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.

Flipgrid Book Chats 2019

Flipgrid Book Chats

For our Free Reading Fri-Yay book chats, we are going to begin using Flipgrid, a student-friendly curation tool. Every three weeks, students will shoot a short 90 second video using his/her Chromebook. In the video, learners will select a favorite book that he/she has completed in the last month. In the video, he/she will create a book teaser where he/she gives a brief (and exciting) overview of the book. They need to be sure to "sell" it to their classmates.

This should also include a recommendation of  who would enjoy reading this recommended book. You may not create book chat videos of the books that have been part of our literature groups or that we have read as an entire class. (See list below)

Books that may not be included in the Flipgrid Book Chats

Ghost by Jason Reynolds

Schooled by Gordon Korman

Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life by  James Patterson

One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

Ungifted by Gordon Korman

Wonder by R. J. Palacio

The Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade by Jordan Sonnenblick

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Mistakes that Worked by Charlotte Foltz Jones

Rocking Reading Around the Clock 2018-2019

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 literature 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 download an eBook version of the books that we will read in class. This is not mandatory, but it would give your student the opportunity to notate in his/her eBook as we read through the books in class. 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 book we will read is Ghost by Jason Reynolds. Simultaneously, students will be reading a partner 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.

In addition to our whole group literature, genre, or text studies, students will continue to read something of their choice. Every night, students are expected to read. Students may bring print or digital versions of whatever they are reading to class as each student strives to grow as independent readers. Each Friday, we will celebrate with some time designated as Free Reading Fri-Yay. Each week, students will have book chats where they do a 60-second share of a great book they have completed reading. Also, they will be creating fun, mini-projects in class to share their favorite reads. 

Be sure to watch for further details on our reading activities on this blog, our social media tools (@RamsaysClass), and our class Remind. Until then, happy reading!

Rocking Our Reading

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 literature 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 download an eBook version of the books that we will read in class. This is not mandatory, but it would give your student the opportunity to notate in his/her eBook as we read through the books in class. 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 book we will read is Schooled by Gordon Korman. Simultaneously, students will be reading a partner 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.

In addition to our whole group literature, genre, or text studies, students will continue to read something of their choice. Students may bring print or digital versions of whatever they are reading to class as each student strives to grow as independent readers. Each Friday we will celebrate with some time designated as Free Reading Friday.

Let's Rock Some Reading

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 literature 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 download an eBook version of the books that we will read in class. This is not mandatory, but it would give your student the opportunity to notate in his/her eBook as we read through the books in class. 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 book we will read is Schooled by Gordon Korman. Simultaneously, students will be reading a partner 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.

In addition to our whole group literature, genre, or text studies, students will continue to read something of their choice. Students may bring print or digital versions of whatever they are reading to class as each student strives to grow as independent readers.

Lit Centers with Mrs.Ramsay

 Lit Centers with Mrs.Ramsay are so much fun!  The word lit means literacy. Literacy is all the things that have to do with reading and writing. We work on these during our ELA class. Some are very chellenging, but fun. In Lit Centers, we get to do fun things like make up memes, read, create blogs, go online to work on Google Drive, and do vocabulary.com. All of these activities help us become better readers, writers, thinkers, and speakers. We work to master our standards and create great projects to show what we are able to do.

One of our centers is Liberating Lexis where we work on building our vocabulary. We do things like crating a Pictionary Dictionary and vocabulary.com. Also, we each have our own Personal Dictionaries that we build in the back of our comp books. Vocabulary.com is where you go online and practice finding definitions for words. On this website, it helps you learn the words that YOU need to learn. Everyone's list is different. That's cool, huh?

One more example of what we do is we get to practice with things that we may individually need to work on like naming verbs, adjectives, parts of speech, adverbs, and infinitive verbs. We call this center Grammar Grabber. It helps us learn how to make more complex sentences so that our writing is interesting...and so lots of others will read our writing.

Also in Lit Centers, we get to learn some new things that we don't know about everyday. We sometimes get to talk to friends about what we are reading. This gives us ideas for new books to read. We get to comment on other people's blogs. Our comments tell about what they did well at and what suggestions on how they can grow.  We do this everyday to improve on our learning skills. You should come to Mrs. Ramsay's class and do Lit Centers. They are so much fun!

~Sydney and Elenie

Let's Read!

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 literature 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 download an eBook version of the books that we will read in class. This is not mandatory, but it would give your student the opportunity to notate in his/her eBook as we read through the books in class. 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 book we will read is Schooled by Gordon Korman. Simulataneously, students will be reading a partner text of their choosing. After completing that, we will be joining thousands of other students in the Global Read Aloud (more about that exciting project in another post) by reading the book Fish by L. S. Matthews.

In addition to our whole group literature, genre, or text studies, students will continue to read something of their choice. Students may bring print or digital versions of whatever they are reading to class as each student strives to grow as independent readers.

