Input-Based Children's Books!

Hello everyone! My name is Caitlin McKinney, and I am really excited to be writing as a guest blogger for The Deskless Classroom.

About Me:

I teach 5 different levels of French in a public high school. I am one of six French teachers in my district and currently the only French teacher in my building. I am just wrapping up my ninth year teaching and have been teaching with Acquisition Driven Instruction (ADI) for 5 years. ADI to me refers to a collection of teaching strategies that uses comprehensible target language in an interesting, repetitive manner so that students acquire the language (rather than relying on memorization of vocabulary and grammar rules).

The Challenge: Ending the Year and Testing and Block Schedules

It’s the end of the year. What that means in my district is that we are in the middle of standardized testing season.

Instead of our typical 50 minute class periods, 5 days a week schedule, we are on a block schedule.

For those of you that teach on blocks, wow! It’s a challenge for me and my students. My students are not at all accustomed to listening to French for 105 minutes, so this is always a struggle, especially with my lower levels.

Past Plans for Block/Exams and the End of The Year

In the past I have used this time (or at least part of it) for a class project in which my students write, illustrate, and publish their own children’s books in the target language.

Note from Elicia: this book project thing is *not* a project that is aligned with acquisition driven instruction- that's my personal opinion (and it is my blog!). 

Rethinking, Reflecting

I was recently perusing The Deskless Classroom when I saw Elicia’s post about classroom projects. The whole time I was reading her analysis and critique, I was nodding my head.

• Was the task above my student’s proficiency level? Yes. 
• Was the project focusing more on output? Yes. 
• Did I spend a lot of time doing error corrections? Absolutely.

Even so, I was in desperate need of a class period where I could be hands off, and my students were in desperate need of a quiet creative outlet.

Then it struck me: Why not make an input-based project?

Input-based Children’s Books!

Instead of having my students write a children’s book, I would have them create a wordless picture book for their class and then USE THOSE BOOKS FOR INPUT.

Even my level ones could benefit from all of the great things that come with projects (e.g. an outlet for creativity, an opportunity for student input, and just plain novelty) in the classroom routine - without having to worry about their proficiency levels.  

Plus, I can break up our long class periods by using their wordless picture books for picture talk! 

To create the actual book, I plan to add words to the text as we created the story together using a Write and Discuss format (read more about that here: Write and Discuss). Since this is something we do regularly, it’s easy to incorporate.
Note: If you ever get a chance to see Caitlin present about Write and Discuss at a local or regional conference, you should! -Elicia

Translation: One day, Jimmy is sitting next to his dog and he thinks "I want to go to the park one day."
Here is an example of one page from a level 1 student after I went through the write and discuss / picture talk process. I loved that I could add dialogue for another repetition of first person perspective! 

By the end of class, the book *should* be ready for printing.

And the best part? I don’t have to sit down and edit it, because as we are co-creating the text and I am writing it up, I’m editing in the moment! 

There is no extra step of editing student work!

Oh, the other best part, and the thing that’s most relevant to this blog, is that students are getting input, that they understand, about something that is super interesting and engaging to them: their wordless books and their friend's wordless books. 

Afterwards, I can simply send the fully illustrated, co-created story to the printer and add it to my library the next day.

What do you need?

• Educator’s Account in Canva- FREE
• Time  (60 minutes or more) for students to create wordless books
• Time to conference with students as they are working to create their wordless book
• Time to picture talk and add text (after they are created)

I decided to upgrade my Canva account to an educator’s account for free. (Click for more information on getting a free Canva educator's account.) This allows both myself and all my students access to all the educator features in Canva, which means that students have a lot of images and graphics to use!

Canva allows teachers to create an assignment and assign it to a class, so I used that function and created a blank assignment using a storybook template.

We use a Learning Management System (LMS) like GoogleClassroom so I posted the link there for students to join the Canva environment.

Guidance for Students

On our first day, students joined my class in Canva. 

After that, I really didn’t give them a whole lot of guidance. I simply said, you need to create a title page with a French title (this was the only language requirement) along with 10-20 illustrated pages that tell a complete story. The story is required to have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Students had about an hour to make their books and submit them. As they turned them in, I was able to conference with them and make suggestions about how to make their stories more clear. I also took this opportunity to preview the stories and make sure they were appropriate and didn’t rely on stereotypes or offensive plots.  Keep reading to learn about how I figured out that I needed *more* and *more specific* guidance for my students. 

Requirements for the Wordless Books

• Title Page with a title in the Target Language.
• 10-20 illustrated pages.
• No words (other than the title) 
• The story has to have a clear beginning, middle, and end, and tell a complete story.
• It must be submitted by the end of one block period. 

