Google in the Classroom-Writing Collaboration

I got a little behind on the series this week.  I apologize.  I was feeling ambitious when I said I was going to post a week-long series.  I should have written and scheduled them right away.  Have no fear, though, the Google in the Classroom series is back!  Once it ends, though, I would love to continue to post bi-weekly about using Google in the classroom.  Please comment with anything you have done to use Google in the classroom, and I would love to include your ideas, or even have you write a guest post!  

If you've missed my other Google in the Classroom post, don't forget to check them out!  

Day One:  Using Google Forms for Classroom Library Checkout 

Day Two:  Using Google Forms for Lesson Planning

Day Three:  Using Google Forms for Parent/Teacher Conference Requests

On Thursday, I went to the Ohio Goes Google Conference.  It was great!  I attended four sessions and heard two keynotes that were very inspiring to continue to use technology in the classroom.  As I wrote in my first post in this series, you don't have to have a mobile lab or even access to 30 computers to use Google in the Classroom.  I have created many student activities using Google Apps and I only have three student computers in my classroom.  

Today, I would like to tell you how to use Google Docs as a collaborative writing assignment with your students.  First, you will want to create a new document in Google Docs.  On the left side of your screen, click Create, then Document.  A document is just like a Word file, except it is saved in the Google Cloud.  

Change the title of your document by clicking the words "Untitled Document."   If you choose, you may type a prompt.  Remember, everything automatically saves!  Next, click share at the top right corner of your screen.  Everything is defaulted to save "private only to me."  You can change this by clicking the share button and changing your settings.  

 Next to where it says "Private," click "change."  You will see this screen:  

Change your settings to "Anyone with the link."  I have to do this because my students do not have Google Accounts.  Then, where it says "Access," it defaults to "can view," change this to "can edit."  This will allow anyone with the link to this document to edit it. After you click save, you will see this screen:  

Highlighted is the link to the document.  You can give your students this link, but I recommend shortening it using bit.ly.  At bit.ly, paste the Google link, then click customize.  Type whatever you want your customized link to be.  

Now that you are set up, this is my idea for the collaborative writing assignment.  During Daily 5 or center time, assign students in partners or groups.  One student in each pair will start off writing a story.  They type as much as they can during their block of time.  During the next block of time, the other partner reads the story then adds to it.  My students love to make those quick one-sentence stories and build on each other.  This is a technological variation of that!  Once the story is complete, students can revise and edit their writing.  

April-Poetry Month

Happy Easter everyone!  


All of my teacher buddies probably know that April is Poetry Month.  In an effort to find new poetry books to share with my students, I just read a book called Lemonade and Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word.  It is so cool!  It is a mix between poetry, word play, and a puzzle.  The words in each poem contain only the letters found in the title.  

Warning to all:  It will make you want to write your own!  

Here's mine:

Get it?  

reading

grin 

and

read

dear

This would be such a neat poetry writing assignment!

Back in December, I posted about writing Found Poetry.  We did another Found Poetry assignment last week.  I challenged some of my higher students to write their Found Poems displaying character traits for the main character in their chosen books.  One student wrote an AWESOME Found Poem inspired by the book Moses.  I didn't bring the poem home with me, but when I get back from break I will be posting it for you all to read.  It is amazing!  When sharing on Thursday, another student commented, "Wow!  That gave me chills!"  If you haven't tried Found Poetry in your classrooms and would like to, please contact me if you have any questions!  The students really enjoy it and it is a nice change from the common acrostics and cinquains!  

Found Poetry

Have you heard of it?  


I hadn't until just a few weeks ago.  My teaching buddy/inclusion teacher is taking a master's course right now and had an assignment to create a found poem.  Her instructor is doing her entire doctoral thesis on it!  


A found poem is where you borrow, or "rent" an author's words from a song, poem, or book, and create your own poem. The awesome thing about found poetry is that there are no rules.  It doesn't have to rhyme.  It doesn't have to have a certain number of words per line or lines per stanza.  Your found poem can be anything you want it to be!  


We broke down found poetry into 3 easy steps:  
1.)  Read the book, song, or poem.  
2.)  Tune into interesting words or phrases that you find in your text.  
3.)  Rearrange, add, delete the words that you rented from the author and make your own found poem.  


