TPT TIPS for TUES: EDIT LIKE CRAZY

This Article can also be Known as "TRY TRY AGAIN, UGH." I'll explain why in a minute.
You all know I'm Gina @ the Perfetto
WritingRoom. One Word, One Store, One Blog, All things Writing! I am trying to remind people because my friends tell me "Gina, I can't find you when I enter your store name." Someone then apprised me of the fact that even adding a space can throw off the search. NOW, on to the explanation. . . 

Don't Forget Your Coffee!

 
The Value of DOING it ALL AGAIN. . .

So why the Ugh?

If you hear those birds tweet a tweeting away outside like I do, spring is here and summer is already biting at its heels. If you are thinking of joining teacherspayteachers or TPT, just started, are fairly newbie-ish, or even if it your first real summer cycle, be prepared for the epic slowdown.  It hurts, it really hurts.

On the tpt forums, the word is out. "What can I do to keep the sales coming in?" or, " How do I improve my sales in the summer?" There are numerous threads on this topic. Check them out, then start your own!

Advice you'll get regarding SUMMER is THIS:

• It's a great time to remake those lower selling products
• It's a great time to remake your covers
• It's a great time to prepare for September and make back-to-        school products
• It's a great time to do anything you didn't have time to do when you were selling like water during a drought
• Sometimes, even changing your title may get a great product that isn't selling more sales (who knew?)

• If you have been wanting to: work on a blog, pin future items that may begin to sell in a month or so, take a tutorial on TBTS (Teaching Blog Traffic School, by Charity Preston a TpTer who helps you advance your advertising ability and social media skills), make NEW products...... Well, the theory goes if you aren't raking in bucks anyway, why bother advertising for extra hours? You might as well properly position yourself now.

Many of the ideas above are "squirrel techniques." You know, the conscientious squirrel who spent the summer and fall putting all the acorns in his caches so that when winter came he'd be good and fat?

While some intrepid folks suggest making summer or camp materials, or pinning winter products for people in Australia since it is a growing market and people will buy your products, ONLY YOU can decide what's best for you, your store, and your brand. 

. . . . 

FOR A LONG TIME, PEOPLE on the $1000 thread have been saying that you have to Try Try, Again. Here is my Epic Simile: Don't be like Thelma and Louise.

Don't we ALL just want to keep on going? OOH a new idea. Let's keep going, like Thelma and Louise in that cool car, with our sunglasses and babushka, do-rag, kerchief-thingies on, racing onward to the vast unknown of fabulous mind-blowing ideas. Driving onward, onward, over that cliff, and into the inexorable CRASH of low sales and disillusionment, knowing at the very end that yes, we had it coming all along. 

Yeah. Because you can't just leave your problems behind. A bad husband, bills, trouble with the law (or crappy covers, complaints from customers, and typos) in your wake. You and your wallet will eventually end up flat at the bottom of a chasm. You know. . . ...kinda like Thelma and Louise? 

Forgive my epic simile above. Most of the advice about:

• Changing your titles
• Changing/Improving your Products
• ADDING products to your store
• Updating your covers

1.  is good advice ALL YEAR ROUND, not just for spring, summer, and the impending release of the students to the wilds of the suburbs, city streets, or pools, gardens and backyards of the world.
2. Before you read anything, know that results are not typical, and the goal is to inspire, NOT compare. YOU, I and we all can achieve what we want. Just as we tell our kids and students not to compare; let's use the examples below to put a fire under us so that we too may do even better things than what we are doing now. 



Melissa Shutler - Visit her Store!

Melissa's advice - " I was here for 4-5 months before hitting 4-digits. . . .Just keep working. I have 117 products in my store. I constantly update my old products to keep them fresh. I add new products monthly. . . ."






Visit this store - Work Smarter, Not Harder!

Advice from this seller. . . .This is my third month with TPT and I have over $1,000 for March . . . I do set a goal of two new products a month.  I currently have 70 products.  Some have never sold and I will probably redo them this summer when I have more time.



