Monday Mash-Up: Of Smirkers and Sportsmanship

It's been a while since I put together a Monday Mash-Up, but I've been saving posts as they come along, so this one has some real gems for you!

They really have no common theme, but they're all pieces I thoroughly enjoyed for one reason or another- and hope you will, too.

• "Winning, Losing, and Loving It: Have We Taught Sportsmanship?"  from Daydreaming in Maths, deals with something I preach to my students constantly.  Joanna coaches the chess team for her school, and I coach an academic competition team.  I've always thought I wasn't a "good coach" or "coach material" because I'm not angry when they lose.  In fact, I really could not care less.  What I do care about is that my team conducts themselves like ladies and gentlemen.  I loved reading that someone else feels the same.

• Love, Teach, as always, is a favorite blog of mine.  "Smirker, Round Two" is a hilarious piece about the frustration of dealing with those general bad-attitude kids.  We've all had 'em.

• Elizabeth of E, Myself, and I wrote beautifully about "What I Want My Own Little Monster to Know About Dreams, College, and the Future,"  and though it's written for parents, it's another great teacher-read.  Elizabeth's goals for her adorable little boy Sam are some of the same goals I have for my students: that they have someone who loves and cheers for them, that they don't stress out about the little things, and that they are able to pick themselves up after making mistakes or failing.  If only all our students had parents who loved and supported them like this.

• "To the teacher who didn't leave me behind" is a piece that appeared on The Roanoke Times.  It's a great inspirational reminder to not give up on our kids, even if they're not being sportsmanlike or if they smirk or if they just aren't very resilient.

• Finally, who doesn't love a good lesson plan that's already done?!  I'm teaching both Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar right now, in two different English classes, and this one, "Serving Up Tragedy" from The Curly Classroom, is pretty awesome.  It uses paper plates to help students study and compare the elements of tragedy and comedy-- cheap hands-on learning always rocks my socks!

My next Better Together linky party will be up in one week-- get your posts ready!  The focus this month is on "Fun in the Classroom." 

Creating a System for Incoming/Outgoing Student Work

I don't know about y'all, but man, being back to work is killing me!  I am t-i-r-e-d and we aren't even "officially" back yet.  I've been spending a little time in my classroom this week, getting everything ready before the insanity of meetings, parents, and professional development kicks in.  

Credit

One of my major goals for this school year is to maximize class time, and my biggest time-suck in class is passing back papers.  I've always had a system for students to hand in work, but I've never had one for handing it back.  I usually spend about 10-15 minutes a week (in each class) handing back work.  While I try to do this when students are engaged in group work, it still becomes a bit of a zoo-- kids are focused on what I'm handing back rather than the task at hand.  

Here's my plan to eliminate that waste of class time, and create a smoother system for collecting and handing in work:

Collecting Student Work
I have never really taken students' work up by hand before.  I've always had some kind of system by which students should turn it in, and for the most part I like that.  Most recently I had them turn in work to my file cabinet, organized with folders for each class period.  It saves me the trouble of collecting it, and it provides them with a little responsibility.  However, it also provides a few problems:
1- Sneaky kids turn in work late if I don't empty the folders immediately after each class.
2- Kids throw out that, "I know I turned it in!" excuse.

So this year, I'm collecting work.  I'll have them pass it up the rows, old-school style.  This is partly because I want to eliminate the previous problems, and partly because I want to start implementing the "homework excuse slips" featured as yellow sheets on E, Myself, and I and again on Eat. Write. Teach.
 I love the idea of the walk of shame to pick up a slip, and having a record of each excuse the student provides.  (Perfect for parent-teacher conferences!)  Because kids who don't do their homework probably aren't inclined to voluntarily do paperwork about said missing homework, I need to be sure they're doing them.  I can only do that if I am collecting homework in my hands.

So, here's the plan for collecting work.  Once I've collected, and checked that I have a paper (either homework or a yellow sheet) from each student, I'll stick the papers in my handy-dandy rainbow organizer to await grading.  

 The top five drawers are for copies for the week, and the bottom five are for collected work, organized by class period. 

Once work is graded, I refuse to spend class time returning it anymore.  So . . . here's my new Pinterest-inspired mail system:

Returning Graded Work:

Nothing fancy- some file crates and hanging file folders from Staples, and some printed labels.  Each class has its own crate, and each student will have a folder.  When work is graded, I'll stick it in the folders on my own time-- during my planning period or before school.  It'll be up to kids to collect it periodically. (Yellow sheets will go into a binder for my records.)

Bonus: This should make make-up work easier, as well.  When kids are out, I'll put their make-up work right in their folders.

I'd love to hear what you do about collecting and handing back work!  Comments, please.

Setting Soft Goals for Students

I just read an interesting article from Vicki Davis at the Cool Cat Teacher Blog called "Why you should set soft goals for your classroom this year."  Davis defines "soft goals" as goals that aren't determined by test scores or standards.  Instead, they are "to be" goals that must come before the "to do" goals you set.  We must decide what we want our students to be before we can get them to do.  In response to that post, I did some reflecting and brainstorming of my own.  What do I want for my students of 2013-14?  What do I want them to be?  



I decided I wanted my students to be more:
1. passionate
2. open-minded
3. perseverant
4. focused

Now for the hard part-- how to get them there?

I believe the best way to teach is to model, so I must consistently be all of these things.  That's not terribly hard for me, so what else can I do?  Some ideas . . .

To help my students be passionate about their school, I can use my brand-new newspaper elective class to build school spirit through writing.

To help my students be more open-minded, I can share examples of characters in literature who excel at open-mindedness (like Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird) and host class discussions about the benefits of such a trait.

To help my students be more perseverant, I can hold academic conferences with my students and help them set reachable goals for themselves.  
To help my students be more focused, I can use the new block schedule to divide class time into 15-20 minute mini-lessons.  When attention starts to wane, we'll be on to the next topic.

I'd love to see some of my readers' soft goals.  Please share!