After my classes created a book review rubric, it was really important to begin writing their first review. One of my criteria was that they must finish a book before they review it. While that might not always be necessary, a lot of my students struggle to really describe why they aren’t liking a book. I get a lot of “It’s boring.” I am working to try and get them to really understand why they don’t like it, but they aren’t all totally there yet, but that is another problem.
They had to use the rubric to write their rough draft. We talked about what elements they should include in the review and in what order. Descriptive words, we decided, needed to be added after the rough draft was completed. It was a polishing area as opposed to a component of the review. After they finished their rough draft, they edited it for content and word choice. I then edited it once more. I had my students write out the review because they are not able to draft on the computer and polish their writing in the 20 minutes that I have in the computer lab. There is also no way to save the review to complete at a different time.
After they had created the review and edited it, we headed into the computer lab. In order to post on Amazon, you must have a customer account. Additionally, you must purchase something on the account. If you purchase a book, you can then delete the payment information and still use the account to post reviews. I had created screen shots to help students log in. It is quite a process to login to the account, so there were many steps that they needed to follow. You can see the login sheets here: Logging in to Amazon.
I was very glad that I had the screen shots for my students to use and that they had written their reviews ahead of time. It took them the full 20 minutes (at least) to get the review entered and edited before publishing. They were very excited about publishing it to the internet – I was as well.
We posted our first reviews in December and have since posted one more round. They were able to access the account much faster which meant that they had time to edit their typos. I am now having them post one review a month.
Note: You might check your Amazon profile to make sure that is shows the reviews you have posted (or find your review under the book’s information). I have run into a problem with my account. None of my reviews had posted after my first test. I have contacted customer service, but the problem hasn’t been totally fixed yet. You might not have any issues with this, but it is something to keep an eye on.
2nd Note: 4/1/09 – I figured out the posting issue. When your students enter their review, have them select that they are over 13. This will allow the book review to be posted. This was not a privacy issue as the account they were posting under was Mrs. Duarte’s class, so their names don’t appear anywhere. I have also discovered that if one person writes a book review on The 13th Reality, no one else can post a review on it. That means that each student will have to create a review on a different book. This might be a problem depending on how many students you teach, then again, you can always create multiple accounts.
Before my students started writing their own book reviews, I wanted to make sure that they knew the target that they needed to aim for – that is what I call a rubric. We used the same four sections from the book review highlight activity: who should read this book?, descriptive words, plot, and opinions. We added three optional categories: characters, genre, and rating. After we had each of the topics that they needed to include, we started filling out a rubric together on the overhead. Since we had created a booktalk rubric together earlier in the year and they had been assessed on the rubric, they were familiar with the possible scores they could receive in each area: advanced, proficient, partially proficient, unsatisfactory, or no attempt. We usually fill out the advanced first, then work our way down the scale. We listen to everyone’s ideas and come to a consensus. After we create the rough draft, I type up the information, create an overhead and have my classes review the information. I want to make sure that they agree to everything on the rubric, because that is what they are going to be required to do.
Each of the rubrics look a little different, based on the decisions of each class. Here is an example that my class came up with:
Slideboom.com is a place where you can host your PowerPoint presentations or search for presentation that have been uploaded by other users. The website is very easy to use and quickly uploads presentations. Slideboom is a great tool for sharing your presentations with other educators and students. Also, if you create a presentation at home or at school, just upload it to slideboom and you can access it from any location. I hope you find slideboom.com as easy to use and useful as we have. If you would like to look at the presentations we have uploaded, you can find them at slideboom.com/people/ellclassroom. Feel free and please download them and modify the presentations to meet the needs of your students.
Today, while I was viewing the exhibits at the NMSA conference, I came across a very interesting magazine. The magazine is specifically for Latino teens and is appropriately named LàTeen. LàTeen was originally created by a class of 8th graders and their teacher. At this time, I do not know all of the details as to how the magazine became what it is today. There is a website to accompany LàTeen, but it is still under construction. However, you can visit www.lateen.com and register your school or classroom for a free 6-month subscription (must have tax id). Teens or Youth can also register for an individual free 6-month subscription.
LàTeen Magazine contains articles in Spanish and English (the same article is not featured in both languages). The articles are about fashion, sports, famous Latinos, and much more. I look forward to receiving my first copy to read through and report back on some ways to incorporate this magazine into the classroom. If you or your students have already had the opportunity to read LàTeen Magazine, please share with us your thoughts
We are off to the National Middle School Association’s 35th Annual Conference in Denver. How exciting!! The last time I went to the NMSA conference was in 2001 as a college senior. Having been in the classroom now, I am looking forward to all of the great things that will be presented such as technology, strategies, methods, resources, and freebies from the exhibit hall of course.
Tomorrow afternoon, Jennifer and I will be presenting in one of the concurrent sessions. The title for our session is Strategies, Methods, and Resources for Increasing ELL Student Understanding and Performance. Some of the things we will cover during the 75 minute session are Who are English language learners?, Characteristics?, Structure- discipline, classroom procedures, graphic organizers, Academic vs. Content Vocabulary, Foldables, and Example of a modified lesson. Believe me, we have tons more that we could talk about but this was all that we could fit into the time. If you would like a copy of our handouts, visit our wiki (some pages are still a work in progress) at http://ellclassroom.wikispaces.com/NMSAhandouts.
I look forward to reporting back on all that I learn over the next few days!
Classroom management and discipline are an essential element of the English language learner classroom. Below is part 1 of 2 Classroom Management & Discipline.
Before working with students whose first language is not English, it is important to learn the academic characteristics associated with the students. This brief video explains the differences between non-English proficient, limited-English proficient, and fluent-English proficient English language learners in your classroom.
