Turning the Classroom Inside Out

It's been a while since I've cracked open my computer with the intention of posting on this blog. Over 2 years, in fact (which I'm not proud to share).  It's not that I've been uninspired, or bored with teaching, and it's not that I've just found better things to do.  The truth is that I've spent the last couple of years working to accomplish a huge goal I was striving towards: becoming a school administrator.  While leaving the classroom (and my absolutely amazing colleagues and students at Coolidge Middle School) was an incredibly hard decision, I'm excited to say that I am just as passionate about my work in this role as I was about my work in the classroom.  I am just as dedicated to leading a positive and innovative whole school environment as I was about doing so in room B7. 

As a teacher, this blog was an important way for me to reflect upon my work, and it served as a reminder for why I loved my job.  I have to admit that I've struggled as a brand new administrator to find where this blog fits into my practice.   It's February, and I finally feel like I have my feet under me in this complex role (sort of in the way a toddler just learning to walk does, but hey, growth mindset!) I've begun to be able to truly appreciate some of the amazing things happening in our middle school classrooms, and have started Tweeting a bit more regularly to an audience of both fellow educators and community members. I started to get that itch for writing again, but wanted to find just the right thing to write about...

Enter 6th grade science teachers at Galvin Middle School, my new (and wonderful) home away from home.

After a short workshop on using QR codes in the classroom, 6th grade science teacher Liz Doucette quickly saw the value (and fun) in incorporating QR codes into her instruction.  She started with a station based learning activity where students traveled around the room scanning QR codes and completing the activities as instructed at each station.  She discovered that though this is a small addition to her instructional repertoire, it was hugely beneficial in the student engagement category.  (On another non-instructional note, her whole team is now using QR codes linked to a time-stamped Google form as a way for students to sign out of the classroom-so easy!)

The time came around where students would begin to learn about cells and their makeup in their 6th grade science classes.  In an effort to help students connect what they're learning to the world around them, the analogy is often made between a cell and a school (main office=nucleus, so on and so forth).  Sometimes, this comparison is taken to the next level of engagement, where students draw a map of their school, and label each area as if it were a part of the cell.  While Liz and her counterparts (Jennifer Pierce and Kyrsten Atwater) knew this comparison would hook many students, they still had a burning question: how can we get students to truly understand and internalize the importance of each cell part? The answer: send students on a chaotic mission all over the school building.  Let them bring their cell phones.  Hide something in the principal's office.  While it may sound like an assistant principal's nightmare, it was a middle schooler's dream lesson.  For the 50 or so minutes it took to complete this activity, our 6th graders were wide awake and eager to keep learning.  Sometimes we have to loosen our grip a little bit and cut some slack in order to get our students to take the bait.  So, how did Liz, Jen and Kyrsten reel them in? 

The Work Before the Work
The science teachers created a notes page pre-populated with all of the cell parts students would be looking for.  They then took time finding meaningful resources to connect with each cell part.  In some cases, this was a brief article defining the cell part and its purpose.  In other cases, it was a short video students watched to learn about the cell part's function.  The QR codes provided an element of surprise and intrigue, and the variety of types of resources kept students on the edge of their seats wondering what would pop up next.  

The activity was run in 4 separate sessions (for each of the four sections each teacher teaches).  In order to make sure all students were hearing the same message, teachers brought all of their students together in the 6th grade project room to explain their mission and relay expectations for behavior.  This was a fun way for students to see their friends on other teams, and for the teachers to build community as "scientists" with this common experience.   

Monitor and Motivate
Jen, Liz, and Kyrsten, along with instructional support staff strategically placed themselves throughout the school, and monitored students' progress.  The hallways were filled with teachers saying things like, "You're doing a great job! Keep going!" and asking follow up questions to support student learning and check for understanding.  

Meet Students' Needs
If you teach middle school, you know students need to move while they're learning, and they're going to move whether we'd like them to or not.  Think about that chair that's tipping back and forth, that tapping on the desk that's driving you just a little bit crazy, or that student who couldn't possibly need to sharpen their pencil again.  This activity gives students the natural movement they so desperately need, without the interruption to their learning.  

