Crafting Mini Lessons

[Notes from my session with Christine Robson]

Interactive Writing:

• Levels A-I/Letter Name Alphabetic
• Really focused on syntax and word solving
• You might not need to do it with whole class, but you might need to do with with a small group

Mini Lesson:

Short! (7-12 min... 15min max)

If you are getting longer than 15 min, maybe you are teaching too much

Just a little itty-bitty part: Just what kids need right now.

Why do this?

• Done in predictable format because research shows kids need predictable structure in order to hold on to content.

Set up for the workshop (Kids have all materials out and ready to go)

Components:

• Connection (Don't let it become a runaway train. Keep it simple.)
• Lots of different kinds
• Setting up the importance for the TP
• Reinforcing something great you saw
• Reminding students of something
• Identifying a problem
• Parallel metaphor (connecting new info to PK)
• Prep for active involvement
• Ends with the Teaching Point
• Repeated in each part of the mini lesson
• Repeated 3-5 or more times throughout the lesson
• Teach (Longest part of the mini lesson)
• Teach something small (one small strategy)
• "I want you guys to watch me"
• Methods:
• Demonstrate ("Do you see how I'm doing this? Did you see how I ___?")
• Demonstrate Non-Example (What does it look like when it is wrong?)
• Guided Practice (You might have the kids practicing along with you)
• Ex: Teaching point about fluency: Maybe have everyone practice together so you can coach them and give some tips
• Show an example/exemplar of what you are trying to teach 
• Ex: Show a video of something great that happened in workshop yesterday
• Ex: Mentor post-its
• Inquiry
• Ex: Show a video of a book club. "What do you notice this group is doing to keep their conversation going?"
• Active Involvement:
• Try exactly what you just did. Make sure it is a mirror of what you just modeled
• Choose a text that they will be able to use for the TP (ex: If you taught how to use a glossary, you need to make sure they have a glossary to practice it)
• Methods:
• Now you try with this book I have for you (Remind of the steps) 
• Now you try it with a book from your book bag
• Pass out books for partnerships and have them try it
• Guided practice (Let's do it together with a new book) [Almost a little reteach]
• Link
• Take the one small strategy and put the part back into the whole
• How does what we learned today fit into the bigger context of reading?
• "Every time you ___, one thing you might do is ___."
• You might use this time to add it to a chart (This is another way you can ___)

Idea for mini lesson:

Friday after a week of several strategies, have kids reflect upon their work for the week and set a goal.

Charts:

• Do you want little beginner readers coming up out of their book and having to look around the room to find the chart, then read the whole chart, in order to solve a word?
• Sometimes you might want to vary charts based upon reading level (Upper grades might work well for charts, but primary might need to be internal)
• Maybe have small copies of charts to give to specific kids that need it

Writing a Teaching Point is Hard Work!

• Use clear, concise language! (Boil it down)
• Name the WHAT, HOW and WHY
• Repeat, repeat, repeat, the same each time
• Be consistent across the day (Call it the same thing)
• We often write TP as an outcome (Kids will...)
• That's not a TP!
• Can't just name skills! It needs to include HOW?
• Example:
• Plan for a unit: Get to know your character
• feelings
• traits
• actions and motivations
• reactions to problems
• surprising behavior
• patterns

Take: Feelings

What? Feelings  [Readers pay close attention to how their characters feel during all parts of the story.]

How? (This is the hard part)

• Think about the steps in your mind [They look at the picture and notice the character's face. They look closely at the character's body.]

Why?

• They do this because...   [Knowing how characters feel helps them understand what is happening.]

TP for Feelings skill:

Readers pay close attention to how their characters feel during all parts of the story. They look at the picture and notice the character's face. They look closely at the character's body. Knowing how characters feel helps them understand what is happening.

Planning an Interactive Read Aloud

[Notes from my session with Lindsay Mann]

Even though poetry isn't directly stated in the CCSS, poetry is still important for developing thinking!

The Runaway by Bobbi Katz

I made peanut butter sandwiches.

I didn’t leave a mess.

