Sharing Books Through Google Slides, Shelf Talkers, and Book Talks

I’ve been working with Ms. Hicks and a group of 3rd graders to think about our reading lives, how we talk about books, and how we share our reading with our local and global community. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been thinking more about our school community and what we can do to share new book ideas with them.

We started our journey by creating a rolling slideshow that could be displayed on a hallway monitor that most students pass at some point during the day.

Each student created one slide about their book.  Their goal was to write a short blurb about the book to inform passersby about the book they had read. They were also supposed to include an image of themselves with the book or the book by itself.  I published this slideshow to the web and set it to rotate slides every 15 seconds and repeat the show when it reached the end.

It continuously plays in the hallway until we update it with new slides.  Then, I’ll need to publish it to the web again.

Next, we talked about other ways we could share our books with the readers in our school. We brainstormed a list, and rather than asking everyone to do the same thing, students chose from the list what they wanted to create. They could create a shelf talker like you might find in Avid Bookshop, a poster to hang in a strategic spot in the school, or a book talk that could be shared on our morning broadcast, BTV.

To get ready, we looked at some mentor examples. A few years back, we Skyped with Will Walton at Avid Bookshop, and he shared tips from writing shelf talkers. We took a look at his video clip and a few examples from the shop. I made an example of a book poster on a Google slide and had students point out things they noticed. For book talks on BTV, we revisited our 30-second book talk Flipgrid videos and reminded ourselves about a good hook, a tease of information, and a recommendation.

Students made their selections and got to work creating. Ms. Hicks and I conferenced students but also encouraged students to share their work with one another for feedback.

For posters, I created a blank set of Google Slides, which Ms. Hicks shared with the students. Each claimed a slide, chose a background color, added a short book talk, and chose images from Google Explore that represented their book.

As students finished, I saved each slide as a JPEG and printed them in color.

Students met together to brainstorm strategic spots in school to place their posters. They decided to pick spots where people would have time to stop as well as spots that were visible. This was spots like the water fountain, the hand dryer, and columns in the rotunda.

For shelf talkers, students displayed the book that they wrote about near its genre section and taped the index card shelf talker underneath.

For BTV book talks, students wrote out their script and practiced. Then, they scheduled a day to come to our morning broadcast to share their book.

As a part of the book talk, each student shared which section the book could be found in in our library.

Our hope is that giving student these authentic ways to share their reading lives within and beyond our school will get them thinking about even more ways they might share the books they are reading. We hope that it raises the awareness of other readers in our school to want to also share their reading lives within their classroom and around our school. We are hoping that are small group explorations will put a spark back into grade levels to incorporate this more into the classroom culture.  I know that I want to be more intentional about getting student voice out into our school in regards to sharing our reading lives.

 

 

 

 

Two-Voice Poetry

5th grade spent two days reading and creating two voice poetry. This project came about after I met with Mrs. Freeman to brainstorm ideas for her ELA classes.  We were looking at this standard:

ELAGSE5RL6  Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described.

During our planning, we looked at books and poetry that featured multiple perspectives and decided that we would focus on poetry.  I found several books to serve as mentor texts.

  • Messing Around the Monkey Bars by Betsy Franco
  • Can I Touch Your Hair? Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship by Irene Lathan & Charles Waters
  • Seeds, Bees, Butterflies, & More by Carole Gerber
  • Joyful Noise by Paul Fleischman
  • The Friendly Four by Eloise Greenfield
  • This is Just to Say by Joyce Sidman

During the 2-day project, the students, Mrs. Freeman, and I read aloud examples of poems from each book and talked about the perspectives and style of the poem.  Some were funny.  Some were serious or about historical events. Some were sarcastic. We tried to showcase examples that would appeal to many different interests.  Then, we set students up for their work session.

In pairs, students continued to read mentor poems from the featured books to get more familiar with how two voices could work together from two different perspectives.

When they felt ready, they moved to a brainstorming sheet. On the sheet, they thought of possible topics along with what two perspectives could talk about that topic in the poem.  We encouraged students to choose two perspectives that would offer a different take on the chosen topic.  We tried not to give too many examples, but if students were stuck, we made suggestions that might spark their own ideas: hot cheetos/hot takis, cell phone/landline, nintendo/xbox, school/home, twitter/instagram, etc.

Once they decided on the topic and perspectives they liked, they started trying out some lines of their poem.  Many students looked back to the mentor poems for a structure or style of writing.  Others picked topics like politics, where they needed to do some additional research in order to truly take on the perspective they were attempting.

Mrs. Freeman, Mr. Kinnaird (student teacher), Mrs. Mullins (collaborative spectrum teacher), Mrs. Kelley (special education teacher) and I all walked around and conferenced with writing pairs.  We nudged them to expand their voice, use descriptive language, and practice their poem before publishing.

The work session spanned both days.  Once students were ready to publish, they used their computers to record their poem on Flipgrid.  This is a piece of the project that will continue in the coming days as students finish their poetry.

