Using Google Forms for Status of the Class

Why Google Forms:

• Because students are not having to publicize where they are or what they are struggling with, they may be more forthcoming about struggles or concerns.
• Form data shows up in sheets, which lets you organize information
• Students dos not have to wait for you to finish status of the class to begin working. They can come directly into class, do the status of the class form, and then begin working.

Set up is easy:

Create a new Google Form. I like to include: name, information about their piece, a drop down of what stage they are in, a drop down of how they are feeling about their piece and what they need from the teacher, an additional short answer if they feel there is any information they need to tell me. Check out what this form looks like here. I make the form and then I make a copy for each class period. I prefer to do it this way so I can see the pie chart (see below) for each class as an individual instead of cumulative. I want to be able to tailor my instruction to each period, so it makes more sense to my thinking to do it this way.

Responses:

The first view of data gives you an overview of responses. If you see most kids at a certain stage, this can help you decide mini-lessons and pacing. Likewise, this can also tell you how your class is doing overall. A class feeling a lot of uncertainty vs. a class that for the most part feels good to great needs a conversation or perhaps new approach.

The second view is in the sheets. The first sort I go to is "Where are you?" From there, I quickly pair up peer conferencing opportunities, then I look at "How is it going?" to see if any students are in dire need of help. If I see several students who are giving me SOS and on the same stage of the writing process, I'll do a quick small group to help them. I may also see about using a student who is done helps a student who may be stuck on revising do a second, more in-depth conference. Likewise, students who are all done, may actually be "done" and I may partner them up. From "How is it going?, I move back to "Where are you?" and start with students wanting to conference with teacher and meet with them, check in with students feeling uncertain, and the cycle through my students who have finished peer conferencing or revising as needed.

 Additional way to use Google Forms in workshop classrooms:

When doing group projects, this can also give you insight into issues within the groups. Have each student fill out their own without group members looking over their shoulders.

Great for literature circle status of the class as well. It can help you determine if a group is falling behind or confused by their book.

Use it for self-selected reading. Students can communicate the page they are on, their goals for the reading, etc.

Status of the Class comes from Nancie Atwell's In the Middle. I highly recommend every ELA teacher read this book!

Choose Your Own Adventure Prewriting Lesson 5: Submitting

How to get a word count for Power Point

It is hard to get an accurate word count for PowerPoint. A quick search of the Internet shows that the

suggested method of selecting the file's properties and then looking in details is inaccurate. However, since I asked for a minimum of 1000 words for the presentation and I wanted it ran through turnitin.com, I wanted to make sure I could get the word count receipt.

Students need only convert the PPT to PDF and then submit the PDF to turnitin.com.* It will check the originality and count every word. Students turn in the receipt and the actual presentation to Edmodo.

*I checked turnitin.com with a simple submission of the PowerPoint presentation without it being converted to PDF and it reflected the same word count found when using the properties feature.

Example from PPT using word count the properties>details feature vs. converting to PDF and using turnitin.com: 

Word count using properties: 50

Word count using PDF version on Turnitin.com: 1,728

Choose Your Own Adventure Revising and Editing Lesson 4: Beta Testing

After students complete the presentation, students participated in "Beta Testing" which is similar to the conferencing and revising found in writing workshop.

Each presentation needed two people to beta testers. I had them fill out a beta testing form:

Beta Testing

Owner of the presentation: Set your presentation to presentation mode.

Beta tester: click through the presentation. If you need to uncover a slide number, you can press the ESC key, record the number, and then resume presentation from that slide

Does the PPT have 2 deviations (5 for partners)?

Does the PPT have 3 themes that seem accurate (6 for partners?)

Issues with hyperlinks: (ex: it doesn’t work, description doesn’t lead you to the slide that would make sense, etc.)

Accuracy issues:

Spelling or grammar issues (make sure to include slide numbers!):

Areas where you would like more details, info, imagery, dialogue (this may  not be for everyone, but you should especially let people know if their storylines feel skimpy)

Choose Your Own Adventure Formatting and Drafting Lesson 3: Set up PPT, Hyperlinking, Narrative Voice

Now that you finished index cards that follow the plot as well as those that deviate,  it is time to start creating the the PowerPoint, make hyperlinks, and draft.

Choose Your Own Adventure Prewriting Lesson 2: Create deviations from the plot

After completing day one of prewriting, it is on to day two: Deviation day! The kids love playing the "what if?" game and not only get a good dose of creative writing but also are secretly analyzing how those decisions influence theme.

