Organizing Writing Mentor Texts

If you read my recent post about my closet, you are probably surprised that I would title any future post with the word "Organizing". My closet is, of course, an embarrassment I have recently shared with the world, but in general, I'm pretty good at creating organized systems. One of these I just started this year is our writing mentor texts library.  

Not all of these books are writing mentor texts but about half of them are!  

  It's working for us, so I thought it might be the perfect idea to link up with Primary Powers' Organization Blog Hop!

As a Literacy Coach, I help teachers plan for writing. Sometimes, we are desperate for another kind of writing model text for a specific skill or strategy, and we are stumped! To help us plan effectively, I started ordering books based on specific traits. You can find one of the lists I used here at Empowering Writers.      After the books came in, I set to organizing them. I wrote a specific characteristic of writing on each index card and made piles of books.   

From there, I divided them up into baskets and put them on specifically designated shelves:  

 I labeled each basket with the writing skill or strategy that the books were great models of. Some of these are great beginnings, great endings, character development, sensory description with the five senses.

Of course, Patricia Polacco gets her own baskets, as do these other great mentor authors: among them, Tomie dePaola, Cynthia Rylant, Gail Gibbons, and more.

To help us use the books well for planning, I made little stickers that go on the inside cover of each book. The image and label on the sticker correlates with the basket label. I printed the labels on sticker paper.

I cut them into strips to stick inside the books.

Here's how it works. This basket is labeled "Generating Ideas for Writing." In it, I also include books about the idea of writing, like "Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street" and "What Do Writers Do?"

This book, Little Red Writing Hood, tells a story of a pencil character writing a story. It blends Little Red Writing Hood with writing tips. 

 On the inside cover, I include notes: just some ideas about how to use the book to teach writing strategy.

Throughout the book, the tips about writing are interwoven with the story. I used post-its to mark pages where there were writing tips, strategies, or potential for teaching. 

It's still a burgeoning system, and we're adding to our library a little at a time, but it's a start! Want a freebie to get started? Grab the basket and book labels for free!   

  Check out our other organization tips by hopping to the next post - Mrs. Richardson's Class, and learn all about organizing guided reading groups!   

  Or, if you'd rather, start at the beginning of the hop and check out all the great organization tips! Pin It

A Real Teacher of Blog County

So, I'm a real teacher of blog county. How can you tell? I drink coffee in the morning and wine all night. I wear comfy shoes that allow me to walk (and run when necessary) all day. I take my lunch because school lunch is yucky. My guided reading table is clean 90% of the time. And I haunt the Target Dollar Spot.
All of these things make me a real teacher.  But there's one more thing.  A dark secret. Something no one should ever see or know. Something...awful. It's dun Dun DUNN my closet. This, seriously, might be the worst closet you've ever seen. It's so bad there could be a child living in there and I would never know. There could actually be a whole Lord of the Flies situation in here and I'd never know. 

I'm really just a secret slob. Honestly, I like a neat desk and a neat guided reading table. I like my pens and pencils in separate cups and I have one notebook and calendar I use ALL THE TIME. But when it comes to out of sight, out of mind, I am the worst offender. There should be most wanted posters with my name on it that say, WANTED: HORRIBLE SLOB. Because my closet, where I stuff and shove all things someday useful but not today, is horrendous.

This is why it got so bad. I run a lot of school events. So I house the materials for those events along with my other personal junk. So I bought these handy storage drawers.

I filled them up with the supplies for the school programs I ran last year. And then I ran out of space. Syrup, goldfish, crayons, and scissors were stuffed in here.

So then I filled up this tub with other stuff from the schoolwide programs. Bags, yarn, pencils, glue, and more found their way to this tub. And when this tub was full, I made stacks and stacks and stacks. I can't seem to make the time to clean it! Something else is always more important.

This might be the best part. I had a bag of plastic spider rings for Halloween and one fell out and landed right inside the door. Every time I open the closet, my heart leaps and I think, "EEK!" and then I remember it's only plastic. But do I pick it up? No. I'm too busy for that. 

So now you know my dark secret. You should share yours! Or, if you don't have one, just check out everyone else's and be smug about how tidy and perfect you are. Visit Second Grade is Out of this World to check out the link-up!

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summer summer summer: and a mini giveaway!

Yes, you read the title right - this post is about summer, and I have a LOT to say. But you can also enter to win my latest product! So humor me, read my summer post, and then comment with your favorite thing you've done this summer and your email address, and I'll choose a magical random winner later this week! So I'm right up there in summer. I know because my butt is wearing a comfortable groove in the couch again. Don't get me wrong. I've been doing tons of stuff. My mother makes me wake up early three days a week  yes, three days a week of my summer to go to the gym with her. And although it's starting to grow on me, the gym is still one of the worst places in the world. It's only one step up from Best Buy, and that's just because there's actually something to do at the gym. Of course, by "something"  I mean excruciating, soul-sucking machines that force you to repeat awkward motions in three sets of fifteen. You do all of this so that, three weeks later, you can read the scale and see that you've gained four pounds. Yay gym. This morning, after doing my time in the second-most-horrible-place in the world, I headed over to the pool. It's a neighborhood pool that you have to buy a membership to belong to, Once you've paid, they give you a key, and it's a swim-at-your-own-risk sort of thing. So today, after the gym, i decided to head over to the pool. I took out my key, unlocked the gate, and walked inside... and saw...