Creating the Text

The next day in class proceeded as normal. After doing some of what I had already planned, curriculum-wise, I displayed one student’s story on the board. 

We talked about what we saw and how the characters were feeling, and eventually a story emerged.

I wrote the text of the story that we came up with in the target language, making sure that all students were understanding. 

Note: For a great primer on the skills that Caitlin used, take a look at this blog post: How to teach such that they understand, by Martina Bex -Elicia

What was really cool is that several books already had blank speech bubbles in the illustrations. This provided the perfect opportunity for scaffolded partner speaking opportunities and collaboration

Translation: There is a dog who is named Todd. He wants to shoot the ball. Even the simplest designs can be a source of rich input for storytelling. This is an example of one of my students who doesn't love artistic pursuits. He made a minimalist illustrated book, and after a little bit of coaching on how to tell a complete story through illustrations, we were able to write a great story in class. 

I simply had students turn to a shoulder partner and give suggestions for what the characters could be saying in French, and then we chose the best/most interesting/funniest options and I added them to the text.

The results

The process has been going very well. The student buy-in is great and my classes are excited to share their creativity and humor!

The Reflection and Lessons Learned

I am learning some lessons along the way.  First, I need to be more clear in my instructions about avoiding stereotypes. I had a few students who were required to start over but thankfully I had that class time to review them before sharing them on the screen.

This next section is more-or-less a transcript of Caitlin and me (Elicia) talking through these messy topics because a) it made more sense to make it a dialogue, b) it was a really interesting discussion and one that is SUPER relevant to teaching and moving towards equity in our classrooms, and I am so thankful to Caitlin for engaging in this type of deep reflection and making her thinking public. T/W: Discussion of violence, guns, fatphobia, and gun violence. 

Elicia: 

Caitlin, can you tell me more about these stereotypes? What did students do that you had to redirect? 

Caitlin: 

Violence. I realized that I needed to do some self-reflection about how much violence I was comfortable with seeing in my class stories.

Storytelling with high school students can often lead to endings that are violent. For example, all the characters die or solve conflicts with violence.

Elicia: 

In middle school too!

Caitlin: 

I allow a certain degree of this in my class, but what I realized-when I was seeing these fully illustrated texts- is that my comfort level with violence changed slightly when presented with images.

While I might say “he attacked the monster” during storytelling, seeing one character shoot another with a gun in an illustrated text elicited some different emotions for myself.

Elicia:

Oh wow. Yeah. I have to say that for me, as a survivor of a school shooting, that would freak me out. My students all knew that guns were only to be discussed in context in my classroom (and pretty much that never came up) and never included in stories, but I imagine other teachers may not be so…specific! 

Translation: Now the mean bully can no longer bully others.
This was a book illustrated by a level 2 student about a school bully. This is about the level of violence I allow them to include. It is not uncommon for characters to die in their stories, but I carefully consider how much violence is acceptable, and then I communicate those expectations. 

Caitlin: 

So in the middle of the project, I asked students to avoid using firearms and come up with a weapon that was more school friendly, such as enraged unicorns, poisonous marshmallows, or an army of piranhas. I would probably have even more stringent guidelines about violence if I taught younger children.

Elicia: 

I love these examples! In my classroom, I started every year with “the world is a pretty dreadful place sometimes, so in this room, we are going to celebrate puppies, rainbows, unicorns, and glitter. While bad things do happen and are real, when we are telling stories and creating in this classroom, it’s going to be all puppies and rainbows.” 

It seemed to work for my context and students tended to respect that- and would even remind each other by saying “puppies and rainbows” if they felt like a suggestion was too violent.

And..sometimes I would let them end a story with someone eating someone else…as a surprise.

So other than violence, what else did you see that made you step back?

Caitlin: 

Well, one student made a story with an overweight character who was sad and had to lose weight in order to find a girlfriend who loved him because he was beautiful.

To be honest, the story just didn’t sit right with me, and I had a hard time communicating this to my student. What I ended up saying was that sometimes it is hard to balance humor and honoring the dignity of other people. I felt like his story leveraged a negative image of his character in order to get his readers to laugh, but there were more positive ways to be funny.

Elicia: 

Yikes! That’s a tough one. This is a great example of a stereotype that flies under the radar and is still socially acceptable, and it’s rooted in white supremacy and fear of the fat body.

Caitlin: 

Yes, in the moment it was hard for me to find the right words. In the end he chose not to change his story, and I felt a degree of helplessness, like I didn’t have leverage. So I simply didn’t use his story for my classroom library or as the text for our write and discuss as a class. I certainly didn’t want to give that kind of thinking a stage in my classroom, but I wish I would have handled it more directly.