1. In my example, the plot took 8 cards, so I model with my first deviation and have that become card 9. I also show students how, if they want, they could have deviations within deviations.
2. Students determine the new theme. (see my method of teaching theme here)
3. I do make sure each child has only one of each card and lays out their outline to show how it makes sense. 

adding in the deviations

Go to the next day, creating the PowerPoints, linking, and drafting. 

Choose Your Own Adventure Prewriting Lesson 1: Set up the plot

What a way to get kids to work and enjoy themselves at the same time! Students liken this project to writing fanfiction. So many of them are so excited after our first day that they tell me "I can't wait for tomorrow!" In my version, students create Choose Your Own Adventure PowerPoints (Google districts can use Slides, of course) for A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is, to me, a great project for a Shakespeare play. What makes this different than the typical Choose Your Own Adventure is that my students are working from a text they have read, thus making this both creative writing as well as reading comprehension and analysis all in one. 

What Choose Your Own Adventure asks students to do:

- review a plot of the play

- write prose paraphrasing the poetic drama

- show an understanding of the plot following one character

- creatively write deviations from the main plot

- determine a potential theme of the play and how the theme changes if a character's actions change

- use Hyperlinks within a presentation to go to non-linear slides

Overview:

Day 1: create cards for accurate timeline
Day 2: create cards for deviations
Day 3: set up slides and hyperlinks
Day 4: draft accurate timeline
Day 5: draft deviations
Day 6: beta testing with revising
Day 7: submission

Day One:

1. I showed students a couple slides of an example. This gives students the big picture. The
example I use is for Theseus because students have to use a main character and Theseus, being a minor character, works well to model without giving or "stealing" the students' ideas. 

2. Students select a main character and write that name at the top of the paper. 

3. Students write a chronological list of all the decisions that character makes through the play. I encourage my students to use scene summaries and the play itself. I also have them sitting next to people who are doing the same character if they choose. That way they discuss and clarify what happened. I did set the students on a 10 minute timer for this portion so they would not lollygag. 

4. Modeling with my list of options by Theseus, I selected three places where I will have a deviation. The requirement for my students were 2 deviations which leads to 3 separate themes with a total of 1000 words if they worked as individuals and 5 deviations which leads to 6 separate themes with a total of 2000 words if they work in partners. Students selected theirs. I encouraged students who want to do more and make things more complex to do so.

5. With my own index cards I modeled creating just the timeline for what actually happened in the play. I leave the deviations blank. I model a couple cards and then showed the kids my completed set of 8. The rest of the class time was for the kids to finish theirs.  

Don't forget to see what I do Day 2 and Day 3. 

Here are how my example cards looked. I use cards because each card will match up with the PowerPoint slide. 

Cards: red numbers are what the card is,
blue is the card it will link to.
Card 1: title card

Cards are notes/outline.
Deviation Cards: for day 1,
students are only marking the
plot points that actually
 happened.  The blank is where 
the deviation will be filled in later.

Plot Point Cards: sometimes you
have so much information you
will need to split it up over several
 PPT slides or there is a setting
change. That is when you use 1 button.

Final slide includes the theme.

Analyze Decisions in Drama

Reading narratives lets you analyze decisions of characters and authors, but when that narrative is a piece a drama there is an entire world of decisions waiting to be analyzed. Directors, actors, costume designers, and lighting directors make a multitude of decisions as they work with the texts. To me, what a waste of Shakespeare if we don't have students take this opportunity to look at interpretations of his work! 

In A Midsummer Night's Dream, I love to have students look at Act 3, scene 2, where Hermia and Helena are fighting and Lysander and Demetrius are torn between wanting to protect Helena and wanting to fight. The scene has so much action, and comedy, and conflict that watching it three times in three ways doesn't feel arduous. I prefer to use stage productions, where possible, although the benefit of a movie version thrown in does them lead to some interesting questions: What are they able to do in movies that can't be done on stage? How is the movie of an audience different than that of a theater?

I like to match a traditional clip (you can actually find clips from The Globe on YouTube!), a clip set in a past time period (there is a great one set in the 1960s by the University of California), and a very modern clip, which is actually part of our Wordplay Shakespeare.

The most important reason I think students should experience analyzing different versions of the same scene is that if they only see one version they think that is the way to do it.

Analyze Character with Costume Design

Switch up the mundane "character trait, textual evidence, explanation" by asking your students to adapt to book into a movie set on their campus. Students act as costume designer and have to use character traits and symbolism to hit on keep traits, motivations, relationships, and themes.

Students responded very positively to this assignment. I had a lot of kids telling me both in person and via the Edmodo login that it was fun.

Sample from a student's analysis of A Midsummer Night's Dream:

One way I would modify it in the future is request student use at least one piece of textual evidence per slide.