If you teach middle school, you also know that students in your classroom very probably learn at incredibly different paces.  In most teacher centered learning, (think "note-taking") inevitably some students finish with the quickness and accuracy of a Tom Brady touchdown pass, while others may need a bit more processing time, repetition, or scaffolding to fully internalize what's being taught. This activity gives students the freedom to learn at their own speed, the access to experts when they need them (teachers placed strategically in the halls), and the freedom to pause, process, and repeat when they need to. Those students who finish more quickly are given a "bonus" question: where would the nucleolus of the school be? Those students could be seen thinking deeply, discussing with their peers, and after a "light bulb" moment, hustling to the principal's office to find the final QR code.  

Classrooms are designed and decorated to create an environment and learning conditions where students can acquire new skills and new content.   Content objectives are clearly written, word walls are maintained and updated to stay current with what students are learning, and visual aides are provided for students to use to support their understanding.  What I loved about this lesson was that these three teachers took the classroom out of the classroom, and recognized that student learning is not just about memorization and acquisition of content.  It's also about encouraging students to collaborate, giving them the chance to make discoveries, and most importantly, allowing them to connect with their learning in an exciting and challenging way.   

I love when learning looks like this! 

The Power of Storytelling

New England is full of snow. I mean FULL of snow right now. Today is my 4th snow day in 2 weeks, and I've had a lot of unexpected down time, much of which was filled with aimlessly scrolling through social media, alternating between rewatching videos of the interception that won us the superbowl (woo hoo!) and reading articles about great teaching, which I find myself unable to stay away from even on days off. The power of social media and technology is one thing I've explored a lot on my blog. School culture and the importance of teaching empathy is another I've explored often in my writing. While aimlessly scrolling over the past few days, I kept coming back to one of my favorite photo-blogs that seems to be a combination of the two, Humans of New York. 

If you haven't had the chance to check it out, it is an amazing compilation of photographs of people from all walks of life in New York City, along with a few sentences capturing those people's lives in that moment. It's a blog that has captured the side of me that is endlessly curious about people's stories, and what brought them to where they are.  For example... 

The picture just above is a boy named Vidal, whose words about his principal's positive impact on him went viral, and has sparked the generosity of people all over the world. Humans of New York is a glimpse into the stories of people who grew up all different sorts of ways, and are heading in all different sorts of directions. I've read about individuals who have circumstances incredibly similar to my own, and individuals whose lives couldn't be more different. 

How cool would it be to do something like this in our schools; to photograph students and teachers in the building, and share a sentence or two about their lives in that moment? It could be an amazing and relatively easy way to build community and teach empathy. It would remind staff and students alike that everyone has a story, and that everyone has something going on underneath the surface, whether it's graditude, frustration, excitement or otherwise. It could offer a small bit of positivity to someone having a bad day, or remind a student or teacher to be a bit more sensitive and patient in frustrating situations. Or on a smaller scale, it could be a great getting to know you activity with a new group of students. We could ask them to select just the right words to capture their lives in that moment, and use the Humans of New York blog as a model. We could perhaps do this once at the beginning of the school year, once in the middle, and once at the end. Students could then write a reflection on what's changed over the course of their school year, and how far they've come. 

I can't help but be fascinated and empowered by people's stories, and due to the number of followers it has, I'm sure I'm not the only one! If you haven't checked out Humans of New York, give it a chance. If nothing else, it will cause you to take pause, and momentarily see yourself in another's shoes, something we hope all of our middle schoolers take the time to do.

A Body in Motion Should Stay in Motion!

One of the most noticeable aspects of teaching middle school students, and one of the most frequent gripes of middle school teachers is that many of the students just don't seem to be able to sit still.   We want them to be thinking at a higher level and attending to complex tasks, however their teenage attention spans often prevent them from doing so.  When asked to focus for an extended period of time or to tackle a monstrous task in one sitting, they get wiggly, tip back in their chairs, or become suddenly and unceasingly interested in the strange clicking sound the heating system is making. The "ants in the pants" issue is one I've certainly noticed in my own classroom, so I decided to try and rework some of my lessons to incorporate more movement.  

1. Speed Research

We are currently reading the novel, The Book Thief, which is about World War 2 and the Holocaust.  Since many students hadn't studied the Holocaust before, I knew some exploration of background knowledge needed to be done.  So, I gave students a document with 8 terms on the page, and divided them into 8 groups.  At each table, I placed a piece of paper face down.  The paper contained a term as well as 2 or 3 guiding questions for their research.  I stood at the front of the room, and started the timer for 5 minutes.  Students had 5 minutes to research the term in their small groups, and find and record the answers to their questions.  Once the timer was up, they had to move on to the next term in the 8 term rotation.  