Elicia: 

I really appreciate that you found a way to communicate this without shaming your student for his fatphobia. Talking about this stuff is really hard- especially if it is something that is personal- which it really is for me!

I think I would likely have made a different choice because I feel so strongly about this. And because I feel so strongly about it, I might have damaged my relationship with that kid because of my own emotional reaction, which is really interesting for me to think about. Would my own feelings have gotten in the way of helping that kid see their bias? Should they have? Hmmm…I need to think about that.

Was there anything else?

Caitlin: 

Yes. I had to give very clear expectations for the co-created story telling in class. Students had MANY opinions and reactions when they saw each other’s stories for the first time. Occasionally the laughter and side conversations took away from the input. For example, when the images were really outrageous or unexpected, there was an explosion of commentary. So much so, that I felt like students were no longer engaged with the language. I was getting frustrated (as many of us are at this time of year!). 

What ended up working was this: I had to give a 5 second countdown for giggling before we could refocus. This solved the issues in most of my classes.

Elicia: 

OMG I love this so much. The structured giggles and commentary break! When I taught 5th grade and had to teach health/intro to being a teenager, I had to do the same thing!

Translation: Now they are no longer afraid of Bart. Everyone hugs. Bart finally has a lot of friends. 
Sometimes students DO write a story with a happy ending! 

Back to Caitlin:

My favorite thing about this process was that after each story, we applauded the author and thanked them for their work. Every single one of my students was able to share something no matter their proficiency level, and I had so many great comprehensible texts to add to my classroom library.

During each class period, I had students begging for their story to be the next one. The only downside is that the school year might run out before we can experience everyone's masterpieces! Fortunately, I will have many of these students in class next year, so I can continue this process at the beginning of the next level for a review. For next year, however, I might want to move faster or start earlier if time allows.

Breathing Space/ Resting Space

The Exhaustion is REAL

Over the last few months, I have been getting a lot of requests from teachers for activities that give them a break- activities that are still input-focused but let students work independently or in small groups. I hear you!

The feeling of being on all the time, of being the one who has to guide the conversation, to monitor every kid's comprehension, and the sheer emotional weight of taking care of every person in the room is exhausting.  The thousands of decisions we make each hour are overwhelming. Deciding which word to use, when to walk over to that student to check in on them, when to ask a question, when to stop and give students a break, all the while that we are managing the actual humans in the room, while speaking in a different language and navigating between languages...it's really, really hard.

Breathing Space/ Resting Space

So what do we do to make it feel like we aren't on all the time in a comprehension-based classroom? How can we give students input, that they understand, and not feel like we have to be captivating their attention 100% of the time? 

Luckily, there are a lot things we can do! Some things require some up-front work- either in finding or creating texts that are 100% comprehensible to your students. Here is an article that addresses that: How to write texts that your students understand (The Comprehensible Classroom)- but if you are working with a curriculum or novel that has texts that you are confident that your students understand, or you work to co-create a text (through strategies such as Asking a Story, Card Talk, Write & Discuss, etc.) you have a TON of options.

I decided to dissect a lesson, filmed when I was recovering from a major knee surgery, and share exactly what I was doing to give students input, allow for super low energy on my part, and get through a really rough time in my life.  (You can read more about some of the lessons I learned during this season of being on crutches here: Mindset Reminder)

Strategy 1: Listen and Draw

I had students draw while I read. I asked a handful- a very small handful- of comprehension questions to make sure that they were really understanding, but what I was reading was the typed out text of a story that we had co-created, so it was familiar and easily understood by students. In this activity, I had students use whiteboards and markers, but any kind of paper/writing utensil combination would work.  I also had them draw 4 pictures, dividing the whiteboard in 4 boxes.   Read more about that here: Secret Input

Activity Credit: Laurie Clarcq, Hearts for Teaching  Honestly, I don't know where I learned about this, but it seems *likely* that I learned it from Laurie. It is one of several strategies that fall into what I call "secret input" strategies, that I have presented on a few times.  If I learned it from you, please let me know so I can credit you! 

See this strategy in the video below at 0:22. 

Strategy 2: Secret Input

 Find the text that matches the picture (Secret input variation)

Once we had pictures, I had students prop their whiteboards on their chairs, find someone else's whiteboard, pick a picture, and, using a written copy of the text, find the best sentence to describe the picture. Then they had to underline the sentence in the text that matches the picture. They had to do this five times. 

See this strategy, including how I give directions in the target language, in the video at 9:24. 

Strategy 3: Picture Share

Students highlight their own or each other's art.