I packed my shell collection

and my velvet party dress,

the locket Grandma gave me

and two pairs of extra socks,

my brother’s boy scout flashlight

and some magic wishing rocks.

Oh, they’ll be so sorry.

Oh, they’ll be so sad,

when they start to realize

what a nifty kid they had.

I’d really like to be here

when they wring their hands and say,

“We drove the poor child to it.

She finally ran away.”

If  I peeked through the window

I’d see them dressed in black,

and hear them sob and softly sigh,

“Come back, dear child! Come back!”

The house will be so quiet.

My room will be so clean.

And they’ll be oh so sorry

that they were oh so mean!

Poem by Bobbi Katz. Taken from The Kingfisher Book of Family Poems by Belilnda Hollyer, editor. Illustrated by Holly Swain. New York: Kingfisher, 2003, p. 60. ISBN: 0753455579.

Poem taken from http://bkatztx.tripod.com/id35.html

Close Reading:

Unpack the poem by going back to the text and share thinking to develop a class discussion.

• Thinking aloud about things that matter (practical as well as meaningful)
• See her attitude or how she feels (not just by what she says, but how she says it)
• How do you know she is a she?
• Who are "they"? How do you know? (Are there clues that tell you?)
• What is this poem *really* about? 

Read Aloud

• If you usually do a read aloud during snack time, great! Don't get rid of it! But that might not be the best time to do a purposeful interactive read aloud. (Unless your kids somehow can multitask writing and thinking work along with eating a snack.)
• Typically 15-20 minutes every day.

Listen

Think

Notice

Read Aloud: My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits

1. Introduce the book

2. Read aloud with thinking aloud and accountable talk

3. Class conversation (Start with, "Talk to you neighbor about what you are thinking right now.")

*Teacher reaction was non-judgmental (If we want kids to think deeply and differently, then we need to allow for that) It's OK if the conversation goes a different way than you had expected. Just make sure to bring it back to the question, "How do you know?" Have kids show the place in the book that made them think that.

Ways to support conversation:

• Remove yourself from the circle, then whisper in to kids to coach
• Have kids start with partners or book clubs, then coach in to groups
• "What I heard you say was ____. Is this right?"

Think about our whole class conversation:

Did our ideas stay the same? Or did they change?

What do you think the author's message was?

Read aloud is scaffolding the reading work, but also scaffolding the authentic talking work we want kids to do.

Taking notes on the conversation

• Have your conferring notes with you during read aloud. You can gather information about readers during this time too!
• Sometimes for whole class conversation you might want a class list to mark how many times kids talk

Planning and integrating into mini lessons and small groups and conferences

• Think about the skills, but think aloud the strategies you are using
• Look at your notes to determine how kids are thinking already

Planning a Read Aloud (Make sure to make it feel natural, even if it is planned)

• Makes a post-it with "TA" in corner when she plans to think aloud for the class, along with the thought in a deliberate way that scaffolds the way she wants kids to think.
• Might have a TA that naturally lends itself to a Turn-and-Talk (TT)
• SJ = Stop-and-Jot
• Act it out
• Post-its in the back to plan for possible conversation:
• Ex: Let's talk long about this book...
• What are you thinking?
• Why do you think Yoon changed her mind about school?
• How do we know how Yoon feels...
• Skills/Strategies/Behaviors you might want to consider
• Notice actions
• Notice feelings
• Look for patterns
• Notice reactions/relationships
• Notice a conflict or change
• Stop when you are surprised!

Interactive Read Aloud

[Notes from Christine Robson's Session]

Some Tips for Getting the Most Instruction Out of Your Interactive Read Aloud Time:

• Consider current and upcoming units
• What skills and strategies are upcoming?



Capstone Press Nonfiction Text

• Behaviors and habit

• Vary the kinds of texts that you read
• Genre
• Publisher: Capstone Press has great literary nonfiction (Found at Barnes and Noble)
• Sometimes there is a disconnect between what you read during interactive read aloud and the books kids are reading independently. Sometimes you might want to do a read aloud with the kind of books they are reading independently to show that there really is a lot of great, rich work they can do.

