Setbacks and Pitfalls

One of the things you have to watch for on this is student copy and pasting text into their draft in order for it to look like they have written or written more than they actually have. I had several students copy and paste the entire text of a movie script into their post. It was pretty clear something was going on when their words for the month skyrocketed that one day; I also don’t know if they think I am smart enough to catch such silliness. However, it was pretty easy to see they had a big spike in the number of words written; I wish that I had been able to just remove the post from their total, but that is not an option. Another fun one the students tried is to paste one post over and over. Again, they thought they outsmart me, but it was very obvious when I pulled up their writing page to comment and give feedback (two great features of the site) and I was reading the same writing over and over. Again, I wish that I had been able to remove duplicates, but I couldn’t, so I just didn’t put their grade in until they met with me, logged in, and corrected the problem. It isn’t enough to turn students loose to write and check the graphs at the end of the month. You have to be giving them feedback and comments.

Grading

My students get three or four grades for this part of their overall score each month. My courses are set up with category weights so that 10% of the final grade is the daily writing. Ten percent may seem like a lot, but I put that value on it because the daily practice is so important to their growth as a writer. I give students grades on word count, published posts, and drafts. If we are using commenting in the course, there is also a score for comments. Remember that I am spot checking students writing through feedback and comments. I tell students that they need 300 words a day; this is about 2 full paragraphs, and Write About will tell you the average words per post for each month, so that is what I score that out of and it is the largest portion of the grade. I then gave them credit for writing every day through published posts and drafts. Each of these I make worth 10 points. Finally, if I am requiring commenting, I will make those each worth 10 points. All of these items are presented to the teacher on the Student Statistics page. I simply scroll through the students on the first of every month and put the totals down for the previous month. On a normal month it looks like this:

October Average Words /300

October Published Posts /40

October Comments /40

Feedback

It is fairly easy to give feedback to students on their drafts and published posts in Write About. You can filter the writing by drafts or published posts or you can filter by the individual student. I try to go in a rotation and give every student comment or feedback before I start the list over. There is not, sadly, an easy way to see who you have given feedback too, but if you go in order, you can make sure everyone gets feedback.

You can also comment on published posts. When I taught full-year English classes, this is what I added in the second semester. This allowed students to read other people’s writing and have an authentic reader. Every Friday we publish a post and then comment on someone else’s with a substantial and useful comment. This took some pre-teaching, so students could make comments on other people’s writing. After some practice with commenting, students had another layer of feedback on their daily writing.

At the start of each term, I instruct my students to install Grammarly on their Chrome browser. This allows them to run this impressive grammar and spell check right in their Write About posts. It will also track their errors and send them weekly emails with their stats and common errors. It has improved the quality of their daily writing significantly.

One of my favorite ways to use Write About is for the prewriting or paragraphs. We are currently working on research papers and as their daily warm-up writing for several days; I had students write on different parts of their research paper topic. Not only were they able to count it as their daily writing, but they were also able to make a start on the draft of their paper. When it came time to start our draft, students could log in an go straight to their drafts in Write About and copy them directly into their draft.

1. Getting Organized for School from Samisill Cop.
This whole post is full of ideas to get everything organized for your kids.  I wish I would have done this years ago.  My favorite printable is the monthly calendars with the lines at the bottom.


2.  Printable Library from Emily Ley
Pretty much everything made by Emily Ley is AMAZING.  I have several of her pens and paperclips, which I love.  Her printable library does require that you sign up with an email, but it is worth it because she has so many checklists; my favorite is the spring cleaning one.  I suggest you check out her planners while you are there.







3.  Lesson Plan Template from Mrs. Jones' Creation Station
This is an adorable lesson plan template that you can type into.  Again, you have to have an email to get the printable.  I always like experimenting with new lesson plan templates, especially when I can type into them.

4.  Teacher Self Care from Sweet Sweet Primary
Sweet Sweet Primary created a calendar for teacher self-care.  Now it is decorated for October, but the list of self-care items on it is ALWAYS important and a good checklist for anyone.

5.  Downloads from Inkwell Press Productivity Co.
Inkwell Press' collection of printables is one of my favorites.  They have a packing list, a road trip list, a goal setting sheet, and a list of chores.  You will also need an email to sign up, but that is pretty standard.  They also have a 5 Minutes to Peak Productivity printable available through their podcast.

6.  Erin Condren Cards
Valentine's Day, Christmas, Mother's Day, Easter, and Father's Day cards all for free on the Erin Condren website.  My girls loved the coloring pages sampler too.

7.  Daily To-Do List from Simple as That
I should have had this one-pager for every one of those eleven snow days I had in January and early February because I probably would have felt much more productive.  There are spots for your top priorities, your events, and your meals.

8.  Banner Letters from Shanty-2-Chic
Each letter is a separate page, so no having to find the page number to print just the letters that you want.  I used this several years ago for family pictures.  You can also print them on colored paper or cardstock for an added brightness.


9.  Weekly Meal Planner from Neat House Sweet Home
When my girls start complaining that I am not cooking enough, I print a couple of these and create a plan for the following weeks.  With our busy schedules, take-out can sometimes become a staple.  This printable (which does require an email to access) has not only a meal plan but also a shopping list, which is handy if you are like me and always forget that one ingredient you do no have on hand.

10.  Yearly Calendar from Calendarpedia
Print this poster size on several sheets of cardstock using Adobe and you can plan anything for the whole year at once.  The rainbow colors and layout are perfect for year-long planning.  My office has one for my blog and my classroom has one for each class.

I only read four-four books in 2018.  Now, in the past, I would normally consider this a lofty accomplishment, but I did not for two reasons:

1) I have confidence I can do an average of a book a week

2) I now work with another teacher who reads significantly more than a book a week