After students glued their copy of the story in their interactive-ish notebook, they were invited to share their own or someone else's art. My role was calling on the kid, clarifying which picture, and listening. The kids did all the work AND celebrated each other! 

In video: 15:46

Brain break!

Brain break: Pikachu (From La Maestra Loca) 

Bonus! Practicing when students did not meet my expectation of going back to their seats silently. 

In video: 18:50

Strategy 4: Before or After

This is a low-to-moderate energy activity. While it is teacher led, it feels very low energy to me because all I am doing is asking students to re-read the text and find the answer to one of two questions (which required no prep on my part), then copy the answer on their white board.  I think that it feels low energy to me because while students are writing, I am drinking coffee, futzing with the music, reading over their shoulders, providing hints or support, etc. You can read a detailed description of this activity here: Before and After. I learned it from Martina Bex. 

In video: 20:20

Another Brain Break

Brain Break: Toe Tapping Brain Break

I have NO idea where I learned this from, sorry! If I learned it from you, please let me know and I will credit you! 

In video: 29:18

Strategy 5: Draw and Write a prediction

This strategy only works for some teaching contexts- specifically, when one is teaching a novel. In this class, we had read chapters 1-5 of Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro, then diverted a bit from the novel to  ask a story.  To bring us back to the world of the novel, I asked students to draw and write what they thought would happen next in the novel. This activity was adapted from the Teacher's Guide. 

Note: That day, before I went home, I picked 7 or 8 of the best predictions, corrected any language errors, and put them in a slide show to print out.  When we next met as a class, I put the printed slides around the room and had kids walk around, read the predictions, and then vote for funniest, most probable, most improbable, and most creative. This was another way for me to get them to interact with input without me leading the class- but it did require prep on my part.   

In the video: 30:15

High Energy Strategy: Weekend chat

For the last few minutes of class, I asked students what they did over the weekend. So you can see what it looks like! Read more about weekend chat here: Weekend Chat

In the video: 34:28

The Video

Here is a *very* long, unedited, un-captioned, imperfect video in Spanish that shows most of the  this lesson. I am sharing this so if you want to see what some of these strategies look like, you can! This video is unique in that I was about 4 months post-knee surgery, and I was on and off my crutches throughout the video. I was a real mess during this time period (because of the surgery and accompanying massive pain levels and stress of not being able to do anything that I wanted to do, e.g. ride my bike), and I think the video really shows how you *can* provide tons of input without being captivating or high-energy.  

About this video: Students are in a Spanish 1B class in April of their 8th grade year. For most, this is their 2nd year of Spanish in a comprehension-based program.  All students have permission to be used in this video. 

Minute by minute guide 

0:22	Directions for Secret Input: Read and Draw
9:24	Directions for Secret Input: Find the Text
15:46	Secret input: Picture Share
18:50	Brain Break: Pikachu
	Practice returning to seats quietly!
20:20	Before or After reading activity
29:18	Toe Tapping Brain Break
30:15	Make a prediction: Draw and write
34:28	Weekend Chat (brief!)

Stay strong, Stay Input-Focused (with some ideas)

Staying input focused in a distance learning world where almost every on-line company seems to want you to use their platform to teach the subjunctive, give speaking assessments, and study vocabulary is really hard!

I have been a little discouraged by the trend I see in teacher collaborative groups to move away from input focused, comprehension based teaching to...well, the opposite.

And teacher friends, please don't take this as an insult- we are all just doing the best we can with the tools we have.  If you are struggling to remain input focused, please know that you are not alone!

For me, staying input focused means rejecting all the tools that are being thrust at me that don't align with what I know about how languages are acquired.  It means staying strong against the pressure to give speaking "tasks" and grammar study.  

It means going back again and again to what is known about language acquisition.  

It means working harder- because to make something comprehensible that students can do independently is really, really hard.  

But I refuse to give up.   I refuse to send out grammar packets and I refuse to give busywork and I refuse to make students speak before they are ready.  This is where the part of my personality that is stubborn and sometimes downright contrarian comes in: I have to say no. A lot.  But, being a comprehension based teacher in a system that is designed for something else has never been the easiest road, and I accept it.  I accept the challenge!

Now, what on earth am I going to do in my synchronous sessions?? What kind of work can I assign students that will be input focused and comprehensible...independently?

At the end of last week, Dr. Bill VanPatten, a leading researcher, teacher, and author (as well as being the Diva of SLA!) hosted a webinar for the CI SOS group.  I was fortunate enough to participate, and during the Q & A, I asked him: how do we keep input comprehensible?  How can we do our best to make sure students are understanding the input?  

