Resolution Slogan Lesson: Goal Writing with a Twist

"Why ask our students to have a New Year Resolution? Why ask them to write a slogan about it?" I asked myself on the last days of our winter break.

In education, our goal is to help students develop into emotionally, socially, and academically mature citizens. A New Year Resolution allows students to have a voice and choice in their development. This increases engagement and encourages relationships with others with similar goals. We often use motivational posters to remind us of our goals, and students can write their own slogans to remind them of their voice and the resolution. It is also an introduction to analyzing media around them.

I share my story of developing this lesson at the bottom.

Objectives:
Students will be able to:
-develop goals.
-produce clear and coherent slogans.
-create visual displays to represent their goals.

Materials Needed:
Examples of slogans
Scratch paper 
Pencils
Example motivational posters
Poster making materials

Steps to Complete:

1.  Ask students what they know about "resolutions" (you can specifically relate to New Year's resolutions, if appropriate) 
2. Discuss with students the importance of developing socially, emotionally, and academically.
3. Help students develop goals for the year. (If you are familiar, you can help them develop SMART goals) Use teacher-think-aloud in developing a goal of your own.
4. Striving for our goals requires hard working and motivation. One strategy for motivation is using slogans. Either share the example slogans you have or develop a list as a class.
5. Using scratch paper, have students write rough drafts of their own slogans. 
6. Have students share their favorite slogans.
7. Share with students motivational posters. 
8. Ask students: How do these posters grab our attention? What is memorable about these posters? How to visuals/colors relate to the phrases?
9. Tell students that they want to mimic these strategies with their own motivational posters.
10. Using craft supplies, have students create visuals of their posters to display in the classroom.

Here are some example posters in the works by my students.

Inspiration for the Lesson:
Winter break is often a time of reflection and recharging for school teachers. I am no different and found myself wanting to make changes to better the rest of the school year. Sometimes we get dragged down by politics, having too much to do, and other forms of stress. While thinking about the changes to come to education in the upcoming years and what we can do to improve our school systems, I found this article from The Atlantic: "When Finland's Teachers Work in America's Public Schools". 

I related to the feelings of the Finnish teachers. I shared it on my Facebook wall and asked my teacher friends to respond. One shared with me how she combats the "rushing" through the day: Mindfulness. I'm not an expert on the meditation of being in the moment, but I will be learning more (I even purchased Meena Srinivasan's Teach, Breath, Learn: Mindfulness In and Out of the Classroom).

This led to my New Year's Resolution: Enjoy the little moments. Don't let fear or frustration overcome joy. Hopefully 2017 will be a better year by developing my sense of mindfulness.

Recently I read Robin Arzon's Shut Up and Run. She uses her book to motivate others to do "epic $h!t". One of her strategies includes developing a slogan. Before reading this, I know this works because I had many running mantras for myself. Sometimes it was "The faster I run, the sooner I'm done." Sometimes I look at my Nike headband and tell myself to "Just do it." Slogans can be motivating.

I connected this to my goal of Mindfulness. I wanted to write a slogan that I can remind myself with.

Being healthy socially, emotionally, and physically requires setting goals and developing healthy habits. Our students learn through our example, so of course I needed to share this with my 6th graders and let them practice with me!

Gail Carson Levine's Writing Tips

Teachers love to beg, borrow, and steal ideas. Creative Writing is a lot of fun to teach, and Gail Carson Levine, a wonderful children's writer known for her novels Ella Enchanted, Fairest, The Two Princesses of Bamarre, and others.

Levine started sharing her writing tips on her blog. You can find it here. Eventually it led her to writing these two books, Writing Magic and Writer to Writer (From Think to Ink). 

I enjoyed reading Levine's books as a young girl. If I had a bad day, I would grab Ella Enchanted (one of the two copies I owned) off my book shelf and read it in one sitting. For this reason, and the trust publishers have for her, I respect the advice she gives in these two books.

Levine first wrote Writing Magic before Writer to Writer. However, I read them in the opposite order.

Photo from Amazon.com

This book is easy to read; it is fun and creative. It is easy to sit and read through, but you most enjoy it when you can take your time. As you read (she does this in both books), she ends each chapter with writing prompts.

It was a lot of fun reading about the writing process of an author that I've read several books of. For example, "[. . .] I don't think I did a better job with one heroine or the other [Ella and Addie]" (71).

