TIPS TO KEEP YOUR STUDENTS ON THE “WRITE” TRACK DEBRA R. BARRY 2013

In a world filled with LOL, texting and hashtags our kids see each moment as a few words, cool phrases, and photos. Well, if a picture is worth a thousand words, it is our nation’s obligation to help them find those 1,000 words. I try an introduce a new word each day in my classroom. RICH VOCABULARY

RICH VOCABULARY EXAMPLE Logorrhea: “Wow, it looks like we are suffering from a case of logorrhea today.” They absolutely freak out because they think someone has the diarrhea or they think I’m making it up. They then have to look it up. Guess, what? I have never had a class forget the word logorrhea… Build Rich Vocabulary daily. It’s like teaching a newborn something… model it over and over and by God they will learn it. EVEN in 8 th grade.

USE THE RACE STRATEGY ~Use the RACE strategy for EVERY subject. RESTATE, ANSWER, CITE, EXPAND. What is your favorite color? Answer a: RED Answer b: My favorite color is red, because as a little girl I was obsessed with Elmo and everything owned had to be red. I don’t like Elmo now, but the color red just stuck with me.

INFUSE QUALITY LITERATURE IN YOUR CLASS EVERYONE should read aloud to their students—even in High School. I don’t care if it’s an article, a text book, a novel, a picture book…. A primary resource…. Whatever… The best way to feel language, absorb language, see language is to close your eyes and hear someone else’s voice say it.

VEGAS IN THE CLASSROOM If you have read TEACH LIKE A CHAMPION you may have heard of the Vegas strategy- bringing a little sass and glitter into your classroom can keep things interesting. Kids like it. It is good for moral and can keep them motivated. Keep a lot of tricks in your writing bag: ~punctuation march ~egg carton stories ~writing cubes, Journals ~Dear Teacher ~Exit slips ~(Share Indentured Servant Contracts)

MAKE THE ASSIGNMENT FAIR How do you get good writers? You make them write, you talk about what to fix in their writing, and you have them keep writing…. Every day. This is fine for many of our students and near impossible for others. The problem is writing LONG samples every day can be hard. Now that I have had some experience writing and sometime have to meet deadlines…. I understand how writer’s block can hit. Don’t expect every student to be able to write several pages a day. Get Creative. Aim for short entries, essays, and journals for daily probes or samples, and give several days or more to those long samples. I have some stories that I have been working on for three years… I have to leave them and revisit when I hit the wall with the storyline or characters.

BECOME “TECHY” Infuse technology when you can. I believe that kids are tech savvy, more so than we are at times. If you can allow them opportunities to feed that talent, I think that will help motivate them as well. ( examples, ipads apps, letters for State fest, or “Where is Aly-oop?”) ~ Share Parodies from last year