His answer was surprisingly simple:  give learners easy short texts, broken up very frequently with questions that help them understand the reading, and follow that with some kind of meaningful reading task, such as a discourse scramble (or 9-square).



Wow!  So, basically, doing what I already do.  Cool.  Now...which of the BILLION platforms will do this?  

And of those platforms, which has the easiest learning curve for me and my students, has strong privacy protections, is compliant with any kind of copyright requirements, and works with few headaches?  

Well, Garbanzo* comes to mind. Short bits of text, with comprehension questions...check!  What else....hmmm...Sr. Wooly works like that too.   Fluency Matters e-books certainly fit.  Textivate, which I have never used, but hear great things about seems like a great idea, but a) it is a new tool, b) it costs $, and c) do I really need to learn how to do something else????   I might explode.  Kahoot is offering free premium subscriptions right now, and they offer a puzzle feature....maybe?  Google Slides?  Nearpod...GoGormative... Edpuzzle... Peardeck....
Flipgrid...SeeSaw...TeacherTube...oh wow.  Just typing this makes me feel overwhelmed.

Back to square one, so to speak.  What can I do right now, that feels manageable for me and my students, that is input based?



Here are some ideas that have worked so far:  

StoryAsking Adaptation for Synchronous Classes

I took a story from a previous year's class and instead of doing a more open-ended story-ask, I did more of a story-listen, where I basically re-used an old story (from a previous class) and let the kids decide character names.  

I used Zoom and created a document camera from my phone- just google "Document camera hack for zoom" and find a million ways to do it.  It worked *really* well.  I also used a whiteboard that I brought home from school, but my colleague did it on paper with a sharpie and it worked fine for her.  

I modified the classic TPRS story in a couple of ways as well- instead of being a  3 scene story (like most TPRS stories), ours was 2 scenes to keep it short. I also made sure that the elements in the story were things that I could draw quickly on a whiteboard.  

I used the chat function for kids to give suggestions and comprehension checks (e.g. what was the character's name? What did I just say? What does x mean in English?).
  
Finally, I had them draw along with me.  I would draw something and say a couple of sentences, do a comprehension check, then I gave them 10- 15 seconds to draw it too.  They held their drawings up to the camera and we all had a good laugh.  

Now, I have a story that is familiar to our class, and we can do a few things with it!  Plans for the next couple of weeks: CHECK and DONE! 

So, how to do this yourself?  Here are some tips and ideas for how to use the story in later lessons, both live and for independent work.

StoryAsking Adaptation for Live Zoom Class

• Find a story.  Here is a link to some stories to adapt:  Collab Drive Unit Files or Tripp's Scripts (click here for TONS more resources about StoryAsking).
• Simplify the story. 
• PRACTICE the drawing once ahead of time with thick markers or whiteboard. 
• Make a document camera out of your phone/ipad. (Google it.)
• Have kids draw along- but only give them 10-15 seconds to do so, and intentionally pause for drawing time.  
• Instead of asking for all the details, just ask for new names.
• Use the chat function for student suggestions and to check comprehension.    
• When you are done, use the story in a few different ways. 

Ideas for SYNCHRONOUS adaptations using the same story

Make sure that students have read and understood the story before doing any of these activities!  

• Quick draw Online Version  (link to original activity) 
• Who said it Online Version   (link to original activity) 
• Unfair game 
• Comprehension-focused Kahoot* 

For Asynchronous lesson adaptations using the same story

Make sure that students have read and understood the story before doing any of these activities!   

•  9-square on google slides with story  (blank template to use) (original activity) 
• Comprehension focused Kahoot* 
• Read the story and illustrate it (as a mural, as a comic, etc.)  
• Any of the activities from the COVID-19 Revista Literal Choice Board 
• Edpuzzle reading of the story with questions and your delightful whiteboard illustrations.   (This seems really work-intensive because you first have to record yourself reading the story, but it would work AND provide listening input!) 

Some Resources to use and adapt  

• SOMOS 1 Unit 7 Reading in Slides with illustrations (Toni)
• SOMOS 1 Unit 7 Reading text (Toni)
• Todo Es Posible reading text (I use this to pre-teach vocabulary from Brandon Brown Quiere un Perro, by Carol Gaab). 
• Todo es posible slides with illustrations
• Todo es posible 9 square
•  Todo es posible Kahoot    *Note: this Kahoot premium was a TERRIBLE use of my time.  Kahoot was not meant for this use.  It took hours, but once I started, I felt like I had to finish it. But never again.  Plus, to use Kahoot as an individual assignment, you have to download the app on Chromebooks or on a device.  GRR!!! 

What's missing? 