Other than that, I enjoy stealing prompts from this book to ask students to write. Here are a few of my favorites. 

• "Superman gives up saving people. Write the turning point that pushes him in this direction" (73).
• "Visit your villain's childhood and write a flashback that shows how he became bad" (82).

The best way to read this book is when you can keep the copy of the book for awhile. Read a chapter, maybe two a day, and actually take the time to complete the prompts given to you.

A chapter that was particularly helpful for my own writing was Chapter 19. It explains how to make a nail-biting scene. You'll have to read it yourself for the specific details, but a helpful list: 

1. Time Pressure
2. Milestone
3. Thoughts
4. Nonstop Action
5. Separation from the Problem
6. Flaws in Characters
7. Isolation
8. Expectation
9. Injustice

This book gives a lot of fantasy examples. If you have the time, I recommend reading this book rather than Writing Magic. However, the advice and prompts given in each book is different.

Photo from gailcarsonlevine.com

As I began reading Writing Magic, I realized that I had read it before, when I was younger. As she advises, "Save what you write." I have a notebook somewhere (I'm not quite sure where) with some of these prompts and my own creative thoughts.

This book focuses on writing fantasy.

There were a couple of sections within the book who explains why people should write:
            Write to nurture yourself.
            Write to tell us about being you.
            Write to tell us about being human.
            There can never be too many stories. Add to the reservoir. (161)

My other favorite advice is what to do when we're stuck. When we've reached writer's block, write 12 options, both stupid and excellent, to find out where the story needs to go.

If you teach creative writing and want to share easy reads or ideas with your students, I recommend using these two books.

Opening Chapter: Intro to Responsive Classroom

My third year of teaching has begun, and I've started a new adventure teaching a self-contained 6th grade. With that, I've learned many new skills and strategies.

We've, my 6th graders and I, have had a great start to our school year, and part of that is due to my introduction to Responsive Classroom. 

The goal of this classroom approach is to create a positive learning environment that encourages not only academic growth, but also social and emotional.

You can learn about this resource yourself on their website: https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/ 

The first expectation is to hold a morning meeting. There are four components to morning meeting:

1. A Morning Message displayed when the students enter the classroom to welcome them and possibly present them with a warm-up/review activity for the day.
2. In a circle, have students Greet each other. These can vary each day, sometimes serious and teaching them how to greet others formally or ask them to greet each other in accents.
3. Next, students have the opportunity to Share. This is very similar to what I knew as "Show and Tell" during my elementary days. My students sign up to share each morning. Most of them share important events that are happening in their lives. Other students are encouraged to ask questions or relate to the student sharing. The goal is to create an environment where students are comfortable and confident. They also hope that students learn to be empathetic. 
4. Then we do an Activity together. These can vary. Some may be educational and relate to current lessons, or they can simply be fun. My 6th graders love playing Simon Says; Do What I Said, Not What I Say; In the Club; or sing goofy songs together.
5. As a class, we return to the Morning Message. 

This is a fantastic start to our day, and I love that we always have a positive start to our day.  Here is a greeting activity that we sometimes do on Fridays. The students all put one shoe into the middle, and one student starts by grabbing a shoe, and they must guess until they find the owner. This is the person they greet, and that person then grabs a shoe. The last person greets whoever started.

The other great start to our year, recommended by Responsive Classroom, was to write our class rules together. We did this in steps throughout the first week of school.

          Day 1: We determined what our Hopes and Dreams, our goals, were for the school year.

          Day 2: We brainstormed what Rules and Expectations would be necessary for us to achieve our Hopes and Dreams.

          Day 3: We organized our rules into Three Categories, but I didn't tell the students what each of the categories were about. Then, as a class we had to summarize the group of words into a Rule/Expectation.

          Day 4: In small groups, my students create Displays of their rules to remind them of their expectations for the school year.

Here are the rules that my students wrote: 

Walking into our classroom, you might not know what these rules mean, so let me explain.

1. The Golden Rule: Respect Yourself and Others

2. The Silver Rule: Respect Property

3. The Bronze Rule: Respect Our Work

This is how my 6th graders summarized our rules.

The addition that I also practiced with this was the reading of RJ Palacio's Wonder. Here we were able to relate our rules to the characters in the story and how they might benefit from using our rules.

My students are in love with this novel! Some even ordered a copy from our Scholastic Book Order. 

What have you done to have a positive start to your school year?