Visit 4 the Love of Math's Store

 Advice from Love of Math: . . . then had my first "crazy" month in August - I made around $2500 and literally stared at my dashboard in disbelief all month long.
I added around  60 products to my store between May-August which helped a lot. Over the summer I also redid most of my covers, updated products, and added a page to almost all of my products that had links to similar products as well as to my store home page. It was hard work, it was worth it! 

SO WHAT's the LESSON??

• It is worth it to REDO your covers
• It is worth it to go back in to products to improve them, to add links to your store and to other products, or to change your title
• It is essential to build your store and add products.
• It COULD result in a sales explosion!

A Before and After

 Cover of my best-selling product, Above

"Complete Glossary of Literary Terms"

 - This always was a fantastic resource.

I thought the original cover was "super cool, snazzy, and totally top-drawer" and  had a "pinterest look" about it on the front cover. It actually was busy, unclear, and probably slowed my sales.

Now...BEHOLD! The new cover!!!

This is finally available for purchase in the new form. This is a better, clearer, more graphic cover. I redid the ENTIRE product, adding store and companion product links. I transposed the entire product from Word to PowerPoint. So much work, but worth it.

    

GOD BLESS - and remember to visit PerfettoWritingRoom Every Tuesday and Friday for Tips and Features! 

And visit my store 

YOUR TURN - SHARE WITH ALL OF US!

1. What have you done that has given you the 

BIGGEST BOOST in sales?

2. How many products do you try to create during the summer (if you can)?

3. What is YOUR position on editing, revisiting, changing and updating versus making new products? The best sellers seem to do both, but how do you manage this?

Feature Friday - Across the Curriculum with Colleen Bergin

 
I am Gina of the PerfettoWritingRoom, One Word, One Store, Welcome to another edition of Feature Fridays, with your host Gina, @ PerfettoWritingRoom, One Word, One Store, One Blog, and ALL things writing!!
     TODAY, we're talking that catchiest of catch phrases - writing across the curriculum, or cross disciplinary writing.
     Just as math, social studies, science, (etc.) teachers are being encouraged to incorporate writing in their curricula, so too should English teachers be spreading our student's wings and asking them to write about topics OTHER than Jane Eyre, Shakespeare, or whatever poet or author we are working on. I know, perish the thought. 

Once students are out of school they will continue to use social media and research, but will grow in other areas, including proposals and other types of business writing. 
      They will be expected to have knowledge of the world outside the strictures of the English classroom and so any way we can reinforce other disciplines through writing will better prepare students for their future lives. I was half-joking when I said it was a catch-phrase. 

Writing across the curriculum was a movement started in universities to stave off the "massacre" of time loss that was happening when students came in as freshmen and sadly didn't know how to properly write at the college level. The fact that writing is now strongly encouraged in as many courses as possible at the lower levels is absolutely essential. Written expression is essential. I don't think I need to go on about this. 

OH MY GOSH! I ALMOST BURNED THE COFFEE AND COLLEEN IS ON HER WAY!!

Get yourself a cup. Relax. What is wrong with me today? And let's introduce the intelligent, thoughtful Colleen Bergin. Our guest for today!

Visit Colleen Bergin's Store - Now, her new logo! 
Click on EITHER! 

LIKE ME, Colleen Bergin also is a strong proponent of  writing across the curriculum. I asked her about it and she said:

"I am a strong advocate of Writing Across Curriculum.  Students need to write whenever they can and learn Academic English.  Restricting writing to only one course does not help as writing is a huge aspect of life whether students realize it or not."

Colleen, or Ms. Bergin,  always brings world events to forefront in English class. She adds that "It's current and interesting for students as they can learn about it in real-time. Students prefer to do informational texts on current events rather than something that happened 50 years ago.  If it's anything to do with anywhere in the world, I find students like to learn about the culture and compare to the culture here in the USA. It's a great way for students to see that world events can fit in anywhere, not just history class."

YOU CAN'T KEEP THIS TRAVELER DOWN!  BIO TIME!!

It's little wonder Colleen loves current events as she's a little bit of a traveler and lover of adventure and travel herself. Colleen Bergin Attended Title I school in Connecticut through high school and is the only deaf child of six siblings. She uses hearing aids and lip reading over sign language though she is fluent in ASL. 