There were several moments where I paused and looked around at the whole group of students working. What amazed me was how engaged each pair of students was.  Yes, students worked at different paces and some needed more support than others, but no student sat back and did nothing. They were focused on the task, and it made me wonder about this particular experience and what made all students engaged.  Was it the choice? Was it the partnership? Was it the freedom of poetry? Was it interest? Was it the authentic audience on Flipgrid?  I don’t have the answer, but what I do know is that I loved this experience and I hope I can continue to create these kinds of projects with teachers and students in the future.

Please take time to listen to the many student voices on this Flipgrid.  You can leave students comments on this post or use the emoji reactions on each video to let them know how their poetry made you feel.

Heart Poems, 3D Printed Charms, and Rainbow Loom Bracelets for Banding Together

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We kicked off poetry month today with Heart Poem writing.  After our wonderful Skype last week with Shannon Miller’s students and poet, Joyce Sidman, our second graders have been hard at work crafting their heart poems to attach to our Rainbow Loom bracelets.

They started by filling out the heart poem graphic organizer from Joyce Sidman’s website.

www.joycesidman.com books what the heart knows chants heart worksheet.pdf

They did this in their classrooms and also in the media center.  Teachers sent small groups to me about every 15 minutes so that I could conference with some of the students and help them think about what their hearts know.  Each heart map was so personal and I smiled with students as they shared the happy things that their heart knows, but my heart also hurt with them as they shared very sad things that their hearts know too.  I was just floored when a student told me, “Mr. Plemmons, even when our hearts our sad, there is still happiness.  Everyone has happiness.”  Wow!  When I heard that, I knew that this project was going to be something that truly mattered in the world.

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When I conferenced with students, we looked at their map and I asked them if there was a part of their heart that spoke to them more than others.  Most students gravitated toward what brought them joy and what they treasured.  A few wanted to write about what they longed for.  Even fewer wanted to write about fear, but we still talked about that part of their heart since Joyce Sidman really encouraged us to.

Once they selected the part of their heart to focus on, I asked them to think about how to add words to that thought to really make the poem sing or to make a picture in our heads or to make us feel an emotion.  Each conference was a little different.  We played around with words and thought about how a thought in our heart could sound different depending on the words that we put with the thought.

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When students were happy with the poem, they used iPads to scan a QR code that took them to a Google form.

Heart Poems

They typed their first name, selected their school, and typed their poem.  Each poem went to a spreadsheet so that I could print them, cut them into strips, and attach them to our Rainbow Loom bracelets.  Here are a few of their poems so far:

Adaline David C. Barrow Elementary The waves, the sun, the beach, it makes me happy!!
cyra David C. Barrow Elementary Dogs spread joy with a wag of a tail.
clara David C. Barrow Elementary Nature brings me joy and love when the wind blows and it rains and I go splashing through the puddles.
Wilson David C. Barrow Elementary Sudden noises scare me but my family comforts me.
Sola David C. Barrow Elementary Love is everywhere,up the hill and over the mill,in nature.
Jacob David C. Barrow Elementary Sun feels warm when you be nice
Finley David C. Barrow Elementary Spring showers brings spring flowers.
Mara David C. Barrow Elementary Love is in this bracelet.
Claire David C. Barrow Elementary You give me the best thing someone has ever gave me and it is the love,joy,and the happiness that makes my heart sing
Carinne David C. Barrow Elementary We are joy. We are bright together. You are powerful.
Evin David C. Barrow Elementary Enjoy the world,keep it healthy
Finley David C. Barrow Elementary Animals spread joy with a wag of their tail
Alanna David C. Barrow Elementary Roses are red, violets are blue. I’m your friend and I hope you are too.
Harry David C. Barrow Elementary Love defeats hate.
Natalia David C. Barrow Elementary April fun and sun. Here. I come! Flowers. Showers Baby. Animals
Axel David C. Barrow Elementary I wish my brother would come back.
Finley David C. Barrow Elementary Bands linked together just like a family
Kyleigh David C. Barrow Elementary My family bring’s me joy and my school bring’s me joy and so do you.
Alice David C. Barrow Elementary Don`t expect things to be bad, expect things to be good.
Adam David C. Barrow Elementary I wish I was magic so I can bring my papa back to life.
Adam David C. Barrow Elementary I wish I was magic so I can bring my papa back to life.
Sha’Niyah David C. Barrow Elementary Enjoy you – don’t change enjoy life – do what you like enjoy Love – love your love
Sophia David C. Barrow Elementary Treasure and everyone is everything

Students and families are helping me with attaching poetry to bracelets.

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These poems are such a great addition to our Rainbow Loom bracelets.  I was excited when we added 3d printed charms, but the poetry brings the bracelets to life as if they had a voice to speak to our friends across the miles.  We will write more poetry tomorrow before we finalize our package of bracelets to ship to India via Van Meter.

Happy Poetry Month!