Tag Archives: writing

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2nd Annual Barrow Media Center Poetry Contest

Our 3 top winners

Almost 90 students entered our 2nd annual poetry contest.  It was once again very tough to decide, but ultimately one overall winner was chosen for PreK-1st grade, 2nd-3rd grade, and 4th-5th grade.  Other winners were chosen in a variety of categories based on the elements of poetry and various forms of poetry.  Some of these awards included list poetry, rhyming poetry, acrostic poetry, descriptive poetry, story poetry, and unique poetry.

 

The winning Prek-1st poem from Diana:

 

The winning 2nd-3rd poem from Eli:

 

The winning 4th-5th poem from Emma:

 

Here’s a gallery of our other fantastic winners!

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Book Spine Poetry

Today Mrs. Yawn’s 2nd grade class made book spine poems.  This is a project that I started with classes a couple of years ago, but over time it has developed.  I’ve learned more about crafting book spine poems that make more sense than randomly pulling books off the shelf.  One tip that I give students is to look for book titles that don’t have character name in them.  I also suggest looking for one book title that speaks to you in some way and building upon that.  For example, the book I know Here refers to a place, so you might look for other books that refer to place to make a strong poem.  Here are the results of today.

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Student E-book Creation

Some third graders have been exploring how they can make their own ebooks.  This group was a big exploration.  We really didn’t know what we were doing when we started, and we gave ourselves permission to just try things, problem solve, and be at peace if something just didn’t work.

We decided to try Barnes and Noble’s Tikatok first.  It’s free and can either be done with a parent account with children added or can be done with a teacher account with students added.  Students can use a gallery of photos or import their own.  Most students chose to search for creative commons photos to use in their book.  One student even did her own photography.  Some students started with a written story and made their pages and images match their story.  Others started with interesting images and tried to weave those into a story or collection of poems.

The free version of Tikatok only allows you to use photos and text.  If you want to include audio, you have to pay to upgrade your account.  Also, we learned that a parent account allows the books to be shared exactly as they are created, while a teacher account only allows the books to be shared with the word “tikatok” spread across each page.  Ultimately, this is a tool for Barnes and Noble to make money through the purchase of the ebook version or the printed version.  However, we found that it was useful enough and easy enough to use that we would try it again and only use the features that were free.

Another group will begin exploring in a couple of weeks.  This group is probably going to try out a different tool called SimpleBooklet.  There are many more features in this tool such as embedding Google docs, video, and audio.  The feel of the book is more like a slideshow than the turning of pages in Tikatok, but the features may prove to support more creativity and transmedia experiences for students.  Our hope is that these 2 exploration groups will work out some of the kinks for future groups and inspire whole grade levels to try this out.

You can preview 3 of the books that these students created here.

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Persuasive Writing Contest Kickoff

This week we’ve been kicking off our first persuasive writing contest in the media center.  Students are writing persuasive essays about whether or not picture books are important for today’s kids.  You can learn more about the contest in this video.

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We’ve talked about the contest on our morning BTV show, but we’re also holding lessons on persuasive writing in the media center.  A first grade class came and imagined what the library would be like without picture books.  They made a brainstorm list about what might be good or bad about this.  That list was a spark to begin thinking about their writing.  We also read Keiko Kasza’s Ready for Anything and pointed out persuasive techniques used in the story.

Today, a 5th grade class came and viewed a slideshow of persuasive strategies. Then, they split at tables and read the NY Times article about picture books and essays on the Picture Book Month website using the iPad.  They organized their research into a 2-column chart, for picture books and against picture books.  Many of them said they would continue this research at home.  The teacher plans to schedule a writing workshop time with the media center for students who are interested in the contest.  These students will have time to do more research, write, and conference with me about their writing.

A kindergarten teacher has also scheduled time for a small group to meet with me to work on their writing for the contest.

The persuasive writing is flowing at Barrow.  We’re so honored to be able to support this writing standard that grades 1-5 are working on this quarter.

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Media Center Persuasive Writing Contest 2012

The Barrow Media Center is sponsoring our very first persuasive writing contest.   The contest starts now through February 10th.  All entries are due by 3PM on February 10th.  Students in any grade at Barrow may enter.  This contest supports the Georgia Performance Writing Standards that grades 1-5 are working on during 3rd quarter and it is an extension of our Picture Book Month celebration from November.  Students are asked about the following topic:  Picture books….important for today’s kids or not?  Essays must be 500 words or less and preferably typed.  Students can use any resources as inspiration, but we recommend the picture book month website and the New York Times article, Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Today’s Kids.    Consider using persuasive writing techniques such as big names, playing into emotions, building trust, using facts and numbers, and backing up your stance with reputable research.  We will award certificates to the top essays in Prek-1st, 2nd-3rd, and 4th-5th.  The top essays will also be recorded for our blog and morning broadcast.  The media center will also hold writing workshops for whole classes and small groups on persuasive writing and conference with students on their writing prior to entering the contest.  We can’t wait to see what students come up with.