Class Reading Texts and Novels

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 literature 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 download an eBook version of the books that we will read in class. This is not mandatory, but it would give your student the opportunity to notate in his/her eBook as we read through the books in class. 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 book we will read is Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson. After completing that, we will be joining thousands of other students in the Global Read Aloud (more about that exciting project in another post) by reading the book One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt. 

In addition to our whole group literature, genre, or text studies, students will continue to read something of their choice. Students may bring print or digital versions of whatever they are reading to class as each student strives to grow as independent readers.

Our Urban Legends on Smore

During our Mystery Unit, we learned fact versus opinion. Each group explored different ubran legends that interested us using digital and print resources, and then we used our knowledge of fact and opinion to crete these tabloid like "papers" on Smore. Also, we took our knowledge of graphic sources to add meaning to our writing. Enjoy our Smores and let us know whther you think any of these are pure fact or pure opinion. We'd love to hear your ideas.

Global Read Aloud- Everyone Getting Together

The Global Read Aloud is when students and teachers anywhere in the world get together and read the same book(s).  It is really cool because people all around the world get to experience the same emotions while reading a certain part of the book. It doesn't really matter which chapter you're on, we'll all be on the last page, sooner or later. Together, we get to experience the exact moments in the book when the character finally fulfills his goal, or when something tragic happens. The Global Read Aloud allows people, some who don't even speak the same language, to understand each other through the book.

This year, for the Global Read Aloud, Mrs. Ramsay's class(and many others) are reading two books;  Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper and Wonder by R.J. Palacio. Out of My Mind is about a girl named Melody who has cerebral palsy, a condition where her body can't function properly. Even though her body has problems, her mind functions perfectly. Melody hates having her thoughts stuck in her head. She wants to be able to speak her mind, but her condition prevents that.

Wonder is about a boy named August who was born with a horrible face deformity. Everywhere he goes, he is always stared at. When August comes of age to attend fifth grade, his mom decides to enroll him in Beecher Prep. School instead of homeschooling him this year. August is scared because everyone at the school will stare at him.

Melody and August both want to be perceived as 'normal'. So far, both books are very interesting. The Global Read Aloud has been a great experience for me. It is really fun chatting with classes all over the world about these two special books. I will be sad when the Global Read Aloud ends, but I can't wait for a new one next year! ~MS

Book Collages 2013

Here are the Book Collage projects created by 1st/2nd period. They were a lot of fun to create.

Book Trailer and Scanner Collage Book Project Rubrics

We are currently working on book projects which will have students showing evidence of mastery of multiple ELA standards. The honors classes, along with students from Hueytown Middle School, are creating a collection of Book Trailers to recommend and promote reading in both schools. The on-level, sixth grade class is creating Scanner Collage Book Projects (some examples can be seen here: Sample 1, Sample 2, Sample 3.

In our class, the students create the rubric and design the projects with Mrs. Ramsay's help.

Here is the rubric for the Book Trailer project and the Scanner Collage project.

Class Reading

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 literature 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 download an eBook version of the books that we will read in class. This is not mandatory, but it would give your student the opportunity to notate in his/her eBook as we read through the books in class. 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 book we will read is Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life by James Patterson. After completing that, we will be joining thousands of other students in the Global Read Aloud (more about that exciting project in another post) by reading the book Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper. A partner text that my honors classes will be reading with Out of My Mind is Wonder by R. J. Palacio.

In addition to our whole group literature, genre, or text studies, students will continue to read something of their choice. Students may bring print or digital versions of whatever they are reading to class as each student strives to grow as independent readers.

Student Taught Great Depression Lesson

Our class is reading the book Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. This story takes place in the years of The Great Depression.  I (David) thought about doing a project on the years of The Great Depression to build our background knowledge for the book. I told Mrs.Ramsay that if we could do something that involved a whole team, it would be really great. I came up with the idea of making a illustration of a topic og causes of  The Great Depression. Each team could do a different illustration and then we could publish them on InstaCollage. I thought if we watched a Brain Pop on The Great Depression everyone could think of a cause to illustrate about.
Now, it was my turn to be the teacher. First, I started to tell everyone about my plan. After, they agreed to my plan, we watched the Brain Pop video on the casuese of the Great Depression. Once we were done watching the video, I told the class if they could think about some topics on the video. We made a list of all of the casues on teh board as a class. Then each team chose one of the casues.  Once we were done writing the topics down on the board, I had to make a drawing so each table could failrly choose a cause and make an illustration. If I didn't do the drawing that would not have been fair to the other tables. Once each table had a topic, each table had to illustrate their topic. When everyone was done with their illustration we had to make those pictures into a InstaCollage. I had some help from Luke to make the InstaCollage becasue he had some experience usig that app. Once we were done with that, we printed the collage for the ahllway and pubished it on our website. After we finished this lesson and project, we all saw the Great Depression in a different way.

Book image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bud,_Not_Buddy

Global Read Aloud: Surprise Guest Reader

Mrs. Ramsay told us we were going to get a surprise on Friday.We could not figure out what it was.So, when we got back from lunch, we thought we were just going to read The One and Only Ivan which always makes us happy and excited. We got on our class carpet and sat down with our books, iPods, and iPads. Then all of a sudden a Skype call came through our class computer.Guess who?  It was Mrs. Ripp!  She is very nice. Mrs.Ripp is the founder of the Global Read Aloud. She with some other teachers chose the book The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate for us to read this year for the Global Read Aloud.

