Publishing Student Writing: Do More Than Hang It on the Refrigerator

Publishing Student Writing: Do More Than Hang It on the Refrigerator

By Jill Jenkins

            Students often grimace and sneer, “Yuk!” when confronted with a writing assignment. To alleviate this response, students need to be given a writing experience that is positive and rewarding.  Four letter grades a year are not enough to motivate most students.  Most people like recognition for a job well done.  I learned this from an alternative education student who by ninth grade had a school record three inches thick.  If there was a rule, he had broken it repeatedly.  What he wanted to succeed in my class was a letter grade on each assignment and to be able to display his papers on the bulletin board in the school’s main office for everyone to see.  What he wanted was recognition for a job well done.  He wasn’t all that different from all of us.  We all want to see our work hanging on the virtual refrigerator door enhanced with golden star or a smiley face. How do provide positive feedback to our students?

            One way to provide students with recognition for writing is to have each student create a book to publish his/ her work in.  With a couple of pieces of cardboard, several pieces of 11X17 inch paper, a piece of colored paper, a roll of Duck-Tape, a roll of dental floss, a few scraps of wrapping paper, an awl and a darning needle, your student can create a nifty little book to store his poems, essays and art work.  He/she will have a creation to be proud of for years to come.

My Little Book

Things That You Need

• Seven papers
• One piece of Construction Paper
• Two pieces of poster board
• Three feet of dental floss
• Wrapping paper
• Glue stick
• Color pencils and/or markers

Directions:

• Stack seven pieces of white printing paper together and on the back of them place one piece of construction paper.
• Fold them Hamburger.
• With your awl pierce four holes on the fold line.
• Thread your needle with three feet of dental floss.
• Begin sewing through one of the two inside-holes, then go the outside hole closest to it and back through the hole you began with.
• Sew through the second inside hole, go through that hole and through the outside hole near it, and back through the center hole again.
• Finally run the thread through the hole you started with and tie the string.
• Cut off any excess thread.
• Glue wrapping paper to the two pieces of cardboard.
• Glue the outside of the construction paper to the inside of the two pieces of cardboard to form a book.
• Use a piece of duct tape to form the back binding of the book, tucking the ends inside the book.

Directions for making this book are found in Books for Kids to Make: Making Books That Fly, Fold, Wrap, Hide, Pop Up, Twist and Turn by Gwen Diehn.

This is a wonderful book with foldout book, pop-up books and a variety of creative fun projects for students to make writing more meaningful.

Another simple book is found on http://readwritethink.org , it’s called The Stapleless Book or Foldables .  The basic directions are:

1.       Give each student a piece of butcher paper about 3 feet by 2 feet.

2.       Ask each student to fold his/her paper in half vertically. (That’s hotdog for those of us who teach lower grades or Landscape for those who teach in the upper grades.)

3.       Ask each student to fold his/her paper in half vertically again. (That’s hotdog for those of us who teach lower grades or Landscape for those who teach in the upper grades.)

4.       Ask each student to hold his/her paper horizontally. (That’s hamburger for those of us who teach lower grades and Portrait for those who teacher upper grades.)

5.       Open up the Hamburger fold and fold it in half.

6.       Beginning on the fold, cut along the center fold toward the outside edge, but stop when you reach the crease.

7.       Open the book like a large mouth and pulling the open refold the book.

8.       Click on this Link to see a directions with visuals: http://www.vickiblackwell.com/makingbooks/poofbook.htm

I find having students create their own anthology of poetry or essays that they can share with their friends and family makes writing more meaningful.

The Electronic Literary Magazine

            A third method is to create an electronic Literary Magazine.  The National Writing Gallery  provides a place for teachers to create your own literary magazine.  You need to be a member of NCTE to do this, but it provides every student in your class an opportunity to be a published writer.  When I first set mine up, I considered only publishing a few students’ best work. I have to admit that I was a product of my past where students submitted work and hoped that they might be selected among the elite who had a published poem in the school’s literary magazine, but after discussing this with other teachers, we decided the best route was to allow each student an opportunity to select his/her best work to be published.  This gives every student a sense of pride and will make better writers and a more enjoyable experience.

There are a variety of other on-line electronic sites for publishing student work. Including:

·        Flipsnap:  Is on on-line application that allows you to turn pictures into books.

·         Wordfaire:  Is a free on-line blogging site

·         Blogger.com: Is another free on-line blogging site.

·         ePubBud: is an on-line site that allows students to create e-books

·         Storybird: is on-line site that allows students to create story books out of text.