I know five minutes seems sort of short, but that's the point! Because we were just beginning to build background knowledge, in depth study of each term was not necessary at this stage. The short time constraint was certainly long enough to find the answers to the questions online and to spark their interest in the topic, but short enough that they HAD to stay focused the whole time in order to complete the entire task. The satisfaction of finishing each term by the time the timer buzzed  allowed them to accomplish small goals, instead of being overwhelmed by the entire page at once.   

2. Digital Museum

For this activity, I asked students in advance to download a QR reader onto their personal devices.  My homework was to create the QR codes for them to read the next day.  You can easily create QR codes online through a variety of websites. In my classroom the night before, I essentially plastered my walls with these QR codes, which were linked to videos and websites students could use to answer the essential questions presented about three historical context categories: the Hitler Youth, Communism, and Jesse Owens.  Each station also had a question which asked students to connect the historical context category with the section of the novel we read the night before. In essence, I created a "digital museum" in my classroom.  When students entered the room, they were immediately hooked and curious about "all those things on the walls," so I knew the anticipation of the lesson alone would contribute to its success. 

Students were quickly divided into partnerships for this activity, and I was careful to copy and post enough of each QR code to ensure that no code had more than one group scanning at a time.  Because research was a little bit more in depth this time around, I gave students 8 minutes at each of the 3 stations in which to research their topic.  

Once the students scanned their code, they used the resource linked to the code to develop responses to the essential question.  Again, when time was up, they were provided with a natural movement break in order to move to the next station. I found they were both excited by the mystery and novelty of the QR codes, and motivated by the timer to stay on task and focused. 

3. Poetry Analysis/The Writing on the Wall

Last week, we took a look at poetry that was written by Holocaust survivors in an effort to explore the historical context from a more personal perspective. For this activity, I took the kids to the multipurpose room in our building; a large, open space where students were really able to spread out.  Around the room, I taped up large pieces of colored paper each with a different poem on it.  I decided that in order for students to be truly reflective, and for the poems to have the maximum emotional impact, I was going to use the "chalk talk" approach to discussion, where no verbal discussion happens at all, and the only conversation that occurs is through building on the written comments of others. 

At the beginning of class, students were asked to read each of the 3 poems independently, and underline any words or lines that stood out to them in any way.  When we got to the multipurpose room, students were divided into six groups, and were asked to silently discuss their thoughts, emotions, and responses to one poem at a time. I placed some prompting questions in random spots on each paper to help them gain focus and intent in their response.  At each station, a reminder of the expectations of the activity were also posted. 

This activity worked well for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it allowed those who don't normally volunteer themselves in class to have a voice.  It allowed students to be somewhat anonymous in what they shared, so I felt they were more honest and took larger risks in their responses than they would if we had discussed the poems out loud in class.  And in connection with the subject area of this post, students were able to decide how they were comfortable participating in the activity.  Some sat down in the chairs placed close by or on the floor to read over the comments of others before responding, some felt comfortable standing the whole time and stepped back when they were reading others' comments. 

Students were moved from station to station after 4 minute intervals, allowing for a predictable and organic movement break. 

Once students had explored each poem, we sat in a circle in the  middle of the multipurpose room, and had an open conversation (no raised hands necessary, just speak up!) about why survivors chose to write poetry, and how poetry allows us to experience a historical event in a new a meaningful way.  

Many researchers (and teachers too!) would agree that the attention span of teenagers is short and getting shorter.  By breaking down larger academic tasks into smaller, time oriented goals, students can maximize the short attention span they have, and take natural movement breaks which we all know they so desperately need.  Predictable breaks allow them to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, and not to get bogged down in what may, at first glance, appear to be an overwhelming task. We know that whether we like it or not, their bodies will be in motion.  My opinion? Why fight it! Embrace it, and use it to your (and ultimately their) advantage in the classroom.   

A Missing Link

On Friday afternoon, I took the opportunity to do something I haven't done in a really, really, really long time.  I watched a teacher teach.  I didn't read about a teacher teaching, I didn't participate in a meeting about teaching, I didn't favorite a Tweet about great teaching, I didn't even watch a video clip of a teacher teaching.  I actually watched a teacher teach from the beginning of the class period until the end.  I know it sounds crazy, but it's true.