that I was ALL BY MYSELF!  Yes! I had the WHOLE pool to MYSELF!  I immediately commenced to doing my favorite things: sinking all the way to the bottom  floating around the pool with my eyes closed like a dead person laying on a towel and reading Game of Thrones I did these things for two hours, all by myself, and then I headed home. Home is about a 45-second drive from the pool, so yay. Since then, I've been watching Wilfred (almost a complete season today) and working on my latest product: Super Hero Classroom Decor Set.  That pretty much sums up the last few days, really. I sit around and work on stuff. Occasionally, I get a hankerin for somethin tasty and I eat huge bowls of cantaloupe or Greek yogurt with peanut butter in it. And honey. Lots and lots of honey. It helps me pretend it's ice cream, which I clearly cannot have because I gained four pounds by going to the gym. I consume cup after cup of coffee to keep me from eating something far more delicious - a frozen yogurt place opened up five minutes down the street. Cruel. It's probably for the best that we're broke.

This is what my cat looks like when I am watching TV.

So I sit and watch the cat and then I sit and watch Wilfred. When I get sick of Wilfred's sick humor, I bust out the big guns: I Love Lucy. And sometimes, I just get tired of the scenery, you know? That's when I move from the couch...to the loveseat. It's like a whole different view over there. When my husband comes home, I pepper him with questions about the world: So what happened at work today? What did you have for lunch? What should we have for dinner? The poor man. So anyway, if you're looking for something to do as you're repositioning from the couch to the loveseat, check out my new product: Super Hero Themed Classroom Decor Set! I'm so excited about it....almost enough to change my own theme from bees.....but not quite :) And if you'd like to win it, leave me a comment about your favorite thing you've done this summer and your email address! I'll choose a random winner this week! Happy Summer!

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Bright Idea: Behavioral Goal-Setting

Looking for some bright ideas? You're in the right place! 

So happy you're here to check out my Bright Idea for the month of May: behavioral goal-setting! Helping students learn to manage their behavior is a challenge from the first day until the last day of school. This year, while working with a fifth grade class, I wanted to help students who had a history of struggling to control themselves and their behavior make some better choices. 

On the first day I worked with them, I shared a set of classroom expectations. Yes, I know we usually ask students to contribute to the expectations, but there were very specific areas of difficulty this group of students had and I needed to replace some behaviors with positive ones. So the statements on the chart below were our three expectations that we consistently referred to.

Each morning, as we began our work together, we reviewed the expectations in one way or another. I had students act out examples or non-examples, or brainstorm words to describe what the expectations looked like.

During instruction or working time for the students, I monitored them for these three things and, when I saw a group demonstrating one of these expectations, I said something like, "Team Two is really working on being engaged in their own learning! Each team member is participating by sharing their thinking!" and I added some tally points to their row on the table. (These points never become anything, like a prize or reward. They are simply for recognition's sake.) After about a week of this, students were able to identify when they were or weren't following an expectation. At this point, I introduced the goal-setting aspect of our classroom expectations. Each team, each morning, chose one expectation to focus on and work on throughout the day. They discussed for about two minutes about the following things: 1. Which expectation will be our goal? 2. Why? 3. How will we practice this expectation today?

I wrote the goals on index cards and taped them to their group supply bucket on their table. Then, throughout the day, students worked on that expectation and prompted each other for it in a respectful manner, such as, "Remember we're trying to control our comments." At the end of the day, the groups evaluated their progress toward the goal and decided on tomorrow's goal. Would it stay the same or change? I knew we had arrived when I overheard this conversation from Team One: Cathy: I think we still need to work on controlling our comments. Max: I don't think so. I need to be engaged in my own learning. Cathy: But you made a lot of comments today that weren't related to the story we were reading. Max: Yeah, and if I was engaged in my own learning, I wouldn't have been saying that stuff. WOW!  There's still a long way to go, but I hope this helps your kids as it has helped mine! Happy teaching! If you enjoyed this bright idea, please consider joining me on BlogLovin', Facebook, or TeachersPayTeachers  for more great ideas. For more bright ideas more than 130 different bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that  interests you. Thanks for visiting!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Dr. Seuss Display

So, like most of my big projects, this one was waaaaay overdue. But I wanted to share the display that I put together to celebrate Dr. Seuss and Read Across America! We had so many pictures of our kids and teachers participating in different events that I had to show it off!

I love using cute fonts to create displays -it adds so much texture!

I printed out the letters "Read Across America" in one of my favorite Kimberly Geswein fonts and cut them out. Then I taped them onto some colorful yarn and draped them across the top.

We printed out pictures of our kids celebrating Dr. Seuss and stuck them to the front of the display. We had pictures from our guest readers (read about that here). The kids LOVE to see themselves on display!

