Character Building Tip Five: Are You Going the Direction You Choose?

New Vocabulary
Psychological
Conscious
Subconscious

Introduction
Every article about freeing yourself from negative emotions, specifically psychological problems like depression, anxiety, and addictions, always goes back to values. Equally aligned, each discussion about reaching your potential and being as successful as you can possibly be also relates to values.
Supposedly, if your actions match your conscious and subconscious values, then you are able to peacefully excel in all areas of your life. When your actions don't align with your values, then your head starts to hurt as you become weighed down by difficult decisions and feel indecisive about the right choice. So, in sum, figure out your values. Check them frequently. Make sure your actions are aligned with your values. Set goals for yourself in each area of your values, specifically the areas where you think you could improve.

Defining Values
There are numerous books, articles, videos, and assessments that will explain the meaning of values. Several of these have credible, researched sources, yet they still significantly vary in definitions and explaining how to figure yours out. That being said, I have meshed them together for an explanation that best suites myself and, hopefully works for you.

Think of Dr.Seuss's quote, "You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own and you know what you know, and YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go" . The directions you choose to go are you values: a continuous road that never ends. You can choose around ten core values, or ten different roads that you focus your life on. Any more and you might not be able to fulfill the needs of your core ten values, and any less and you might be missing some meaning.

This video can help explain values, too:



And Here is Why You Should Trust This Value Assessment
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a famous theory that explains the human's most basic needs in the form of a pyramid, a visual representation satisfying the bottom need first as the biggest section representing the most significant need, working its way to the top as each of the five needs are fulfilled.

I'm including these video explanations because I know you'd rather watch a video than start the activity or have to do work. They are cool, though so pay attention!

Movie Example One: Ratatouille
Movie Example Two: Up

While Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs was originally based off a minimal sample group for research, the theory has sustained popularity and has proven true with more recent research studies. Also, the other value assessments aren't based off of anything soo, they are all runner up in my ranking.

The Barrett Value Centre was stumbled upon as I started digging deeper into a reliable values based assessment. Their Personal Value Assessment  is created by Richard Barrett and is created using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Basically, you want to take the assessment and see how your values are divided amongst the seven value areas of need. Ideally, in order to feel complete and reach your potential, your goal would be to choose proactive values that combined cover each of the areas.  The powerpoint below explains my interpretation of the assessment as well as my personal results.



To Be Fair, Here Are Other Value Assessments I've Tried
Just like there are so many definitions, the numerous assessments can be confusing. If you are like me, you figure out how to alter the results to say what you want, and trick yourself to hide your areas of growth. Here are the list of other value assessments I've tried so far:

1. Smart About Money Values
2. What's Next Life Value Self-Assessment
3. Careers Test Values Assessment
4. Mind Tools Values Article

Now What? 
It's your turn to reread about values and figure out the directions you choose (for today at least)!
1. Take this survey.
2. Read about what your results mean. Think about what this means to you. If you are like me, you might want to rewrite what you are reading to make sure you understand. You can also take the survey multiple times.
3. Do you see any potentially negative values? Figure out why these are negative and what they can be replaced with to be positive.
4. Are there any areas of the seven that have no values? What areas?
5. Figure out the areas where you can add a value. Remember, you can have a total of (about) ten and you want at least one in each area. I give no judgement for 8-11 values; beyond that range I might tease you.
6. Smile and be proud of yourself. Write these down, make them into a poster, or a piece of artwork. Put them somewhere you look everyday.
7. Make SMART goals, or wait for the character building lesson where I force you to do this.

Conclusion
Dr. Seuss is awesome because his words are inspiring at every age of your life. Understand that anxiety, depression, and other psychological issues come from your actions not being congruent with your conscious and subconscious values. Think of values as the roads you choose to take, and always prioritize a value in each of Richard Barrett's Seven Level of Conscious Values.

The end.

Actually, who are we kidding, anytime you need to evaluate your values, you also should want to read (and reread) Oh, The Place You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. Enjoy!!!

Character Building Tip 0.1 : But First, Know How Your Brain Works

New Vocabulary
(to be added)

Introduction
How is it possible that I had to read endless articles and books, spend hundreds of hours through the span of six months before I learned the importance of understanding how the brain is connected to mental strength? Oops. Hopefully, you catch the importance of the brain and its functions before your mind gets sucked into the emotional hole and you have to climb your way out! When you know why you have certain thoughts, feelings, sensations, urges, and what this means about your brain, then you can learn specific strategies to strengthen your brain. You can avoid wondering "what's wrong with me" and you'll know right away your insecure and irrational thoughts are coming from brain in need of developing specific areas.