     Ms. Bergin graduated Roger Williams University in Rhode Island in 2010 with a BA in English and Education and rather than letting any dust collect, moved to North Carolina six months later with nary a job or apartment lined up! 

    She worked hard in an ELA all boys 7th grade class for one year before moving on to where she teaches NOW. . . High School English baby, because it's the BOSS APPLESAUCE!

Like ME Colleen  loves traveling - unlike me, she is actually getting to do a backpack-through-Europe trip this summer! (ugh am I jealous, but I am also 40, 41 come June 29 and frankly in no shape for camping or "hostel hopping" anymore, but still, very great for Colleen! Sad for me.). She loves the Outer Banks, the beaches of Rhode Island, spending time with family and friends, READING (can I get an amen on reading and family please?), and you can find her playing tennis in the park. You can find me trimming the hedges in the back yard. I'm chubby. It is process. . . 

And Ms. Bergin likes Grey's Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Bones....

Me? Grimm, Cosmos, and shows they will be cancelling like Believe, Almost Human, Resurrection. The horror.

 HOW CAN WE IMPLEMENT WAC???

Writing across the Curriculum is connected to READING. Don't let anyone tell you different. here's a great, sad, fantastic, awesome Facebook picture I saw yesterday. 

1. 
   

   

THIS IS relevant to Writing Across the curriculum. How is reading NOT related to writing?
Those who regularly read are better able to organically write and write properly, without exhaustive instruction, and they usually require less intensive editing, simply because they internalize structure, vocabulary, organization and more as they read.  This is not unlike how how infants pick up new words from listening. Reading much will silently TEACH you to be a better writer. (Sadly, if you read too much Truman Capote you may write JUST like him, but that is a different argument for a different day). 

EASY TIPS
1. Read in class
2. Create incentives for reading at home
3. Read literary but also popular and current literary books that students enjoy.
4. Assign nonfiction reading that is connected to lessons they will be required to participate in the next day or day after.
5. Students read in order to teach others.

The SAME RULES APPLY for WRITING

1. Write in Class

2. Make incentives for writing in the home

3. Make writing connected to literary works, and to current literary works that are popular to increase 

the desire and willingness to write

4. Make writing of the nonfiction variety, and also applicable to lessons they will be learning tomorrow (and the next day...) so it is necessary for them to write and be prepared for class.

5. Have students write that specifically have to job with JOB SKILLS, science, Math, teaching others, as well as the forms we are already doing (how to, narrative, argument), but expand current events to include other disciplines. 

WHAT DOES COLLEEN BERGIN HAVE UP HER SLEEVE??? SOMETHING COOL!!

                 Colleen Bergin's Best Seller

It's never a good idea to give away too many of your great ideas.

Colleen Bergin's "What's Going on in the World Today" is just fantastic. 

-It encourages students to delve into the real world, 

-write in a way that develops critical thinking (for themselves and 

   those who read or listen)

-think outside the classroom to issues and events that matter

- Use writing as a tool to express what is going outside this 

   classroom.  

- Rigorous in challenging students to use proper sources.

So What Does it Include?

• With a POWER POINT
• Helpful links for research into different countries
• Directions
• Rubric
• Annotation Guide
• Research Guidelines

In short it's nothing short of an INTERNATIONAL current event Presentation Project that challenges students but makes the set up a whole lot easier for teachers. I also like that it is an ongoing project!

Do you have ANY OTHER IDEAS?? 

WELL SURE!!

Don't get me started on how important creative writing is to critical thinking skills. But that is not quite writing across the curriculum, is it?

How about Debate, Argument, History and Quotations of Abraham Lincoln in your English Class?

                         Writing Across the Curriculum with Abe !!

T

What is great about this two-week unit is that it is completely balanced for speaking, listening, and writing. 

There is a journal component, and argument and debate component, a recitation, a major in-class writing activity, as well as small one-day activities that are all based on some of the best of Abraham Lincoln's quotes. 

Of course as you'd come to expect from the best items on TPT, this item comes with a rubric, Common Core standards, directions, and it easy to follow. You can of course make it your own and use what you want or rearrange it. And there is more material than you need. Though there are five journal days, there are ten choices, for example.

