How to Combine Service Learning and Persuasive Writing

by Beth Rogers Notes from the Classroom

In this season of giving, it can be challenging to get students to think beyond themselves and their list of wishes.

That’s why an Academic Service Learning project is one of my favorite things to do. This project, part of my district’s initiative to connect learning and community service, allows me to combine persuasive writing with student choice, in a way that produces lots of great ideas for a class project–and guarantees family involvement from the start.

Our Service Learning Begins with Reading

I start by reading students several books over the course of a week, asking them what they notice, and charting their thinking. At the end of the week, we start to look for common themes that emerge. This helps to launch the conversation about our project. Books I have used include:

Some other books that may be helpful are:

Students Propose Actual Service Projects, via Persuasive Essays

After we have read the books and discussed themes, I reveal the assignment to the students: they must come up with an idea for our class ASL project and write a persuasive essay about why we should do their project.

I send home a letter to families asking them to have a conversation with their child, and to help them come up with some ideas for our project. Students bring back their ideas and then they choose one to use as the basis for their persuasive essay.

This makes the writing so much more purposeful. Students know that they have to convince not only me, but also their classmates, in order to do their project.

Then We Vote

Once all essays have been submitted, I begin the task of choosing five to six for the students to vote on. (Side note: if you haven’t used Google Classroom before, you should try it for writing assignments! Life changing!) I try to find a nice variety of ideas as well as essays that are well written.

After this is done, I read the finalists out loud to the class. I always stress that they are not to tell who wrote what; this needs to be about the project and the writing, not a popularity contest. Once the votes are in, we begin the process of planning and implementing our ASL project.

And Finally, We Take Action  

This project has been a great way for me to get kids engaged, help them find passion, and get them to think outside of themselves. We have raised money for local animal shelters, sent money to WWF for elephants, made blankets and games for children in local hospitals, and purchased books for children in a nearby school. The reward of seeing my students feel so successful goes far beyond what I could have imagined. I will never teach persuasive writing any other way.

beth Beth Rogers (@bethann1468) has taught in the elementary setting for the past 11 years. During this time, she earned her Master’s in Educational Technology from Michigan State University. This year, she is in a new position: Instructional Technologist K-12. This gives her the unique opportunity to work with teachers and students, district wide, to incorporate technology into their teaching and learning, in ways that engage, enhance, and extend the learning. She has already already begun to work with multiple classrooms to engage students in blogging, and to help teachers understand the power of this platform. At home, she lives with her husband, sons, and an anxiety-ridden German Shepherd who requires inordinate amounts of time and attention.

4 Ways Education Should Look More Like Google

by Megan Kortlandt Notes from the Classroom

Technology has certainly exploded between the time I started preparing to become a teacher and now, but lately I’ve been thinking about Google–and the ways that education can, and should, mirror the company’s ubiquitous technology.

We don’t need to focus on memorization.

We have to confront our fascination with facts and memorization: Why bother if you can Google it? In the age of information overload, we’re finding that it’s far more important to teach our students how to analyze multiple sources, determine credibility, and read around a topic to gain a deeper understanding of it.

That’s true for vocabulary, too. Vocabulary in English classes used to consist mostly of looking up definitions in dusty dictionaries and, if your teacher was really on top of things, using the word in a few different sentences or drawing a picture of it. Now, the standards call for students to flexibly use a variety of strategies to determine meaning when they encounter unfamiliar vocabulary; the last strategy involves looking it up in reference materials (ahem, Googling it). 

Let’s prepare our students to collaborate.

There is inherent value in teaching the collaborative skills that will prepare our students for success beyond their high school walls. We design projects and lessons so that students will bounce ideas back and forth, develop questions, and seek answers together.

In many ways, this mirrors the Google Drive platform. On Google Drive, you don’t just create documents inside your own software, then print or attach to share. Instead, you have control over how and with whom you share your folders as you’re working. Sure, you can still choose to keep something private and then share it only once you’re ready for the work to get into others’ hands. But now we have the opportunity to collaborate on our work as we’re drafting–in real time–and it’s changing the face of how we work.

It’s been less than a year since I fully switched over to Google as my primary mode of doc creation, but I already have a hard time imagining drafting something without hitting that little comment button to get feedback from my colleagues.

Tech companies update their software. We should update our practices.

