There are many layers to writing. Students have to come up with a good idea, develop it, develop the characters, organize it, not to mention spelling, grammar, and punctuation. All of these writing elements are outlined in the Common Core State Standards, but keeping a record of it all can be overwhelming if you don't have a way to organize it, so I've organized the writing standards and 2 language standards that can be used as a rubric, or just a checklist for a body of evidence.
There are 3 or 4 writing genres each K - 5, which are color-coded on the rubric. This is an example of the 3rd grade rubric. You can choose a genre of writing to grade and you can even grade that piece of writing on language standards 1 and 2.
Here is an example of a piece of narrative writing that I graded. I scored the narrative elements on a 4 point rubric. If you follow the red color down to the grammar and usage section, I checked off the language & production elements that I saw in this story (I left the name off of the paper for confidentiality). If the language or production standard was not present at all, I left it blank. If there were mistakes, I gave it a minus or check-minus. Then I made notes on the back:
Now I can address the specific issues that this student struggled with, such as capitalizing the "i" or using apostrophe's in contractions, so that I can see if it improves over time and transfers to other genres. This form can be used as a rubric and it also helps me document all of the elements of opinion writing, narrative writing, informational writing, grammar & usage, and production & distribution over time.
Here is a close up of a few sections:
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The Maker Movement is big right now, and
you can implement one in your own classroom with these STEAM challenges.
The Great Air Race
Begin the challenge with these 2 great books:
Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty
Violet the Pilot by Steve Breen
Introduce the Challenge:
What makes
a paper airplane fly the farthest? Create
your
own paper airplane. Experiment
with different designs to find the one that will fly the farthest. Give your
airplane at least 5 test flights and graph your data. Make a reflection video
of your findingsthat include a recording of your test flights.
This video trailer will help set the stage for your students as they create their own flying machines:
You can also inspire your students by watching the Guinness World Record for the Longest Paper Airplane flight – 226 feet!
In this challenge, we want students to get their creative juices flowing so they can become inventors. This is a very open-ended challenge, so get students inspired with this great book:
The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires
and this message from the Kid President:
Introduce the Challenge:
Time to get creative! Invent something
that you think will be useful to others. Start
with a problem that you want to solve with your invention. Write a script and
create a commercial to describe your invention,
how
it works, and why you think other people
will want to use it.
You have probably heard of the Cardboard Challenge inspired by Caine's Arcade. Inventing something with cardboard could be a great way for students to begin inventing. Include different kinds of boxes and other miscellaneous items in your maker space, and share how Caine's Arcade got started:
This book also has a lot of inspiring ideas for cardboard inventors:
Not a Box by Antoinette Portis
Another fun addition to your maker space could be the Cardboard Creator Toolkit from Lakeshore. It includes rivets, screws, hinges, and other tools that are made specifically for using with cardboard. My son got one for Christmas, and we have been making a lot of cardboard inventions at our house!
Cardboard Robot Cardboard Car with Steering Wheel
Once students have invented something, it's time to create a commercial. This is a great opportunity to work on opinion writing. Opinion writing is a standard for students grades 1 - 5, and the basic structure is the same.
To help students write their own commercial scripts, start by analyzing infomercials that follow the same basic structure. Using Edpuzzle, I annotated these infomercials to identify the elements of opinion writing.
I would suggest having students create their own commercials using iMovie or Shadow Puppet EDU once they have written their own scripts.
This challenge is based on the story The Mixed Up Chameleon by Eric Carle:
First, students get to create their own mixed up chameleon using the app pic collage for kids. Erintegration had a great blog post called Eric Carle Style Digital Collages On Pic Collage. She gives step by step instructions on how to create these collages. Using this really cool digital collage technique, students can create their own mixed up chameleon on the iPad.
Essential Question:
If your mixed up chameleon was a real animal, what kind of animal would it be?
Next, students analyze all the different animal parts that make up their mixed up chameleon.