• Demo reading behaviors
• Ex: Using bookmarks
• Reading the blurb
• Taking time to figure how the book is organized (cumulative/episodic)
• Picture walk

• Demo reading skills
• Consider which skills you want to highlight:
• Activating Prior Knowledge
• Determining Importance
• Monitoring and Adjusting for Meaning
• Envisioning
• Accumulating the Text
• Predicting
• Inferring
• Empathy
• Synthesizing
• Critiquing
• Many skills are used in tandem. Ex: Need to accumulate text and infer before you can synthesizing
• As a teacher I have thoughtfully planned what skills I will model and have kids try, but it won't be one skill in isolation. There isn't a teaching point. 
• Reading a book more than onces might influence what you model. Ex: Predicting works better when reading for the first time, Synthesizing might work better on a reread
• Think about how many times you will need to model first before having kids try it
• Be explicit as you think out loud. (Not just what you are thinking, but unpack how you got to that thinking [Step 1, step 2, step 3])

• Vary the practice methods
• Turn and talk [Sit with reading workshop partner during read aloud] -Using accountable talk prompts
• Acting out (Will show you how they are accumulating text, predicting, vocabulary, etc.)
• Stop and jot (If you don't have them practice, their post-its will be terrible)
• TIP: You might want to add a tab to the Reader's Notebook that is reserved for Read Aloud
• TIP: Might want to include a content section for content read alouds (Or a folder)
• Whole class conversations (Record some big ideas from read aloud on post-it. Once a week, start the read aloud with a whole class conversation)

Recommended book: Climb Inside a Poem by Georgia Heard and Lester Laminack 

• Support all learners in the room
• front load read alouds for ELLs (By the time you use a book in your mini lesson, it would be helpful if they have heard it 2-3 times, focusing on key vocabulary)
• Use checklists to track what your kids are doing (Checklists are fast and easy)
• Every time she has kids turn and talk, she will listen in on a different group of kids. She keeps this checklist on her clipboard. (She might be looking at a few skills across a week or across a few weeks)
• You can create one for each unit and during each assessment time.
• Checklist of skills she wants to focus on:
• Makes a prediction using their own life
• Makes a prediction using other stories/movies/TV
• Makes a prediction using this story
• Revise their prediction
• Infers character's feeling
• Infers character traits
• Infers character motivation
• Checklist might be about behaviors
• sits knee to knee
• looks partner in eyes
• takes turns talking
• adds on to what partner says
• Checklist might be about skills

• uses text evidence
• etc.

Read Aloud: Recess Queen by Alexis O'neill

1st read: Lots of prediction

2nd read: Lots of character work

• Collect ideas on post-its and keep in the back of the book
• Use post-its as a way to launch whole group conversations

Jobs of SPEAKER	Jobs of LISTENER(S)
Think before you speak	Be ready to speak next. Be patient.
Use a voice that can be heard.	Have a calm body.
Look at the listeners.	Look at the speaker.
Add on to the idea being about.	Think: Do I agree or disagree? WHY? Do I understand what my friend is saying or should I ask a question?
Use evidence!	Think about more evidence!

Create character traits and character feelings charts out of context.

Collect big ideas from across the school year.

Model how to create post-its:

How Do I Know When to Stop and Post-it?

• When a new character enters the story
• When you have an emotional reaction to the text
• When you notice big changes
• When a character acts out of character

Readers Stop and Jot IDEAS:

Character:

Relationships:

Lessons:


Ways to Reflect and Write about Reading:
Friday is sorting day. How can we sort our post-its?
Reflect after sorting:

• Most of my post-its seem to be about...
• It seems as though...
• Maybe this book is REALLY all about...
• These post-its show that I'm the kind of reader...
• The author probably wants me to notice...

Five Ways to Help Early Chapter Book Readers to Soar!