How Much Do You Know? 
So, before you start, let's see how much you already know about the brain. Take this fun quiz!

How Your Brain Works

Here are two videos that are important because of their easy to understand explanations of the brain. The first explains how the brain functions by comparing it to technology. The second shows how your brain looks if you are lacking abilities in different areas. 

 



What Does This Mean? 
Watch this video and see what it means to you.  So many times, we blame ourselves for being sad, feeling dumb, claiming to be depressed, have anxiety, or having significant weaknesses or insecurities. Sometimes we blame others. Regardless, this shows you what is happening in the brain and how you can learn your areas of growth in order to strengthen them. So cool!

A Specific Example
This is a woman to had insecurities and deficiencies her entire life until she figure out her brain was lacking in specific areas. See if you can understand and relate to her example: 
What Does This Mean?
You can restructure and rewire your brain. You can teach your brain how to be stronger in areas that you feel you can't control. Here's one place you can start training your brain to learn to be mentally strong and it's fun! Try this: Fit Brains Website

Character Building Tip Three: Jump to the Side of the Tracks

New Vocabulary 
Cognitive fusion
Categorize
Bodily sensations
Emotions
Perceptions
Thoughts
Urges
Coping strategy

Introduction
Sometimes our minds feel refreshed. We feel like we are on top of game: organized, smart, getting along with friends and family, feeling successful with hobbies. Other times, we feel information overload. If I am not careful, I will feel like my mind is going a mile per minute, but probably more like 100 miles per minute because there can be a lot going on at once. One of the helpful ways to bring my mind back to a healthy pace is to take a mental timeout. In figurative words, I jump to the side of the train tracks and watch the train moving.

How Do You Jump Off? 
When you take a time out, you will jump to the side of the train tracks (metaphorically speaking: you aren't actually on a train and if you were, you would never actually jump off). You want to categorize all the different "things" going on in your brain. What are those different "things"? They are each of one of the following: bodily sensations, emotions, perceptions, thoughts, urges, coping strategies. Your goal is to break them up into different categories, or railroad tracks. Follow the steps below to learn how to take a mental break, step to the side of your train, and get realigned, so you can ultimately get back on track!

First, you want to know the difference between the three railroad tracks. Click on this link (and scroll to page 6) to practice learning the difference. You can compare your answers to mine, which are to the side.

Secondly, you want to make your own list of everything going on in your mind. Here's an example:

Finally, you can go back and move each item in its correct category. This is called "labeling." Check off items on your list as you label them. Here's the example above continued:











When you are finished, you might picture something similar to this image below. You can see how we have divided emotions/ perceptions/ sensations, thoughts, and coping strategies/ urges.

Why Should You Take a Step Back to Categorize Your Emotions?

When you take everything running through your brain literally, you are an example of cognitive fusion. Because your mind wants to protect you and wants to help you survive, you'll sometimes notice intense changes in your thoughts. You might feel yourself start shaking, your face turn purple, or have an overwhelming urge to throw something. The process of figuratively jumping to the side of the tracks allows your brain to sort all of the intense thoughts and feelings without interrupting your day. If you acted on the intense emotions, it would be called irrational thinking. Instead, label and categorize these different feelings and allow them the time they deserve to sort through and process in order to allow you to make a rational decision. Rational decisions are choices you make when you are calm, balanced, and consistent in how you feel. These are the ones you know are important to get your desired outcome, not the ones that leave you feeling regretful, sorry, and as if you made a weak choice.

Review the Steps

1. Take a fifteen minute timeout when you do not feel calm, focused, and balanced.
2. List everything going on in your brain on a piece of paper, typed into the computer, or even on your phone.
3. Label each of these as an emotion/ perception/ sensation, thought, or coping strategy/ urge.
4. Acknowledge that your mind is sorting through everything going on around you and it needs more time to process this information. Continue about your day while you allow your brain to process. I usually stick to the 24 hour rule. I wait at least 24 hours to react to any event that caused an intense emotion.


