Writing Tips Linky

I love teaching reading!  It's one of the things that drew me to first grade many years ago.  Watching a child's eyes light up when the words on the page finally have meaning or listening to a student discuss a book he or she enjoyed is priceless.  I spent many years working with students with reading difficulties in order to help them discover the joy of reading.  Then, the last few years I have become passionate about teaching math.  My interest was rekindled when I was found myself teaching math again after focusing on only literacy for almost 10 years.  Now I would be extremely happy if we could just read and problem solve all day!

But teaching writing is another matter.  I KNOW how the writer's workshop should look.  I UNDERSTAND about mini lessons and conferences.  I BELIEVE that young students are writers and have important messages to share.  I just can't seem to make it happen effectively in my classroom!

So this summer I would like to explore resources that might help me become a better writing teacher.  I will be attending a district sponsored writing academy in July, and we use Lucy Calkins' Units of Study, but I feel like I need more.  So I have created my very first "linky party." Please link up and share your best writing tips and strategies.  Are there professional books you would recommend?  Do you have a great writing resource on TPT or Teacher's Notebook or have you discovered a great product?  If you do the Daily Five, what do your kids do during Work on Writing?  What technology tools do you use?  If you don't have a blog to link, please share your ideas in the comments section!

Tried It Tuesday

I'm linking up with Holly at the Fourth Grade Flipper and her new linky, Tried It Tuesday.

I'm going to piggyback onto my post from yesterday about Evernote to share how I used it to make an audio  recording note.

One of my students is who has been identified as dyslexic is really struggling with writing.  He fills up his paper with a lot of writing but then is unable to read it if he comes back to it later (and I usually can't either.)  I hate always marking up his paper, but if I don't, I can't make any sense of it.  I have put sticky notes on his work with the "translation" but they fall off.

So today I recorded him reading his writing to me and then took a picture of his work.  Now both are filed in his notebook in Evernote so when it is time to assess his writing portfolio, I can look beyond the spelling and remember his message.  The kids thought this was pretty cool, so I recorded a couple of others just for fun!
I used my phone (Samsung Galaxy S3) to record.  I selected new note and then choose "record audio."  Then I snapped a picture, added a comment and there it was!

This is what it looks like on my phone.

I can't tell you how excited I am about using Evernote this way (and how convinced everyone I know is that I am truly a geek!)  Seriously, it has inspired me to "beef up" my entire writer's workshop.  It hasn't been my favorite thing to teach this year and that has translated into less than stellar work from some of  my students. Maybe this is just the spark I needed to help them become strong writers!

Carol

Evernote: My New Love Affair?

Evernote and I have been hanging around each other for awhile now.  Occasionally I would find a teaching idea online and save it, but Pinterest took over and I rarely looked at Evernote anymore. Every now and then I would read an article about how wonderful Evernote is and take another look, but it just never clicked between us. I really thought I didn't need another place to store pictures of cute bulletin boards.  But after reading Alyce's blog post, which led me to Alison at Eberopolis, I was suddenly looking at Evernote in a whole new way and found myself very attracted!  (This sort of sounds like how I started dating my husband.  We worked together for about a year, talked occasionally, and one day I suddenly I started thinking "Wow, he's kind of cute. We were married a year and half later!")
Anyway, I spent a couple hours yesterday reading about Evernote and decided to try using it to collect data on my students during Writer's Workshop.  I installed the app on both my smartphone and Kindle Fire. I followed Alison's great tutorial and set up notebooks for each of my students.
Then I read Alison's post about emailing notes to Evernote.  If you put the right information in the subject line, the note will even be sent to the right notebook.  By this time, my family had decided I was nuts because I was just so darned excited when I tried emailing a practice note and it went right to the correct notebook!
So today I tried it out.  I conferenced with several students while they were writing.  Instead of taking notes in the 3-ring binder I set up for this purpose or on the sticky notes that I end up using because they are easier to carry, I just pulled out my phone and took my notes there.  (I think using an Ipad or tablet with a stylus  would be even better!)  I even took a picture of one boy's writing and emailed it to his notebook so I could look at it more later.
My mind is racing with other ideas for using Evernote- recording a student reading his writing, reading conferences, anecdotal records during math and so much more.  I think I am falling in love with this tool!
Have you used Evernote in your classroom?  Please share your ideas and link up with Alison for her Paperless Challenge.

Maybe soon my desk and teaching table won't look like this:

Carol