-aloud section, but it is not so guided, as the work is done during independent reading.
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I am curious how you would suggest organizing books for students in class.  I am a 3rd grade teacher and I have lots of picture books and chapter books in my classroom library.  Right now I have them separated (picture, chapter, non-fiction) in book buckets.  However, as I get more titles, the book buckets are filling up and I’m running out of space.  I just wondered if you had any other suggestions for organizing. Thanks for your input.

— Karen
This is a great question, and one I get often! I had my books in tubs, divided in a number of different ways. I had some bins by genre (poetry, biographies, historical fiction, space science, etc.) and some bins by level to help students who really struggled with choosing just-right books. (Note: almost all of my books were leveled, but they weren’t all sorted by level.) I also had bins for read-alouds and mentor texts.  These were empty when the year began, and we filled them throughout the year, as I read a book aloud or we used it as a mentor in writing.  Finally, I let my kids have some ownership over organization – this will change your life in terms of keeping the library organized – so I started every year with several empty, unlabeled bins as well. As we launched reader’s workshop, we talked a lot about how readers choose books. These discussions revealed some general preferences in my class, and by the end of that first unit, we had newly labeled buckets for ease of finding those preferred books.  Some of these bins earned labels like “If you like Mo Willems, you’ll love these books!” or “Books about Best Friends” or even “Books with Bullies”.  I will try to dig up my book bin labels and post them as a printable soon!
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Hey, Julie!  Thank you so much for sharing your charts.  I love them!  I just discovered your site on Pinterest.  I have a question…how do you store your charts?  I’m sure it’s very clever and would love to know!

Thanks so much for all you do!
Becky

I use the same storage bags that we use to store big books, and I made (well, I asked my very handy father to make) a small hanging rod for them that I mounted to the wall. I sort them by unit and label the bags accordingly.

Now that I’m using charts as models for other teachers, this preserves them better.  It’s also less time-consuming than the mount-to-a-coat-hanger method I used to use, although that method was definitely better for the time since my kids needed easy access to them.

Below is a picture of my stored charts. Hope this helps! 🙂

I absolutely love reading your emails! Keep them coming! 🙂

Happy Easter weekend!
Julie

Mar 31 2012

Request

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Friends, I have to ask for all of the prayers, good thoughts, and well-wishes you have to offer for a friend and colleague of mine.  She is a fabulous fifth grade teacher at the school where I used to work – she teaches reading and writing, and her kids are SO lucky to have her.  Last April, she and her husband lost their four-year-old son Cade after he collapsed on the field during soccer practice.  He died of a heart condition that they were completely unaware of.  We were all so shaken, but their faith was an inspiration.  They immediately had their 11-month old daughter Addi tested and found out that she had the same condition.  She was placed on the heart transplant list last November and had a defibrillator put in in January, and we all prayed for the day they would receive the life-saving call.

Last week, sweet Addi’s heart stopped beating during a routine check-up, and she was placed on life support.  She made miraculous gains, astounding everyone, and as of Thursday, she was even up and moving.  But yesterday, God called precious Addi home.  She is no doubt rejoicing with her brother, and I am sure they are the cutest angels in Heaven, but that makes it no less heartbreaking.  Please, please, pray for this amazing family, and hug your loved ones a little tighter today.

You can read more about their story on Susie’s blog, The Carpenters.

Mar 31 2012

Updates

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State testing was this week, and in Texas, it was our first stab at a new assessment – the STAAR.  Because I don’t have a class of my own, I tested individual students across three days.  While this may sound like a vacation from the everyday routine of work, I can assure you that it’s not.  Sitting and staring at one student all day is inexplicably exhausting.  I’m glad it’s over, and I’m ready for the April round to come and go as well!

In terms of updates, I’ve received several e-mails about trouble viewing the slideshows.  Because of bandwidth limits, I’m having to compress the pictures on my site more than I’d like, and this is making the slideshows behave in a wonky way, especially on non-Mac systems.  I’ve disabled the slideshows until I can figure this out.  You can still click on any image to enlarge it, and you can click on next underneath the pictures to scroll through the larger images.  I hope this helps!

Mar 22 2012

Updates!

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In terms of updating, I took an extended Spring Break, but even that extension is over now.  I just updated the site (as of this post, it’s still publishing) with a few new anchor charts and some pictures of a literacy station work board.  Also, I made a bunch of changes to the look of the site, as I’m trying to save bandwidth space.  Lots of traffic is a great thing, but it’s threatening to crash the whole site. 🙁

Enjoy the updates, and let me know if you have any questions!

Mar 13 2012

Sweet, Sweet Spring Break

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I didn’t update this weekend because I was busy enjoying some glorious moments of nothing-ness. I’m trying my best to continue that streak for the entirety of my spring break, so it will probably be next week before I update the site. In the meantime, I’ll be adding to my reader’s notebook!

The notebook is about pushing our thinking as readers, and I’m always thinking about new ways to do that. My latest entry is about my thinking across several texts. When I looked at my reading log (yes – I keep a reading log), I noticed a trend, so I wrote about it. It’s rare that I talk about just one book at a time. As a real-world reader, I’m constantly making connections to other books when I share titles with my friends. This entry was a way to capture that thinking.

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If you’re also on spring break, enjoy your time off! Even if you’re not on vacation this week, I hope you’re filling it with whatever makes you happiest.

Enjoy! 🙂
Julie