[Notes from the session presented by Christine Robson from TCRWP]

1. Get kids hooked on series books

• You can push kids' comprehension much further from book-to-book-to-book (Character work can become stronger once they know how the book tends to go)
• It can help foster the love for reading. We want readers to get hooked to the point where they can't put the book down
• Introduce books to create a buzz around books
• "If you love the Stink series, then you'll love the Judy Moody series"
• Partners who have a common text will be able to have a deeper conversation
• Build your series books in your library. 
• Good source for book series: ebay as well as half.com
• Have a book drive in your school. There are kids in your school that might no longer need the old book series they have sitting around home
• Have a broad range of reading level (J/K/L/M)

2. Book Introductions

• As a small group, bring some of the kids together to do a special introduction. Some times kids need an intro before 
• Ex: Magic Treehouse: If you don't read the first book, none of the other books will make sense.
• What are the complexities of this this text?
• Teachers College Field Guide can help (Noteworthy features, Characters, Structure, Writing about reading stuff, genre, etc.)
• You don't need to know every book in the series, but you need to know at least one book from the series very well
• How to do a Book Intro:
• Ex: Mystery Book Readers
• Step 1: Read the title and blurb...
• Step 2: Who? (detectives
• Ex: Possible Suspect/Theories (Kids at this level need to make more than one)
• Important for kids to have a plan (ex: Read the whole Cam Jansen series)

3. Support accumulating text, envisioning, inference, and synthesis

• Books will start to get a lot longer in chapter books.
  
• How is your chapter book organized? Is each chapter a new story? Think through together: What are the problems and solution from each chapter?
• Kids first have to think about their book: (Need to read the blurb)
• 5 short stories? Think about problem and solution from each chapter?
• Is it one problem across multiple chapters?
• Set it up:
• Read the blurb
• Read the chapter titles
• If there is one big problem, then there is one solution (Kids don't always realize that)
• How's it organized? Bunch of short stories with each one having a problem/solution, then at the end we think about how the problems and solutions are related? Or one big long story across the text? Have to be thinking from chapter-to-chapter-to-chapter about how they are trying to solve the problem and come to a solution.

4. Write about reading

• Way to start accumulating text: 
• From the blurb: Record what is the most important in relation to the problem?
• Chapter 1: Most important thing that happened (in relation to the problem)?
• Chapter 2: Most important thing that happened (in relation to the problem)?
• Chapter 3: Most important thing that happened (in relation to the problem)?
• Chapter 4: Most important thing that happened (in relation to the problem)?
• Bare minimum as a chapter book reader: At LEAST one post-it in each chapter about the most important thing in relation to the problem
• She will model this during read aloud (She will have a bunch of post-its. Turn-and-talk, which post-it is the MOST important. [The one that is related to the problem/solution])
• Once kids are able to accumulate text, then they are ready to start doing some inferential work
• Pay attention to the action of the character. What does that make me think about them?
• Characters in this level often don't change. But kids can still think about how the character's FEELINGS changed. (Feelings changing are not the same as attributes changing)
• Don't accept only one answer. Push on their comprehension!
• They need multiple with evidence for each one
• Stop and jots on Post-its
• They need to be IDEAS (it is what the text does NOT say) If it said Poppleton like spaghetti, then it's not an idea.
• Character
• Relationships
• Lessons

5. Move partner work from conversation to collaboration

• 
  

Day 1 of the Teachers College Home Grown Reading Workshop Institute

[To follow are my notes from my sessions at the OAISD Home Grown Reading Workshop Summer Institute with Teachers College Reading and Writing Project]

Morning Session: (Lindsay Mann @lindsaymann22)

Reading Workshop is a component of Balanced Literacy

A simple definition of Balanced Literacy:

  -To... (kids)

  -With... (kids)

  -By.. (kids)

• To kids = Interactive Read Aloud/Writing (not necessarily explicitly stating what you are teaching as you read, but in your teacher head you know what you are explicitly modeling for kids)
• With kids = Shared Reading/Writing (again, not necessarily stating to kids what you are teaching, but you FOR SURE know in your head what you are purposely modeling)
• By kids = The Workshop

In read aloud, shared reading, and reading workshop mini lesson, consider what you are supporting: (You often are doing much more than you realize!)

