Five Ways to Use Memes to Connect With Students

Students love funny memes. Here are five ways you can bring that humor into your classroom (and school) to connect with students:

1. Class Rules, Expectations, and/or Procedures: Instead of your traditional class rules poster, use memes to deliver your message with humor. Better yet, have students create what they think proper rules and regulations should be. In memes, of course. You or your students can use a website like http://memegenerator.net/. You can also download full-quality already-made prints HERE.

2. Ice-breaker or "Get-to-Know-You" Activity: Memes are perfect for getting to know your students better. Break the ice with a "What I Do" meme or funny eCard. For a full lesson with printables and digital templates you can share, click here.

3. Promote (and Reinforce) Your Curriculum: Generate excitement with memes or use them to spark discussions. Posted around your room, they are sure to catch your students' attention. You can find hundreds of images on Pinterest.com with a search in your subject area. Or create them yourself.

4. Creative Activity: Students will practice both creative and critical-thinking skills while creating a meme related to the unit you are studying. It seems very simple, but coming up with appropriate wording to convey the right tone is definitely a higher-order skill. Then students have to make sure they use the right meme correctly. Without even realizing it, they will be making connections with the material while having fun. To read a more detailed post about making memes a class assignment, read more here.

5. Freshmen Orientation (or Open House): One of my colleagues came up with the brilliant idea to have our current students create memes for next year's incoming freshmen for orientation. The meme content varied, covering advice, warnings, and plain old high school humor. The eighth graders and their parents perused the memes during their orientation in March. The images always seem to generate questions they may not have asked otherwise. You could also use this for an open house discussion-starter. Graduating seniors can also leave legacy memes with words of wisdom for future seniors.

However you use memes in your classroom or school, one thing is certain: your students will love it!

You can find high-quality teacher meme prints for your classroom (or to place in presentations) here: Classroom Memes Posters for Classroom or Presentations

Try my End of the Year Advice Memes - Students create "advice memes" for your future students.

Enjoy!

The following images are from our most recent freshmen orientation, created by students:

Classroom Organization Update: Make-Up Work

My biggest challenge with staying organized is paperwork. Even though my students have laptops and we do much of our homework/classwork online, I still have several students whose laptops are "in the shop" or they have lost their privileges, so I must provide paper copies of the work we do. This includes copies of presentations, bell-ringers, MLA cheat sheets, etc. And students who are absent for online quizzes, tests, and journal prompts have to use the paper copy because our online program locks them out.

It gets to be overwhelming keeping it all straight.

I finally just started using my magnets (click HERE to see how I made all my classroom whiteboard magnets) on top of different stacks. But you all know what happens next: a student lifts the magnet to grab a copy and the rest of the papers fall to the floor. Some students had the foresight to set the magnet aside and hold the papers with the other hand, but—based on their furrowed brows—this was such an inconvenience.

I have stackable trays and paper organizers that I can put on my counters or a table. I've tried this method in the past and have found that I really don't like them. They take up a lot of room and don't have a prominent place for a label. I need a label that shouts to my students so loudly they don't have to ask me every. single. time.

Clearly, I'm doing this wrong.

Epic label FAIL on stackable trays.

So as I saw another stack of make-up work fall to the floor, I thought, I need a strap to hold those papers in. 

My first thought was to use a magnetic curtain rod (I use one for my daily bell-ringer signs* and I love it), but they are not close enough to the papers to keep them flat.

Love my magnetic curtain rod for my bell ringers, but knew it wouldn't work to hold make-up work handouts*.

Then I tried taking a folder and cutting it in half so the papers just go right in the pocket.

It was okay until...

That was okay, but they still flapped over, so students couldn't read the labels on the pocket.

Prototype #1 FAIL!

To combat the flapping, I folded a piece of paper lengthwise in threes and secured it with magnets on the sides to keep the handouts from flapping.

Prototype #2 FAIL!

It worked, but it looked like overkill. Like the folder pocket wasn't even necessary. And it wasn't. So I ditched that and just used the paper.

Finally! Third time's a charm.

How easy is that? And cheap.

Why did it take me three attempts to figure this out?? 

And I really like how "clean" and uncluttered it looks. Much better than the trays. What do you think?