Slide Shows and Videos

        If you are interested in having students create digital story books, there are a variety of free slide show and video programs that you might consider:

• Inanimate Alice
• Slide Share
• Animoto
• Vuvox
• Knovio
• Presentme
• Photopeach
• Zentation
• Voicethread
• Popplet
• Authorstream
• Goggle Presentation

Contests

            A fourth method is to encourage students to send their writing to contests.  Participating in a contest improves students’ ability to win scholarships to further their education.  Wining contests improves students’ self-confidence and self-esteem.  Although some contests are challenging to win, others are primarily concerned with publishing students’ work in anthologies that they sell to the parents.  This is not a huge economic problem for most middle class families; however, if you are teaching economically challenged students, don’t disregard these contests.  If you have enough students submit entries, they will the teacher a free copy of the anthology.  Simply donate that book to the school’s library so the students can show their masterpieces to their friends and parents when they visit the school. I have compiled a list of some contests that you might consider.  If the contest is primarily concerned with selling anthologies to students’ parents, I have placed an asterisk next to it:

·         https://www.poeticpower.com/*

·         http://www.libraryofpoetry.com/

·         http://www.nps.gov/carl/parknews/student-poetry-contest.htm

·         http://www.fivestarpublications.com/kidscanpublish/contests.html

·         http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/our-fifth-annual-new-york-times-found-poetry-student-contest/?_r=1

·         http://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/poetry_competition.html

·         http://www.poetryoutloud.org/competition/rules-and-eligiblity

·         http://allpoetry.com/

·         http://teacher.scholastic.com/writeit/fiction/publish/competition.htm

·         http://www.jfklibrary.org/Education/Profile-in-Courage-Essay-Contest.aspx

·         http://www.yesmagazine.org/for-teachers/essay-bank/for-teachers

·         http://aynrandnovels.org/essay-contests.html

·         http://www.pta.org/programs/ArtsinEducation.cfm

·         http://www.sejongculturalsociety.org/

·         http://www.cuwcd.com/contest/

There are endless opportunities for students to write and perhaps learn something about a culture, a social problem or just express themselves. 

            Empowering students by giving them opportunities to shine will improve their writing and instill in them a love for writing.   Publishing work will empower struggling students to achieve more because they will find writing more interesting.  When students find writing fun and exciting, they will write more.  Like all skills, the more they practice, the better they get.  Everyone loves gold stars.  Give your students opportunities to earn them.  We all need to see our work hanging on a virtual refrigerator,

Creative Ways to Connect Students to the Past

Creative Ways to Connect Students to the Past

By Jill Jenkins

            Growing up in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, I had a strong sense of history.  My father had served in the Sea Bees during World War II and my mother came from a pioneer family who had settled the western city in which I lived and the family had grown generation after generation.  My father’s passion for history meant our house was filled with books about the war, the ancient Mayan and Aztec Civilization, European History and archeology books.  When I began to teach, I was shocked to discover that most students had little or no sense of history or even life before their 12 to 14 year existence. Over time working with the history department at my school, we created some projects to help students have a wider historic view of the world. Without a sense of history, students will find it difficult to understand most pieces of literature and the world that they live in.

To Whom Are You Related?

            To help students understand that history was not just something you read about in your textbooks, students research one of their ancestors and learn at least three events from that person’s life.  They are asked to interview parents or grandparents to learn their ancestor’s life story. The students should be describing three events or stories from the ancestor’s life, not just facts about the person.  If the student has no family to interview, I suggested they adopt a family by interviewing a neighbor or an elderly person in a retirement home.  They dress as their ancestor to present a mono-act of their ancestor’s story as though they were that person.  Each student has to provide each class member with a handout.  That handout could be a fact sheet, or something more creative.  One of my former students was related to Milton Hershey, so she passed out Hershey’s kisses glued to a piece of paper with details about Milton Hershey’s life. Another one of my students was from Viet Nam and his grandfather had been an officer in the North Vietnamese army.  The story of his grandfather’s life helped students understand the human connections that unite all people making this a great learning experience for everyone.

            My daughter’s teacher assigned a variation of this assignment.  He wanted his students to appreciate a veteran for Veteran’s Day, so he asked student to find a family member or a neighbor who was a veteran and had served during a war and interview him.  My daughter interviewed my father who served in World War II.   Each student presented his/her findings with a picture of the veteran giving the students a face and a story. 

Anne Frank and the Other Victims of the Holocaust

            To teach The Diary of Anne Frank, I use a variety of activities to help the students relate to events that seem very foreign to them.  First, many teachers choose to teach the play instead of the actual diary, but I feel that students need to read a primary historical source, even if it is more difficult to read.  Second, students need to know that Anne Frank’s situation was not unique.  Many people were in hiding during World War II.   One wonderful resource is the United States Holocaust Museum at http://www.ushmm.org/remember. I have my students each select three victims who were about their age.  Each student creates a poster with the names, picture (if available) and story of three victims of the Holocaust.  My former in-laws were both in hiding in Holland during World War II.  Although I was never able to convince them to talk to my classes, I was able to tell their story and show them pictures of them.  My hope is to make history the story of real people to my students, not just a lot of facts, dates and foreign places as it was presented to me in middle school.