To tie up the ends, I made big yarn bows and taped them to the corners.

Inside, I put our collection of Seuss books and stuffed animals, along with the truffula trees and Seuss Arrows I made last week. You can read about how to make those here! Pin It

Classroom Reveal! Finally.

Tadaaa! It's up! It's finally up!

I started working on my room in July, and I barely took pictures to share last week! We kind of hit the ground running.

Remember, I am a literacy coach (this is my second year!). So my room isn't a just-for-kids room; it's a mostly-for-adults room, and sometimes I work with kids in it. But I believe that, in my role, I have to practice what I preach! And if I'm asking teachers to have organized spaces, sorted classroom libraries, and use anchor charts to reinforce learning, I have to do it, too!

Not only that, but I like a cheerful room. It's where I spend a lot of time, so I plan my spaces as carefully as I did in the classroom.

This is the view from the door. The flower pens on the table are new this year! I made one for each of the teachers and then I made some extras for the tables! You can read about those here.

This is the front of the room. I have a dry-erase board where I make notes (mostly for myself) for when I plan with teachers. I covered my AV cart (it was hideous) and I posted the fall semester calendars vertically, so we can see what's coming!

The "Teacher Feature" board is left over from last year - I'd like to try something a little different this year, like a Pinterest-themed board with pictures from our own classrooms, but I still haven't figured it out yet!

This is the back wall. Because I'm a literacy coach, I divided up the wall into three sections: Fiction, Informational, and Poetry. When I build charts with the teachers, they go up here as a reference for them and for other grade levels, too!

This is the little corner behind the shelf of class sets of books. The Fiction Pocket Chart is a strategy we've used that I blogged about earlier this week!

The window holds cute stuff!

Our current Book of the Month is also featured here: Grandpa Green. Read about that here.

In the bright blue baskets, I have fiction books organized by reading strategy. These include Character Analysis, Predictions, Inferences, etc. These will help us plan for these strategies more efficiently!

This is the back wall from a different angle. Please ignore my giant box o' books because they're only there because I've been too lazy to take the box to the car.

In the white baskets on the bottom right shelf are fiction books organized by the genre we'll encounter in the TEKS (our Texas state standards. No Common Core for us. In Texas, we apparently do what we want.)

There's a basket of Biography/Autobiography (Literary Nonfiction), Multicultural (Theme & Culture), and Folktales, Legends & Myths.

Here's the left end of the back wall. This is the informational text section (haven't started planning for this yet) and the Poetry section. I'm going to share our Poetry sequence and anchor chart & tools soon! In the clear baskets are informational texts organized by procedural, good for main idea, and good for cause-effect instruction.

This is our Word Study section. We started our word study this year with a root word study and began building our anchor chart. The books on the shelves are class sets of picture books we use for shared reading. You can read about Word Study here.

This is the view from behind my Guided Reading table.

From the side of my Guided Reading table!

Tools are behind the table, on the bookshelves and on the wall.

This is the library space next to my Guided Reading table. On the walls are tools for writing planning; anchor charts we've built together about writing go here.

 In the baskets on the shelves are books that are mentor texts for writing! I have them organized by what writing strategy they're good for, such as "Careful Word Choice," "Great Beginnings," or "Shifting Point of View,"

I need new baskets, though. These were fine for novels, but they're not really suited to picture books.

These baskets hold mentor author books. There's Cynthia Rylant, Jane Yolen, Eve Bunting, and Patricia Polacco.

This is the wall next to the classroom library. It currently has our Writing Process map, but eventually I'll place our sample anchor charts for conventions (grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization) here.

The table also houses the printer and the scanner (and required ancient computer which I ONLY use to operate the scanner. Everything else happens on the laptop.) I use the scanner solely for scanning the answer documents for our common assessments. Before they're scanned, the answer documents go in the basket. After they're scanned, I return them to the teachers in their boxes.

This is the whole room from the opposite end; near the Guided Reading table. 

Here's the wall by the door. The shelf is full of my grade level planning binders that have our district scope & sequence, the TEKS, released state tests, and our lesson plans that we create. 

One of our plans this year is to have an optional book study where teachers can participate by reading and collaborating. Our first book is going to be Igniting a Passion for Reading by Stephen Layne and we'll start it in October.

These filing cabinets hold 4 things: 

1. Copies of the DRA/EDL Teacher Observation Guide for teachers so they don't have to make their own. They're in file folders by level, DRA first, and EDL after.

2. Ms. Beltran's files (all of my stuff from teaching. My math & science stuff is boxed up, but I kept my reading, writing, and social studies stuff in case I can use it to help my teachers.

3. Shared Files: a new idea! The shared files will hold formats, tools, handouts, etc. organized by content. Teachers can add to them as they create or use things, and we'll increase our bank of tools!

4. Assessments. We make a lot of common assessments and I'd like to organize them! So I'm housing them here.

The sink. Duh.

The door! With my bunting: READ!

So glad to finally get this posted! I hope you enjoyed your tour!  Link up or check out the other fabulous rooms linked up!

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