I am making progress with my classroom disorganization problem, my friends. But I still have a long way to go. Thanks for following me on my journey to organizing my classroom!

*Bell ringer signs are found in my Bell Ringer Bundle. "Motivational Monday" quote signs are found in my bundle of Inspirational Quotes Classroom Posters.

Common Core Argument Writing

Implementing the Common Core State Standards doesn't have to be difficult, though many teachers may be intimidated by the language used. For instance, we used to categorize our writing prompts by "persuasive," "expository,"  and "narrative." The Common Core State Standards changes the wording to: "opinion," "informative/explanatory," and "narrative" for grades K-5 and "argument," "informative/explanatory," and "narrative" for grades 6-12. But that doesn't mean that the writing process or the types of prompts need to be changed.

Persuasive vs. Argument Writing

So what's the difference between persuasive writing and writing an argumentative paper? Both rely on the opinion of the writer. An argument, however, uses facts and data to support the opinion expressed. Students need to research to find evidence rather than rely on opinion alone to support their opinion (or "claim").

Research can be a daunting task, especially for middle school students. I created a student-friendly argument guide you can share with your classes.

In ninth grade, students are required to address the opposition's opinion, which is called the "counterclaim." My students struggled with this at first, but after explaining it and showing them examples, they grasped it and had no problem writing their essays.

I created two more detailed products to help you teach argument writing and practice the skills with your students.

My Argument Writing for Grades 6-12 pack includes the student guide, teacher's guidelines, handouts, and grading rubrics (all aligned with the Common Core State Standards for Argumentative Writing). It has over 60 pages of visually-stimulating and student-friendly graphics to explain each part of the essay process, including citations.

For high school teachers, I have an even more detailed guide that includes alignment with the PARCC guidelines for quarterly assessments.

You can purchase these resources, plus many more in my teacherspayteachers store. And the best part? You can get them on sale (30% off) Thursday and Friday! Use the promo code TPT3 at checkout!

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Book Spine Poetry: Using the Titles of Books to Write Poetry

I love poetry and writing poems is one of my favorite activities to share with students. It's important to let them know that inspiration can be found anywhere...including on the spines of their favorite books.

Above is a shorter version of a poem about this winter created from the titles of books found in our classroom. Here's the full version:

Let it snow
Wintergirls

Snow bound, the long winter
Linger...forever

Misery

Delirium


If you have had a winter like ours (and chances are you have!), you may feel the same way!

Have your students try to come up with different combinations of titles to create a book spine poem. Even if the words don't quite fit, they can drop or add their own words to their creation and, presto! There's a new poem!

Poetry shouldn't be hard; it shouldn't be a chore. Allow your students to have fun with it and experiment. They'll remember poetry as a positive experience and won't be as reluctant to write later. My "Write Like a Poet" pack helps guide students through the process by looking at many famous poets and poems and their style before tackling the writing process. It's a fun unit your students will enjoy.

Game On! Look at me!

Throwing smoke point blank

Gold dust

More than this

Champion

Thirteen reasons why, looking for Alaska

And the mountains echoed the call of

the wild

Blood red road caught at sea

Let's pretend this never

happened

Speak

more than this

call it

courage

lessons learned

The eye

of minds

the valley

of amazement

gone girl

and the mountains

echoed

Another variation of the first poem...

Let it snow 

Wintergirls

Snow bound, the long winter

Linger...forever

Misery

Delirium

HUSH

Book Spine poems are just one of the many activities you'll find in my "Write Like a Poet" pack. It also covers free verse, sonnet, snapshot, acrostic, haiku & modern haiku, sonnets, chance, black-out (redacted), magnetic, online, and word cloud poems. In addition, it helps students create metaphors, similes, personification, and use onomatopoeia effectively in a poem. It is completely editable so you can customize the almost 200-page presentation and handouts to suit the needs of your students. (And this might be one of my all-time favorite lessons in my TpT store.) ENJOY!

The presentation is completely editable and includes numerous examples.

All handouts are editable!

