InstaDigest: March 31 - April 11

What we did in my classes over the last two weeks and what it looked like

As I get back in the swing of things here, I’m making my March and April posts wide open to the public. Let’s be honest: I’m doing this in the hopes that you will decide it’s worth your time and $5/month to become a member of our community.

I love the InstaDigest because it has one foot in my planning and one foot in the actual real life of my classroom. And that’s what we’re doing here this summer — we’re reading, talking, and engaging in professional development centered on your planning for next school year. I hope you’ll be there!

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First of all, thank you for your feedback on the InstaDigest feature! It’s so helpful to me to know what’s useful and what’s not-so-much! I’m leaving the survey open for one more week if you’d like to weigh in after reading today’s post!

Here are my last two weeks — finishing up open letters in 7th and finishing up graphic essays in 8th.

What We Did

What It Looked Like

This is Madison's finished graphic essay inspired by the graphic edition of Timothy Snyder's ON TYRANNY.

My seventh graders drafted open letters for the NYT open letter student contest, but I didn’t tell them about the 500-word limit until the penultimate day. I didn’t want word count to stifle their thinking. These are the tasks we went through to eliminate wordiness.

I’m getting ready to start THE OUTSIDERS with seventh graders as a whole-class novel unit to build on the characterization study we did in the fall. I invented this new reading response category that I know will help them think about Ponyboy when we read the novel. But I am teaching it to them now and having them practice it with their independent reading books to get ready.

In my 8th grade LORD OF THE FLIES unit, I am teaching students to be metacognitive about the kind of reading they’re doing, when, and why. Talking about and reflecting on these four modes of reading helps!

I thought it might be helpful to peek at the reading guide I give my students. The calendar gets updated as we go and as we plan, but it begins with anchor dates that are (more or less) set in stone. I provide our guiding questions for the unit as well as the reading habits/rituals we aim to practice. This lives in Google Classroom as a one-stop-shop for grounding ourselves in the unit. Grab a copy below and adapt it to your needs!

What was helpful to you this week? What are you working on in your own classrooms right now? Leave a comment below and consider giving me some feedback about InstaDigest here.