Getting Personal With Anne Frank

To finish up the year, my 7th graders read Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl.

I had never actually read her diary--while I was in Jr. High, I only read the play. So, it was interesting to read her actual thoughts, and one thing became clear to me--she was a very typical 12-14 year old girl! She was a little arrogant and sometimes, even a brat! But, she was still very reflective and loved to learn. She also really opened our eyes about the world of the Jew during WWII.

I was expecting my students to feel impressed and enlivened by Anne Frank's diary and inspired to write their own, just as I had seen on the movie Freedom Writers. Well, I was mistaken. These 7th graders are from stable families with stable backgrounds, not kids in the slums of Long Beach. CA who fight abuse, poverty, gangs, violence, drugs, and other drama in their life. It didn't hit hard and home for them, even thought they were learning about WWII at the same time in history. In fact, many didn't like Anne at all, for the same reasons as I stated. But, that could just be a reflection of themselves, since they are the same age Anne was when she started her diary ;) Then again, Anne got pretty personal with some details of her life, like having her first period. Whether you are a boy or a girl at the age of 12-13, that's something you really don't like reading or discussing, and they told me that!

I had my students my students write their own little diaries, to try and relate to Anne better. We wrote in our journals every Friday and the prompts related to what we had read in Anne's diary each week.

Journal Entry #1

Give your journal a name.

Describe yourself. Describe your family. Describe your house. Describe your friends.

Describe your school. How do you feel about school?

What was your last birthday like?

Have you ever had to move? What was it like?

Journal Entry #2

What is your relationship like with the members of your family? Why? Do you wish it was different? How?

Describe a time when you were scared. What happened? When? Where? Who? What? Why? How? How did you feel? What was the result?

Journal Entry #3

Although you are not hiding out from Nazis and are allowed outside, there is still something you are probably yearning for freedom—summer. Why are you excited for summer?

What are your thoughts and feelings on prejudice and war?

Have you ever had a dream that you remember vividly? How has it affected you? Was it a good or bad dream?

Journal Entry #4

What is your best remedy for loneliness, anxiety, or depression?

Have you ever been in love? Describe the person you had a crush on. Describe your feelings for them. Describe your relationship with them.

Are you religious? Are you proud of your religion or ashamed, or indifferent? How do you feel about your religion?

Journal Entry #5

Why do you write? What do you like to write? Why do you think it’s important to write?

What is your favorite subject to learn? Why?

Was there ever a time you said something to your parents that you regret? Describe it.

Journal Entry #6

Why do you think religion is important?

What do you think of the youth these days? What are their downfalls? What are their good points?

How would you like people to view you? Why?

Some students did the bare minimum and didn't really put effort into the assignment. Others jumped head first and wrote as if it were a real diary. I loved reading these and getting to know my students on a better level! I was so honored they opened up to me and let me know their secrets. 

I am definitely keeping this assignment for next year. This is what it is to be an English teacher!

Grammarly

Use Grammarly's grammar check because otherwise, the Grammar Nazis will attack you in your sleep with your own terribly written paper, causing a plethora of paper cuts!

*This post is sponsored by Grammarly, The World's Best Grammar Checker at www.grammarly.com. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

As you all know, I am an English teacher at a small charter school. I have mentioned numerous times that my charter school is quite rigorous. One part in our curriculum that we pride ourselves in is our school-wide writing program. Every day, our students practice grammar and writing techniques. Starting in first grade, our students begin to learn the principles of grammar. They are able to label and diagram sentences, identify clauses and phrases, and are able to use mechanics and punctuation correctly. The reason we focus so strongly on grammar is to help them in their writing ability--if they know the basics, they will be able to do self-editing as they write. Our students write a lot!!! They are writing a paper every single month. Now, our writing curriculum is spread out, so they learn to write in the different subjects, but they are always working on a paper. I love this--practice makes perfect, I feel. The more they write, the better they'll be.

Typically, our students do their prewriting and outlining in class. Once they get those checked off by me (or whichever teacher they are writing for), they type up their drafts on a site called utahwrite.com. This is a wonderful website that allows students to type in their paper, then allows me to look at them all. The website automatically edits them for grammar (green highlights) and spelling (red highlights) mistakes. I can then go in and add in my own comments (yellow highlight).

