Rubrics and My Anchor Chart Must-Haves

The Growth Mindset is starting to make an impact in education.  Carol Dweck explains Growth Mindset,
 In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities. Teaching a growth mindset creates motivation and productivity in the worlds of business, education, and sports. It enhances relationships. When you read Mindset, you’ll see how.
In my mind this directly relates to rubrics being created and shared with students.  If you know what is expected of you, and you know what it takes to go beyond, you can set goals to get their.  I remember when I went to school, I was handed an assignment and told to read a section of the textbook.  I didn't really know what I was working on other than what the teacher told me to do it.  I would turn in my work and hope for the best.  I had no control.  It either worked in my favor or it didn't.

In my own job, I like to know what I'm being evaluated on and I like to know how to accomplish it.  I want to give my students that opportunity as well.  I want them to see that their education is their own and what they make of it goes with them wherever they are.

When a rubric becomes a part of your classroom your discussions change.  The students really understand the standards and why they are learning them.  It creates a culture of learning that is different than before.  I really focus on the growth students are making rather than their level on the rubric.  

My must-haves for anchor charts:

1. Essential question that is standards-based:  I like to create a culture of thought.  What better way than to ask a question at the beginning of the lesson?  This isn't a question that can be answered in one word. You will note that my essential questions are quite different than the reading textbooks questions.  That's because I focus on standards, not themes.   To read more about essential questions, look here:  Essential Questions &/or What is an Essential Question?

2. Rubric with several levels: To create growth, we must show the different levels of learning.  I try to make them kid-friendly statements.  They are discussed again and again.  I also show work at each level.  At the beginning of a lesson, the students goal set with a neighbor telling how they are going to meet that goal.  At the end of a lesson, they self-assess and share how they know.  

3. Steps, Tips and/or Language Stems for figuring out the standard: I want to go beyond what they're learning and teach them steps for getting there.  My students USE the charts.  During a unit of learning, my students get up randomly and walk to a chart and reread it.  Usually there is a "Oh, now I get it!" moment.

I have definitely gone through transformations with my anchor charts.  And there are times where I leave off one of my must-haves but it is usually for a reason.  During a unit, I may make a separate rubric chart to hang and then focus on different aspects on the anchor charts.  

Here is an older anchor chart.  I didn't share an essential question or rubric.  My, my, my, times have changed BUT I feel like I give my students more opportunities to be successful.  I love that as a class we focus on our growth and we know WE CAN LEARN ANYTHING!

Writing realistic fiction stories

One of my favorite parts of the school day is writing time.  I love joining together on the carpet to discuss what writers do, I love the mini-lessons that are to the point, I love hearing Martha Stewart's lullabies everyday and I love scooting in beside a writer and conferring.

This year we have incorporated Lucy Calkins' Units of Study for the Common Core.  I have to say I like it a lot better than the old Units of Study but still love to create my own lessons. Below are charts based off the charts in the book (with slight changes).

I really love the checklist for each genre.  My students are constantly at the chart or looking at their personal one inside their writing folder.

I said above that I love creating my own lessons.  If you have read my blog before you know I love to use mentor texts as examples.  In every genre, we use several books to name authors' introductions and conclusions.  It can be quite eye opening what the students notice.

For this realistic fiction chart we used Junie B. Jones, Mittens, Amelia Bedelia, and Knuffle Bunny.

For this next chart we really explore one text, I Am Too Absolutely Small for School by Lauren Child.  Everyone in my classroom loves Charlie and Lola, including me!

To prepare the chart I only have the title and the book pages.  The students decide how to label what the author is doing. 

An ABSOLUTE must for our writing time is a rubric with writing examples that we call Stage Pages.  Before the unit our first grade team reads over the rubric for the county and we create pages that look like Emerging, Progress with Support, Meeting and Exceeding.  We keep them in page protectors so we can model how to add on to a paper that isn't meeting standards or how to enhance a meeting to an exceeding story.

Three stars = meeting standards

The students and I refer to the rubric every day.  We make goals for our time each day based off the rubric and it really helps to refer to during conferring.

NOW comes the number one thing that influences my students writing....other student's writing!

Each day we start our workshop by admiring someone else's work.  I purposefully select students' work that hits on the lesson from the day before, shows tremendous growth, hits on our lesson of the day, or extends the  work we've been doing but tries something new.  By the end of the unit (20 days), I usually have selected  a page from each student.  

During the workshop, I usually try to look out for pages to admire.  I'll say to the student, "At the end of writing can I borrow your paper?"  Then I make a copy (so we can keep it up in the classroom) and then the only other thing you need is Post-Its.

Happy Writing!

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

This year things are a little different for me and it has taken me a while to get in the spirit BUT I'm finally there!  Last night my step-mom and I decorated and listened to Christmas songs...it was just what I needed.

So I woke up this morning and decided to bring the Christmas cheer to school.

Here is a pack with 5 word activities.  Some are vocabulary development and the rest are word work. Click on the link or pictures to download yours for free.

Winter Words

For the past two weeks, our first grade team has digging deep into Land and Water.  Here's what's been going on:

We started with natural resources and man made materials.  We took our clip boards and went on a hunt around the school.

The kids sorted the resources in their journals.  The sort is from Michele Olson.

Then we started to investigate where we can find natural resources on Earth.

The students drew examples of each in their notebooks.

Then we observed soil and determined what kind it was and what we could do with it.

Then we observed rocks and went on a hunt.  We used Primary Graffiti's Interactive Notebook for Earth Science to help use describe rocks and soil.

For some reason I can't get this picture the right way!  For water, we did a Frayer Model.

To show their understanding of land and water the students sorted pictures in their journals.  Again this from Primary Graffiti's Interactive Notebook for Earth Science which I absolutely love.

While I was out the students and substitute figured out how we use these resources.

 At the end of this week we started getting into fast and slow changes.

Next week we are looking deeper into the changes on Earth.  It's been so fun!

I hope you are starting to enjoy the holiday season as well!

How-To Writing Introduction Inquiry

When we are learning about different writing genres, I love to have the students do an inquiry into different kinds of introductions and conclusions to help them with their own writing.  We look to our favorite authors {some are authors from our room!} or books of the genre.  We just finished up our How-To unit and I wanted to share with you how I go about doing this.

First I select texts to be our mentor texts throughout the unit.  They are usually books I already own.  For this unit we also printed off recipes as examples. This unit I used:

This isn't the recipe we used just one like it.

During the unit we read these mentor text more than once.  Sometimes I use them to teach a skill or strategy for a mini-lesson and other times to get ideas from their authors.  After the students had the concept of telling their reader how to do something with steps I knew it was time to work on our introductions.

We got some of the books out and I typed their introductions.  I also took several examples from students in my class.  Then I read them and the kids sorted them and named what the authors were doing.  For How-To writing they noticed authors started with actions, questions and telling.  Some did more than one. 

When the students went off that day to write they were so excited to fix up their introductions.  By the end of the unit every single student had an introduction without my prompting!

Since the students noticed and named what the authors did in their introductions, they had a sense of ownership.  This built their confidence and then they willing to try something new.

I typed up some of the books introduction for you to make your own anchor chart! Click on the link or images to download.

How-To Introductions

When the students are ready we do the whole process over again but this time we inquire into conclusions.

Check out these posts for How-To Writing resources: Introduction to Expository Writing, More Expository! and Writing Workshop Revisions (which refers to the old Units of Study by Lucy Calkins).

Here is an example from our opinion writing of the same type of inquiry lesson:

See the original post here: Strengthening Our Opinion Writing

These lessons are definitely impactful on my little writers!