CLASSROOM SOLSC FOR STUDENTS: DAY 6 OF 31

Welcome to Day 6 of the 4th Annual Classroom Slice of Life Story Challenge!

It’s the weekend! Are your students motivated to keep blogging while not in school? One way I am trying to motivate my students to blog, even on the weekends, is by earning badges.  To encourage weekend writing, students can earn the Bronze, Silver, or Gold Weekend Writer badges!

Margaret Simon wrote about how she is using badges with her gifted and talented writers in her #SOL16 post Celebrating Badges. Her class is even creating new badges as the need for them arises!

If you are considering using badges to motivate students who are taking part in the challenge, here are some tips for ways I’ve organized it:

• Create a list of rewards for badges. In my classroom, each badge earned also earns you one Class Dojo point. 5 badges earned will result in a special certificate. 10 or more badges earned makes you eligible for prizes. I plan on using my Scholastic bonus points to buy books to give as prizes. I will also purchase some pens, pencils, journals, and perhaps a small gift certificate for prize options.
• Set one day a week for awarding badges. I created blogging packets for my students and I collect the packets on Thursday. The packet has each date of the challenge listed and a place for students to write the title of the post written. Students can also check off if the post was a poem, a review, a post written to thank someone, or inspired by an object (categories for badges). There is a spot for them to write down the names of the blogs in which they commented. All of this information is needed to determine if a badge was earned. I made a checklist of student names and badge titles. As I go through each student’s packet, I check off what badge has been earned and can return the packet quickly to the student.
• Award badges digitally. I made a badge holder for each student and put it in a Google Drive folder. I am adding the badges digitally to avoid any printing, cutting, and pasting or lost badge forms. At the end of the challenge, I will print out the badge sheet for each student. Click here for an example of badges earned so far by one of my students.

How has Slicing with your students changed the way you see them as writers and people? In her post , “Celebrating Writing,” Julienne Harmatz wrote this:

“These six writers represent some of the students who have opened themselves up to the world to tell their stories. In each post, I see a little more of them. Just like I see of my fellow slicers. Some of these students are the ones you’d predict to go for this opportunity. They are the writers. The ones who rise to a challenge. But some are not who you’d expect. For a few students, blogging has been the one place they feel they shine.”

Here’s to a new week of stories and giving our students the chance to shine through writing!

Reminders:

1. If you haven’t read the Essential Information post, then please click here to read it now before you post the link to your students’ slice of life stories. Don’t forget to keep your students’ identities anonymous for their protection.
2.  If your students are slicing from their personal blogs, then you should link their blog posts together using your classroom or personal blog. Then, share the permalink to the location of the “round up” of student slices. (Click here for more information on how to do this.) Individual students CANNOT link here directly. Students who are under 18 must have an adult linking for them. Any student links left without an adult link will be deleted.
3. Only post the link to your students’ slices of life here. Do not post the link to your personal slice of life stories here. Go to the daily call for individual slice of life stories to post your personal slice.
4. If this is the first comment you’ve left on Two Writing Teachers, then we will have to moderate your comment. We will be checking throughout the day in order to get your links up for the community as soon as possible. As long as you use the same username/email to log in going forward, your comments should appear instantly in the future.
5. Any questions, please contact one of us.

• If your last name begins with the letters A – G, please email questions to Anna, AnnaGCockerilleLiteracy{at}gmail.com.
• If your last name begins with the letters H – M, please email questions to Deb, DebFrazier4{at}gmail.com.
• If your last name begins with the letters N – S, please email questions to Kathleen, Mrs.sokolowski{at}gmail.com.
• If your last name begins with the letters T – Z, please email questions to Tara, elibenoli5{at}gmail.com.