Thinking about the animal classification, the habitat, and the diet of all the animals that make up their mixed up Chameleon, students have to decide how they would classify their mixed up chameleon and justify their reasons. Using pic collage for kids, shadow puppet EDU, and putting it in Book Creator as an interactive digital notebook, I created an example of what it could look like:
CCSS RL.1.7, SL.1.5, RL.2.7, SL.2.5, NGSS
2-LS4-1, ISTE 6a, 6b
How to Create a Tangram Animal
This math challenge begins with the story Grandfather Tang's Story by Ann Tompert:
Introduce the Challenge:
Choose one of the tangram animals in the
story and create it. Create a step by step “How to” guide using pictures to
show someone how to recreate it. Be
sure to use mathematical language.
*Bonus* Create your own tangram animal
and directions. Remember that you must use all 7 shapes.
Students can create their own set of 7 tangrams with the instructions from this video:
Then, they can study one of the tangram animals from the book and create a "how to" story. By taking pictures of each step in the creation of a tangram animal, students can illustrate their "how to" story with their own pictures. The easiest way to do this is on the iPad using the book creator app to create each page of the story with the student's own pictures. Students can even use the app vimo to highlight important parts of their "how to" story. Here is an example:
The next step in this challenge is to create a video glossary for geometry terms related to the tangrams.
Although the following video is not one of the terms listed above, it is a student example of what the terms in this video glossary might look like. This video was created using Shadow Puppet EDU.
Do your students know how to cite their sources? This can be tricky for our elementary students to learn. There are a lot of steps, so when do we expect students to know how to cite their sources?
Fourth grade CCSS W.4.8 is the first grade level that asks students to provide a list of sources: Recall information from experiences or gather information from print and digital sources; take notes and categorize information, and provide a list of sources.
If you need help breaking down these steps for students, here is a resource that scaffolds the process for students.
It breaks down each step of citing a source for a book and a website, and it includes a QR code with a video that breaks it into 5 steps for students. These pages can be printed out so students can write in each step for citing the source. You can download them for free on Teacher Sherpa by clicking on the picture above.
But you don't have to wait until they are in fourth grade to begin showing students how to cite their sources. Highlight the parts of the Works Cited Page you expect your students to complete so they can begin to see how to give credit to authors. I suggest adding a new section of the Works Cited Page at each grade level:
1st grade:
Book: book title, .print Website: Page/article title, .web
2nd grade:
Book: author, book title, .print
Website: Page/article title, name of website, .web
3rd grade:
Book: author, book title, year the book was published, .print
Website: Page/article title, name of website, year/date site was updated, .web
4th grade and up:
Complete Works Cited Page
If you need more resources to help you teach students how to cite their sources, Common Sense Education has some great lessons to help you get started: How to Cite a Site, Whose is it Anyway?
They also have this great video that I always use to start the discussion about copyright and giving credit to the creator.
"The purpose of the Interactive Student Notebook is to enable you to be a creative, independent thinker and writer. Interactive notebooks will be used for class notes as well as for other activities in which you will be asked to express your own ideas and process the information presented in class."
The educational world changed forever (at least it did for me!) when the concept of Interactive Notebooks expanded to include digital interactive notebooks. Using book creator on an iPad or google slides on a computer or chrome book, students can include pictures, video, sound, and when we start app smashing, the options are truly limitless because their learning can incorporate any digital tool that will save to the camera roll. By adding a multimedia layer to Interactive Notebooks, there really is no limit to student creativity!
Here is the ultimate list of tools & examples that you can use to app smash with digital interactive notebooks in the classroom
The example below is a digital interactive notebook that includes a video download from Seasme Street using safeshare.tv.
A special thanks to Mrs. Beattie's Classroom who made the graphics for the "iPad rules" I used in this book.
(Created by Ann Feldman #tt4t)
I used Popplet to create directions to add to an interactive poetry notebook.
BrainPop has some resources to support their videos which you can download and include in an interactive digital notebook.
The following math apps don't save to the camera roll, but you can take a screen shot of them and add them to your digital interactive notebook.
Add caption
I hope these ideas and examples help you get started on app smashing with digital interactive notebooks! Stay tuned for the next few posts that will focus on how to create some of these digital interactive notebooks together!
There are 3 or 4 writing genres each K - 5, which are color-coded on the rubric. This is an example of the 3rd grade rubric. You can choose a genre of writing to grade and you can even grade that piece of writing on language standards 1 and 2.