This product can be used any time of year but supports social studies teachers and can be used in a cross-disciplinary way. Because of the debate element, many current events can be discussed as well. Consider

visiting my store !

Visit PerfettoWritingRoom for TPT TIPS FOR TUES and every FEATURE FRIDAY. We'll keep the Coffee hot and ready for you, and we're always here to talk: TPT; Tips for sellers; great new products; and wonderful sellers like YOU!

Have you not joined TpT? Let me refer you!



TELL US WHAT YOU THINK!!!! ANSWER BELOW! . . .
1. What is a fantastic cross-curricular or cross disciplinary lesson you've done YOURSELF?

2. What is a fantastic idea you wish you'd come up with?

3. Is there any trend in this Writing Across the curriculum, cross-discipline movement YOU WISH they's STOP doing?

We Love hearing from you!

Nomination for the Liebster?? Whoa!

I just got nominated for the Liebster Award. This is an award that honors new quality blogs on the block with less than 200 followers! I am very happy and not a little shy about it . . .I guess it means I'm doing something right. And that always feels good.
      Thanks to all the readers and supporters, and to Colleen Bergin who has nominated me. It's been a lot of writing and research, but I'm glad to do it if it helps others love teaching, writing, English, education, and do their jobs better at teacherspayteachers.com, or at whatever they do.
Colleen sent me some questions to fill out and so I'd be delighted to answer them, even though I don't normally go on about myself (at least in a serious way; if you read this blog you know what I mean). So without much further ado, here's a little Q & A session in which I answer questions posed to me by Colleen Bergin. Thanks Colleen!


First of all, Thank you to Collen Bergin, who nominated me. Be kind and see her rockin' blog, Adventures in English! 


1. Question:  Why did you go into teaching? I really do think I saw "Dead Poet's Society" too much in high school and, combined with my personal love of language and books, thought teaching would be the best job ever. In retrospect, I realize teaching is one of the most difficult jobs in the world though one of the most challenging. I feel really blessed by some of the experiences I've had.

2. Question:  If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you vacation? I would love to go to Thailand, India, Italy, many states in America like the redwood forests in Oregon and upper California plus Alaska during the summer. 

3. Question: What is your favorite food? Indian, Greek, Ethiopian

4. Question: What do you like to do in your free time? Go to gardens, play with my cat Dude, see places nearby with my husband, and catch up on small house projects

5. Question: Share a funny moment from teaching. When we left the window open because we didn't have air conditioning and a squirrel came in the window. Of course this was the frightening thing that could ever occur. So I and the most brave student stayed in the class while the rest of the class ran out faster than any fire drill and together we "pied piper'ed" the squirrel through the classroom, across the hallway, INTO the teacher's lounge and out the next open window in that room. Everyone erupted in cheers - including the religion teacher who was sitting in the teacher's lounge watching it, and the students who were "so scared" in the hallway, but followed us in to lounge to watch the "grand escape."  This isn't really teaching, though I did set a poetry assignment based on the experience. And the students (grade 10) willingly complied.

6. Question: Why do you blog? I am a writer of fiction and a former reporter/journalist. I am published and so Blogging is a natural extension of how I express myself. I use my blog to talk about English and writing subjects, classroom topics, resources on teacherspayteachers.com, as well as selling tips depending on the day!

7. Question: What is your favorite topic to teach and why? I love Shakespeare, language, and words, so any close reading work makes me very happy, and I'm good at it. I also love teaching fiction and poetry writing. Students love doing it and they gain mastery in many more skills than what you think they do. There are a lot of critical thinking skills needed in writing a story. 

8. Question: What is your biggest pet peeve? Unclear pronoun reference. That person that takes up two parking spaces because - you know - his or her car is that important. Or the person who pretends that he has no idea the line started five miles back and then just as the merge starts he "realizes" that that is the lane he needs to be in. I think the word is lack of consideration or selfishness. 

9. Question: Where do you find inspiration? Tricky, Tricky, it's never in the same place twice. I read that taking a walk increases your creativity though so I might try it. I like taking a drive, too. Also conversations with others helps as does nature.

