It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

It is Monday and again I am joining in the meme over at Mentor Texts.

Hop on over and join in over at the Mentor Text Blog. Just click on the picture 
                                                 

This past week I have been reading The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan.  It was the usual enjoyable roller coaster of:  into one challenge, out of it and into the next. I especially enjoyed the humour, and often found myself chuckling out loud.  As these characters age, a little more romance has been introduced! Of course in true style it ends with a cliff hanger.  I found I had to keep my wits about me as I read as there is so much to remember about relationships and gods....  One of my students is well prepared for this book, he has read the previous one a couple of times, so I am sure he is enjoying this one at the moment. In the meantime I have this one finished  and ready to go into the hands of another boy, who asked could he have it as soon as I had finished.  The boys in my class are the ones who enticed me into reading these books, now I am in the process of trying to get more girls hooked. I can't see why they wouldn't be.

My read for the coming week is Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos, this year's Newbery winner. I haven't read anything by him before so I am looking forward to it.

Quality Commenting Audit Meme

I have been invited to participate in the Quality Posting and Commenting Meme, begun at the Langwitches blog.  Thank you Tracy for passing on the challenge, it has challenged me to stop and reflect on the commenting that my students engage in.  

Commenting is an important part of blogging.  At its best it carries the conversation on, adds ideas, enables others to think further about the topic, to agree or not agree with the writer of the post.  It also allows the person commenting to give support and encouragement to the writer.  Every writer likes feedback! 

As teachers we would like our students to engage in writing quality comments.  There are teachers out there that certainly model this and set high expectations.  Two such teachers are Linda Yollis and Kathleen Morris. Although they are two that come to my mind readily, there are other teachers endeavouring to do the same with great success. For example, just read the wonderful posts linked in my first paragraph.  These teachers challenge me by their professional approach and expectation of high standards from students.  They awaken in me the need to reflect on my own journey teaching commenting to students.

As a class we have talked about commenting and together we have set guidelines.  However as I reflect, I have not followed that up enough to ensure that quality commenting is taking place.  We haven't examined quality comments enough, nor examined our own comments and worked on developing them further.  Therefore it is very timely to examine the kinds of comments that are happening in my classroom and to plan for some intervention when we return to school in February 2012.

The two comments I examine below are really the pre-assessment.  What is happening with commenting in my class?  Let me examine that and see where I need to go.  At the end of the term I am going to commit to another teacher post on this blog  in April to  reflect again on where my class is with the making of quality comments.

                Commenting Guidelines

"It is better to make one quality comment than many poor comments"

Ø Be positive and respectful.

Ø Give details about what you agree with or like in the post.

Ø Write a comment that might make the reader of your comment think further, or connect to in some way.

Ø Share your feelings, opinions, ideas and questions in relation to the topic of the post.

Ø Make sure you write everything so that the person reading the comment will understand what you want to communicate.

Ø Use correct spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Ø Begin your comment with a greeting and end with a signature.

Ø Use formal language – think about your word choice, sentence fluency and paragraphing.

Ø Double check your comment before posting – reread it.

Ø Finally ask yourself how will the person feel when they receive your comment? 

Ø Publish it.

Ø Remember to check back so that you can respond if the person you left the comment to furthers the conversation.

Ø Copy your comment into your word document, My Commenting, so that later in the term you can reflect on your commenting.

Tip: Clicking on each comment image will enlarge it for easier reading.

On the very first day back in 2012 I commit to sharing with my students a powerpoint that I have begun with the four slides above, we will revisit our guidelines and refine them if necessary.  I am also thinking of setting some kind of challenge - for example make 15 -20 quality comments in Term 1.  (10 weeks)

Your turn.

I would now like to nominate two more teachers to take a turn at sharing in a meme how they see quality commenting.

J Salsich   on Twitter @jmsalsich

Stephanie     on Twitter@traintheteacher.  Stephanie I know you may not want to do this post straight away, but in your time.