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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 11/11

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? –From Picture Books to YA is a weekly meme started by Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers. This is a chance for bloggers to recap their week of reading and share their plans for the next reading adventures they will take. Visit the host blogs for a list of great blogs participating in this meme and a whole bunch of titles to add to your to-read lists.

This week I finished some amazing books. I didn’t read much because I am trying to write more for NaNoWriMo. I also am trying to get caught up at work which means reading a lot of student writing.

Books I Finished This Week:

Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris is a science fiction thriller. It really grabbed my attention from the beginning and I read it quickly. However, somewhere towards the middle of the book, I lost the ability to suspend my disbelief. The ending of the book was disappointing for me. I will still recommend this one to my science fiction loving students.

I finished listening to Eleanor and Park this weekend. I pretty much stopped what I was doing so that I could listen to the last 45 minutes of the book on Saturday. This was an amazing book. I am glad I listened to the audio. It is really well done. I highly recommend this book to teens and adults.

This was a really great ending to the Legend trilogy. I can’t wait to share it with my students who have been eagerly awaiting it. I don’t want to say much because I don’t want to ruin it for people. I highly recommend this one as well.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I just started The 5th Wave and am very intrigued by the story so far.

What’s Next?

I will be starting a new audiobook this week. I have a few to choose from between my downloads from Audible and the free downloads this summer from Sync. I am not sure what else I will pick up. I have not really been following plans lately with my book picks. I might pick up one of the Printz books I have. We shall see.

What are you reading this week? Do you have any great recommendations for me? I would love to hear from you in the comments below.

Slice of Life: Injections 11/5

I am slowly, but surely learning about living with MS. My most recent flare-up seems to have subsided for the most part. I am glad to know that the ridiculous fatigue I sometimes feel has an explanation, and I have been glad to be able to read some blog posts from others who have these same symptoms.

Last week, I read Climbing Higher which is Montel Willams’ memoir about dealing with MS. I was amazed to read about the severe symptoms he experienced, and about how little they knew about the disease just 15 years ago. It was eye-opening to read that book. I hope I continue to have relatively mild relapses if I have any at all.

Last Saturday, the nurse came out to my house to train me for doing my daily injections of medication. My husband and I spent about an hour learning the proper technique for doing the injections and the proper ways to dispose of materials. I now have a little red sharps container of my very own.

The good thing about this medication is that there really are not many side effects. The most common side effects are injection site reactions. Therefore, I need to rotate the different injection sites in order to avoid having bigger reactions. There are seven spots where I do the injections. So I basically feel like a giant pin cushion. Each time I do an injection so far, I get a small reaction. It feels like a bee sting for about 15-20 minutes and I need to put a cold compress on the spot. It is a small price to pay for possibly not having to deal with bigger neurological symptoms, but it is uncomfortable.

In the blog post in which I first spoke of my diagnosis, I wrote that my biggest challenge was that of crossing the line from healthy person to person with an auto-immune disease. I think that this continues to be the biggest adjustment for me. The daily injections just highlight this difference in my mind. So I will continue to despise these daily shots at the same time that I love them for what they may do for me.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 11/4

Books I Finished This Week:

I don’t want to give anything away, but this one was a good ending to the trilogy. I wish some of the things that happened in the story didn’t have to happen, but I understand how it had to happen. It definitely was one that took me awhile to process. I absolutely recommend this entire trilogy to teens and adults alike.

This was an impulse buy last week at Half Price Books. I love Bones and was intrigued by the premise of this book. I really enjoyed this book. I will definitely recommend it to my students. It was a fast-paced science fiction thriller.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I am listening to Eleanor and Park and loving it! I am also reading Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris. This is also a science fiction thriller and I am really loving it so far.

What’s Next?

I am not sure what will be next. It will depend on how I feel this week. I am not going to make many plans because I am also trying to do NaNoWriMo so I will have less reading time.

What are you reading this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Celebration 11/2

This is a fabulous idea from Ruth Ayres in which we write about something to celebrate each Saturday. I am looking forward to participating in this link up each week and hearing about the awesome things happening in everyone’s classrooms and lives.