Character Building Tip Three: Jump to the Side of the Tracks: Whenever needed, you can take a step back from reality and step to the side of your mind. Acknowledge your mind needs time to process everything going on, and that you cannot react to every single item running through your mind. Your mind is "testing out" different options and conclusions. List everything going on in your mind, and label these in three categories: emotions/ perceptions/ sensations, thoughts, coping strategies/ urges. Visualize your mind as three separate train courses and divide accordingly. Let the trains continue their separate routes and you continue to execute your daily activities in a calm, focused, and balanced manner. 

Source: Hayes, Steven, and Spencer Smith. "Introduction." Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. New York: Fine Creative Media, 2005. 1-8. Print.

Character Building Tip Two: Use All the Colors in your Palette

Introduction 

Recently, I was reading about how you prevent one area of your life or one emotion from hogging all your brain space and taking over control of your actions.  We've all had that feeling when you are having a perfectly relaxing and enjoyable day, then out of nowhere you lose control. You don't even notice you lost it until it's too late. If you were lucky enough to catch yourself in the moment, you still might not have been able to stop. See if you recognize these thoughts: "Here I go on acting crazy..." or "Why can't I control what is happening to me?" or "I don't know how that came out of me, I don't know who that person was!" (Busted...awkward...)

Happiness, anger, sadness, embarrassment, honesty, shyness, excitement, worry, regret, kindness- these are all emotions we express. There are hundreds more. The key is figure out two things: how to balance all of your personalities and how to express all of them in a healthy way (without losing control!)

Your Emotions Compared to a Game of Chess

The book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life suggests you view your life as a game of chess. You are the board itself and the players are all the different parts of you. The board doesn't care what direction the players go or wins or loses, so the board can stay indifferent to all the different movements. I mention this in the extremely rare and slim chance you like chess more than coloring.

My Emotions Compared to a Paint Palette

I like chess, but I like crafts more. This game of chess made sense, but I created an analogy that felt more relatable to me and therefore sticks better in my brain: a palette of colors. Think of a blank, white canvas as your life. Throughout your life, you dab a little bit of one color, and then another, using all of your emotions. You are the canvas, staying unbiased, as all these different colors are being painted.  Your actions are your paint brush picking up a color and using it, then picking up a different color and using that one. Paint brushes use smooth, flowing strokes just like your actions are careful and calm. You can't paint the whole canvas off of one dip into the paint either. You have to wipe off the paint brush, sometimes dip it in water, and dab it into another color.

Why Should You Balance the Right Amount of All Emotions?

So how does this canvas relate to controlling your anger? (By the way, anger will be the color red, of sho.) If anger took all the attention, a huge blot of red would spill all over the canvas; you wouldn't see any of the other colors. Because I want to know what makes me feel angry, I want to use a little bit of red paint, but if the angry gets out of control, there's no room for any of the happy, forgiving, or calm feelings!

Apply This Analogy in Your Own Life

Try to notice all the different colors in your palette throughout the day. Lucky for you, the number of colors in your pallet is endless and continuously growing (New colors!!! WHA!!). For example, in the canvas above, there are 20 colors, but I can add as many more as I want. By the time I am 80, there might be 200, or even 2000!  There's no limit to the amount of colors and there never will be. Even as an adult or a wrinkly grammy, you will still be adding more colors to your palette.

Connect the Steps 

1. Canvas = You being neutral always

2. Paint brush is dabbed into a color = You deciding what emotion, thought, feeling, personality, sensation you are going to use

3. Paint brush is being used on a canvas in gentle, even smooth strokes = Your actions of the emotion you chose to use, always calm, careful and gentle regardless of the color

4. Paint brush is dipped into water, wiped on a towel = You putting your current emotion, thought, feeling, personality, sensation away by taking a step back or moment of quiet to reorganize and regroup

5. Paint brush is being dabbed into a new color = You choose the next emotion, thought, feeling, sensation, personality you are going to use

Conclusion

Both positive and negative qualities are a piece on your chess board, a color in your palette. You aren't going to buy a chess board with only the white pieces, and you aren't going to buy a palette that leaves out browns and blacks. They cannot go away.

Next time you catch yourself getting out of control, think: "This is a color in my palette. I am going to pain with smooth, even strokes by stay calm and gentle in my actions. After I've expressed myself, I'm going to wipe off my paint brush and choose the next color." You are the canvas, so you are staying neutral while these colors are being used. Your actions are the paintbrush, always careful and calm. 

