Kim writes: I was thinking about switching off by quarter but our quarters aren't really quarters. The winter one is only 6 weeks. But your way is much better. I can get through an entire unit/genre.
Do you have the kids tape any papers into their notebooks. I do that quite bit. Do the spines come loose? I know it sounds petty, but if the kids have to replace them halfway through the year it will get expensive... Pam writes: Exactly the way that I have fashioned my workshops - I work through genres. Heck, even the kids are figuring it out. They are all asking what genre we'll do next - it's pretty cool that they are "getting it." Sometimes they have to use tape. I just bought a big roll of clear packing tape and that seems to fix the spine. Ironically, I've had to tape each of my "classroom" notebooks (I keep an example of what they should have in their notebooks) and only 4-5 students' notebooks have needed repair, probably because mine is opened and closed so many times each day. I have had a couple of bozos who insisted on pulling out pages and their notebooks fell apart, you just can't pull out pages when you have a seam that is sewn in. Word quickly filtered amongst the kids that I am unreasonable and will expect you to re-do your notebook if it's demise is due to a student's lack of care. In fact, they lasted well enough that I have had the kids stretch the use of their 2nd quarter notebook into 3rd quarter. Our state testing eats up 2 full weeks and we have (when added together) practice tests that take up another week. With losing 3 weeks of time in the quarter, we have managed to use one 100 page composition book for the entire quarter. I don't have them routinely tape their work in as I haven't been able to invest in that many tape dispensers. I did (with the wonderful help of my math & science teachers) train the kids to use Elmer's glue. 3 - 4 dots of glue at the top of the page is sufficient to glue a page in. "A dot is a lot, a glob is a slob" has been a mantra of mine this year. Honestly though, I really think that my math teacher is the reason the kids are able to glue the pages in correctly (he is fanatical about it according to the kids). He is the reason that we went with liquid glue and not glue sticks (was what I leaned towards, nervous about mess issues). However, I've only have 1 mess made with the liquid glue (just recently) and it was deliberately done by a young man who was angry that his classroom placement was being changed back into a self-contained setting for severely disturbed children. It was easy to clean up with a roll of paper towels and some soapy water and a sympathetic student. I thought it was a brilliant idea that someone mentioned earlier about turning the notebook upside down and writing in the backwards direction to keep things separate. I also like the idea of starting in the middle and working outwards in both directions to keep pages separate for different uses. Something I think I'll play around with during 4th quarter this year. Pam Tempest Team Neon-6th Gr. ELA Hudson Middle School http://nlcommunities.com/communities/tempest "The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn." John Lubbock ************************************** AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