 It is one of the best books we have ever read. It is a book about a gorilla and other animals facing life changes in a mall. We all love this book truly. It was written by a very enthusiastic author, who can write very interesting and detailed books.We read to almost the end of the book with Mrs. Ripp. We felt honored and surprised to read with the founder of the Global Read Aloud. This was a great surprise. ~LC

Global Read Aloud- Character Trading Cards

While reading The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, we feel like we've made new friends with the characters. Ms. Applegate is such a  good example of how to write characters. We wanted to share our thoughts about these characters from their point of view. We hope you enjoy them.

Ivan

My name is Ivan. I am a gorilla. I live in a domain at the Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. I used to be in the wild, but now I am not. I have been in my domain for nine thousand eight hundred and fifty-five days. I draw art work because I am an artist and my art work cost $20 in the mall's gift shop or $25 with the frame. I have a friend named Julia who is an artist too. Today, I drew a beetle and Mack said it looked like a big blob of nothing. Julia saw it an knew my art was of a beetle.

Stella

I'm an elephant named Stella,who remembers everything and loves to tell stories. I have scars on two of my feet from being chained when I was young. I live in the Big Top Mall with Ivan the gorilla. Ivan is one of my best  friends. He lives in the domain next to me. He is a 400 pound gorilla. I like to take care of the other elephant, named Ruby, in my domain.

Bob

Hi my name is Bob. I am of questionable heritage, which means I'm a stray. I live at the Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. I am nut colored and used to have many brothers and sisters. Now I'm on my own. Julia gave me my name. I don't let humans touch me because their scent upsets my digestion. I only let Julia touch me. I love TV. I prefer to watch professional bowling and cat-food commercials. Ivan and I enjoy western movies and romance movies.I am speedy and not tactful, but Ivan lets me sleep on his belly. He's a good friend.

Ruby

I am Ruby. I am a baby elephant. I make many noises like the trumpets they sell at the gift shop. I am shorter than Ivan who is a gorilla. I used to live in Africa. I am here because humans captured me. Humans killed my family and I was alone. I lived at a traveling circus for a month where they didn't feed me enough.Then Mack bought me and moved me to the Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. I've met Stella, Ivan, Bob, and Julia.

Julia

Hi, I am Julia. I have black hair, a half-moon smile, and old clothes. I'm ten years old. My dad is George. He works at the Exit 8 Mall and Arcade to clean Ivan, the gorilla's cage, and all of the other areas in the mall.When I am at the mall and arcade center, I sit by Ivan's domain while doing homework and also while drawing. I like Ivan because he is smart and he likes to draw just like me.

Mack

Hi, my name is Mack. I work at the Exit Eight Mall. I am the boss so I answer the phone all day. I also feed a gorilla named Ivan because I don't have enough money to hire a gorilla babysitter. I do shows where I dress up like a clown and ride on a really tiny bike too. After that show, our elephant Stella does a show with Snickers, our dog. Stella stands on her hind legs and Snickers jumps on her back.If she doesn't do her trick, I have to swing the claw stick. I love my job at the mall.

GRA- Ivan and the Epigraph

At the beginning of The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Appplegate, we noticed the epigraph:

It is never too late to be what you might have been." ~George Eliot

We had a great discussion about it and we wanted to share our thoughts with all of you. Here are some of our thoughts about what the epigraph means and how it relates to us and possibly to the characters in the book:

"If you wanted to be a good person in life but you are bad you can quit making bad choices and then you are what you wanted to be. " ~JP

"I think the quote connects with the book because I think the gorilla named Ivan maybe wants to change who he is. Ivan lives in a mall in a domain. A domain is his territory in the story it's just his cage. He is the only gorilla in the mall. He has friends,  but they're not in his domain so he's lonely. His friends are Stella, Mack, and Bob. Stella is an elephant, Mack is a human, and Bob is a dog. Ivan probbaly wants to change who he is because if he changes who he is maybe people might like him more and they'll find hima gorilla, a friend." ~HW

"What that means is if you are a bus driver and you want to be a teacher it is never to late to go back to school and earn a teaching job. But what that means to Ivan is he doesn't like it in the circus he can change that." ~CK 

"I had a job that I've been in for five years, but did not finish collage, I could just go back to college and finish and get a master's degree. With the degree I could get a even better job than I had before, am I right? I really do think that this quote is really part of life, because if you're stuck in place you don't want to be in, you can always go back where you really wanted to be. So just think about it, have you ever been bad and then all of a sudden been good, I know I have, but the question is have you?" ~DC

"Some days you might want to be someone else, but when you think about it, it's best to be the best you you can be."~LNH

We would love to hear your thoughts too. Please leave a comment and tell us where you are from so that we can mark your location on our class' world map.

It's Reading Season...Read Like a Champion