A Reading/Writing Road Map for Those Hard-To-Schedule Days    

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Friends, we made it!! Shocktober is in the rearview mirror and Thanksgiving break can be seen on the horizon. There is nothing I love more than the week leading up to a break for two reasons: 1. Umm… it’s THE break (no cap) and 2. It’s a week full of students coming and going (actually, this is the bane of my existence because it makes lesson planning feel like me trying to change a flat tire – totally pointless). You know what days I am talking about: the days when you don’t want to begin an entirely new unit, you don’t want to resort to a worksheet that’s just busy work, and you don’t want to introduce an essential skill or concept when many of your students are absent. 

If you are picking up what I’m putting down (my students despise when I use colloquialisms that are “old-timey”, but it gives me life), here is the “ road map” I use for those tricky days to get me and my students from point A to point B, without leaving some in the dust. 

Point A: We know that students often believe that they can’t write so they feel the weight of a blank page or screen. And there is often a disconnect between what they think and feel and how they can express themselves in writing (when it’s not a text message or an emoji). So how can we help our students make that connection and communicate what they are thinking and feeling? How can we help students connect to each other and with what they are reading? How can we help students connect to each other and with what they are reading?

Point B: Real connection, the kind that gives you “goosies”, happens when students use mentor texts as an access point to create. All students deserve the opportunity to find their voice and learn how to make it heard. And that is where we all want our students to end up.                                    

Here’s what it looks like in my classroom (the route from A to B):

It’s a routine that can be done in a 48 minute class like mine or an 80 minute block period.

• Students do a quick write (3 mins of writing in their notebook) with a prompt that goes with the excerpt we are reading.
• Students take 1 minute to share with their small group or a partner what they wrote about. 
• Then I set the stage for what we are reading from by giving a quick book talk.
• Students get time to look the excerpt over and follow along as I read it. 
• Students then get the opportunity to pick how they respond AND/OR they get the opportunity to mimic selected sentences from the text. 
• I share my mimic with the students (so when they write, I write) and then do a whip around, which is going to each student and asking if they would like to share and allowing them to decline.

How to use the materials (the stops we take along the way)

Here are some stops (texts) we have made during those days leading up to a break:

	Free Lunch – excerpt  This an excerpt from the YA lit-nonfiction novel Free Lunch.  Read, Respond, Reflect This is a format that gets students writing before and after they read.*Formatting was taken from Tosh Shares* Mimic This is giving students an opportunity to “borrow” from a great writer what they like and make it personal for themselves.
	When people ask how I’m Doing w/reading questions This is one of the poems from “Helium” and the reading routine that students do to remain engaged with a poem.  Mimic This is giving students an opportunity to “borrow” from a great writer what they like and make it personal for themselves.

I like using these types of reading/writing lessons because they don’t have to be part of a “unit”. If a student is absent, it’s not going to hurt them or their grade. But, it also doesn’t feel like busy work for those students who do come to class. (Both of these books are the two most frequently requested by my students to read during their student-choice reading time.)

I hope these texts and mini-lessons help make the days leading up to a holiday break feel like a Sunday drive.  

Just another teacher in the classroom, Ashley Anderson

What other texts or mini-lessons do you use in your class in the days leading up to a holiday break?

You can connect with me on Twitter @Teaching_IsLife or on Facebook at facebook.com/movingwriters.

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Ashley Anderson is a 10th grade English teacher at Dickinson High School in Dickinson, TX. She is in her eighth year of teaching. Before entering education, Ashley was a Captain in the United States Air Force and managed marketing and communications for several private aviation companies. She loves cold coffee, doing sudoku, and cheering on her Gators (students) at all of their extracurricular activities. She lives with her husband, Chad (who is also a 10 grade English teacher and on her team at DHS), and her two daughters Avery (#AveryMonster) and Audrey (#BabyBop). Ashley feels blessed every day to be part of a profession with so much passion and commitment. She is excited and humbled to be part of the MovingWriters team.