What is missing from these lists?  That's right.  Any kind of speaking or writing.  Why? Well, in class, we do speak. We speak a lot!  We talk and discuss and connect and we write too.  But, we are not in class.  (Obvious, but that has actually been incredibly helpful to remember!)  I have a limited amount of time that students are supposed to spend on language class, and a lot of levels to prep for, and I know that speaking does not help them acquire*. Nor does writing.  I am going to stay input focused for the rest of the year. 

*For some research and reading to back this up, please see While We're On the Topic, by Dr. Bill VanPatten (a publication from ACTFL), as well as Research Talks, by Eric Herman (available from Amazon).

A week in the life of a comprehension-based classroom

I had a pretty good week.

Not a great week- in fact, I went home sick one day with a migraine- but the rest of the teaching went pretty well.

Here are some of the things that I did- maybe you all can find inspiration here!  This is just a list with links of things that I did with all my classes!  

Spanish 2 Honors 

Monday: We started with Weekend chat, then we co-created a story from SOMOS 1, Unit 14.  After class, I typed it up.  
                                  
Here are some resources for co-creating stories:  

• Summer SOMOS Fun Club episode on Story Asking
• Handout and resources
• Blog post and more info (From Martina Bex)
• If you are coming to ACTFL 2019, I will be presenting on this very topic!  

Tuesday: We reviewed the story- students read it out loud in pairs than worked to create their 
Top 8 events, then we reviewed those events as a class.

Students reading!  

Wednesday:I went home sick, so students read for 15 minutes (Free Voluntary Reading/FVR), did a 10 minute free write, and worked on Sr. Wooly or Garbanzo for the remaining time.

Thursday: no class

Friday:  Free voluntary reading, short discussion about upcoming all-school service project, then Running dictation with their Top 8 Events from Wednesday.   (My directions that I post are here.)  To finish, we reviewed upcoming hard deadlines and filled out daily engagement for the week. This class was shorter than usual due to a special schedule. 

Spanish 1B

Monday: Weekend chat, read and dramatized biography of Barrio Zumba from a resource from Nelly Hughes.  (It looks like the resource is no longer available, though.)  We played a short Pencil Grab game with the true/false questions included in resource.  Then we listened to the song Mexicano.

This was the starter for our discussion about food

Tuesday: We briefly discussed favorite foods, then listened to the song Mexicano again and tried to fill out the cloze lyrics included.  We listened to the song at regular speed once, than at 75% speed (I love youtube when it works!) a second time.  For a brain break, I taught them the basic steps to a zumba routine set to the song, and we danced for a few minutes.   Then we reviewed the lyrics (with L1 translation) and discussed them briefly.  Students independently read a text (also from Nelly's resource) about Mexican food, and then responded to comprehension questions by coloring a glyph that I created.  


Wednesday: I went home sick, so students read for 15 minutes, did a 10 minute freewrite, and continued to work on their glyph.  

Thursday: no class

Friday: Free voluntary reading for 10-15 minutes, then short discussion of our all-school service project.  Students then got into teams for the Lucky Reading Game!  We played that until it was time to review upcoming hard deadlines and fill out daily engagement for the week.  One section had an extra 15 minutes of instructional time, so we spent some time doing a Write and Discuss about the service project.  

Spanish 1 Honors 

Monday: Weekend chat, then we started a new unit today, SOMOS 1 Unit 04, so I introduced the core vocabulary and students put those and our unit objectives into their interactive-ish notebooks.  

Rare homework, from The StoryTeller's Corner

Then I taught them gestures for the core vocabulary and we reviewed gestures for other words. (Click here for an example of what that looks like, from a different class.)   We used the resources included in the unit to see the words in context and then did some personalized questions and answers.   (Here is a video of that process, but with a different unit, if you are curious about what that looks like.)  

Although I *rarely* assign homework, I assigned an activity from this resource from The Storyteller's Corner, where they had to draw and color what they want to be when they grow up.  

Tuesday:  We discussed more personalized questions to start- including "what class do you want to take that is not possible at our school?" I learned so much about them!  Then we spent some time on the song "Quiero Ser", by Nubeluz, which depending on how you introduce it can be loved or hated.  

I LOVE this song and kids seem to respond to that!  First, I told them how much I love it, then I gave them the lyrics to follow along with.  The second time we watched the video, and the third time (no joke!) the kids wanted to try to do the dance that the singers do.  Finally, there is a short comprehension-based activity that they worked on that is included in the unit.  

Wednesday: No class.  Before I went home sick, I took their colored pictures and put them into a slideshow for Card Talk on Thursday.