As an undergraduate, I had spent some time observing teachers, but was shortly thrown into student teaching the second half of my senior year, and forced to tread water.  Don't get me wrong, this was a fantastic experience in learning what not to do, and in figuring out how much I really didn't know how to do.  It wasn't until I graduated college and couldn't find my first job as a classroom teacher that I truly  began to feel ready to be one.  In late August, I finally found a position as a paraprofessional, and it turned out to be the stepping stone I needed.  Every day, for an entire school year, I got to watch teachers teach.  I got to see how teachers began their classes, assessment tools they used, and behavior management systems and strategies.  I got to see how teachers reacted to the unexpected, and what really happens when there is a substitute teacher in the classroom.  I spent 180 days in a variety of classrooms, watching teachers with a variety of strengths, and my approach to education began to become a sort of patchwork of best practices.  I had so many ideas that I actually saw working, and I couldn't wait to have a classroom of my own.  I promised myself I'd continue to learn in this way, and I was off to start my first job.

Then, I became a real life teacher, and I just didn't have time anymore.  Observing other teachers became a "maybe if I have a free period," and then other more important tasks simply took precedence.  After Friday, however, I know now that I need to reorganize my instructional priorities, and that watching teachers teach was and still is the best way to learn.

As a teacher in a semi-paperless classroom, I was interested in seeing how a paperless classroom other than my own actually worked in practice.  Enter Kerry Gallagher, a paperless teacher just across the street from me at the high school (who has a fantastic blog.) In two minutes, I was able to leave the four walls of my classroom, and get some quality mid-day professional development.  At first I found it sort of awkward to not be the instructor in the room; I was so used to getting the class started, and checking in with students along the way.  I was so used to being in charge. It took a lot for me to sit back and watch, especially when many of my former students were in the classroom. However, it was really fascinating to see the classroom from a learning perspective, and learn I did.

I've attended a lot of workshops, read a lot of books, and scroll Twitter every day feasting on the banquet of knowledge there is out there on education. I love it, and I learn so much.  As valuable as this is, I can't help but feel that consistent peer observations are the one thing missing from my development as a professional.  I loved seeing a class from start to finish, and seeing the similarities and differences between Kerry's instruction and my own.  I loved seeing Kerry's approach to "paperlessness," and I love the fact that I came away from a 50 minute class period with new ideas for my own classroom. I can't help but feel as though engaging in this experience more often would be invaluable to improving my teaching.  It would be amazing for this to be commonplace in schools across the country.  I think we'd realize just how much we truly can learn (for free!) from one another.

Through this experience, one thing became more clear to me than ever before.  TEACHERS NEED TO DO THIS! Not once in a while, not once a year, but as often as possible.
 

One Year Ago

This morning, after a night of decorating my Christmas tree and getting ready for a holiday celebration with friends, I found myself thinking about where I was one year ago today.  It was 2:30pm, and the end of another school day.  Another blur had passed of teaching 5 classes, rushing around the building looking for a free copy machine, and hoping to have enough time to finish my lunch. Two students stopped by after the bell rang and asked, "Did you hear what happened today, Ms. A?" At this point, I had not.  I didn't know that someone had entered an elementary school  in a town eerily similar to my own with a mission to kill.  I didn't realize that after 27 years, I hadn't seen and heard on the news the worst of the evil that exists in this world. "Why would someone do something like this?" They asked me.  I didn't have an answer for them then, and I still don't.

I knew entering this profession that there would be days were I'd experience and have to respond to the unexpected.  I knew there would be times when I'd find myself on the spot trying to explain things I couldn't explain.  But I never imagined the degree to which this might be necessary, and I instantly saw myself in the shoes of Victoria Soto, the 27 year old teacher who was killed protecting her students.  I spent the commute home that day listening to the news on the radio, sobbing in disbelief, and with the deepest sadness I had ever felt for teachers, parents, and children I had never met.  While thinking about this moment one year later, I've realized that although it was and still is one of the most sickening feelings I've ever felt, not only as a teacher but as a human being, the only way I can respond to this that will have any significance is through learning from it, and through committing to keeping positivity, problem solving, and kindness a priority in my own life and in my own classroom.