     -Accuracy and print work (The actual reading of words)

     -Fluency

     -Comprehension (Cumulating texts)

     -Engagement and Identity

     -Habits and routines

1. Interactive Read Aloud (To...)

• Be very deliberate about what you are modeling, but you aren't naming it yet for kids (keeping it authentic to reading)
• Read aloud, think aloud, and 1 or 2 turn and talks
• Afterwards, just try to get kids talking: "So, what are you thinking?"
• Then pick one idea a kid shared, and start a discussion around the idea, anchoring it in the text
• Sample: A Sick Day for Amos McGee
• Without explicitly teaching about prediction, she modeled predicting in the book. She also had us turn and talk twice, focused on comprehension work

2. Share Reading (With...)

• Beginning of year, start with a simple text, then build across the year
• Sample: Big Book: There Was a Mouse (repetitive structure)
• She did a picture walk with kids popcorn sharing, but didn't show last page
• Had us read the text chorally
• Without explicitly teaching about prediction, she made a prediction, had us make a prediction, and we all checked our predictions at the end (didn't actually use the word prediction. Asked us what we thought might happen next)

3. Reading Workshop (By...)

• Kathy Collins' Principles of Reading Workshop
• Investment and Engagement
• Explicit Teaching and GUided Practice
• Independence
• Opportunities for Response and Talk
• Predicting was scaffolded in Read Aloud, in Shared Reading, and now it's named explicitly and is the teaching point.
• She reviewed the work we did in A Sick Day for Amos McGee and There Was a Mouse as the Connection for her mini lesson. ("Remember when we...")

Afternoon Session (Christine Robson)

Recommends reading Kathy Collins: Reading for Real

Balanced Literacy Overview

-Reading Workshop

     ~Shared Reading

     ~Read Aloud

     ~Word Study

-Writing Workshop

     ~Shared Writing

     ~Interactive Writing

*If you want to see more than literal details on post-its, consider how you have scaffolded it. You might be good, but it will take a miracle to get kids from having no experience, to doing something perfectly, with only a 7 minute mini lesson. You need to scaffold it before they have to do it alone.

Reading Workshop Timing:

1. Mini Lesson (7-12 min) [If it takes longer, you might be teaching more than one thing]

2. Private Reading Time (15-30 min)

3. Mid Workshop Interruption

4. Partner Reading Time (10-15 min)

5. Teaching Share (5 min)

Teacher meets with students:

-Conferring

-Small Group (Guided Reading/Strategy Lesson)

Partner Reading tips:

Level J and higher: Partner reading will be more about collaboration on ideas. The conversation will be more rich if books are related. (She sets up book shopping so that partners choose related books so it is more collaborative in nature)

Level A-I: THey will be doing more reading together (Sharing pages, echo reading, etc.) [Their books won't have as much "meat" for them to collaborate about]

*She does more small group than conferring, especially with younger kids, because kids don't have enough stamina. She might do a small group where she quickly checks book bags and then confers with one kid while other kids in the group are getting things set up

*If she see a common need with more than one kids, she will do a small group

*She has a Monday-Friday conferring schedule on the board and writes student names. Kids can add their name if they really need to meet with her.

Tip: Don't throw out the small groups in order to confer with every kid. Balance it!

Guiding Principles of Reading Workshop -Cathy Collins:

1. Students read just-right books every day

• She often uses the levels from June and makes up a book baggy for each student so they are matched with a just-right book starting Day 1.
• If kid's reading level dropped over the summer, she let's them feel the pain. She puts it as, "Oh my gosh, but that's what you were reading at the end of first grade! What happened? Oh no, what are you going to do to get caught up so you can get back to where you were in 1st grade?"
• COOL!!!!! At the end of the year, she has her kids create leveled book bags for next year's kids. Then she has the kids create any charts or helpful hints to help next year's kids, and puts them in their bag.

