Book Tasting: Realistic Fiction

To kick off our realistic fiction and narrative writing unit, we had our first "book tasting." Students arrived at the Northridge Bistro to sample a wide variety of realistic fiction books. We learned how to preview and shop for a book that is a perfect fit for us as readers. Students wrote reviews of each "dish" on their tasting menu. They even enjoyed an amuse bouche of "bookworms" while we worked through our tasting. This provided readers not only the opportunity to find some great reads, but also to identify the common characteristics of this genre.

Here are some photos from the day (Be sure to check out @RamsaysClass on Instagram to see more.):

Building a Culture of Reading 2019-2020

Throughout the school year, in our English Language Arts class, we will be reading a wide variety of texts across many different genres. Typically, we will have an ongoing genre study. In today's digital society much of our reading is moving to a digital format. That being said, I realize that many of my learners have devices where they can read a digital version of the books. This is not mandatory, but it would give your student the opportunity to notate in his/her eBook as students work to demonstrate reading mastery through the books that they choose to read.  Similarly, if your student would like to have his/her own print copy of the book, that would be great as well. Although this is not a requirement, having a personal copy in print or digital format would give students an opportunity to have the same text at home and school with their specific notes.

The first literature study in which we will be engaging is realistic fiction. Students will participate in a "book tasting" of highly recommended books in order for them to select a text of their choosing. This is a powerful way for students to demonstrate mastery of reading standards on a text that is of interest to them.


Research has proven that the best way to become a skilled reader is to read. This year, students have the reading goal of reading 40 "new to them" books across different genres. Each night, students need to spend 20-30 minutes reading. These books can be checked out from our class library, our school library, or the local, public library. All TCS students also have access to Sora, an app that gives students FREE access to digital and audio books from our district and the Tuscaloosa Public Library. Students will keep a record of these books in their ELA comp book, use them to show mastery of the standards and skills we are learning in class, and engage in book chats and book reviews with peers, locally and globally.

Our Next Adventure: Makerspaces and Literacy Standards

We are about to begin a very exciting adventure into a world of creativity in order to strengthen and master our content standards! We will be focusing on reading/writing informational texts, researching a specific topic, organizing and producing clear and coherent writing, communication skills, and using technology to produce and publish informational texts ([W.6.2], [W.6.4], [W.6.5], [W.6.6],  [W.6.7], [W.6.8], [L.6.2]).

Research has proven allowing students to explore their interests in the classroom helps to strengthen creativity, ingenuity, problem-solving skills, collaboration, and engagement. Many classrooms are fostering these ideas by creating a Makerspace for students. Makerspaces allow students to become “makers” by researching their interests in order to create an actual product. These spaces allow students to implement creativity as a problem-solving strategy while also applying academic standards. I have included links to research and examples of Makerspaces.

As you know, our 6th grade class is centered around the needs and interests of each student. Each day our lessons are based upon best practices in order to promote success in every student. I have been fortunate enough to learn from my students everyday. In order to continue the creative and intellectual environment that has been created in our classroom, we have chosen to  transform our classroom into a Makerspace! In order for this unit to be successful, we will need a variety of items donated for student use. I am eager to begin this amazing adventure with your students, and I plan to foster their creativity and imagination, while also mastering academic standards, through this unit.

Thank you so much!

Makerspace Resources:

http://educatorinnovator.org/lrng2015/

http://makered.org/

http://www.educationworld.com/how-create-makerspace-your-school-community

http://www.instituteofplay.org/

http://www.instructables.com/

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/classroom-makerspaces-transformative-learning-stephanie-west-puckett

BreakoutEDU: The Run-On Renegade and Grammar Girl

One Tuesday, we walked in and we were told we had the chance to do a BreakoutEDU. This time it was themed with the Run-On Renegade and Grammar Girl….and The Run-On Renegade was actually in our classroom trying to play out one of her dastardly deeds.  The Run-On Renegade had actually captured Grammar Girl and stolen her utility belt which contained all her superpowers. Without Grammar Girl, the world wouldn’t have been able to communicate clearly. We had to try to breakout part of Grammar Girl’s belt before the world dissolved into chaos. The clock was ticking. We only had 45 minutes to save the world.

When we entered the room, we had a newspaper story laid on top of the Breakout EDU box. This news story was about Grammar Girl and how Run-On- Renegade wanted to take over the world. Throughout the story, letters were capitalized that shouldn't have been. The letters spelled out LOOK IT UP. We then thought about it and checked the dictionaries. We found a key to one of the locks! Attached to the key was a Mystery Word puzzle. This puzzle led us to find out the letter lock combination. The word was fiend (enemy). Somewhere in the room, we found a paragraph that we read; it was called The Paragraph Protector. We answered questions about the paragraph, and after many tries figured out that was the combination to the 4-number lock! That was our last lock!

We were so excited! We just knew that we had broken out. But inside the box, we found another box with a piece of paper. On the piece of paper was a summary of Schooled with some blanks in them. We had to fill them out using proper capitalization. We were allowed to look at the book. We were also given a UV flashlight. With the UV flashlight, we could see invisible ink where some of the letters were circled. There was a number code, but when we tried that that did not work. We tried using letters and it spelled out LINKS. This puzzle was full of red herrings. We then went to our links section on our class blog. We had to click on Are you COPS? to take a quiz on grammar. We were typing as fast as we possibly could (incorrect, correct). At the end it said,¨ Way TO go. High FIVES FOR everyone.¨ The code was 2, 5, 4 (the numbers in the sentence). We rushed over to the box and put in the code. It worked! We were very excited because we broke out first and we got a piece of Grammar Girl’s superpowered belt.

BreakoutEDU is so much fun! We wonder when we’ll get to do it again.

~ K.C., T. K., E.J.

Our Lit Centers

Literacy Centers, or Lit Centers, are tasks that the students in Mrs.Ramsay's have every week. Lit centers help us learn about the topics we are doing in ELA. They are educational and help us with growing and learning. Sometimes it is partner text talks and at other times we can do blog posts on Kidblog. We have done lit centers based on our read aloud, Schooled. We have done some based on our partner text. We have different ones every week or so depending on what standards we are working towards mastering. They sometimes are graded assessments and sometimes they are for practice.  Some of them we can work with our friends, and others we work on independently. Lit centers are also really fun. This week, we are doing one where we take letter tiles and try to make as many words as we can. This helps us learn word patterns and word parts to strengthen our writing and communicating. These are just some different things that we do during lit centers.

~By L. E.

Vocabulary Games

So have you ever thought about putting vocabulary words into a game? Well, we did. Mrs. Ramsay said we could create any kind of game or activity that would help us practice and teach each other word strategies. We could do anything from a board game to a acting game to a computer game. 

Every person chose a different kind of a game to create. Our even teacher  made up a whole page of links that showed us some different ways to do our vocabulary games...in case we weren't sure where to begin. The other language arts class did it too; they said it was a great idea and they had  fun doing it too.

My group made different types of board games, a card game, an my game. I had a acting game kind of like charades. We also practiced our informational writing by composing the directions and rules that went with our game. 

Once we were all done, we got to play our games with everyone else in the class. It was so interesting to see how different every game was. Of course, the games were fun to play and we were able to build our vocubualry.

- Jayden & Highland