Let's consider the first part of  Idaho Core (CCSS) .ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.4:

Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.

So what do we know about vocabulary instruction and strategies that can make the difference for all of our kids when it comes to using context?  In their book, Teaching Vocabulary in All Classrooms (I LOVE this book!), Camille Blachowicz and Peter J. Fisher give us a few key pointers.

Nagy & Anderson, 1984

First, at best we can formally introduce kids to approximately 400 new words a year, but they gain 4000.  How does this happen?  Through context!

1. Experience new words in new and engaging situations.
You learn at new hobby and tons of new words come with it as you whip, saute, braise, caramelize, roast and poach.  Sometimes you find out there is more than one way to beat something.

2. Learn through "vicarious experiences."
Think of all the new words you'd gain just by watching a tennis match (By the way....I still don't understand LOVE and all the other weird scoring.  Plus, I'm apparently not supposed to talk during the match so I can't ask either!)

3.  Pick up new words through listening.
We also learn by hearing words others speak or by being read to.  My neice Addie, at 2 1/2, when asked over the phone, "What's your mama doing?", would answer, "She's helping a tustumer (customer) at the tounter (counter)."  Addie learned that lanuage from being around it.

4.  Gain words through our own personal reading.
You might be surprised if you saw my copy of Pride and Prejudice.  When my book club read this book a few years ago, I added a page and a half of new vocabulary to the front of the book.  I didn't want to stop the story to find a dictionary, and I could use enough context clues to keep going, but there were a few that got looked up later.

All of these are important ways to get repeated exposure to new vocabulary.  But the reason that L.4 is a standard is because our kids also need specific modeling of thinking processes and other strategies so that they know how the context can help them when they are on their own.

Below is a quick checklist of easy strategies for starting to support this standard and making your room a place where kids are marinated in words.

Angie and Jayna

Carol Wells!

Carol Wells won coffee this morning with the following estimation of the meaning of the last post.

"I love the after dinner conversation with the lights  streaming from the trees , while feeling utterly full from the refreshments and good friends can’t help but find laughter in my   so unfunny jokes as my niece and nephew find their grandpa’s, who  is one of the last Old Masters, yet is also modern,   fish stories to be romantic in a way that only makes them yearn to be part of it themselves."

Sobremesa might be might new favorite word!  Below is the definition of sobremesa and the forgein words used.  They were first shared on Edudemic.  I'm also attaching a fun infographic that was shared their too.  Stay tuned for a vocabulary strategy coming this week!

Angie

• Cualacino – the mark left on the table by a glass
• Komorebi – sunlight that filters through the leaves
• Jayus – A joke told so poorly and so unfunny that one cannot help but laugh
• Goya – the transporting suspension of disbelief found in good storytelling
• Sobremesa – the time spent after lunch or dinner, talking with the people you shared the meal with

Did you?  I told you not too!  I want you to read the post first.

New words!  I love them.  I'm not sure how or why they have come to bring me such joy, but they still feel like a fun discovery. There is great power in words too.  There is the power to change lives, encourage, love, and unfortunately, to destroy some of the same...with one small word.

As teachers we also know that words, how to choose them, how to research them, and how to appropriately employ them (hopefully and primarily for good), can make all the difference in the successful oral and written communication of our students.  The Idaho Core Anchor standards also emphasize the importance of vocabulary instruction:  CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.L.4 Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases by using context clues, analyzing meaningful word parts, and consulting general and specialized reference materials, as appropriate.  For many of us, this isn't a new insight, but have we recently considered the strategies we are employing in our classrooms to instill these skills and the excitement of new words?

So, I fell in love with some new words today and I have a challenge for you.  See if you can use the context clues (Including the picture at the end.  It's ok to look now.), analyze the word parts, and (if you must) consult reference materials (Admit it! You just went to Google. So did I.) to determine the meaning of my sentence.  If you are the first to respond to me (Angie) by email, with a very close approximation of what I love to do, I'll bring you a hot beverage of your choice on a morning of your choice next week.  

