Currently December

Apparently the only time I blog anymore is for Farely's Currently... (blogger fail)

The life of a working teacher/mother/wife/aspiring writer is busy, so blogging has taken a backseat. However I do have something exciting to share...

My 6th graders complete NaNoWriMo this week and were all WINNERS!

NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month, which takes place every November.

My students met their lofty word count goals and have completed rough drafts of their first novels! Now begins the long tedious process of editing and revising as we get our novels ready for printing in January. Fast Pencil (a sponsor of NaNoWriMo) is professionally printing paperback novels for students who met their word count goal! My students can't wait to see their stories in print!

And, just to brag a little, I've peeked at their writing... It's pretty darn good!

Check out this passage:

Autumn couldn’t distinguish how long it was before she had woken up. Thinking she should just sit and wait for death to come, but then she realized Summer was still in danger. Trying to crawl out of the car she sees Adrianna lying there. DEAD.
“ADRIANNA NO YOU ARE NOT DYING TODAY.”  Autumn yells, holding Adrianna in her arms, now covered in her best friend’s blood. She places her face against her chest, crying, hoping her tears would bring her back to life just like in the movies. After a few more minutes Autumn crawls out of the car and whispers “Goodbye Adrianna.” With tears still dripping down her face, Autumn starts to run as fast as her injured leg will allow.

And this one:

You know that feeling when someone’s watching you, studying your movement and your breathing? Well, I’m feeling that right now, and I’m not appreciating it waking me up at one o’clock in the morning. Now I’m wide awake and there is no way I’m falling back asleep without doing a little investigating first. On my way out my bedroom door, I see them. Green, glowing eyes right there across the room.

I took part in NaNoWriMo with my students too! Here's something from my work in progress:

The sound of trees rustling in the breeze drifts through my window. It’s as if the trees are whispering secrets to be carried on by the wind. The way school children play telephone. Each tree changes the secret slightly, adding the arrangement of their leaves and branches to the cacophony of nighttime sounds. Their secret ends with me, drifting into my window, gently tickling my ear, and lulling me to sleep. Their soft breath wraps around me like a blanket and carries me into morning.

I am so glad that I decided to embark on this journey with my students. I was hesitant to at first, convinced that writing nonstop for a month would create anarchy in my classroom and start the Great Language Arts Rebellion of 2015.

However, I read this book over the summer Teach Like a Pirate, by Dave Burgess. In it he said that teachers need to be passionate. Burgess wrote "It doesn't matter what subject you teach. You can become totally engaging to your audience if they can feel your passion and love for what you are doing. You will draw students in as if by some magnetic force." By participating in NaNoWriMo along with my students I let them be a part of something that I am very passionate about. They mirrored my enthusiasm for writing and were eager to start typing each day.

Every Friday during NaNoWriMo we had "Proud Paragraph Parties" where students shared their favorite paragraph they had written during the week. I shared what I was working on as well and in doing so I became one of them. We were equals, all working and collaborating together. It was such a rewarding experience!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Currently November

I can't believe it's November already!! Time to link up with Farley for this month's currently:

Fall is my FAVORITE season of all time! I love the colors, the smells, and snuggling up with loved ones on cool autumn nights. However this fall I have a whole new reason to be excited... NaNoWriMo (aka - National Novel Writing Month)!!

I stumbled across this over the summer as I embarked on my own writing adventure. Essentially it is the idea that if you write 1,666 words per day for the month of November you will have a 50,000 word novel at the end of the month. Sounds like a neat idea, but requires a whole lot of commitment and self-discipline!

My 6th grade Language Arts class got excited about a journal prompt one day and asked if they could turn it into a longer writing piece (most asked to write novels!) So I went to the NaNoWriMo site and found that they have a whole Young Writers Program!

They have a whole curriculum with lesson plans and FREE workbooks for all grade levels (elementary, middle, and high school). I printed them out and bound them for my class and they were super excited. Here's the final product:

The best part, the whole workbook is written in language a middle schooler would use! My reluctant-to-do-anything 6th graders devoured this and actually read ahead!!

I also scored a NaNoWriMo classroom kit! It included a poster for tracking progress, stickers, buttons, and a deck of writers block cards:

I am so excited to begin writing with them tomorrow!! We've been working on the prep activities in the workbook and they have some pretty creative and unique story ideas. I've reserved the laptop cart for the whole month so we can write every day! My plan is to try a flipped classroom strategy where students watch video lessons at home for homework and then complete the actual work in class. Nothing but writing for our whole 45 minute block!!

If this sounds like something your students might be interested in, head on over to NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program.

Don't forget to head back to Farley's page for more great Currently posts!

NaNoWriMo :)

I had a breakthrough last Friday with my 6th grade Language Arts class!

They loved Friday's journal prompt so much that they asked if they could turn them into short stories or novels. I had planned to have students choose a journal entry to develop into a larger writing piece later on in the school year. However, their enthusiasm convinced me to embark on the adventure now!

The biggest question was how to structure novel writing for my 6th grade students whom I only see for 45 minutes a day?

During the launch of my own novel writing adventure this summer, I discovered NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It's a great website designed to get you writing and keep you motivated. I remembered that November is NaNoWriMo (the timing couldn't be more perfect)! I checked out their site and found that they have a Young Writers Program geared towards educators and classrooms.

Best of all... they have FREE workbooks you can download for your students! Click on the logo to the right to visit their site and check out their free resources for educators. I will be binding workbooks together for my students tomorrow morning :)

I used NaNoWriMo's middle school workbook to plan out the remaining weeks till writing begins in November. The workbook includes everything students will need to plan their stories, including content vocabulary definitions. I'm going to try to FLIP my classroom, having students complete the lessons and do most of the reading at home so we can focus on writing in the classroom. Here's my rough outline:

Check out NaNoWriMo's free notebooks {HERE}. They have one for elementary, middle, and secondary grade levels! It is an amazing resource. I can't believe it's FREE!!

I can't wait to set out on this adventure with my class! I think we are going to learn a lot from each other! I will post updates along the way :)