10. Question: What is the latest book you've read? JUST got George R. R. Martin's first book. . . the book based on the cable series "Game of Thrones"? I don't know how it is yet, though it seems great so far. I also constantly am using reference books, Norton's Anthologies, "Best of" books etc. This is not reading in the traditional sense but standard research. 

11. Question: What words of wisdom would you give a new teacher. "You care, you are doing your best. Keep organized, keep doing your best, and find ONE person you can rely on. It gets easier."  


Some Facts About Me:

1. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer - I taught English in Ethiopia
2. I lived in San Diego for about a year (loved it)
3. I love ginger, red bean and green tea ice cream
4. Have a penchant for research and will look up things on a whim but will get involved and stick with it for months (edible fruits of the world, anyone?)
5. Enjoy taking on hobbies (bread making, spice growing and making, scrap-booking)
6. I have a replica poesy ring from the Shakespearean era as my wedding ring
7. Enjoy origami and miniature sculpture when I have the time
8. Must've been crazy when I enrolled...in acting school at Mason Gross school of the Arts? I am quite shy, which is why I prefer writing to acting.
9. One of my published stories was published via audio recording.
10. I love Teachers Pay Teachers and love selling my writing, fiction and other teacher resources to middle and high school teachers.
11. I also enjoy blogging TPT Sellers' Tips on Tuesday, and a Secondary English Language Arts Feature on Friday. I'm happy that other people are responding so positively to it too!

God Bless, and Thank you so much!!!

                                                                Visit Me!

FEATURE FRIDAY 5/2 - Crushing Customary Common Core with Julie Conlon

Gina, Your Host of PerfettoWritingRoom,
RIGHT, my new friend Julie Conlon and
beautiful daughter Rory!

Has May actually come again? Here at the PerfettoWritingRoom, it's Friday once again. The time when we get to do some of our favorite things: talk secondary English, classroom joys and challenges, make new friends and discuss great ways to improve our classrooms. 

Before we do much of anything get your morning cup of coffee ready. I just made some banana bread with raisins because my husband hates nuts (so why'd he marry me? Am I right?) Should I give ya a minute? Let's get this place percolating!

1. Odd and Brilliant Ways to Use the Common Core in May, when, you know what? The student just aren't having it . . .!

                              visit my store    

 I LOVE nothing more than a great writing prompt that PROVES the inestimable value of poetry or fiction writing. I also love nothing more than proving all those nosy parkers, extra chefs in the kitchen, or spoon stirrers who want to say that such writing is fun, "has its place," but otherwise is useless and is without rigor, or that say there aren't many common core applications.

I know for a fact that after disciplined and targeted poetry and short fiction writing, students often feel an ease in the essay format, as if there is somehow "more room" for them to write, and it is suddenly a simpler format than they remember. This is true across the curriculum, whether students write in history class or art class or in biology.
      I put out a product called "Story Starter Prompts with Research and Argument Tie- Ins" - I love this product because it proves that while going through a fiction writing activity, you can use and have students gain mastery in common core standards usually reserved for essay writing. Let's be honest - a type of writing they just don't want to do in March, April, May, and June.
Please look at it here.

I'll do ya one better, and argue that rigorous poetry and short fiction writing can actually be more difficult than some types of essay writing. I'll accept the hate mail, but in the meantime, consider the difficulty involved in organizing a story that FAR from being a formulaic "list your three points and your three reasons with a graphic organizer" (I know that I am simplifying, so forgive me) must consider spelling and grammar just as they would in any other writing assignment, plus organization, back story, realism or purposeful lack of realism, possibly research, logic, cause and effect, explanation and argument all in one story depending on the needs of the particular elements within. Let us not even begin to talk about symbolism, or characters, pacing, believable dialogue. . .should I go on? Is this NOT critical thinking? Are there not applicable common core standards?

ANY poetry of writing prompt you do can have caveats in them. These caveats can be guidelines. And yes these caveats can be aligned with the common core, but I guarantee you that the students will be motivated.