And then consider, "How might I instill the love and joy of new words in my classroom this year?"

I so love a sobremesa as the komorebi lights the cualacion left from the refreshments and good friends find laughter in my jayus as my nephew and niece find goya in their grandpa's fish stories.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Congratulations to Wendy Jeffes, 5th Grade at Heights! She won the Nonfiction Mentor Texts book. I am sure she will share with her team. Enjoy. We know you will use many of the strategies in your teaching and learning this school year.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

My Partner Said
My Partner Wondered

Earlier this week as I walked by one of our new enthusiastic teachers I noticed some of my gifted and advanced kids participating in the classroom discussion. As I continued to observe it became more and more apparent that the discussion was mostly between two students and the teacher. I thought back to when I had a classroom and how there were kids who pretty much dominated most of the speaking time while many of the quieter, more reflective students never inserted their voice into the stream of thinking. I wish I would have known Linda Hoyt's "My Partner Said" Strategy and its variation, "My Partner Wondered." 

The Idaho Core includes Speaking and Listening Standards. Truthfully, there have always been similar standards but now we must leverage speaking and listening in our collaborative classrooms to facilitate reading, writing, and math thinking. We need to utilize strategies so students learn to listen and speak. All students need a voice in our classrooms.

The Idaho Core Speaking and Listening Anchor Standard states:

Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Therefore, we must engage even our reluctant speakers and cultivate listening skills. We have shared "My Partner Said" in many of our trainings and in our work in classrooms, but we have many new teachers. And, it's always a good reminder for us veteran teachers! Here are the anchor charts for the two strategies:

We know some of our G/T students tend to know the answers and are used to speaking (and even overspeaking!) while other students passively let them. Also, a few students take a while to articulate their thoughts. Using Linda Hoyt's strategies will help balance out our classroom discussions.

The wonderful, new teacher I mentioned in the first paragraph found me later this week to tell me how successful the strategy worked. She said that at first the dominant speakers said their partners had nothing to say but they had some important information to share. Well, of course they did, as some of these kids are used to speaking up without having to listen to the ideas of others! With determined nudging and consistent practice, other students are starting to speak up and all students are having to listen and encourage responses, in order to know what their partners said. 

On a side note, I sat in Cheryl Forse's classroom this morning and had the chance to be an elbow partner. When I shared out what my partner said I saw a pleased look on the face of my fellow partner. The next time we had to turn and talk, he made sure to talk more than he had the first time.  I think he was hoping I'd share his ideas again.

Speaking of Linda Hoyt, we are giving away one of her excellent books, which includes many writing strategies for non-fiction. But you have to follow our blog by tomorrow!  

Stay tuned for our announcement of the lucky winner tomorrow.

Did that get your attention?  We hope so!  Follow this blog by email, before Friday, August 30 and we will add you to a drawing for this book. If you already own it, we'll find a different book for you...equally as full of great ideas for writing.

  

This summer, my niece Addie(Angie speaking), when asked, "What's the magic word?" would answer "Abba Dabba!"  The first time she said it, it was more like "Abba Dabba??", but we all laughed so hard she has continued to use it for our attention (mainly her Grampy's).  The point of this story is that we were working hard with 3 year old Addie to get her to say "Please" and we were doing it with a specific expectation and oral rehersal.

With the new Idaho Core standards, Jayna and I are becoming more and more convinced of the importance of taking kids from oral rehersals of ideas and evidence to the written.  Launching them into the written too soon causes frustration and a lot of wasted "writing" time.  By working to meet the speaking and listening standards of the Idaho Core, we are really scaffolding kids into writing in a very research proven way.

But, much like Addie, kids don't always have the words.  They need rehersal and prompting for having discussions!  Their models of 'good' argument might be few.  So we want to advocate helping give kids the words through Discussion Stems.  That takes us to the 2nd Give Away.  Jackie Miller shared a great list of stems with the participants in her session last week.  Here's that list plus a few.  We'll be adding more and updating the list throughout the year.