2. Readers choose appropriate material and take care of materials

• She schedules shopping days so she knows who just got new books. She can check-in with those kids right after they've selected their books. That way she can quickly weed out the Harry Potter before the kids has been "reading" it for 3 days.
• A-G readers might need 10-12 books in their bag to last them a week! If you don't have enough books, consider having kids select 5-6 books, then swap reading bags with their reading partner mid-week
• She has partners select matching books so they can have rich conversation
• She has each group have a "Look Book" basket (These are those DK books or other books that aren't just-right, but kids want to read. She keeps these books completely separate from the kids' reading bags. She always had the kids start the day by reading from their "Look Book" basket, and any other sponge times
• She also created "Look Book" bookmarks for at home. A kid can identify what level a book is for them and show their parent the bookmark:

                (R)      This book is hard. Please read it to me.
                (Y)      This book is pretty tricky. Please help me read it.
                (G)      Listen to me read this and let's talk about it when I'm done.

• Create a Book Hospital-->A place for kids to drop off broken books. She had a parent helper be the "Book Doctor"
• Student jobs: Librarian (keep the baskets nice and neat)
• When kids go back to book shop, they take the post-its out of the book. She has them select some of the post-its to tape into their reader's notebook. Students label the page with the book title, the date, and the level.
• For assessment, she will sometimes have kids turn in the post-it from the week that shows their best thinking.
• H and Above: Students should be doing Post-its
• A-G: She is less worried about having kids do post-its, she just wants them to read lots and lots and lots, and tell someone their favorite part. If they do post-its, the post-its serve more of a role of page-holder

3. Readers respect reading time and each other

4. Readers have daily opportunities to talk about books in genuine ways

• If you have a struggling ELL student, or a behavioral challenge, you might want to put them in a group of three (She told the story of the time that she put her super naughty kid in a partnership with the girl in her class that was a natural teacher and rule follower. Three days things went great. Then on the third day the rule-follower-girl bit the naughty kid. Through sobs she was apologizing profusely, but said she couldn't handle it any more. Her point? It's not fair to have kids manage kids. That should have been a group of 3.)

5. Readers read the words AND understand their reading

6. Readers' work during workshop is replicable outside the classroom

• Graphic organizers: Would I do this every time I read? Would it help me? If not, then why are you having your students do it?

Management Tips:

• Fountas and Pinnel have an iPad prompting guide App
• Fountas and Pinnel have the best, most comprehensive leveling website out there. It costs money, but it is SO worth it!!!
• Best (cheap) leveled books ever: pioneervalleybooks.com 
• She NEVER lets kids put their writing folders or their reading bags in their desks!! (She has hooks on the backs of their chairs for their reading bags)
• Fun: Have a "Building Stamina Marathon" --Which table will read the longest and strongest? One time she had the whole grade level meet in the gym for a stamina marathon
• She hasn't found reading logs to be very helpful until kids reach the J/K level

*If your kids don't know how to be in a reading workshop, you need to teach them how to be. (Make charts to reinforce and use photographs of kids doing it right)

How AppleTV Supports Book Clubs

Book Clubs
Third grade is a big year during reading workshop. Starting all the way in September, kiddos not only start learning about character motivation, whole book themes, cross-text themes, and many other heady work (even for us grown-ups), but they also start to learn what it means to be a reader. They begin to learn what a "readerly life" truly means.

In real life, readers often share their reading with others, and reader challenge the thinking of others. Book clubs is a great place to promote this type of work. But as any elementary teacher will tell you, asking a group of third graders to sit and talk, in depth, about a book, and to come to some larger understanding through that conversation can lead to disaster. If there isn't a substantial amount of work done before the first book club meeting, it will turn into a classroom management disaster.

To prepare kids for book clubs, we start early in the year learning about how people have conversations. We learn what people do with their body language and how people ask follow-up questions. We learn how to talk long about one idea, and how to cite evidence from the book. We even learn how disagreement can be good, if done politely and strategically.

In February groups of four are handed the keys to their brand new, shiny book club. And like a parent, it's hard being the teacher, standing off to the side, hoping they done drive it into a tree before even making it around the block once.

The first few book clubs are awkward. There's a lot of nervous laughter. (From the kids too.) Half of what they say is, "Um." Kids rely heavily on the conversational prompts chart in the front of the room. But it's okay. Everybody has to start somewhere.