As teachers, it's so easy to get caught up in our daily routines.  We wake up in the morning, drink our coffee on the way to work, and before we even have a chance to speak our first words of the day, there are children at our doors waiting to ask us questions about last night's homework, or emails in our inboxes from parents expressing concern over a recent quiz grade.  It's so easy to turn to negativity and blaming when we are struggling with our students or with our workload, and it's so easy to get into a cycle of complaining when things just aren't going our way, or when people just don't understand what we deal with.  It's easy, but when the dust settles, it's exhausting, and it eliminates the opportunities we have to truly make a difference in the lives of our students.  On December 14th, 2012, I never realized more clearly that the more time we spend focusing on problems and not solutions, the more we are ignoring students that truly need our help, and the more we are slowly squeaking open the doors of opportunity for another something tragic to happen in our schools.

It may seem like a huge monster to tackle, eliminating the possibility of violence in our schools, but it's not impossible.  According to the US census, there are 7.2 million teachers in the United States, 3 million of which are teaching at the elementary or middle school level (http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/cb11-ff15.html) There are THREE MILLION of us who teach at this crucial time in a child's development, and who have the opportunity to impact what kind of human being each child will be.  Every moment we spend complaining about how frustrated we are with that child in our classroom who is defiant or disrespectful is a moment wasted in trying to understand that child's behavior and searching for a solution.   I'll be the first to say that it's much more difficult to relentlessly search for successful interventions than it is to harp on the disbelief that these behaviors are still occurring in my classroom, or to blame lack of success on lack of support in our classrooms.  It's more difficult to run a classroom that focuses on educating the whole child than it is to run a classroom that focuses on academics only.  I can't lie and say that I don't find myself sometimes falling back into that pattern. It's certainly more difficult, but now more than ever, it's more important. We have so little time in our days as teachers to truly and collaboratively problem solve and support one another, how can we justify a minute wasted? Students spend a majority of their waking hours in our classrooms.  How can we justify only teaching them how to individually read, write, and multiply instead of teaching them to work as a team and look out for one another? If there are three million of us who are willing to take the more difficult path, or at least look in that direction, there is no way we can fail.

Although I am still devastated to think about what happened in Newtown, Connecticut one year ago today, and I am still brought to tears when I try to understand how the young man who did this never got the help he really needed, I know that as a teacher, I can play a small role in possibly preventing this from continuing to happen.  For the 107 students I will have over the next two years, I can make it a priority to dedicate myself to not only making sure my students are meeting the standards of the Common Core,  but also to making sure my students are kind, grateful, helpful, and empathetic human beings.

Get V.A.L.I.D! Teaching Web Literacy Skills

Web literacy has quickly become just as important as any other type of literacy we focus on in education.  It is, simply put, a "must teach" in order to make sure our students are able to accurately sift through and rely on the infinite amount of information available to them.  

Creating our Victorian England museum (more detail on my last post!) offered the perfect opportunity to teach these web literacy skills, especially after seeing several of my students confirming facts they learned from the provided research resources on Wikipedia! 

When thinking about how best to teach these skills, rather than take time away from the museum project, I decided to use the flipped classroom model.  I wanted students to learn the material on their own, and use class time to apply what they learned to what they were working on.  

So, I created a folder on our class web page that looked like this...

I gave them four nights to do this so they could work at their own pace, and ask questions as they went. Thanks to a wonderful colleague, I already had a fancy acronym for helping students remember what to look for when evaluating a website: Get VALID.

Students were asked first to read through this page, and take a brief online quiz on the information, so I could quickly see who understood the information, and who may need some extra support (or, who took the quiz before actually reading!):

Then, students were asked to use Get VALID to determine the reliability of five websites, also included in the folder.  They were asked to download the Get VALID page, and edit it for each of the 5 websites. Then, they were asked to re upload their work to a "homework hand in" in the folder (a simple uploader). 

I was pretty happy with the results.  For those students who didn't do so well with the assignment, I was able to check in with them during their work on their project, and help them through evaluating the sources they were actually using.  I didn't waste any class time trying to figure out who understood the process and who didn't; I knew even before they arrived.  I didn't have to sacrifice my shoulder by dragging home a bag full of 107 Get VALID quizzes and packets. The process was completely paperless. I liked the acronym, because it was easy for them to remember, and helped them analyze a website in a timely manner.  Lastly, the flipped classroom model gave my students the freedom to use their class time to learn collaboratively and creatively, and create some masterpiece-like Victorian England Exhibits...I'm so proud!