Character Building Tip Two: Your palette can hold all of your colors: emotions, thoughts, feelings, personalities, sensations. Your actions are the paintbrush. Your paintbrush will use one color carefully and calmly, then wipe it off and clean it in water only to choose a new one. You are the canvas. You stay still and peaceful as the artwork is being created, thus you are empowered to properly use all colors in your palette.

Source: Hayes, Steven, and Spencer Smith. "Introduction." Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. New York: Fine Creative Media, 2005. 1-8. Print. 

Character Building Tip One: You'll Sink if You Run From Quicksand

Introduction

We are going to compare reacting to your extreme emotions to quicksand. The purpose is to make the next dramatic event in your life a little bit more bearable, to help you react to the event in a way that produces that outcome you want, and to allow you to have an equally satisfying and exciting day with or without that negativity from the dramatic event.

Part One: Quicksand

Do you know what would happen if you tried to run from quicksand? Let me show you in the first video. As you watch the video, describe what you see happening.

Video One:


How would you describe what happened to that man? I think he started to breathe faster and heavier. In doing so, he sank deeper into the sand, or poop looking substance (Ew, poop). The man was desperately trying to save himself by splashing his arms and gasping for air. Also, you can infer that he was probably kicking. (Remember, inferring means the information is not given clearly but you know what happened by "reading between the lines" and seeing the other details.)

Part Two: Your Extreme Emotions 

Think about your life and what gets an extreme emotion out of you. First of all, make sure you know what an extreme emotion is, or EE as I like to say. To me, an EE is any time that I feel myself getting physically tingly, turning red, or my breathing patterns change. An EE is different from your typical self because there's an event causing a heightened reaction from you. Sometimes the EE is good, like if I am surprised or excited. Other times this EE causes me to feel sad, angry, or hurt. So, what causes your extreme emotions? Do you feel overwhelmed with homework or with too many tasks to accomplish? Do you feel an EE when you get in a fight with a friend, family member, boyfriend or girlfriend, or anyone else? Do you feel an EE when you feel like you try as hard as you can at something, but nothing gets better? Check, check, check for me...they all cause an EE to stir up in me; I'm sensitive and I want to please, what can I say? ;)

Part Three: Make a Connection 

Think of your reaction to these stimulating events like quicksand. If you try to run away from the problem or whatever caused that negative EE, then you are going to make it worse. Initially, you might successfully be able to divert your attention to something else. You might forget the problem existed at all. You might pretend or even convince yourself you don't care. Either way, the problem will only worsen over time. The problem will come back to sink you even further into the poopy stuff (yuck). Sometimes it takes hours, days, or years, to come back, but it will always be worse if you run, skip, or hop away from the problem.


I'll restate the point: Don't run away screaming, don't avoid the issue completely, and don't do what my irrational brain wants to do: put everything else in my day and life on hold until I fix the problem. You simply can't. If you could, you wouldn't be panicking. If you run away by ignoring, avoiding, or diverting your attention from your problems, the problems will get worse.

Part Four: The Solution 

So what are you supposed to do when you feel like your entire day is consumed by this dramatic event? You remind yourself that any extreme action in panic mode is going to make the situation worse. You remind yourself of the quicksand, and how if you act on your extreme emotions, you are going to bury yourself in a bigger problem (with a lot of poop). Try these steps and alter them to work for you:

1. First, mentally accept that the problem exists. Yep, that means saying, "I accept ______________ and my actions right now need to be calm." In the moment, you must catch yourself before you start to sink!

2. Secondly, take a deep breath and calm yourself down. (We will work on calming down strategies later.)

3. Third, allow your brain to be separate from you. Give your brain extended time to have its irrational thoughts. Don't believe these thoughts your brain has right away, but allow them to happen and pass through at the same rate (think of a train passing by). If you notice, your thoughts will be all over the place trying to fix the situation but in reality most of these are not realistically going to help you. Just keep letting the thoughts pass through. Go about your day as you normally would, completing your tasks with effort and enjoying the moment. You can experience pain and still have a nice day.

4. Finally, face your emotional event, but do so slowly and with actions and words that have a purpose. When you have physically calmed down and mentally are having consistent, rational thoughts, you can decide the best way to move forward. This might takes minutes or days, but wait until you are confident your feelings are stable. The best ways to move forward are going to be slow, small actions followed by more slow, small actions. Face your emotional event, but do so slowly and with actions and words that have a purpose.