We all know that feeling when our favorite technology company updates something. It’s almost like we go through Kubler-Ross’ seven stages of grief each time our tech changes. But the thing is, we do reach acceptance and adapt to the changes–and we do it quickly. 

Part of this has to do with semantics. Google has been telling its users about some upcoming changes to its Drive services and apps. But they aren’t just adapting, changing, or revising: they’re upgrading.

I hear teachers say all the time that “X worked for me when I was in school…” If I applied that logic to my tech life, I’d have to accept being completely okay with only a house phone and a dial-up internet connection. Isn’t it only fair to our students that we upgrade our teaching like we upgrade our technology?

Employees in the tech industry feel valued. Shouldn’t teachers?

I’ve never been to Google’s headquarters myself, and I’m sure there’s more than meets the eye, but still: the company ranks at the top of employee satisfaction surveys year after year. In an interview with Fast Company, Karen May, Google’s VP of people development, explains that the company believes that focusing on their employees’ health and happiness is what ultimately determines their success.

I think we are all realists and know that our funding sources are vastly different from Google’s, so I don’t think too many teachers expect field trips to exotic locales. But in our current climate, I think we’d do well to take a step back and think about how we can support the health and happiness of our teachers, our administrators, and ultimately, our students.

Megan Kortlandt (@megankortlandt) is a secondary ELA consultant and reading specialist for the Waterford School District. In the mornings, she teaches at Durant High School, and in the afternoons, she works with all of Waterford’s middle and high school teachers and students through the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment department. Every time Megan goes grocery shopping, her cart makes her appear to be exceptionally healthy, but don’t be fooled. The healthy stuff is all for her pet rabbit, Hans.

Still Looking for Holiday Gifts? These Books are Perfect for ELA Teachers.

by Blogger Roundup Book Reviews Notes from the Classroom

The holidays are upon us, but don’t despair! It’s not too late to find that perfect gift for an ELA colleague–or even yourself.

To help with your quest, our bloggers have put together an easy holiday-shopping list full of award winners. Now go get them!

If You’re Looking for Picture Books

With the holidays coming, teaching curriculum in any cohesive fashion can be challenging–at best. That’s why taking a break with a Mock Caldecott unit is the perfect way to have some really meaningful conversations about books, while exposing kids to some of the best picture books of the year. I did this last year and it was amazing. The kids really got into it and even my reluctant readers engaged because this was about the pictures, not the reading. (Sort of.) There are so many resources out there once you start to Google: book trailers, videos about the making of the books.

Some standouts from last year that I would give as gifts:

Shy, by Deborah Freedman

It Is Not Time for Sleeping, by Lisa Graff; illustrated by Lauren Castillo

The Airport Book, by Lisa Brown

The Night Gardener, by The Fan Brothers

They All Saw A Cat, by Brendan Wenzel

-Beth Rogers

If You’d Like Page-Turning Nonfiction that Deftly Tackles Social Issues

I’m not even finished reading The 57 Bus, by Dashka Slater, and I can’t wait to give it away. As each chapter passes, I see more and more power and potential in this engrossing nonfiction narrative, and I want to get it into the hands of students and teachers everywhere. Whether you give it to teens or teachers, there are a lot of reasons to put this book under the tree this year:

  • Its mentor text opportunities are endless. If nothing else, check out that first chapter. If that doesn’t model an engrossing strategy for hooking readers, I don’t know what will.
  • It tells stories of those whose voices often go unheard–because #representationmatters.
  • It honors the complex nature of social issues, and respects its audience’s ability to wrestle with them. It’s too easy to treat social issues as black and white and ignore the gray areas, in favor of teaching teens a lesson. One of the things I love most about the YA lit that’s been coming out lately is that it honors the gray areas. Slater respects her teen audience enough to let them grapple with multiple perspectives and difficult questions.
  • It uses the power of story to make an argument, allowing readers to explore issues that they now feel connected to.

-Megan Kortlandt

And if You’d Like a Page-Turning YA Novel That Deftly Tackles Social Issues

The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, is the beautiful story of Starr, an African-American teen who’s caught between two communities: the community where she lives and the community where she goes to school. When I read the novel, I knew that it would be my first book talk of the school year, because I could see many of my students in Angie Thomas’ characters.