Classroom Disorganization: Utilize Unused & Hidden Spaces for Storage

Just wanted to post my latest attempt at organizing my classroom. We kicked off our poetry unit this week (one of my favorites!). As I was digging through my very cluttered drawers looking for baggies for a new activity I shared with my students today, I realized I needed a better system for storing them than just shoving them in a drawer when we are finished. Some of the words slipped out and I am pretty sure there are many still stuck in the corners of the drawer.

As I was trying to find all the little word pieces, I came across some Command hooks our custodian scored from 3M this summer (they donate tons of supplies to all our local schools). I didn't want to hang them up on the wall because I figured it would actually make my room look even more cluttered. Then it hit me. Literally...I hit my head on the cupboard door I had left open. (I have a bad habit of leaving them open...just ask my husband.)

Voila—such a simple solution, but I can't believe how much drawer space it frees up. The best part: I won't have to dig through them anymore to pick up all the little word pieces that fell out of the baggies.

If you are curious about the activity I shared with my students today, I will be uploading it later this week—or tomorrow if we have a snow day—on my teacherspayteachers site. :) I wanted to try it out with my students first and I thought it went over really well. And since I was evaluated by my principal during the activity, I'll keep you posted on what he thought of it, too.

UPDATE - Evaluation was excellent and my activity, which has students evaluate an author's word choices by analyzing the syntax, is posted (click on image):

Please post ways that you use Command hooks (or any other methods you have for organization). I love to hear new ideas. (And I need the help!)

One last tip (though I'm not sure this helps with my organization, but I hate wasting paper!): I reuse the daily calendar pages as passes or notes for students. I have a little desk tote that Scholastic Book Clubs sent that I keep the ripped-off pages in. Then when I need to write a pass or a note, I use one of those instead.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by my blog!

Read more about my journey here: http://www.traceeorman.com/2014/01/classroom-dis-organization-organizing.html

and here: http://www.traceeorman.com/2014/03/classroom-organization-update-make-up.html

Classroom Dis-Organization: Organizing My Classroom One Step at a Time

It's no secret: my teacher's area in my classroom is a cluttered mess. No matter how many times I try to keep it straightened up, the stacks of books and piles of papers find their way back. It doesn't help that I have a hard time throwing things away. If I make too many copies of a handout there's no way I can pitch the extras. But I'm not the greatest (i.e. I'm probably the worst) about filing them back in a neatly organized cabinet or binder. Who am I kidding? There is no such thing as a "neatly organized cabinet or binder" in my classroom.

My method of organizing is stacking things in piles and dealing with the piles later. The problem with that is that "later" rarely comes. I have piles stacked in a corner from two school years ago waiting for "later."

One stack still waiting to be filed in my classroom.

They always say the first step is admitting you have a problem. So here I am. I have a problem.

Another stack waiting to be filed.

Ok, now you know my dirty little secret. (Which, by the way, isn't really a secret. I mean, all my students know and most of the staff members—especially the custodians—who have been in my room know, unless they happened to stop by when I shoved all my piles into my cabinets and drawers so my room "looked" clean. Then they may think I'm somewhat organized. Until they open a cabinet door looking for a game or costume to borrow and everything comes tumbling down upon them...)

I should have a "Beware of Falling Objects" sign on my closet door.

I'll save the pictures of what the inside of my file cabinets and drawers look like for another post. And you won't want to miss what the inside of my podium looks like, either. But for now, let me show you one small step I took to become better organized. Or, just plain organized.

Labels! (I know it's a teeny, tiny baby step. But it's still a step in the right direction! Besides, I have made bigger steps but I'm saving those for another post. Seriously. I have. Kind of.)

Labels for my drawers, cabinets, and "Class of..." labels for organizing my photos.

Before I decided to make some cute zebra-print labels, I used plain labels and wrote on them. They were functional. Just kind of ugly. Let's face it: if something looks cute or at least more appealing and uniform, it makes it easier to keep it organized, right? You can download these EDITABLE Zebra labels for your own classroom (or wherever) use. (I also have Chevron and Owls.)

So, that's the first step in my road to classroom organization recovery. Feel free to comment below with any tips for organization you may have. I'll continue to post about the steps I'm taking and maybe I can even utilize your tips! Next time, see how I tackled the mess on the counter behind my desk...

It's scary...I know.