In video two, you see the man escape quicksand. Pause as you watch the video to take notes on what you see happening. How is he successful?

Video Two:

Part Five: When There is No Solution

Sometimes, our problems are so bad we feel like there is nothing we can do. You've tried and worked as hard as you can, but you can't solve the problem. As you watch the video below, pay attention to how the people describe sinking into the sand (specifically, about two minutes in). Then, see how the man stuck gets out of the sand. How do you get out of a problem when you are completely stuck?

Video Three:


If you notice, the man is unable to get out the quicksand all by himself. So how is he saved? How can you save yourself from the dramatic event eating up your day? With that long term problem that won't go away, how can you move forward? I like to think of the people helping him out as resources. You can use your resources to help you. For me, I try to read articles that might help, talk to someone who would give intelligent and fair, unbiased advice about the situation, and do something that will calm me down when I feel like I must panic. Sometimes this is as simple as forcing my face to smile, excusing myself to go to the restroom to take a deep breath, or and giving myself affirmations in the mirror. Whatever I do, I have to repeat the phrase: "I can accept that I cannot control the situation. I can control how I react."

Character Building Tip One: Running away from and avoiding your problems that cause extreme emotions will make your problems worse. Calm yourself down. Continue to execute your day's tasks and enjoy the moment while you allow your brain the time it needs to process and figure out how to move forward. 

Source: Hayes, Steven, and Spencer Smith. "Introduction." Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. New York: Fine Creative Media, 2005. 1-8. Print. 

Student Worksheet: Guided Article Notes

11 Intermediate Guided Reading Lessons for Our Class

Super Soaker Skills

Way cooler than GR lessons, we are calling them Super Soaker Skills because these are the 1) skills students need to soak in yesterday and 2) it makes me think of the top dog water guns. 

These 11 skills are the most important of the 20 for our classroom. We've combined a few and added details as necessary to meet our needs. Students can use this as a reference when completing assignments or to review periodically. 

1. Selecting Books and  Creating a Successful  Reading Classroom
2. Ways We Choose Books
3. Executing SSR

4. Making Good Book Choices
5. Reading Is Thinking: P.1 Mnemonics

6. Reading Is Thinking: P.2 RIT Definitions

7. Characteristics of Fiction, Nonfiction, & Poetry
8. Genres within Fiction and Nonfiction
9. Keeping a Record of Reading
10. Writing Letters About Reading

11. Writing Responses to Each Other

11 Thinking is Reading Intermediate Lessons from FortheLoveofTweens

Enjoy!

S-W-A-G-G-E-R Assessment Skills #Swaggerskills

"Why didn't you answer the whole question?" 
"How can you get that wrong when we've gone over it for a month?" 
"I know you know the correct answer, but for some reason you chose the wrong one..."
"Your answer should be twice as longer if you are following the directions." 


Sound familiar? I've heard and said these sentences before! We always tell students to work harder or take their time, but what does that really mean? 

I empathize with students and the increasing demands of academic success. I was horrible at tests, couldn't maintain attention long enough to hear the topic introduced, and am pretty sure every teacher I've had was speaking a different language. I wish I had more teachers who understood how to reach out to my need for an engaging lesson repeated ten times in ten different ways to help me feel smart. Instead, I felt dumb, insecure, and hid my lack of understanding with humor.

Just this summer, I was at an AVID conference in San Diego, learning about a program I had never heard of before. I was asked to go as a fill in last minute and was incredibly pumped to get a head start to a new school year. I love learning about how to teach better. After the first day, the obvious conversation starter So what do you think of AVID? was all anyone was asking, and rightfully so. But I didn't understand what AVID meant. A few days of workshops later, I still didn't understand what the point of AVID was. On my terms, I was still unable to give an in depth description of what the program stands for, or how it was any different from the Common Core. Slowly my understanding was coming together. Eventually, with perfect timing on the last day, I finally felt like I understood and appreciated the value of AVID. At first I didn't mind being the odd man out, feeling less knowledgable. Over time, I could feel peers becoming less patient with my need for clarification, and I started to feel uncomfortable. I had to remind myself not worry about being so open with my lack of understanding. Obviously, you now get to hear my carefully developed definition:

AVID is a program that collected the best of the best practice resources, created a few of their own- maybe more than a few-, and now teaches schools to use AVID's identity, resources, methods, and culture to implement the Common Core and all its values. AVID specifically focuses on reaching out to potential first generation college graduates to provide the skills, self worth, and motivation to excel through middle school, high school, and college, with different lifelong skills and strategies for each subgroup. 