My favorite season is autumn. It is so amazing to see the beautiful colors of the leaves every day. I love the crisp feel of the air and I love the flavors of Fall. The best is when everywhere you turn there is a pumpkin flavored something. I enjoy all the pumpkin treats…if it is pumpkin flavored, I will love it. This week I treated myself to a pumpkin spice latte one morning and my favorite pumpkin beer one night. Yum!

If you can get beer from Lakefront Brewery in your area, you should try their beers. They are one of my favorite craft breweries…from Milwaukee

In my classroom, this week was mind-numbing with the state testing. My poor 8th grade students have to test in all curriculum areas, so we spent ALL WEEK testing in the morning. We are almost done with the tests and just have ELA/Writing left to do on Monday. Woo-Hoo!

This week I was super excited to start NaNoWriMo with my 8th grade students. I prepared them more than I did with last year’s students. It is amazing to start and to see my students get excited about their word count goals. When I stopped my students a few minutes before the end of class, some actually got upset that they had to stop. It was the end of the day on Friday and they did not want to stop writing! I love the momentum that this project gives all my students. (Now, I just need to kick myself in the butt to get writing)

My seventh grade class had the assignment to write a personal narrative about something that has happened to them. I have been working with them on word choice and choosing strong verbs to make their writing more powerful. I was really pleased with the quality of the narratives that I was seeing this week. I can’t wait to share their work with the world. We would love some comments if you have some time. Here’s the Link: Mrs.Payan’s Kidblog

Finally, I will celebrate the fact that I get an extra hour to sleep tonight. Gotta love Daylight Savings Time in the fall!

What are you celebrating this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 10/28

This week was a good reading week. I felt that I was able to get some more reading in during the week as well as on the weekend. I am feeling less stressed and more on track at this point of the year also. (I probably just jinxed myself with that statement, but it is true)

Books I Finished This Week:

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga is super creepy and right up my alley. I love psychological thrillers and this one is complex. I thought the story was well done and believable, but also disturbing. This book is not one I would recommend to all of my students, but for the students that watch shows like Dexter and Criminal Minds and enjoy them this book will thrill. The thing I found most fascinating in this book is the idea that the protagonist struggles with his own conscious and is not sure what he feels. I am looking forward to reading the next one in the series soon.

I read Bad Girls Don’t Die because a student insisted I read it. She loved the story when she read it last year and was shocked that I had not yet read this one. She brought me her copy to borrow so I knew I needed to read it quickly and offer my opinion. This is the kind of book that I ate up when I was in middle school. I was a big fan of R.L.Stine and Christopher Pike, and these kind of creepy ghost stories of possession and supernatural forces were my favorite ones. In this book the protagonist’s sister is possessed by an evil spirit and the protagonist has to save herself, her sister, and many of the women in the town. This is not my kind of book anymore, but I enjoyed the story and I know that a lot of students will LOVE it. I can’t wait to bring my copy to the class library on Monday and book talk it.

I did not know that Montel Williams had MS or that he had written a memoir about it. I was surprised last Monday when a colleague brought me Climbing Higher. It was quite touching that this colleague knew I would be interested in reading this book even though I didn’t even know about it. It was really interesting to read about Montel’s struggles with MS and his desperation at getting the diagnosis. It really highlighted for me that the strides that have been made in the treatment of this disease are pretty spectacular.

I FINALLY finished listening to Siege and Storm. I love this audiobook. I laughed out loud many times throughout the book and really enjoyed listening. The world of the Grisha is a fascinating world and I am really curious about what will happen next. I hope there are good things to come for Alina and Mal, but I somehow doubt the good will come before they go through many more hurdles.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I had preordered Allegiant so I started reading that book earlier this week. I realized that I was having a hard time remembering the end of Insurgent so I had to find my copy at school so that I could re-read the end of the book and remember. Now I do remember and I will be feverishly reading this week.

What’s Next?

I am excited to start listening to Eleanor and Park this week. I don’t know what else I will pick up to read. It will depend on my mood this week. I have entirely too many books to choose from and I just keep buying more books!!! I just bought Virals by Kathy Reichs and I am really curious about that one so I think it may end up on my bedside table this week. We shall see.