Fickle, Fickle May - And Wonderful New Friend and Lifesaver Julie Conlon
2. How Does Julie Conlon Use Common Core?
When Julie isn't at Disney World or at dance class with her daughter Rory, AND, when she isn't working very hard on Pinterest, she is cooking up really unbelievable lifesaving literacy assessment items like this one. Have you never been to her store? Here's what it looks like and I do ask you, please go for a little visit. Click, Like, download a freebie, say hi. Be neighborly!

                                   Pop in and say "Hi!" or follow


The more I write these articles, the HAPPIER I am to do them. I so deeply enjoy having the opportunity to learn and grow as a result of meeting new secondary English teachers.

The Common Core - a Metaphor!
The common core is a BEAR. A lumbering, clawed, not very sophisticated beast.  To work around the bear you don't have many options. You can run, play dead, but only the truly great come up with something original. The great Bill Cosby joked about killing one with a loose leaf notebook. But then I met the great Julie Conlon who killed it with ingenuity and a great resource. 


 Much like my Story Starter Prompts that use the Common Core Standards through an unexpected creative writing activity,

Julie Conlon's Formative Assessment Exit Slips are so much more than what you think they are. In terms of making a FUN, usable and flexible Common Core Product, these exit slips hit the mark. They bring down that bear right in the belly (with honey everybody - I love animals!).

What they are not: 
- One dimensional or one-note (write what you don't understand)
- Obligatory (As you walk out, hand these over!)
- Rigid (Here is how they must be used)
*There's nothing wrong with any of those above, but take a peek at the review below.


Let's look at little at this tamed animal. 

See me in Julie's Store so you can look at a preview.

What This Product IS: 
- Based on literacy strategies (Julie was a literacy coach)
- for middle or high school, in any subject where you want to assess
   for understanding and nuances in understanding and critical 
   thinking
- Created and intended as exit slips with unbelievably simple print
  and go forms for you to fold and make into your own little "brain 
  station" anywhere in your classroom and students.
- BUT, respectfully, in my opinion, can be used AS YOU see fit, as
   part of a lesson, or as the lesson (it really is that rich with ideas). 
- Ideal this time of year, but absolutely can be used all year long.
- All common-core aligned reading assessments, with a handy 
   reference guide for the teacher. You know what standard each 
   slip will address. How genius is that. How much less work for 
   you?

Chatting with Julie after I had actually reviewed this resource, what most struck me was the thought, care, and love that went into the product. The multitude of students' learning needs, thinking strategies, and forms of expression seemed to all be accounted for on these slips. It seemed to address all the different learning styles, while helping students show what they know and explain where they got confused. Of course there is more, all the subtle nuances: predicting, pro and con, summarizing, making inferences, and so much more. 
     The more I looked the more impressed I was. I saw how indispensable this would be in any classroom where reading took place (is there a classroom where reading doesn't take place?).  Instead of each week laboriously tackling a new Common Core standard, it was all there on little slips.

Question: How did you do it? 
Answer: The "first draft" of the product (also still available in my store) was my reading strategy exit slips.  I used these to monitor my students' independent reading progress--they were all reading different books, so I needed a way to evaluate their progress that would work for any text.  I based them off of the reading strategies in Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis (making connections, questioning, predicting, making inferences, etc.). 


Question: When did you first come up with the idea for a resource that would cover so many literacy assessment needs?
Answer: This set was created when I found myself in my new role as a literacy coach.  Teachers of all subjects were asking for ways to monitor their students' reading comprehension.  I adapted my "fiction-based" exit slips and added more general strategies to create this product.  In the product, you'll see that I give suggestions for using each of the 20 different slips--most instructions include ways to use it with reading or with general classroom lessons.  I even use them in professional development workshops to gauge participants' understanding!   


Question: I hope we have regular workaday teachers and some TPT teacher-sellers reading today, too. Do you have any advice for making products?

Answer: Thanks, Gina. One thing I realized by exploring other stores is that everything is an option. I forget sometimes that ideas/products that are just part of my everyday routine as a veteran teacher could be very useful to a new teacher. I'm trying to look at my files from the perspective of someone new to the profession--what can I share that will make their lives easier than mine was in those first few years?

So whether you are a NEW TEACHER, a BUSY one, or even a TPT seller yourself, pop in to Julie Conlon's store. See her best-selling product. Just click on the live link above. JULIE will be having a SALE. There is no better time than to give your students the gift of learning!

