Wow! I feel like I fell off the blog-o-sphere for awhile. For months I've told myself I was going to sit down and blog, but life happened instead! Do the DEW was a HUGE success Junior high kids were overheard discussing words they used in the writing, another class asked if they were going to do it every month, and the little ones seemed to be totally engrossed in their writing. We haven't had a chance to start going through our writing samples gathered, but I think I'm definitely going to push for this to become a monthly activity (not gathering samples but simply the whole do the DEW concept allowing the students to write freely).
This week I decided to "clip down" for ANY behavioral "bad choices", meaning pretty much no more "talking paragraphs" no warnings just walk over and clip kids down. It felt harsh but then again we've been in school a few months now and the consent talking out by several needed to be nixed. That new plan of action coupled with not being able to have a "job" if work wasn't completed, worked wonders! All my students really gave their all this week and I was able to get so much done it feels great! Yes, I realize that Thanksgiving is about to hit and I will once again feel like I didn't get half of what I wanted covered!