What are you reading this week? Have you read any of the books I talked about? What did you think? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Testing and NaNoWriMo

This is a weekly linky party hosted by Jennifer at Mrs.Laffin’s Laughings. We can give each other a peek into what will be going on in our classrooms this week.

This week, a lot of my class time will be taken up with state testing. In Wisconsin, students have to test in all content areas in 4th and 8th grade. Therefore, my 8th grade students will be testing all week. We do two testing sessions each day. Much of my morning will be taken up with testing and then I will try to fit in a few lessons here and there. It is difficult to plan for that time when the test ends each day because I don’t want to overwhelm my students.

In the afternoons, we switch classes and I teach 3 Language Arts classes. Our work this week in 8th grade will center around the preparation for NaNoWriMo which starts on Friday. The other big project that we have going on is Genius Hour. Students need to be starting to get their projects together for the end of the trimester.

What is on deck for your week at school? Have a fabulous week!

Celebration 10/26

Last year, one of the best instructional decisions I made was to participate in NaNoWriMo with my 8th grade classes. We all loved the experience and I knew it was something I wanted to do again. This year, I knew I needed to give my students a little more time for pre-writing in order to feel a bit more prepared for the experience.

We have spent a few weeks working through some of the pages in our NaNoWriMo Middle School Workbooks to get ideas going. I love the vibe that is already going in my writing classes…students are already excited about their stories.

This week we spent a few days really thinking about protagonists, antagonists, conflict, and plot. It is so amazing to see students so enthusiastic about writing.

I received my classroom kit and am waiting for one more classroom kit that I hope is on the way…we are ready for crazy noveling days.

It isn’t too late to decide to participate in NaNoWriMo this November. Get more information on the Young Writer’s Program website here.

The reading community is thriving in my classroom. I am so happy to overhear conversations that students are having about books. When I ask students what their plans are for the next book to read, many times their plans have to do with a book someone else is reading and has recommended. I love having a group of students who have dug into the reading challenge with both heels and are becoming voracious readers. The best thing this year is that most of my readers are able to come up with a plan for their next read without my help…I love this! Of course, I am always ready and able to bring students a book I think they will love (or a stack of books as it usually goes), but I love that they are able to do this on their own…a real sign of a Reader.

This week I brought The Fault in Our Stars to school for one of my students who was ready for her next read. The next morning, when students were supposed to be doing math practice in the classroom before going to gym class, she begged me to read instead. This book has grabbed her heart and I cannot wait to talk to her at the end about how this book has changed her.

What do you have to celebrate this week? Have a wonderful week!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? 10/21

After a really busy week of teacher conferences and the long days that are involved in that, it was nice to have the day off on Friday. I spent the weekend reading and relaxing. I will probably be regretting that decision tomorrow because I did not spend a lot of time planning and preparing the week, but it was really nice to take the long weekend off.

Books I Finished This Week:

I had a hard time getting into The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa, but by the end I really enjoyed the book. As I said last week, I think I am sick of vampires. However, this story really took a turn. I was really intrigued by the way the protagonist questioned her own morality and turned against her own instincts. I am quite curious now to see how the rest of the series will turn out, because this one left me with a lot of hope for the future of the world of this book.

Keeper of the Bride by Tess Gerritson was a quick and fun read. The mystery was not very complicated and the love story was a little predictable, but I enjoyed the book. This is another author that will be at the Key West Literary Seminar in January so it was fun to read this book. I will definitely be looking for more by this author.

Books I am Currently Reading:

I started I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga. This is such an interesting premise. The son of a serial killer is unsure whether he will become a killer. He was raised by his father and trained to kill, but does not want to end up like him. When a copycat killer moves into town, he tries to help solve the murders. I am really enjoying this book. Teens who like watching Dexter would definitely like this one…although it might be too much for some. I also am still listening to Siege and Storm. I made some progress this week and will most likely finish this one this week.

What’s Next?