As clubs meet, the awkwardness starts to wear off. Kids start to rely on the charts around the room. In fact, if you couldn't hear what they were saying, it probably would look pretty good. Pretty good isn't really what we are going for.

AppleTV Saves the Day
To help lift the level of conversation, I "coach-in" to book clubs. It's a great way to compliment kiddos on the great things that they might not even know they are doing, and a quick way to offer a tip to deepen the level of conversation. (And sometimes it's just fun to play the role of a 3-year-old and keep asking "Why?" over and over until the group magically comes to some big idea. I'm still not sure how that happens.)

There often are many great things happening. However, I usually have 7 book clubs, and they all meet at the same time. It's fine because I can zip around the room, but they don't ever get to see what any of the other groups are doing. When I select a group to recreate something in front of the class, they suddenly forget absolutely everything they talked about. It's weird.

Often, as I'm totally eavesdropping, I have my iPhone out, loaded up to the video camera. Now, you need to understand something about me: I'm always taking pictures or video or something. By February, kids are used to having a camera stuck in their face. It doesn't even phase them anymore. So when I hear see something I think might be useful for the rest of the class to see, you bet'cha: I stick my camera right into the center of the group and record it.

Sometimes I might record the entire club conversation of one group. Sometimes I capture 30 seconds from one group, 30 seconds from another. But strangely enough, kids LOVE to be recorded. In fact, if one group has more "air time" than any other group, I will surely hear about it. They can't remember where their other gym shoe is, but they KNOW that group 3 went twice last week.

My Favorite Part
After book clubs meet, everybody comes back up to the meeting space. As kids are transitioning, I'm quickly decided what I just captured that might be a great learning opportunity, either for the group recorded, or for the rest of the class. Sometimes I choose a recording because a certain kiddo was really shining brightly and showing it to the class my help build his self esteem.

The protocol always works like this:
1. Compliment all the amazing things I saw, giving specific examples from groups.
2. The drawn-out reveal of which group we are going to watch.
3. Remind kids to watch for two things:
           What is something this group did well that you'd like to try with your book club?
           If you could offer one tip to help this group, what would you suggest?
          (Sometimes I have kids take notes, sometimes I ask them to just think about it.)
4. Connect my iPhone to my AppleTV through AirPlay, then play the video on the classroom projector.
5. (If time) Have partners or book clubs debrief and combine their notes/ideas
6. Share out
7. Ask kids to reflect upon this video. What is one thing they learned that they think their group can try tomorrow?

I tell you what, when one group starts citing pages numbers in the video, suddenly the next day EVERY group is citing page numbers. I could have told them 1,000 times to do it and they would forget. They see another group do it one time, and suddenly they're experts. And they want me to record them doing it too!

The Nuts and Bolts
Before I had an AppleTV I did this two different low-tech ways:
1. I stuck my phone under the document camera. Aside from the sound, it actually works pretty well!
2. I got the iPhone to VGA cord and plugged my phone into the projector. Again, it looked beautiful, but the sound wasn't great.

Here's what you need to make this work with an AppleTV (which makes life SO much easier)
1. You need an AppleTV ($99 on the Apple Store. I picked mine up at Best Buy)
2. A projector (My classroom already had one)
3. Speakers (Most projectors have speakers built in. My classroom has the ceiling mounted "Audio Enhancement" sound system, so I plugged the sound from the AppleTV into that.)
4. Wifi
5. An iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or a Mac with OSX Mountain Lion


IMPORTANT: AppleTV only outputs to HDMI. Many newer projectors have HDMI, so if your projector does, great! My projector did NOT have HDMI, so I needed an HDMI to VGA converter. This is the one that I have, but if you do a search on Amazon for "HDMI to VGA Audio Video Converter", there are a billion choices.

Connecting to the AppleTV
So I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE AirPlay. I love being able to play music during writing workshop, and being able to have the volume controls right on my phone in my pocket. I love being able to turn on the camera and use it like a wireless mobile document camera. (That comes in handy during science!)

To play the video:
1. In the camera roll, pull up the video you want to show.
2. Click the Airplay symbol.
3. Select your Apple TV

4. Press play, and voila!