Happy Back to School!

Angie and Jayna

Welcome Back!  We hope it's been a great summer for you and your family and that you are feeling refreshed and ready to get back to school.

As we gear back up we wanted to take a few minutes to share our big goals and guidelines for the year.  Our main goal is to support you as you work towards meeting the needs of your gifted and advanced students.  In the days to come, we will be establishing schedules with you and your team and wrapping up testing with incoming second graders (and a few others.)  We will also be bringing you new, online referral forms to make things a little easier on you and to save a little paper.

Jayna and I have been doing a lot of thinking and training with elementary teachers in the area of argument/opinion writing and reading for evidence.  We are looking forward to share ideas with you and trying out new strategies with you kids.

If there is something we can help you with right away, please, don't hesitate to send us an email.

Here's to a great year!

Angie (and Jayna)

Use a Picture to Prompt Writing

Anyone feeling like this yet?

Oh, how hard it can be to inspire kids to write this time of year...really any time of year for some.  Here's a thoughtful link about using photographs.  We have a few tricks up our sleeves as well.  Let us know.  We are glad to share.

http://writinglesson.ning.com/group/inspiringphotographs/forum/topics/the-power-of-photos-to-inspire-writing?xg_source=msg_mes_network

Thinking Metaphorically

HOW TO LOOK AT THINGS A DIFFERENT WAY

When Pablo Picasso, the Spanish artist, was a schoolboy, he was terrible at math because whenever the teacher had him write a number on the chalkboard, he saw something different. The number four looked like a nose to him and he kept doodling until he filled in the rest of the face. The number 1 looked like a tree, 9 looked like a person walking against the wind, and 8 resembled an angel. Everyone else in the classroom saw numbers on the chalkboard; Picasso perceived a variety of different images.

Creativity, no matter which of its many definitions you favor, requires looking at the world in a different way and trying fresh approaches to problems. An easy way to shake up your thinking is to think metaphorically. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that means one thing is used to describe an object or idea to which it is not literally applicable - a ship to plow the sea, for example, or a lover’s lane described as a ribbon of moonlight.

The ability to think metaphorically increases the likelihood that one can appreciate it in a new light, which, in turn, may lead to solutions that might not otherwise be anticipated.The American research team struggling to understand the theories of superconductivity worked in conjunction with a dance troupe to see if they could grasp the choreography of how sub-atomic particles paired and interacted. Physicist Edward Witten – to explain “string theory”– the most revolutionary idea in physics in more than half a century – likened the tiny loops or closed “strings” to doughnuts.

Aristotle considered metaphor a sign of genius, believing that the individual who had the capacity to perceive resemblances between two separate areas of existence and link them together was a person of special gifts. If unlike things are really alike in some ways, perhaps, they are so in others.

Thinking metaphorically opens your eyes to see the similarities between dissimilar things - a technique available to any of us. All we need do is cultivate a taste for metaphor.

-from an article posted at creativethinking.net

When we ask students to compare a math, science or poetry concept in class with something unusual, they need to fully understand it. Breaking it down and analyzing the individual pieces will help them to understand the conecpt better or make it more familiar. So, when Cindy Babauta went looking for a differentiated activity to provide for  a few students who had passed their cells unit pretest, we made them think in metaphors.

CELL ANALOGY COLLAGES

The two students were provided the requirements of the collage via Edmodo, so they could access information anywhere and communicate with me if they had questions or concerns. Basically, the girls had to find representations of everyday objects that had similar functions as several cell structures. Then they had to write an analogy to show the similarity between the cell structure and the everyday object, along with reasoning to explain the comparison. To extend their thinking, we asked them to consider a theme to tie all the objects together. Here is what the girls created:

A.P. compared a plant cell to a well functioning home.

The mother is the nucleus of the home!

H.G.decided a plant cell was similar to a city.          

A toll both operates much like a cell membrane.