ELA Teachers, It's Our Time to Shine!

Albert Einstein said, "I never teach my pupils.  I only attempt to provide conditions in which they can learn."  Teachers, we are headed into a very peculiar time.  

Who would have thought a month ago we would be stuck in our homes trying to figure out how we can best teach our students remotely.  Not me! A few weeks ago, I was planning how to best prepare students for our upcoming state testing.  Now, that is no longer a priority.  Instead, we are presented with a unique opportunity: providing conditions in which our students can learn and grow... from a distance. 

Our challenge is this: how can we provide engaging ways for students to practice their literacy skills?  Also, even more challenging, it has to be attractive, meaning students have to want to participate in the activity because for most public schools like mine, learning during this time is voluntary because not all students have access to internet.

There is no substitute for a real live, breathing teacher.  However, with the use of eTools, we can provide optional activities to sidetrack our students' stressed and bored brains during this difficult time.  

This is our time to shine and show the awesomeness of our profession!   

Below, I have compiled a list of ideas for ELA teachers to use to during this time.  They are based on the published works of the masters in our profession.  

Google Students Way to Learning

Many teachers have already leveraged the G Suite as a workspace for their students.  Google has changed the face of education in ways few of us could have ever imagined.  If you haven't set up a google classroom for your students, now is the perfect time!  Google Classroom helps organize day-to-day tasks, communication, and foster greater collaboration and it's easy to use.  This tutorial can help you get started.  Google Docs is an easy way for students to create their writing.  Also, using Docs allows for easy collaboration between other students and the teacher.  Here is a quick tutorial for Google Docs.  

If you are considering using the G Suite for your virtual teaching, I recommend The Google Infused Classroom by Holly Clark and Tanya Avrith.  It includes easy-to-follow instructions to help you use online technology to engage your students. Google has the power to help our students visualize their thinking, give each them a voice, and allows them to share and publish their work.  Not only is this useful for our current times, but it will make you a more diverse teacher for the future. 

Poetry With Kwame Alexander

Poetry is a powerful method to engage students in writing that is meaningful.  Many teachers feel they aren't prepared to teach poetry, so they stay as far away from it as possible.  This is unfortunate because there is no better pathway to writing success for students.  Think about it: poetry uses word economy, meaning you can use fewer words to get a point across and it doesn't have to follow grammar rules.  I can't think of any other writing genre that would be more accessible for struggling learners.  

I know my students all love Kwame Alexander's verse novels.  Once they realize they can use poetry to tell a story like Kwame did in The Crossover, they're in!  The Write Thing by Kwame Alexander gives dozens of ideas for engaging students in poetry.  After students create their poems, you could have students publish their writing using Padlet.  Padlet is a website that allows you create a blank digital wall where you student work can be gathered.   Here is a Padlet Board I used last year to collect our poetry.  We even had many famous authors contribute to our board.  The key to getting students to write poetry is helping them realize poetry is already a part of their lives through the music they listen to, and that they, too, can use it as a way to tell a story.

Digital Writer's Notebooks

In Ralph Fletcher's book, The Writing Teacher's Companion, he describes components of a successful Writer's Workshop that help students find their voice.  He discusses the Writer's Notebook as a tool to do this:  "The Notebook is a high-comfort, low-risk place...that gives kids unparalleled space and time and freedom to find their stride and start living the writerly life."  He goes on to say, "play has been largely banished from the writing classroom.  That's unfortunate because children need to play with language in order to grow into strong, confident writers.  I think of the notebook as a playground, a place to play with language in countless ways.  Students can use their notebooks to experiment by writing notes, sketches, doodles, spoofs, jokes, poems, limericks, cartoons, songs, raps, plays, ads, memes, banners, or bumper stickers."  

Has there ever been a more perfect time to move students towards using the Writer's Notebook? You can do this in a variety of digital ways.  The easiest way is using Google Docs.   Encourage students to express their thoughts through their own Writer's Notebook.  Innovate ways for them to share their notebooks with each other and respond to the thoughts and feelings of their peers.

The Creativity Project

The Creativity Project by Colby Sharp is a favorite of mine!  It compiles more than forty children's authors and illustrators story starters using a variety of mediums, including photos, drawings, poems, prose, or anything they could dream up.  Each story starter has a response from another author or illustrator of a creative work they wanted to share.  Much of the book can be previewed on Amazon.  

Using this book as a mentor, why not do something similar for your students? Email students asking them to submit story starters.  The story starters could be photographs, prompts, a short story that needs continued, a comic, a sketch, or anything else they can come up with.  Once you've compiled their submissions, create a Screencastify introducing your own Creativity Project or host a Zoom meeting, which is free to educators right now.  You could organize the story starters on a Hyperdoc.  A Hyperdoc is a student-facing online document that links a variety of resource links in one place.  There are a vast number of ways available to publish students' responses, including a Padlet board or a Google Folder.

Using Debate to Leverage Student Learning

Decades ago, if students wanted to learn, school was the only place to access learning resources.  This is no longer the case.  Now, students can access a wide assortment of knowledge from their devices.  Teachers are not the gatekeepers to learning, but rather the guides.  In Matt Miller's Ditch That Textbook, he provides endless ideas for guiding students thinking with digital experiences.  One of those ideas is through debates.  

We all know students love to debate, so why not provide them the opportunity?  Create a document of several debatable topics that would interest your students.  The New York Times has provided 100 debatable questions with texts to make it easier.  Present the choices to students through a Hyper Doc or Google Slide that presents the topics available for debate.  Allow students to sign up for debates through a Google Form or Slotted, which is an online signup tool.  Depending on your preference, you can use Google Hangouts or Zoom for virtual, live debates or create a chatroom in Backchannel for ongoing debate chats.  There is an endless number of digital tools available to provide a space for debate!

Now, more than ever, teachers play a vital role in providing some normalcy and routine in the lives of our students.  It requires us to be innovative as we provide learning opportunities that reinforce the skills our students acquired throughout the school year.  

If you have any ideas, please put them in the comments below.  After all, teachers are the best thieves around, so give us something to steal!