The point of explaining my struggle to understand the core meaning of AVID goes back to people like me who think more abstractly or simply need to be explained things multiple times in order to understand. In my smaller Critical Reading strand (workshop), we were asked to raise our hands to acknowledge our experience with various activities. I would admit to zero, no experience, right before the teacher said "Obviously we all know what [every topic] is." Oh great, thanks for the clue after the vote! As she continued to elaborate, I realized I'd be doing the same activities for years but knew them by  different names. Again,  I was feeling slightly humiliated with a powerful urge to defend myself because  I was the only one who thought I didn't use the activity. I remember feeling so confidence and fortunate to be exposed to the program, and then I remember feeling incredibly inadequate by my interactions. Hello people, they didn't have AVID in Ohio! 

These examples of feeling discouraged from directions sound silly, irrelevant, and minute. They aren't. When our kids have these seemingly small feelings of failure, it is crucial that we acknowledge their intelligence potential. Too much of feeling wrong or down, especially during the developing years, can potentially damage if not put a hold on your social-emotional development. Like we tell our kids to take their time, create a longer answer, slow down, and go over their assessments before turning in, students are unsure what specific tasks they should be doing. Even when you might be equally justified by being confused from vague directions, it is damaging to your self-esteem. Yes, you can build confidence. I love that I no longer care (minus the occasional initial hurt reaction), but we can always take a look at how to be more clear with our directions.    

Teaching students how to correctly answer questions benefits special education, gifted and talented students, all subjects and interests, and teaches students how to work hard while balancing fun. Most importantly, this unit creates a sense of community and positive character building, two of the most important aspects of successful classroom management. Surprisingly, students with lower ability and gifted students will miss the same problems, but for different reasons. This unit is great for helping even the smarties be more open minded to the idea of making a mistake, and to try to hunt for it in their completed assignment. I've noticed these subgroup of children often uses internal reasoning to justify why their answer is right, and they've got evidence to do it. But by this point, it seems the student has already made up his or her mind on the correct answer, and thus is blind and unable to see any mistakes. 

Official Benefits:

1. Increase attention span with self checking and movement with tools
2. Build student confidence with written and multiple choice responses, reading assessments, and teaching students to
   defend their answers
3. Prevent mistakes to help students earn scores reflective of ability
4. Encourages parent involvement
5. Teach students to keep the academic expectation high while balancing fun 

So, this unit, Ryan M. Hanna and Laurie Hastings Bryant introduced me to their Swagger Test Prep theme a few years ago, and I've been obsessed with evolving to turn it into an unit for a hot minute now. I want to take activities, worksheets, homework, tests, and projects are require students to meet teacher expectations, and use concrete tasks to ensure students meet the requirements of even the confusing assignments (but we thought the directions were crystal clear!). 

Regardless of whether it's our fault, the student's, or any combo, let's prevent it from happening ever again!!!! ... yea, yea, but we try. 

Description of The Unit: 

#Swaggerskills, pronounced "Hashtag Swagger Skills," is a list of seven steps to remember when completing multiple choice and extended answer assignments using the mnemonic SWAGGER. #Swaggerskills theme also includes an aligned swagger-themed toolkit, where assessment helping "tools" and their connection are explained. Look at the order below to see the video Hanna and Bryant found somewhere along the path of life and went out on a limb at an attempt to hook students with a not-too-cool-for-school theme. Now, students learn the mnemonic SWAGGER with multiple student checklists, "dog tags" students must earn for each letter, 120+ #Swaggerskills ELA vocabulary words with activities and games. We end with a dance party and students strut their swagger walks towards their hard earn toolkits. The student toolkits include accessories that qualify both as cool enough to be swagger and serve an effective purpose with completing assessments. (For example, a neon slap bracelet is swagger because it's neon. Neon colors also help students focus on reading better. The neon bracelet is used as a bookmark as students read passages and questions.)