When I shared the book with a class, I explained how the title was inspired by Tupac. Later when I saw a student from the class, she asked to borrow the book. I can never turn down a student who’s asking to borrow a book–even if it is a crisp new hardcover edition. Even though I made her promise to return it, I had a quiet feeling that it just wasn’t my book anymore.  

My premonition was right. Recently, she withdrew from our school. But something tells me that the book is right where it belongs–with someone who may read it and see herself, her friends, and her family in the book. The Hate U Give was not my book to keep, but to give.

– Lauren Nizol

A Novel that Can do Double Duty in a History Unit about Katrina

Regulars on this blog are probably betting all the money in their bank accounts that I’m going to suggest a graphic novel (just kidding–what teacher has money saved up in a bank account?!). I’m going to branch out in a new direction, though, and recommend a tough but beautiful read by Jesmyn Ward called Salvage the Bones. It’s gorgeously written and tells a compelling story of a poor African American family struggling to prepare for the devastation that readers know Hurricane Katrina is going to visit upon their home and community in mere days.

The book is a tragic masterpiece, whose dramatic irony relies on our awareness of the storm, stacked against the doubt expressed by many of the story’s characters. But I also love sharing it with my classroom readers because of its beautifully rendered portrayals of the adolescent perspectives. It’s definitely a book for more advanced teen readers, but that’s exactly why I thought to highlight it here: I’m often so devoted to finding the next gripping story for my reluctant readers that I completely neglect to challenge (or even engage!) with my eager ones. This book offers readers not only a diversifying worldview, but a context that is at once modern and foreign to them; we don’t realize sometimes that events like Katrina that feel modern to us are somewhat distant (and meaningless!) to our current HS students.

And if you were REALLY betting on me to give the gift of graphic novel recommendations, check out Ta-Nehisi Coates’ reimagining of Black Panther ASAP. Happy Holidays!

– Mike Ziegler

Why We Should Cultivate a Growth Mindset in Our Students

by Tina Luchow Notes from the Classroom


A cynic might say that a “growth mindset” expects students to work with diligence in an area for which they are not genetically gifted, practicing something in which they will never gain excellence.  

My journey with growth mindsets has been different.

I’ve found that it’s not about motivating students to necessarily work harder. Instead, it’s an effort to propagate a way of thinking and talking. It’s helping high-achieving students realize that it’s normal to face challenges, and that being challenged is an opportunity to push forward and grow.

Why Our Learning Zones Should Be Risk Tolerant

Daniel Coyle, author of The Talent Code, tells us that “to get good, it’s helpful to be willing, or even enthusiastic, about being bad.”

But what if I am a student who is not enthusiastic about learning from mistakes?

We all have the students who know how “to do” school. They’re the ones that get straight A’s without much effort.

For these students, mistakes are not an opportunity to learn. Instead, they’re a stamp of disapproval. So, we need to be conscientious about our feedback–giving feedback on things students can control, like their effort, challenge-seeking, and persistence.

This means feedback should also avoid praise for children’s “smartness.” At the same time, we can help students understand that effort is not simply doing something for a long time, or doing the same thing over and over; but that it is seeking out challenges, setting goals, making plans, and using creative strategies to achieve those goals.

Language Matters when We Give Feedback

We need to support our students with lots of growth-mindset language. Students need to be praised for taking risks. That might mean saying, “Thank you! You just stretched our learning today.”

In that way, we show that mistakes are building blocks to our learning. Students need to be praised for looking at situations in new and different ways, and thanked for giving the learning community the opportunity to explore their thinking.

Yes, We Need High Expectations

Grant Cardone, in The 10x Rule, reminds us that success is important to our self-identity. “It promotes confidence, imagination, and a sense of security and emphasizes the significance of making a contribution,” he writes.

It’s an important lesson, but one that has been twisted over the years.

So many of our students have a sense of entitlement. Many times “the target” is lowered in order to make the student feel “successful.” But is that success? I don’t think so.

Success is about setting goals, working hard–and then even harder–until you reach your target. It’s not enough to just play the game.

Perhaps most overarching is the idea that we are all unfinished human beings. There is always room for change. Even when you think you have reached the top of your game, a growth mindset person is continually looking to reach higher: not to please others but to just become a better human being.