Thursday: We started with the question "What do you not want to be?" and "Why?" and that discussion lasted for a while.  We followed up the discussion with a Write and Discuss, because the previous night, one of my fellow PLC members said she was trying to do more W&D and I realized that I should try to do that as well. (I love my PLC, even if this year we can only virtually meet through voice messages.)  

Then, we listened to and danced to the song Quiero Ser again, and finished the class with Card Talk about their desired future professions.

Slide for Card Talk about the future...

 
Friday: After a short discussion about our all-school service project, we did the lyric activity suggested for Quiero Ser by Amaia Montero, that is included in the lesson plans. Students have the lyrics out of order, and working in pairs, they had to quickly cut them up then listen to the song a couple of times and put them in order.  After, I briefly comprehensified some of the lyrics and reviewed the order, then we read the included biography of Amaia.  This was a super-shortened class, so that is all we had time for!  

Fifth grade: I see these kiddos for 45 minutes a week.
 As a warm up, we did a little TPR (Total Physical Response) and acted out a couple of sentences that were interesting.   Let me explain what I mean:  I had them draw how they were feeling, then I asked "Who is tired?" and "Who is hungry?"  They were all hungry so I gave them the phrase "wants to eat" and asked them "What do you want to eat?" and pulled a couple of props out as ideas. It turned out that one kid wanted to eat a dinosaur so we acted that out (with another kid being the dinosaur) and so on.  Of course, I was narrating it in Spanish and making sure it was comprehensible.  


We have been working with our own version of this simple beginner story (in Spanish!).  Last week, we did "all the world's a stage" with the story and I took pictures of the kids acting it out.  Then I put the pictures in a slideshow. (Description for that activity coming soon- sorry! For a longer read about Reader's Theatre, check out this resource.)

Click for an editable slide to show!

I passed out a copy of the story for kids to review with a buddy, then I showed them the pictures.  I wanted them to look at the picture and decide what moment in the story it was representing, then write that moment down on a whiteboard (using their copy of the text). 

Here is an example of the directions etc. only I used pictures of the students acting out the story rather than their illustrations.

 I had no idea how it would go, honestly. This is an activity I do ALL THE TIME with my older students, but I wasn't sure if it would be ok for the younger ones. 
It went...ok.  A couple of kids were really frustrated because it wasn't the kind of thing that had a clear-cut answer, but I think that is the kind of kid they are at this stage in their lives, and the rest of them seemed to enjoy it and read the story about 20 times.  

Then, we transitioned to another new activity.  A couple of weeks ago, I gave them a simple storyboard to illustrate with the text of the story, and then I cut up their illustrations and the words and put them in baggies (1 per pair of kids) to make some partner activities.  I wanted to try this kind of activity (also available in French) that I learned about from an excellent presentation by elementary teacher Alison Litten, so I tried it.  I did modify the directions to be in L1 to allow them to focus on the reading and re-reading of the story.  I was surprised at how quickly it went for the fast processors (who I grouped together), and how completely on task all the pairs were!  I will certainly be doing this one again!  

So, that's it!  I hope this was a useful read!  

Implementing Plan B: when the classroom management strategies just aren't enough

Plan B: I wanted to share a little bit today about how I have two classes that are really challenging this year- for different reasons- and how they have become my Plan B classes.  

First, here is what I mean by Plan B.

https://comprehensibleclassroom.com/2012/10/30/plan-b/

A little background:  

One class is the class that I have not yet been able to finish a story with. There are constant interruptions. I have a personal belief against sending kids out of class, and in general none of the interruptions are truly horrible or worth sending a kid out for- they are just unbelievably frustrating. Like dozens, or hundreds of low-level constant interruptions and annoyances that bring everything to a screaming halt. 

I have tried a bunch of different strategies and interventions over the last 5 weeks, but finally at the beginning of this week, I decided to go to Plan B.

So, why am I doing it? Well, I realized I was being drained. I was trying everything in my toolbox of classroom management strategies.  

Here are those tools and interventions I used:

• I taught and practiced procedures. Over, and over, and over again. I refused to move forward until everyone was doing what I expected them to do. With a smile! (I smiled- them, not so much.) (In L1)
• I responded quickly, and positively, to every single instance of a student not doing what I wanted. I have posted rules, and each time a student spoke out of turn or had a side conversation, I walked over to the rules and waited, patiently, smiling, until I had the full attention of everyone.  (Rules are in L1.) (This is a strategy I learned from here.)

• I narrated the positives constantly. In L1.

• I reviewed the expectations before each new activity. I asked students to volunteer to be positive examples and model the desired behavior, and narrated it. In L1.

• I used proximity, seating charts, and secret signals to indicate to a kid that they were going off the rails.