 

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Fourth Grade Folktale Collaboration

Each mask was created in art and is accompanied by a student-written story developed in class

As a part of 4th grade’s Native American unit, they studied folktales.  They spent weeks reading a variety of folktales from around the world as well as Native American folktales.  In the media center, they used Google Earth on the iPads to examine the regions of the United States where the Native Americans are found.  They noticed what landforms and water features were in each area.  Then, I told folktales from each tribe and they noticed how the land and regions came into each story.

In class, students continued to read folktales and examine the elements of each kind of folktale.  They began to develop their own story and implement these elements into the stories.

In art, the students designed masks that accompanied their tales.

The process was long and spread out over several months, but we are excited to finally have the finished products on display in our media center.  If you happen to be near Barrow Elementary in the coming weeks, feel free to stop in and read some of these stories and examine the beautiful masks.

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Mysteries of Harris Burdick Contest

Over the past month, students from all grade levels at our school have been participating in a writing contest sponsored by Avid Bookshop, a new independent bookshop in Athens.  We had over 50 students enter the contest, and I’ve heard that Avid received hundreds of entries from local schools.  Today, the finalists were announced.  They will be honored this Sunday November 13th at Avid from 1-3:00PM.  Some of the students will read from their stories and the top winner will be announced.  The top winner’s story will be submitted to a national contest sponsored by Chris Van Allsburg in celebration of his new compilation, The Chronicles of Harris Burdick.  

Congratulations to our Barrow finalists:

Amelia Ray and Hanna Lee

We hope to see lots of supporters at Avid on Sunday.

Avid Bookshop

493 Prince Avenue

Athens, GA

 

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National Day on Writing

Students and teachers began writing blurbs about why they write

Today, October 20th, is NCTE’s National Day on Writing.  Many authors have contributed audio testimonials to their page about why they choose to write.

I created a Wallwisher page for students and teachers to contribute why they choose to write.  A few teachers and students began the conversation today, but because we are in our early release days for parent conferences, there wasn’t a lot of time to participate.  We’re going to continue to contribute to this page and invite you to visit the page and contribute your own reasons for writing.

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UGA Poetry Support

Today the University of Georgia Athletic Association had a day of service in Clarke County Schools and the community.   We used these volunteers to support the many poetry lessons that are happening in the media center and in individual classrooms.  Along with send twelve readers to go into classrooms, the athletic association also purchased 12 new poetry books to donate to our media center.  Volunteers went to 5 classrooms:  Ms Spurgeon’s PreK, Mrs. Hart’s 1st grade, and Mrs. Oprey, Mrs. Slongo and Mrs. Beshara’s 5th grade classrooms.  They read poetry to students and worked alongside students as they wrote poems for our poetry contest and for Poem in Your Pocket Day.

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Thank You! to the following volunteers from UGA:

Steve Colquitt

Carol Capitani

Tim Cearley

Julie Clark

Jay Clark

George Cleare

Sara Bradburry

Manuel Diaz

Kelley Hester

Todd Grantham

Claire Foggin

Greg McGarity

Also many thanks for donating the following books:

You Read to Me I’ll Read to You: very short fables to read together

A Dazzling Display of Dogs

Messing Around on the Monkey Bars

The Underwear Salesman

Every Second Something Happens

The Wonder Book

Change Up

One Big Rain

Our Farm

The Carnival of the Animals

Poetrees

Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets

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Autobiographical Poetry: A 5th grade collaborative art project

The art teacher, Mrs. Foretich, and I love to collaborate with one another.  Recently, we wrapped up a collaborative unit focused on digital photography, using technology to transform a photograph, and autobiographical poetry.

Students spent 2 days rotating through a center taught by Mrs. Foretich taking digital pictures of themselves and using Picnik.com to edit their photos and center taught by me about the many elements of poetry including personification, similes, strong verbs, and repetition.  Then students spent 2 sessions in a writing workshop using their photograph to write an autobiographical poem that included some of the poetry elements learned in my center.  Students typed their poems in word and printed them.

Mrs. Foretich had all of the student images printed at Snapfish, and she mounted these pictures on matting board.  Now, an amazing display sits atop the shelves of the media center.  Today was the debut, and students and teachers have been reading the poems all day.  If you can’t stop by the media center during poetry month, take a moment to view the pictures of the display and watch a video tour given by two students, Maggie and Delia.

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