When the students log back in, they are able to click on each of the highlights and tips will be provided for you. But, this website can be limited, especially because some of the site-generated tips are vague, especially if we haven't focused on that grammatical concept yet. Also, it's not a perfect grammatical website, so it misses quite a few grammatical, mechanical, and spelling mistakes.

That's where Grammarly comes in. All you do is take whatever you've written, a five-paragraph essay for 8th grade English, a college term paper, or even tomorrow's blog post, and paste it right in their homepage. Click "Check Your Text," wait less than 5 seconds, and it will find mechanical, grammatical, spelling mistakes, and much more!

The three main goals of Grammarly is to, "Instantly find and correct over 250 types of grammatical mistakes, improve word choice with context-optimized vocabulary suggestions, and avoid plagiarism by checking your texts against over 8 billion web pages."

It highlights your paper, just the same as my students' utahwrite.com account does, but if you compare the tip bubbles, Grammarly's is far more specific and detailed.

I am really impressed with Grammarly. I think it'd be a wonderful tool for English teachers, especially High School English teachers to have their students use this website. Now, the downside is that you would have to pay for accounts, but if my school is willing to pay for a subscription to utahwrite.com which helps students improve their writing, then I don't see why schools would reject this website in their budget!

I'm definitely going to use it for my blog posts, as well! I'm excited, because, although I'm an English teacher, I'm not a Grammar Police. I'm actually one of the fugitives running from the grammar law. So, (as a teacher) I rely heavily on websites like this to help me help my students. But now, I can also use it to improve my own personal writing as well. I suggest checking Grammarly out!

Students Write the Darndest Things Link up!

Junior high students have some wonderful ideas, albeit sometimes not transmitted well into the written word. This makes it really funny to read their writings and is probably my favorite part of grading (aka the only part that makes it bearable!)

Like, there was this one time I had them write on responsibilities and rights of citizens of the U.S.
Or the time they wrote time travel diaries about events in the Old West.
As well as other funny, random writings.

Well, now that school has been going for a month and I finally feel like my head is above the water, I started searching for these gold gems again. And I've started to find them. But, I know that numerous of you are teachers as well and find a wonderful trove of hilarity and deepness. So, that is why I am introduced this new linkup:

<div align="center">
<a href="http://www.morrellfairytale.com/search/label/student%20writings" title="Students Write the Darndest Things"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggHe-kTIcPR8Rs8PHpCHydZJfw6II7-s0CkEmXi_xS09SsgLdeVA6FdNYv3GqvgsXVe37O0DAQ8cJnd9N2IrdIGM1DvdzYrQRX6oiFy0nc9EoE1kzGaU-65chYS8BiQ8XK6r_h2E1Qca4y/s1600/kids+say+the+darndest+things.jpg" alt="Students Write the Darndest Things" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

The rules:
Mention your name and your blog. What subject and age/grade you teach. What assignment these "quotes" are from.
Write down funny, silly, "no-duh", wonderful, inspiring, deep things your students say. Don't use any student names. It doesn't have to be long at all. There can be any number of quotes!

Link up is every 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month. If you are interested in co-hosting, let me know!

Here are some of my students' writings!

First of all, one day last week, we practiced writing paragraphs that compared and contrasted. Our prompt was given to us by my class of six 9th graders. We were to compare and contrast Plankton and Mr. Krabs (from Spongebob Squarepants). These paragraphs were hilarious, but they got the idea!

My 7th graders are reading The Pearl by John Steinbeck. Kino is part of an indigenous tribe in Baja California. This tribe has a special musical culture. Everything is described as a song (The Song of Family=his baby cooing and his wife making breakfast. The Song of Evil=scorpion about to poison his baby.) So, we talked about how music influences us.  Here are some examples:

~Most music can affect people in more ways than one, and they can symbolize more than one thing. Like my Song of Evil would be things that can hurt me, like homework.
~ I listen to dub-step. It tells me stories in the rhythm and melody. It could either be a crazy party or a morning sunrise.
~ Music is important to me because when I'm sad or angry in playing videogames and I need a little music to turn on to inspire me to kill more zombies in Black Ops or something. (one of my female students wrote this! shocked me and made me laugh and do a fist-pump that I'm not the only female gamer)
~ Courtney inspires us to go camping and go to school.