We did our Found Poetry unit before break, but I am just now getting around to posting this.  You will notice our unit has a Christmas/Holiday theme, but we are planning on doing it again later in the year using different books without a theme.  


I posted before Christmas about finding similes and metaphors in the Grinch song.  In keeping with the same theme, on day one, we started our found poetry lesson by using this song as well.  We passed out the words and played the song for the students once again.  We instructed them to really tune into any interesting words or phrases they heard or saw.  (A CAFE strategy, too!) Next, we listed the words on the Smart Board.  The final step is to rearrange the words or phrases into your own found poem.  The Smart Board is an awesome tool for this, because you can easily manipulate the words and move them around as you like.  

On day two, we used the book The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg.  Who doesn't LOVE this book?  

First, my awesome co-teacher read the book aloud to the students.  We also provided the students with printed copies of the text so they could underline words and phrases they found interesting.  

Next, we divided the class into groups of four to five.  The students then worked together to create their own found poem from the book.  

 We also talked about giving the poems a direction.  We debated back and forth about whether or not we wanted to do this.  We told them there was no right or wrong way and that we wanted them to be creative, so we kind of wanted to see where the poems were going before having this mini-lesson.  I think it worked out in the end, though some groups were certainly on their way without the lesson.  

 I thought I took more pictures of the students' group poems, but I can only find this one.  If you would like to see more examples of the student work, let me know and I will post some tomorrow.  This group named their poem "Pink Lion Express".  My class has four "teams" and this particular group's team name is the Pink Lions.  

One thing we found while students were working on their group poems was that they were wanting to create whole sentences instead of short phrases.  The next day, we decided to create our own found poems to not only demonstrate the format of the poems, but to also show how different our poems can be even when using the same book.  

On day three/four of the found poetry unit, the students created found poems from randomly selected Christmas/holiday books that we checked out from the library.  Most students did this in partners, though some chose to work on their own.  They did such a great job!  

Remember that phrase we learned in college, gradual release of responsibility?  Yeah, that was extremely necessary in this process, but totally worth it.  The students even asked if they could add that to their "Things to Write" poster that we created at the beginning of the year for Work on Writing.  

If I haven't bored you and you're still reading (because I know this was a super long post...), I hope that I've been able to tell you about something new that your students will love!  

Similes & Metaphors with The Grinch

My favorite activity before Christmas is to introduce similes and metaphors using the song, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."  I'm sure this is not an original idea, but the idea for this lesson did come to me as I was driving home from school three years ago and heard the song on the radio.  What I'm sayin' is, I didn't intentionally borrow this lesson plan from anyone!  First, I usually have a quick intro lesson on similes and metaphors.  You know, the basics.  Similes compare two things using like or as, metaphors don't.  We look at some examples and students have some practice creating their own.  The next day, or mini-lesson, whichever I see fit for the group I have, I pass out the words to the Grinch song and we listen to it on You Tube.  



Next, I split students into random groups.  Sometimes I do this by passing out Christmas icon cards and students have to find the matches.  Other times I just use the random sorter in Smart Notebook.  I give the students about 10-15 minutes to find as many similes and metaphors in the song.  They then write their similes and metaphors here to display in the hallway and classroom.  

Author's Purpose-With an Easter Twist

I posted a couple of days ago about my Author's Purpose lesson.  To reinforce learning, today  my students created a writing piece about Easter eggs.  They were randomly given the task to write either a persuasive, informative, or entertainment piece about Easter eggs.  They did an amazing job!  Some persuasive pieces were why you should dye and/or buy Easter eggs.  One student wrote an informative piece about the health benefits of eating Easter eggs, and two students teamed up to write a very creative story about a child who had the choice to go to an Easter Egg Hunt or a friend's birthday party.  After feeling very conflicted, the child decided to hold an Easter Egg Hunt during the birthday party. 


I was so pleased with their writing efforts, yet disappointed that I didn't leave much time to complete the task.  With Spring Break and Easter looming, we just did not have enough time to dedicate to this assignment.  Next year, I will leave a good two weeks prior to Easter to edit and publish final drafts.  It definitely is a great learning activity to link reading and writing.  And it will make a super-cute Spring bulletin board!