Click the Bloglovin' Button and ....

JOIN US! Come back Tuesday for TPT Tips for Tuesday, where you can learn tips from the $1000 dollar club. Learn how to own your own success and do better.

JOIN US! Come back every Friday for Feature Friday where wonderful Secondary Sellers unite and talk shop! The coffee's always hot and ready for you! (tea optional!).

Visit Me! See my Common Core Story Starters!

Do you want to become a seller? Oh come on, let me refer you!

BEFORE WE GO. . .

QUESTION FOR ALL YOU READERS - 

WHAT IS THE BEST, most intriguing and fun or unexpected way to use the Common Core Standards in your secondary (or Middle School) classroom? How do YOU kill that bear??  

FEATURE FRIDAY - ELA Test Prep, It can be done, and FUN, with Teacher's Craft!

Hi, I'm Gina of PerfettoWritingRoom and welcome to FEATURE FRIDAY! Is is me, or are these Fridays just whizzing by?
    It is test prep time, and since it is still April, poetry is on the menu. Because teachers love poetry, we have this idea that students are going to naturally love it too. But if you add to the mix the nervous energy of test taking and the pull of vacation, you have a volatile and often disappointing recipe that will leave you frustrated.
      I have a few ideas that I have implemented in the classroom that might work well to keep students engaged in poetry and also serve as test prep. Additonally, I INVITE ALL READERS to SUBMIT their IDEAS!    And today I wanted to share with you an idea from my newest friend, Laney Farrugia, known as Teacher's Craft, who has something she implements regularly and finds works wonders for poetry knowledge, appreciation and test prep, too.

If you want to get a cup of coffee, now is the time . . . 

 are ya ready? Good!

Poetry Test Prep - Fun and Easy

I champion creative writing and poetry, and little wonder. Do you have any idea how many skills are transferred over to other areas of thinking and writing - you know, the areas that we consider "important"?

There are many standardized tests for secondary students, to name one might lead you to think that I am only talking about that test, so let's include them all. English language arts includes many skills, and often, the ones tested may include:

Writing

• Grammar
• Language usage
• Word choice
• Essay construction
• Sentence mechanics
• Organization

Critical Reading

• Vocabulary
• Main idea
• Inference
• Fact vs. Opinion
• Logic
• Semantics

This does not include Subject tests. Students benefit from knowing how essays work, how to find meaning and subtext and of course to understand terminology. As April is poetry month, you can make the most of the time when things are in bloom by using poetry's transferable and plastic capabilities. Nearly ALL OF THE SKILLS needed in critical reading can be applied either to essays and large swathes of text, or to more manageable but equally challenging poems. If you organize your year so that you are doing poetry in April your students will thank you. 

1. Let students TEACH EACH OTHER. - We are all about getting the sage off the stage, right?

I love being the sage, don't get me wrong, but once you present the necessary components of a poem, and the terminology that might be asked on a test (some examples might be the parts of a poem, figures of speech, other literary tropes), students can create questions on TASK CARDS and ask them of each other. Students can make educational videos, be the teacher for the day, be in charge of ONE major element you (or they) choose or decide upon, or more. 

2. Play a GAME. Whether you up the stakes with a special privilege to the team winner, give one team bragging rights, or prefer a more community helping vibe, it's your call. It is spring. Can you and your students leave the room? In the game above where students ask questions about a poem, students can actually hide some of the task cards they created, and you can allot points for how fast the other team finds them and then answers them correctly (this ensures the students WANT to find the cards, ha ha). 

3.  Make the students WORK HARD. A poem is a thing that comes to life the more you look at it, read it, ask questions of it, and unravel its layers. And yes, test makers know this too. So everything from meter and rhyme scheme, connotation and denotation, simile and meter, reader response, tone - questions that are analytical to questions about simple vocabulary - it is ALL fair game.  And the more students do this, and the more they take the lead and challenge each other, the better. 