PDF Unit: Swagger Assessment Skills
Aligned PowerPoint: Swagger Assessment Skills PP

Sample Pages:

#Swaggerskills Powerpoint:

1. introduce the Swagger Wagon (over 12 million views) video using the pre made PowerPoint. You can play this multiple times every day from here on out with the students. 
2. You use the included PP to teach students the seven types of swagger. 
3. Give each student a blank SWAGGER board, free of dog tags.
4. You use the powerpoint or your own activities to have students demonstrate the mastery of each skill. 
5. As a student shows you they mastered a skill- you determine how and when or use the suggested instructions- you give them a dog tag relating to the corresponding skill. For example, Johnny's multiple choice question has Y M M N by each letter choice, and he wrote his reason why to the side. You see this when you go by Johnny, so you give him the lime green dog tag "G."
6. Introduce, teach, and request students use the individual EVIDENCE checklist to help answer all questions to the best of student ability, while encouraging higher level thinking, and preventing mistakes. 
7. When all students have earned all seven dog tags, their board will spell out S-W-A-G-G-E-R (like bingo, but it's not luck!). 
8. Have a reward ceremony (take ten minutes or whole class period) where students show you completed board and mandatory swagger dance moves (a chance to be goofy), to earn their #Swaggerskills Master certificates and toolkits.
9. Continue to use toolkit resources, SWAGGER and EVIDENCE acronyms as expectation for students. 


As a side note, I have signed up on donorschoose.org to help collect supplies for my students this year. We need the supplies to make our graphic organizers, the props for our games to review skills, strategies, and vocabulary, and the supplies for student toolkits. We have over 200 seventh grade students to provide supplies for and convince mustache erasers, neon slap bracelets, and colored ink pens are totally in. We appreciate your support! http://www.donorschoose.org/misscrosby?rf=link-siteshare-2014-08-teacher_account-teacher_2395543

#somanyemotions Page Getting Started!

Can you avoid the emotional roller coaster of middle school completely? 

No, sorry. However, the more you read about how emotions work, the more you will learn and be able to integrate emotionally intelligent behaviors into your mind and reactions. Thus, the more you practice and are aware your emotions, the more  control you will have of yours. :) 

Check out everything I post on here; I pick my favorites that I know will help tweens of all personality and emotional types! 

Must View Images:

This is how information enters your brain. And mine.

1. Information Entering Our Brains- What does this image mean?! Read the parenthesis and you might see why this presents a challenge to everyone initially.  Basically, information hits the brain on the opposite end of the your logical thinking. So information must past through the limbic system (your emotions and feelings!!!) to get to your rational part. That's why the emotions always hit so intensely and it takes us a while to calm down or remove ourselves from the triggering event in order to think logically and rationally. Want to know the really cool part? You can train your brain by increasing your emotional intelligence. Start here, at the source of this graphic.  

Must Read Articles:

1. "Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid" by Cheryl Conner

2. "9 Things Emotionally Intelligent People Won't Do" by Dr. Travis Bradberry

Must Check Out Mini Lessons:

1. Think about the words situation, thought, and emotion. How are they different? You can click on the image go to the activity!

Must Remember Strategies: (Control yoself!) 

1. "ABCs of Thinking and Feeling" (aka ABCs of Emotions) - There is a summary below, but if you click on it, you will see all the examples, different definitions, and complete the interactive worksheets to learn how this can help your overall happiness level for the longterm!

...and this is what you look like if you avoid the ABCs of Emotions (Womp, Womp):

The Common Core, The CCRS, The New Standards, and All Other Nicknames

 

Click on the Table of Contents to see all 40 images! 

When I was graduating college in 2009, the standards were introduced. To me, they've been around for a fat minute. I know they change, and they are increasingly different, but I'm getting over the big deal. By this time, we should all be pretty familiar with the Common Core. That in mind, this latest version provides an exciting challenge. I love the challenge of connecting nonfiction articles to our fictional novels, in addition to poetry and vocabulary, and extended writing assignments that all correlate. I've been having a hard time figuring out the specific difference between each grade level. Teaching language arts, I see students on a range of six or more grade levels in student ability in each of the sub categories: reading, writing, poetry, vocabulary, fluency. I wanted to know what specifically I should teach if my students are below or above grade level. So in this document, you'll find there are 40 pages of rubrics that compare reading and all other language arts standards from grades K-10. You'll see the specific differences in each grade level in a much simpler format to prevent your headache! Try the different checklists to help you choose and use what works best for you for your specific purpose!