This post is for people attending my three day intensive workshops. It is to save them the trouble of having to take photos of the posters on the walls. The topics with an asterisk are the things with which Tina and I expect you to be fully confident, having practiced them, when the three days are over so that you can ride into your classroom in the fall on a high horse.
Poster #1:
Eight Starting the Year Strategies
- Circling with Balls* (CWB) – Purpose: neutralize defiant kids, personalize, find artists.
- One Word Images* (OWI) – Purpose: get CI train rolling, find artists.
- Word Wall* – Purpose: teach curriculum, source of words for free writes, WCTG, bail out move.
- TPR* – Purpose: happens all the time, drive verbs deep.
- Three Ring Circus* – Purpose: verb reps, fun
- Super Mini Stories* (SMS) – Purpose: Give teacher confidence, Classroom rules, find artists.
- Verb Slam Activity* (VSA) – Purpose: reps on verbs
- Word Chunk Team Game (WCTG) – reinforce curriculum, team building, neutralize defiant kids.
Poster #2:
Four Kinds of Stories
- Scripted Stories*
- Emergent Targets*
- Backwards Planning
- Grammar Targeted
Five Classroom Management Tools
- Circling with Balls
- Word Chunk Team Game
- Classroom Rules
- Student Jobs
- Videographer
Four Ways to Move Sound into Meaning
- Touch Word
- Word Association
- Gestures
- Sing it!
Poster #3:
Three Awarenesses
- It’s body centered and requires excellent pacing (two meanings), which cannot occur unless you are present in your body and a bit out of your mind.
- It’s feeling toned. You have to like what you are describing. No faking that.
- We support our instruction with TPR all the time all year. Unless we are present and teaching “in our bodies” we cannot do that. Gestures flow naturally from movement and feeling. Robots don’t gesture.
Poster #4:
One Word Image Prompts
First get the image fast, in English by saying “I need an object!” Point to a fake student in the back if necessary to give them ownership of the image. Then start asking:
Size
Gender
Color
Name
Intelligence level
Try for a “weird hook” after getting roughly this much information. It should be something really exaggerated that can hook the class into liking the image and wanting to know more about it.
When the vortex becomes saturated you have two choices: Either (1) stop developing the image and process the work of the artist, the quiz writer and the story writer (next day), or (2) move the image forward by asking “where” and “with whom” and maybe even get a problem. This moves the original static image into a series of images (i.e. a story)
Other questions you can ask: rich/poor; mean/kind; hair color; eye color, etc.
Poster #5:
Other Strategies Worth Mentioning
- Kindergarten Day
- Solving the Thematic Unit Problem Outside of Class**
- The Ten Minute Deal
- Running Dictation
- The Class Poem
- Two Truths and a Lie
- Teaching Greetings (Sabrina’s list, in dialogues, but not formally in class)