The point is in the end students are BETTER at analyzing poetry and understanding how a poem works and what a poem is. They are more prepared for a test, but even if they are given a short story or essay in the future on a standardized test . . . they will be significantly better prepared to tackle whatever is in front of them. They will be better, more critical thinkers. Poetry has a way of doing this because of its compact nature. It is to an even greater degree than short fiction, very complicated. There is great reward to be had in teaching short fiction and poetry in your classroom, and yes, the skill required in working with poetry transfers to other forms of reading and writing.

Poetry Test Prep with My New Friend

Teacher's Craft

Also known as Laney

You know how I get when I meet other wonderful English teachers. Some of my very best friends are English folks. And there's nothing better than a cup of coffee and a new friend. Laney, who lives in Naples Florida, was an intensive Reading/Language Arts teacher in a Title I school for five years. During that time, Laney was consistently on the Top-10 List of reading teachers in her county. In fact, she actually ranked number one in her third year, which is quite an accomplishment!

        Awards and accolades aside Laney Farrugia told me that "What really made my heart swell as a teacher was hearing students say to me, 'You’re the first teacher who has ever told me I’m smart.' or when former students would tell me that I am the reason that they love to read." 

 

Like me, Laney Farrugia, aka Teacher's Craft, loves adding items to her store, and she has recently added hard goods like craft items and teacher decor - something I know that she is excited about. What most excited me was how SHE ENGAGES STUDENTS WITH POETRY and INCORPORATES TEST READINESS

Oh, Let's Take a look . . .Poetry Standardized Test Prep

                                   

Teacher Craft's (Laney's) Poetry Standardized Test Prep is wonderful for so many reasons. It not only teaches important poetry components, it teaches test components and then allows students to practice in class as if it were a standardized test. It is not unlike walking you through your own Kaplan training program, except you don't have to go to school for it or pay for any training at all. Just use the Power Point along with the students and they will benefit.

This is an essential resource that has been successfully used in the classroom. But let's talk about why. 

1. It is not a quick fix - it is a long product that begins with the basics, walking students through the foundation. Rhythm, speaker, line, stanza, etc.

2. You choose how you want to use it. Do you want to do a few slides a day? Fine. If you want to do even more, well you can do that, just review it beforehand and figure out what your game plan will be. Have students take notes (probably an even better idea). If students know the earlier stuff, then you can enhance it by discussing things you have recently done in your own classroom or use the material as a launching point to discuss them in further detail. If they do NOT know it, then you can just go slower.

3. Parts of a Poem - I like that when you are done using this product students will be familiar with all the basic terminology, as well as the more advanced material. It isn't just for test prep. It is for learning about poetry in general.

4. Review and then the tackling of all the types of questions standardized tests ask about poetry. As a teacher, I love providing my students with keys. I know they have to use their own minds to figure out how those keys fit. I also know they may have to run madly around the castle staring at odd and various locks, always wondering how this or that may fit. But the best tools make it easier for students. THIS makes it methodical and so much easier. Clean and organized and dare I say fun?? More like a grand tour around the castle in a group . . .

5. Practice and Examples for each. Ooh La la. There is nothing better than preparing students for examples of what they might see, so they can recognize what type of question it is, understand what is being asked of them, and better figure out how to answer that question. And all of it is in one resource.

6. It has multiple benefits.  It helps students understand poetry on multiple levels, regardless of testing. While the practice questions help students be prepared for a test as stated above in number 5, the fact remains that students are in fact learning the concepts - this is evident from the beginning, as poetry concepts are introduced and demonstrated and the focus in not merely on how to improve one's score.  Very much a "treasury" resource - one you want to hold on to and use for years to come.



Laney of Teacher's Craft is so happy to be tutoring and staying home for awhile with her son until he is old enough to attend school, and of course making wonderful resources for teachers.
Her fantastic product . . .
Poetry Standardized Test Prep is available
 in her store Teacher's Craft along with so many other resources for teachers. It was a true pleasure having her with us today. 


*If you're looking for the mother of all literary term glossaries, and consider yourself a bit of a wordsmith, pick up the Complete Literary Term Glossary by PerfettoWritingRoom, with nine quizzes and keys, and such fascinating and useful terms that it will be a resource you will come to personally treasure. 

We look forward to seeing you next week for TIPS and FEATURES! We'll keep the coffee hot and ready for you!
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