Dub-step as a morning sunrise? That's a bit of a stretch for my imagination...but hey, who knows, it may be that inspiring to my student!
I also asked them what they would do if they had the Pearl:

~ If I had the pearl I would tie one end of a string to the pearl and the other to my hand then I would thrown the pearl at people and it would come back to me.
~ If I had the pearl, I would pay for my mission then college then tithing and then I'd rub it in my brothers' faces.

Some of them have high aspirations, huh?

Why I Love My Students

Skirtember is still going strong during the second week! Yaay! I wore a skirt every day this week...except for Sunday because I was sick and stayed in my PJs all day--I didn't even brush my hair on Sunday!

Monday--Tank and shirt at Wet Seal, Skirt at Wal-Mart, tights at H&M

Tuesday--Leggings at Wal-Mart, dress at Papaya

Wednesday--Shirt at Papaya, skirt at Wal-Mart, tights at H&M, shoes at Payless

 Thursday--dress at Target, tights at H&M, cardigan at Target

Friday--shirt at Wet Seal, dress from parents from Hawaii, pants at Papaya, shoes at Sole Envy

I love the place I teach at. It is a small charter school in West Jordan that focuses on having a classical education. Our teaching philosophy focuses on Core Knowledge.

I have a total of 54 students: 

-- 21 seventh graders for two periods of Language Arts and Literature

--6 low-ability ninth graders for Language Arts

--11 ninth graders for Literature

--16 eighth graders for two periods of Language Arts and Literature

I love these students! I have only been teaching here three weeks and I've already gotten such a good connection with my students. I am able to see their personalities in their writings and discussions. I can see what they understand and what they don't. I really like having smaller classes. We can be more in a more intimate setting with our learning. 

They definitely have their own personalities. (Here I am going to copy Bonnie because I love what she writes about her students--and it's true, each class has their own personality!)

7th graders (period 1&2): These students are just bursting to learn. I have about 5 out of the 21 who are new to the charter school, new to the rigor of grammar and writing, new to always writing in cursive. But, they are all yearnin' for some learnin'! We recently read "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant. We learned about irony and I had them create alternate endings using some form of irony. They were absolutely hilarious! These kids are very funny! I love them!

9th grade Language Arts (period 3): I only have 6 students in this class. It is a lower-ability for language arts. All six have some sort of learning or social disorder that affects their writing ability. But, these kids (5 boys and 1 girl), all love me already (and I them) because we all like anime and comic-book stuff. They try their hardest and really want to be able to succeed. They want to prove to me they understand the grammar. But, they are also a very talkative bunch! It's one thing to have classroom management skills with a class that is 30+, but how do you manage 6 very close friends?!?!?

9th grade Literature (period 5): There aren't very many 9th graders because most leave to have a public jr. high experience before going into high school. So, I only have 11. On the first day, I asked them what their favorite genre was, and without fail, all 11 said either Sci-Fi or Fanstasy! YAAAY! What a perfect class. And boy, do our discussions rock! We just finished studying Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and we had the best discussion on tradition, cultural differences, and morals. Boy, am I excited to get into novels with these 11 wonderful students who love discussing and applying literature to their lives! They all love English classes! I have to thank their previous English teachers!

8th graders (period 6&7): I have quite a few overachievers. There are about 5 out of the 16 who will always raise their hand. I'm just about at the point where I have to ask for someone other than them to answer to incorporate more class participation. However, they are a very quiet group overall. I'm not sure if this is because I'm their last teacher for the day and they are tired/done, or if its because they are 8th graders. I'm still trying to figure out how to inspire the majority of them to be active, willing participants in class. But, they are very fast and very accurate with their grammar! The best out of all my classes!