From Background to Foreground: Meaningfully Building Background Knowledge

The holidays are around the corner, and in 7th grade, that means we begin reading one of my favorite novels to teach: A Christmas Carol.  As soon as I broached the topic in class, I knew I had some serious work to do.  How did I know this? Well, one student asked me, "Ohhhhh, isn't that the story with Eleanor Scrooge?" Another student asked me, "Why are we reading about England? Didn't we fight a war against them to avoid having to do this?"  Clearly, their background knowledge was fuzzy at best.  In years past, I've done a two day webquest where students explored a website about Victorian England and answered some questions.  They came out of it with some understanding of Victorian times, but I've always felt as thought it wasn't enough.  By the time we were finished with the novel, they had all but forgotten about the historical context in which the story takes place. I wanted to find a way for the students to immerse themselves in information about Victorian England in order to fully and dynamically understand the important message of the novel, and I wanted to do this in a way that allowed students to be autonomous, creative, and collaborative.

So, we are building a museum.  Literally.  My classroom is slowly beginning to transform from just your average 7th grade classroom to full scale Victorian England museum.  Although I'm only partially through this process, and the end result is yet to come, I couldn't be more excited about how it's going.

One of my goals in designing this project is to be as hands off as possible.  I want them to own every piece of this museum from the beginning of our research to our opening day.  I've provided some structure and guidance, but I'm really interested in seeing how they interact with one another, how they problem solve amongst themselves, and what they are able to create without the limitation of a menu of choices or a rubric.


At the start of the research process, students were asked to log onto their edline page, and find the folder with their topic on it.  Inside the folder, I placed 2 very simplistic resources which give the students just a taste of their topic, but left many questions unanswered. After reviewing a Prezi detailing how to create well written research questions, students were asked to write 3 big picture questions (I called them "forest questions"), and for each of their big questions, they were asked to develop 3 small detail questions (I called them "tree" questions).  They based their subsequent research off of those questions.  I wanted them to take the direction in their research that they were interested in taking, rather than giving them specific questions to answer.

I loved watching them navigate through the research process.  I gave groups the freedom to divide the research task however they wanted to, and it was fascinating to see the different ways that groups chose to do this.  Some individuals had difficulty with group members not being on task, or feeling like they were doing all the work, or not being given any work to do.  When they ran to tell me, rather than step in and make decisions or point fingers, I asked guiding questions to move them towards problem solving as a team.  I asked questions like, "What is the goal you are trying to accomplish today as a group? What is stopping you from moving forward towards that goal? How can you work together to solve the problem?"

From their research, students were asked to build a mutli-media exhibit about their topic for our Victorian England Museum, which by the way, the sixth graders will be visiting and reporting on in 2 weeks!  I've been stressing the importance of their audience.  What questions will a 6th grader have about your topic? How can you engage them in your exhibit? What connections can you help them see between your topic and their lives?  They were quick to want to create everything on the ipad or the computer, so I encouraged them to look for virtual tours of museums online, and note the types of exhibits they see.  Our classroom is currently quite the mish mosh of creativity right now.  I have clay, poster board, ipads, empty shoeboxes, pencils and pens, paint, cameras, laptops, costumes, glue, and just about every other tool associated with creativity that you can think of currently floating around my classroom.  It's a complete disaster, and I'm totally ok with it, because they are totally invested.

Each day in this process begins with a group meeting, where the "exhibit directors" read the memo from the "museum curator" (me.)  The memo requires them to submit a goal for the day to their curator, and briefly explain how each group member will be contributing to this goal.  Bringing this element of pretend and play into the activity has proven to be incredibly motivating.  I hear things like, "Guys, our grand opening is in two weeks, we really need to get moving!"

I've also asked each group to create an advertisement for our museum.  Some groups are recording 15 second commercials and podcasts, others are creating flyers and announcements to be read over the intercom.  I've overheard groups saying things like, "We really need to make something that catches their eye!" or, "What parts of the building do sixth graders spend time in? Let's hang some fliers there," or, "Let's tell them a little bit about our topic, but not everything.  Then they'll want to come see what it's all about!"

What do I love about this endeavor so far? I love that they are able to implement the element of pretend and play while still creating for an authentic audience. I love feeling confident that they will be able to more effectively connect the historical context of A Christmas Carol with the story's message, and thus connect the story's message more effectively to their own lives.  These are all, for me, successes.  But what I love most about this project is that they are almost completely in control, and they are coming up with ideas that I couldn't have thought of even on my best and brightest post workshop reenergized idea filled teacher day.  They are truly owning the learning.