Tina Luchow (@tluchow25) is a fifth grade teacher at Oakwood Elementary, in the Brandon School District. She is in her eleventh year teaching upper elementary students, fifth and sixth grade, in the areas of math, reading, writing, and language conventions. Tina has studied reading and writing workshop practice, conducted action research, and is a 2017 Oakland Writing Project Teacher Consultant. Tina attended Baker College for her undergraduate degree in education, and Marygrove College for her Masters in the Art of Education with a focus in Reading. Unlike your average perfectionist, Tina understands that “good enough” falls around the 50th consecutive attempt to hang a poster completely level. How does she do it? An unwavering commitment to the sole source of her strength: yogurt, granola, and tea.

Want to Do a Staff Book Study? Here Are 4 Books to Get You Started.

by Bethany Bratney Book Reviews Notes from the Classroom


I sometimes like to think that I am a fully developed, 100-percent-complete human. I know who I am and what I stand for, both personally and professionally. This means my professional identity is fully formed and solid as a rock, right?  

The truth is that our identities, especially as professional educators, are always shifting. We’re confronted with new theories, technologies, and trends. And as I’ve found with a fellow group of teachers, who together are part of a professional book study, the drive for constant learning is a component of every great teacher’s professional identity.

Over these few years, we have read some thought-provoking, conversation-starting books. Here are four titles that can inspire a professional book study in your school.

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character 

Our first book study, and probably my favorite to this day, How Children Succeed, got our group talking about non-cognitive skills. These are skills like grit and conscientiousness, and the kinds that impact classroom learning and the overall success of our students.

The book’s findings were eye-opening–yet also confirmed some mutual understanding that we felt we had gained after years of teaching teenagers. Author Paul Tough’s stories about students’ overcoming adversity with these traits were also hopeful and inspiring, feelings that are occasionally lacking in educational texts. And for me, reading this book with a 5-month-old baby at home not only changed my outlook on teaching, but on parenting too. 

How Children Succeed will remind you just how much our students go through as people, and of how resilient they can be.

The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got that Way

Amanda Ripley, in The Smartest Kids, conducts extensive interviews with three American high school students who study for one year in some of the world’s highest-performing countries: Finland, South Korea, and Poland. For our book study, Ripley’s research opened up passionate conversations about teacher preparation in the United States, and how additional opportunities, like sports and clubs, can be double-edged swords in our schools. As a bonus, this book works as a student text too, and has been adopted by some of our teacher participants into their classroom curriculum in courses like AP Language and IB Theory of Knowledge.  

The takeaway: The Smartest Kids in the World will help demystify some of the chatter about education in other countries, and will reinforce the extent to which a system of education is influenced by culture.

Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

Make It Stick focuses on the phases of learning and memory-making, and the necessary steps and strategies to move information from short-term to long-term memory, and then to keep it there. In our book study, a particularly hearty, and still ongoing, conversation formed around the “illusion of mastery” concept. We touched on the importance of revisiting key concepts, and how understanding can be measured in a standards-based grading model. Of the books we have read so far, this one had the most obvious and direct applications for classrooms, and has revolutionized the way one of my colleagues teaches.

The takeaway: Make It Stick will send you straight to your desk to start revamping lesson plans in order to revisit content.

The Teenage Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Survival Guide to Raising Adolescents and Young Adults

The Teenage Brain brought us heavily into the world of brain science. The book looks at how the teenage brain responds to stress, intoxicants, digital devices, and mental illness, subjects that have given our cohort conversational fodder that will last for years. I’m also finding strange comfort in knowing well in advance some of the strategies that I can apply when my own children become teenagers, the thought of which already keeps me awake at night even though neither of them is school-aged.

The takeaway: The Teenage Brain was a great reminder that while it is easy to think of our teens as mini-adults, they have not developed to the point that we can expect to see consistent adult behavior.

Blogger’s Note: I may never have gotten around to reading these books if they hadn’t been recommended by my colleagues and friends, Brian Langley & Lauren Nizol, and if I didn’t work, read, and discuss with such a wonderful & curious group of teachers. Thanks to all!

pic of meBethany Bratney (@nhslibrarylady) is a National Board Certified School Librarian at Novi High School and was the recipient of the 2015 Michigan School Librarian of the Year Award.  She reviews YA materials for School Library Connection magazine and for the LIBRES review group.  She is an active member of the Oakland Schools Library Media Leadership Consortium as well as the Michigan Association of Media in Education.  She received her BA in English from Michigan State University and her Masters of Library & Information Science from Wayne State University.  Bethany is strangely fond of zombies in almost all forms of media, a fact which tends to surprise the people that know her.  She has two children below age five, and is grateful at the end of any day that involves the use of fewer than four baby wipes.