I have Eleanor and Park on audio and I can’t wait to get started with that one. I hope I finish my other audiobook so that I can get to that one. I want to read Crank by Ellen Hopkins. I have not read any of her books yet, but I now own a few of them and want to be able to recommend them to students. I also need to look at my challenges to check a few more books off the lists. It will depend on the time I have this week and my moods.

What are you reading this week? Any recommendations? I would love to hear from you in the comments.

Celebrations 10/19 (2)

Here are the things I have to celebrate this week:

This week we had parent conferences and I enjoyed talking to the parents who came to talk. One parent commented to her son on the way out, “Look at all those books! It’s like book heaven in here!”
Another parent was definitely impressed with my book door display. Both made me smile.

I also got to see former students who are older siblings of my current students. It is always nice to see that the students care about you and want to come by to say hi. I love hearing about how high school is going for them and I love having relationships with the families because I have taught multiple siblings.

My students loved the lesson that I did with them about the music video for “Titanium.” I love Corbett Harrison’s ideas on the Writing Lesson of the Month ning. He is so creative and it is a lot of fun to use these lessons. This one was great because we are talking about inferences in reading so we were able to talk about inferring the storyline in the video. Students had some great ideas. You can find this lesson here.

I also used his lesson of the month this month using Sara Bareilles’ song and video “Brave.” You can find that lesson here. My students came up with some great situations and I can’t wait to see their final storyboards.

The best part of Parent-Teacher Conference week is the fact that we get Friday off. I have not had time to just sit and read for an extended amount of time for a while. I read all morning on Friday and enjoyed every minute of it.

I went to a neurologist last week who specializes in MS treatment. I feel so much more confident in this clinic and am feeling good about the treatment plans. I will be starting a daily injection and it seems like the paperwork is going smoothly and the support I will get to teach me about this medicine has already been outstanding.

My mom stayed at my house last night and we had a great time going out to dinner and then going to hear some blues. It is always nice to spend time with my mom.

What do you have to celebrate this week? I would love to hear from you in the comments!

Slice of Life: Connecting Through Stories 10/15

Ruth and Stacey at Two Writing Teachers
host the Slice of Life every Tuesday.

Last week in writing class, I modeled writing about an important moment in my life. I knew it was important to come up with a moment that might resonate with my students so that they would be able to pick a good moment to write about. We discussed how a snapshot moment in writing shows instead of telling and I shared a few examples of snapshots. Then, I started sharing about the moment I had chosen to write about.

I chose to tell my students about the moment that my dog got hit by a car when I was in middle school. I told them that I chose this moment because it was so important to me. It was the really hard lesson I had in which I realized that it was a good idea to listen to my dad. I watched as my students nodded along as I told them this.

Then I proceeded to tell them the story. I was out picking up rotten apples from the ground under the apple tree and chose not to put my dog on his chain. I thought my dog would stay there with us and he didn’t. We realized my dog was not there and then proceeded to call him. We were on the other side of the house when we heard the screech of brakes. When we got there, the dog was still alive but barely. We rushed him to the emergency vet, but he had too much internal bleeding for them to do anything. This was absolutely devastating to me at this age, especially because I didn’t follow my dad’s directions and I felt terribly guilty about the whole thing.

As I told the story, I filled out the graphic organizer the students would be using. I talked about sensory details and how I was feeling. I gave them a piece of my history.

Then, when it was time for them to start writing and I was circulating the room, I was bombarded with questions. What kind of dog was it? Did you get another dog? I also heard the stories from my students. It was overwhelming to hear about the way this story connected with my students. So many of them have experienced something similar with a beloved pet.

After reading their snapshots this weekend, I realized again how important it is to model in a real way for students. I chose a real moment that was important to me. We all connected through this experience and then my students found moments that mattered to them. And the best part is that I found a way to connect in a deeper way to my students and now I will know them in a deeper way through reading their writing.

So much of what we do in the classroom relies on the relationships that we build. My writing lesson last week reminded me that the best way to build a relationship is through sharing things that matter to us. By choosing a moment I thought would resonate with my middle school students, I inadvertently chose a moment that we all could share.

I hope to find more of these moments throughout this year in our writing workshop.