            Another great project is to use the sources on The United State Holocaust Museum webpage http://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide and ask students to research another example of genocide.  They need to create a Power Point Presentation about their example of genocide and create a plan for stopping destructive behavior.  Each student presents his/her Power Point to the class, so the students continue to learn from one another.

Connecting the Past with Parents

            Another way to help the students connect with the past and their parents is to give students a list of books on the time period that you are teaching.  Students are given two copies of the book and ask to take one home.  The student reads the book and the parent (grandparent or neighbor) reads the same book.  As they read the book, they discuss it together.  After they finish reading the book, the parent comes to school with his/her son/daughter to discuss the book.  The teacher, of course, has to supply the discussion questions during the reading and after the reading.  Since the other students watch the discussions given by the other parents and students, they are exposed to other books.  Hopefully, this will motivate them to read other books and expand their exposure.

            A few books that could be used in conjunction with The Diary of Anne Frank include:

·         Night by Elie Wiesel

·         The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski

·         Because of Romek  by David Faber

·         The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

·         The Hiding Place  by Corrie Ten Boom

·         The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak

Using Songs

As a teacher, you could introduce one or two songs to you class and then assign each student to find a song that bests reflects the time period.  He or she should present his/her song to the class and justify why he/she selected it.  Another idea is to have your students work in pairs and write their own song for that time period.

            To take it a step further, you could have student write their own song about their lives.   One by Monte Selby has some excellent examples of songs about the lives of students.

The Civil War, songs :

·         “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again”

·         “Dixie”

Music and songs from World War I:
 

	·          “It's a Long Way to Tipperary “ ·           ”Over There “
	·         ”Pack Up Your Troubles in You Old Kit Bag”

The music from The Great Depression:

             I find the songs of Woody Guthrie invaluable. One excellent choice appears on Nanci Griffith’s CD, Other Voices Too, "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" which was based on a newspaper article that Woody Guthrie found describing  the plight of a group migrant workers who were killed in an airplane accident when they were being deported.  The story is relevant today.  Another one of Wood Guthrie songs appears on Nanci Griffith’s CD, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Woody Guthrie’s song,   "Do-Re-Mi"  tells the story of the victims the dust bowl arrival in California.  If you were teaching The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, it would be invaluable.  Others include:

	·         Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? ·         Happy Days Are Here Again

 World War II:

·         “This Is the Army, Mr. Jones” ·         “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree”

The Viet Nam War:

·         "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire

·         "Give Peace a Chance" by John Lennon

 

           

Conclusion           

            Since these activities are student-centered project students will be more motivated to do them and more likely to learn from them.  Students who have a sense of history will increase their comprehension of literature and nonfiction reading.  Activating prior knowledge has proven invaluable to increasing reading comprehension; however, when students have limited background knowledge, students have low comprehension levels.  By increasing students connection to history and their basis knowledge on historic events, their reading comprehension grows.

 Note: all of the colored text is linked to the song, books or web-pages that can give you information. 

Eight Tantalizing Recipes for Combining Reading and Writing Skills

Eight Tantalizing Recipes for Combining Reading and Writing Skills

By Jill Jenkins

                            Below you will find eight assignments that combine reading and writing skills making them engaging and entertaining for young learners. Learning to write need to encompass more than preparing students for the end of the year tests.  Please let your students have a little joy in their education.  These are some fun writing assignments that I have used with my students. One of the skills students need to develop to pass the state competency tests is using information from material they read to support an informational or an argument essay.  Most of the assignments to prepare are particularly dull for some students.  The first two assignments can reinforce those skills in an exciting manner.

Assignment #1: Boy by Roald Dahl

            After reading the description of Mrs. Pritchett from the childhood tale of Boy by Roald Dahl, ask students to identify all of the disgusting details that makes Mrs. Pritchett’s candy store so undesirable.  Ask your students to pretend they are the inspector from the health department and they have made a secret inspection of her candy story incognito.  They are each to write a report to file with the department and support their report with details from the story.  They can make any recommendation they wish from close the store, fine the store owner to ignore the reports from patrons about the unhealthy environment.   For more ideas about writing about this wonderful book, go to http://www.roalddahl.com/create-and-learn/write

Assignment #2  The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka

 and Grimm’s Fairy Tale’s Version

            After reading both The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Sciezka and Grimm’s Fairy Tale’s Version “The Three Little Pigs,” place your students in their pair-share groups. Each student in each pair decides if he is the prosecuting attorney or the defense attorney.  Each writes his/her closing arguments for a court case either prosecuting or defending the wolf in a case of murder and attempted murder.  The next day you allow each pair to read their arguments to the class.  After you have heard from each pair of students, each student pretends he/she is the judge and must decide if the wolf is guilty of first degree murder.  He/she must present his decision in a paper with all of the evidence that led him/her to make that opinion.

