Character Traits with Wordle

I have been working with one of my eighth grade language arts teachers to create book projects 2.0 style. Since I've been on a Wordle kick lately, I thought I would come up with a book project using Wordle.

I had recently given my mom, a French teacher, the idea of using Wordle to have her students work with adjectives. Her students created word clouds of French adjectives describing themselves using Wordle. So, I thought, why not transfer that idea to characters in a book.

The students chose one character from their book on which to focus. They then filled out the worksheet embedded below to determine the character traits they would include.

Character Traits

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Using Wordle Advanced (see previous post), students created their Character Trait word clouds.


Finally, the students will present their Character Trait word clouds to their classmates. They used the worksheet with the reasons/examples demonstrating why the character presents a trait to develop their oral presentation.

Cloudy in the Library

To continue our goal to build a culture of reading at the middle school, I decided to enlist the help of Wordle. I wanted to come up with a way for students to share with their classmates what books they have been reading. Wordle popped into my mind as a way to allow students to create fun "lists" of what they have read - aka "book clouds". Students have been hanging their newly created "book clouds" throughout the library.

TIPS

Creating Lists

Have students create a list in a Word document. This will prevent and solve any problems that arise from students running out of time or having technical difficulties with Wordle.

Create a numerical scale for them to stay within when creating their lists. I had students assign their names as 100. The maximum number they could assign a book title was 60 and the minimum number was 20. This prevented any titles from being too large and competing with their name or from being so small they could not be seen. I recommended that the students use the numbers as a rating system for how they liked the book - the more they liked it, the higher the number.

Encourage them to create a fairly lengthy list. I printed out their circulation logs to help them remember some titles they read. I recommend at least 25 titles.

Example List:
MISS MAKATCHE READS:100
Hunger Games:55
Fablehaven:50
Someone Named Eva:44
Soldier X:23
Sisters of the Sword:38
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life:26


Using Wordle Advanced

Pasting the list into Wordle Advanced allows you to keep book titles together.

Wordle - Advanced Tools via kwout

Personalizing

Students can continue to hit the RANDOMIZE button until they find a configuration that they like.

The students can tweak the color, font, and layout by using the toolbar at the top of their word cloud.

EXAMPLE


Cloud photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/35375520@N07/3680331543/.

Book Review 2.0

I was approached by one of my eighth-grade language arts teachers at the beginning of the year about book reports. She requires her students to read 2 books per quarter and wanted to try some innovative ways to "track" their reading. So, I created a list of ideas for her (which I hope to blog about later), which she will pull from throughout the year.

For her first book project, she decided to go with Glogster book reviews. Glogster is a very teacher/student-friendly site with a separate education portal. So, we set her up with an account and created her student accounts as well . . . very simple!

In order to help her students write a quality book review to incorporate into their glog, I volunteered to do a 20-25 minute mini-lesson on writing book reviews. I did not feel like an expert on writing book reviews, but I found Steve Peha's ideas very helpful.

Here are the 3 resources I created to help the students learn: (all embedded below)
1. Google presentation - unfortunately the speaker notes do not embed along with the google presentation, so some slides at the end may not make complete sense


2. Handout

Writing Book Reviews

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3. Example


I am really excited about the direction we are headed. Each quarter the students will have critically evaluated their books utilizing a variety of media. Gone are the days of the standard written book report/review!

Wordle

Wordle is not a new application, but sometimes it's helpful to remember those little tools in our technology toolbox that don't get used on a regular basis, but are perfect for certain jobs. So, I went right over to Wordle to create a word map of President Obama's speech to students.

I sent this over to my history/social studies teachers to use as an additional resource when discussing the speech with their students.
I think it would be a cool project for students to create their own Wordles, even if just on paper, of the main ideas and messages that they took away from the speech or that inspired them.

Classroom Ideas

• analyze historic documents (Gettysburg Address, Declaration of Independence, etc.)
• analyze students' own writing - show words commonly used/overused and check to see if main idea or theme truly comes through
• create a character description Wordle
  
• create an autobiographical Wordle
  
• DigiGogy's blog post on the Wonders of Wordle
• Slideshare - Ways to use Wordle in the classroom
  

Cultivating a Culture of Reading

Sometimes trying to cultivate readers in middle school has felt like trying to grow a garden on a sidewalk. The only places where reading was encouraged and promoted was by their language arts teachers and me, the librarian. We provided the cracks in the otherwise barren surface, hoping readers would spring up even under the "harsh" conditions.

So, in an attempt to harvest a greater crop of readers, I formed a reading committee at the end of the school year. I invited teachers of all subject areas to participate. To my pleasant surprise, I received a lot of interested from math teachers to social studies teachers to language arts teachers. We met 2 times over the summer and came up with some fun ideas to create a rich environment for cultivating a love of reading.

Our goal is to create an environment where teachers from all subject areas are promoting the importance and the love of reading. All our initiatives are voluntary (except the SSR) because we want students to choose reading instead of only doing it because it is required.

One Book-One School - We will be encouraging all teachers and students to read Three Cups of Tea

Reader of the Week - Each week a teacher or student will advertise a book over the morning announcements and (hopefully) a blog I would like to set up for this

"I'm reading" Signs - each teacher will have a sign outside their door where they can post the book/magazine/newspaper that they are currently reading

Book Discussion Groups - 3 times a year teachers will choose a book on which to host a discussion group and then students will sign up to participate in the various book discussions

Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) - 15 minutes every Monday morning (it may not be a lot, but it is a start!)

5th Grade Orientation - presentation to parents on the importance of reading and how to encourage their child to read

I would love to hear what do you do to promote reading with students!

Seedling in pavement photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/50835495@N00/46083890/.

Seedling in soil photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/86048711@N00/171923662/.

Test Driving Edmodo

With the emergence of Twitter this past year as a mainstream source for news (Iran and Venezuela), updates from government officials, info from businesses, etc. I want to make sure my students understand microblogging. I do not feel comfortable having my 5th grade students set up individual twitter accounts, so I am planning on using the education friendly Edmodo.

Setting Up Accounts
I have already created my account and created my classes. Each class receives its own access code. As students create accounts on Edmodo (no e-mail address required!) they enter the access code to join their class.

Features
Edmodo provides a calendar and a file management system along with the microblogging. While Edmodo lacks the @ and # that Twitter uses, it provides for them in a slightly different way. Instead of using @ to direct message someone, you can choose a specific person to send it to by choosing from a list. Instead of using a hashtag to create "groupings" on a specific topic, students can tag their posts (tweets). While these are slightly more cumbersome and a little less authentic, I believe students will still learn the fundamentals of microblogging that will easily transfer to twitter or plurk.

Edmodo - Home via kwout

Classroom Ideas

• Resource Sharing - ie: You are doing a project on the Oregon Trail, find a website that you would recommend to others to use for this project. Briefly, in about 15 words, summarize the website/why you would recommend it.
• Submitting final products - students could message you directly and attach their file
• Bell-ringer activity/Exit Ticket activity - students respond to a prompt at the beginning of class or the end of class
• Reminders - remind students about project deadlines, tests, homework
• Online Discussions - discuss books, current events, music, etc.

I'm sure that I will discover more about Edmodo as I begin to use it with students this year. Look for a future post about additional features I am not yet aware of and more ideas for use in the classroom.

Steering wheel photo used under Creative Commons license from http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035555243@N01/50927878/.