How We Can Help Students Transcend Social Groups, and Share Risky Ideas with Each Other

by Hattie Maguire Notes from the Classroom

When I showed up to the hotel, I wasn’t prepared for the motley crew I’d encounter.

It was two weekends ago, and I was at the National Council of Teachers of English annual convention. There, scarf-wearing English teachers bustled through the lobby, toting bags of YA novels, and tripping over tattoo-covered attendees of another conference: the Old School Tattoo Expo. It was a crowded space, to say the least.

And then the cheerleading competition showed up.

Though I never got to see a love connection, I did experience some predictably awkward elevator rides of groups who seemingly had nothing in common. A week later, I’m still thinking about those awkward rides, and the lesson they offer us:

Our classrooms can mirror those awkward elevator rides if we aren’t careful.

How often do we accept that same awkwardness from our students? We provide a topic or text for discussion, and we get crickets. Or, a few loud voices engage in debate while others avoid eye contact.

As English teachers, we have an opportunity to tackle controversial topics and help our students listen to one another. Those rich exchanges can’t happen, though, if our students make assumptions about one another based on the things that mark them as part of certain groups–their scarves, tattoos, and JoJo bows (figuratively speaking, of course).

Many of our students are hesitant and guarded, and it makes sense why: it’s not easy to share ideas if you’re certain no one gets you.

If we truly want to move from politely awkward conversations to challenging ones, we need to create spaces where our students can connect with one another and practice pushing themselves past hesitation. They don’t need to be kumbaya-singing besties. But deliberate work is necessary if we want them to authentically communicate with one another.

Here are five ways we can help students engage each other in conversation.

1. Show students, by example, how to share risky ideas.

Last year, when discussing a police shooting with students, I shared my struggles: my deep concern for the incidents of police brutality in our nation, and that I’m also married to a police officer. Sharing my conflict opened the door for students to share theirs as well. And though not everyone agreed, we moved past assumptions and into productive conversation.

2. Do–and share–lots of low-stakes writing.

Many students haven’t had opportunities to develop their thinking about controversial issues. Notebook writing can give them a low-stakes opportunity to do just that. Students need to test ideas in notebooks, and puzzle through their answers to questions. And then they need to share–sometimes with a partner, and sometimes with a group.

3. Move students’ seats. And do it often.

I think students are young adults who can choose their own seats, but moving them around, and pushing them to work with new people, can help break down barriers. They can return to seats they choose, but it is good for them to move for part of the period.

4. Study texts that contain multiple perspectives.

Providing credible, quality texts with multiple perspectives gives students mentors for their discussions. A hesitant student might chime in, too, if you add a text from a voice that might not be present in the discussion otherwise. It is tricky when I have a strong opinion (and it’s rare that I don’t), but by providing students with several texts that look at an issue through different lenses, we are opening the door for richer, more inclusive conversation.

5. Provide a space for many different types–and sizes–of discussion.

The easiest way to get more comfortable talking is with practice: pairs, small groups, whole groups, rotating groups. Sometimes those discussions need to be teacher guided, and sometimes student led. Sometimes they need discussion protocols, and sometimes they need to be free form. Different students will respond better to different types of experiences, but all need to practice talking often–daily!–about topics that matter to them if we expect them to engage fully.

It’s not easy to help students find and use their voices. But we can start by creating classrooms that give them chances to practice. By understanding their differences, and learning to see that each unique experience is valuable, students can move beyond awkward, Holiday-Inn elevator conversations toward, engaged and complex ones.

Hattie Maguire (@teacherhattie) hit a milestone in her career this year: she realized she’s been teaching longer than her students have been alive (17 years!). She is spending that 17th year at Novi High School, teaching AP English Language and AP Seminar for half of her day, and spending the other half working as an MTSS literacy student support coach. When she’s not at school, she spends her time trying to wrangle the special people in her life: her 8-year-old son, who recently channeled Ponyboy in his school picture by rolling up his sleeves and flexing; her 5-year-old daughter, who has discovered the word apparently and uses it to provide biting commentary on the world around her; and her 40-year-old husband, whom she holds responsible for the other two.