    Although the Common Core does not test on narrative writing that does not mean that you shouldn’t include it in your teaching.  One excellent example is written by Sandra Cisneros who also wrote The House on Mango Street and Woman Hollering Creek.  Many of her chapters lend themselves to excellent examples of writing for students to analyze or write about.  Her use of literary devices and her vivid descriptions make them excellent examples that will hold your students’ attention.

  Assignment #3 and 4 Sandra Cisneros’ “Eleven”

            Read this beautiful narrative to your students while they follow along.  Put them in their pair-share groups and ask them to explain the following:  Why is she talking about an onion? What literary device is being used in: “like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box?”  What does she mean by that?  Have them each share a time when someone destroyed a special time for them by being insensitive.   After they have shared them with their partner, let any student share one with the class who wishes to.  Finally have them write a narrative of their own experience.  Ask them to add at least one simile or metaphor to their description.  Remind them to add specific details, because the details are what made the example so interesting to read. 

            Another idea for the students who do not wish to share their own stories is to ask them to retell the same incident from the teacher’s perspective.  This offers students a chance to fanaticize and still learn the basic components of a narrative.

Assignment #5 “The Split Cherry Tree” by Jesse Stuart

            After you finish reading the story “The Split Cherry Tree” by Jesse Stuart watch video clip or two:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IvXQBNxnYE  or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddo9iteB01w . Now the class is ready to write about it. They have heard the story from the child’s point of view, but it is important to look at stories from everyone perspective.  Organize your class into trios. One student will retell the story as though they were Professor Herbert writing in his diary at the end of a difficult teaching day.  The second student will pretend he/she is the student’s father, Luster, and describe in a letter to his brother Jed his experience at the school.  The third student will pretend he/she is another student in the class and will write a note to one of his/her friends describing his/her feelings about seeing a parent in a classroom.  At the end of the period, have your students share their creations.  Like Sandra Cisneros’ writing these are excellent examples to use to teach controlling symbols without losing your students’ attention.

Assignment #6

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W. W. Jacob

            This is a frightening story that lends itself to many activities and discussion, but one particularly fun writing assignment that I have found is to stop the story before the husband has found the monkey’s paw and made his final wish.  (Many students may be familiar with the Simpson’s version, but ignore them.)  Ask the student to write a new ending for the story and imagine what the mother sees when she opens the door.  What will her son look like?  Will her son really be there?  They should illustrate their endings and present them to the class as a fun Halloween activity. 

Assignment #7 “The Foul Shot” by Edwin A Hoey

            Writing poetry usually terrifies most adolescent boys, because they imagine that all poetry is the over sentimental drool that teenage girls scribble in notebooks.  This poem is about sports. It is about one moment in time in sports, so you can dissect it looking for literary devices without the boys fading into their desks in boredom.  You can show them how it becomes a litany of actions leading to the successful basket.  As a teacher, you can demonstrate how the poem changes point of view after the ball leaves the players hands.  You can point out the lay-out of the poem matches the movement of the ball while holding the boys attention, because this is about SPORTS. Finally, you can have the students write their own poem about a moment in time: flipping on a skate board, landing a first kiss, flipping a spit wad at a teacher, flying down a snowy mountain on a snow board, spinning on a dance floor or crunching an opponent on a football field.  Ask them to include two literary devices in their creations and let them write.  You will be surprised what they can create.

Assignment # 8 “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell

            This classic adventure story depicts one man’s attempt to rescue himself from the seemingly civilized General Zaroff who traps men on his island, Ship Trap Island, to entertain himself by hunting men. It appeals to the young men in the class and offers wonderful examples of irony.  With this classic story, I love to have the students define what it means to be civilized and using examples from the story write an argument discussing whether General Zaroff is civilized or uncivilized.  This is an assignment that uses literature to teach skills that students may need to pass the writing portion of their Common Core test, but provides an entertaining discussion and examples for adolescent boys.

            I know teachers are preparing students for the end of the year test, but if that is the only kind of writing you do in your class, you will lose your students’ enthusiasm.  Writing should be fun.  Learning should be fun.   If you can combine literature with writing, the reading and the writing will become more meaningful and more productive for students.