• I found something positive (behavior wise) to write home about and emailed or called the caregivers of the most challenging kids, to show that they *could* be successful in my class. Sometimes I wrote about how Little Johnny had a rough day on Thursday but really turned it around at the beginning of class on Friday. It was *something* positive, right?

• I met with the kids who just didn't get it, individually, and tried to connect, build relationships, find what they are interested in, etc. I even paid attention to student athletics- which for me, is a big deal.

• I sought help from other teachers in our student support meetings, documented behaviors so I could try to see patterns within myself, time of day, activities, and/or students.

• I implemented different interventions such as rocky stools, weight belts, fidgets, and bouncy sensory chair pads. (One kid sliced one of my homemade weight belts with scissors. That was not awesome.)

• I changed the kinds of brain breaks I did in those classes (from energizing to focusing and silent).

Whew! That's a lot of interventions!  

But NOTHING WORKED. And I was miserable. And I hated that it felt like a power struggle. I know that no one wins a power struggle.

Worse? I was spending so much time redirecting, responding, and eventually reacting, that there just wasn't a lot of input happening. And for the kids who want to be there? For the kids who are controlling themselves? Who crave the input and the fun? They were getting nothing except frustration.

Now, an earlier version of me might have justified throwing out the ringleaders. And yes, on a day with one of them absent, well, we got a TON accomplished.  

But I have to ask myself: will kicking them out solve the problem? Sort of, but only in the short term. And also, won't that eat up a ton of time in meetings with parents and admins, follow up meetings, documenting, writing plans, etc.? And you know that time will come right out of my planning and/or after school hours.  And will it change the behaviors?

Will it just turn our relationship into kid vs. adult? Will it cement their identity of "bad kid" and trouble maker? Can I break that cycle? Don't I have a responsibility to teach all kids, even the ones who make it the most difficult?  

But don't I have a responsibility to the other kids too, those who are losing out due to the poor choices of the few?  

This, my friends, is the eternal teacher question. And also why Plan B makes so much sense to me.  

In short, Plan B means that students get input that they understand, but the interaction as a community is missing. The input might be from a story, a pre-written text, a video, or whatever else was in my plan for the day. The activity to deliver input is altered so that students do it all independently. It is very heavy on reading. 

What it looked like: 

This week, the plan was to Clipchat (Movietalk) Sr. Wooly's video for Qué asco, read a more complex version of the video written up to be like a story, and invent our own gross combinations (like the song) to see who had the grossest and which one would smell the worst.  

I knew that at this point that students would not be able to manage a ClipChat/MovieTalk. Their interruptions would be too much, so I had to let that go. Oh well.
Instead, I decided to have them read and interact a bit with the reading (available with a Pro subscription) and then we would watch the video, then I would have them write (instead of draw and eventually use their illustrations for card talk) the gross combinations. Rather than trying to have a discussion about their gross combinations, I would have them respond ONLY with hand signals. If they could handle it. 
It has been more work. I had to create slides (ugh! I HATE creating slides! I hate working from slideshows in general!) with very clear directions.  

It has been work that I am, frankly, not used to doing. I have to very carefully plan out each activity and write it out- then make sure there is a text to read, a way to support their comprehension, and then something to do for fast finishers. 

Now, I do all these things normally, but I do them in the moment, based on how I am feeling and how the class is going. (This is one advantage of being experienced. I give directions on the fly and change how we use a reading or activity based on what is happening that day. That does NOT fly for Plan B.)
It is boring- while they read, I circulate. I monitor. It is NOT interaction. I am even more strict than usual (absolutely no talking. None!).  
I hate it. It is not my personality and it doesn't feel right to me. It is *not* an interactive classroom. It is not wacky, memorable, and it is really not fun. For any of us.  
But...it is working. Kids are getting input. I am not super frustrated at the end of the day. (Bored, but that is better than angry.) 

Kids who didn't get input because of all the distractions are getting input. Kids who were distracting are...getting input. Is it as rich and compelling as it would be if we were acting out the movietalk and exploring what they think are gross combinations? Not at all. But..it is input, and it feels a lot more equitable in that I am able to do my job and not spend most of my time and energy on just a few kids.  
And at the end of class yesterday, I tried a turn-n-talk. (This has not yet worked consistently.) They managed it. It felt nice. We reflected on the feeling of class in L1. It was a better day. One kid in particular got a positive email home.  

The next day, I tried another turn and talk and lead a short discussion. Each day, I want to give the class back to interaction, just a bit more, so that we can get back to the fun. But for now, Plan B is going to let me stay sane and keep doing my job of providing comprehensible input, so I am very thankful.