The Importance of Writing and the Power of the Pen!

Four GMSW Students Advance to Regional Power of the Pen Competition

The Power of the Pen is a writing competition for 7th and 8th grade students in Ohio.  Historically, Middle School West has enjoyed success in the POP competition, and this year is no exception.  The MSW Power of the Pen team recently competed with over 250 middle school writers at the 2013 Power of the Pen district competition hosted at Gahanna Middle School South.  I'm proud to announce that four of our student writers will be advancing to the regional Power of the Pen competition at New Albany Middle School on March 16th!  

Of 122 seventh graders who competed, Middle School West had three writers place in the top 50: Makayli Bosaw was 19th, Sarah Heaberlin was 23rd, and Dani Biro was 50th.  Representing the MSW 8th graders, Anna Merickel placed 15th out of 129 eighth graders in the competition.

I would like to congratulate these writers and their coach, Megan Forster, for a job well done!  The MSW Family wishes each of the young ladies good luck as they compete at the regional competition at New Albany for a chance to advance to the state writing competition at the College of Wooster on May 23rd and 24th.

Writing is an essential skill for success in the workplace and in the classroom.  Students at Middle School West are being asked to read and write more than ever before.  So often, writing is the mode of communication by which we create and share new ideas.  To say it is important is an understatement.  

Encourage your child to share with you what he/she is writing about at school.  Do you have a child who can't get enough writing?  Take a look at this brief video from Young Writer's Workshops for some ideas about writing projects for middle schoolers:

What's Up at West?

• March 7th - MSW Winter Band Concert - grades 6 & 7 (7:30pm - GMSW Auditorium)
• March 11th - Market Day Pickup (5-6pm in GMSW cafeteria)
• March 12th - Athletic Code of Conduct Meeting - Spring Sports (5-6pm - GMSW Auditorium)

          

What Can I Do to Help My Child in Reading & Writing?

Use Specific Strategies to Practice Good Literacy Habits With Children

I love this quote by Perry Marshall.  To complete any task, we need to have the right tools.  Teaching students to read and write at high levels of performance is no different.  Teachers and parents must equip students with the right tools to do the job correctly, with attention to detail.  In the past, I have written some introductory pieces about the common core curriculum and how important reading and writing is to the success of students.  As a middle school principal, I am often asked by parents how they can help their children grow in the areas of reading and writing.  In this issue of West Weekly, I would like to provide some information about best practice in reading and writing as well as some resources for parents to utilize to help children develop sound academic reading and writing habits.

The instructional practices of close reading and text-dependent writing are essential to helping students accomplish two things: 

• Close reading helps students understand content at a very deep level, including the meaning of complex vocabulary, connecting essential content to our world, and understanding the author's purpose/bias/slant.
• The practice of text-dependent writing helps teachers focus students on critical components of a text and gives students a strategy for constructing a claim, assertion, or argument and supporting it with specific evidence from the text.

 As a parent, the best thing you can do to help your child read for meaning is to nurture his/her innate inquisitive nature.  Having conversations about reading and content while asking thought provoking questions is a great way to model important academic habits of mind for students.  Here are some other strategies that parents can use to help students improve their understanding:

How Can Parents Help Students Read for Detail?

•Talk with teachers.  Find out what content is being covered in class and read texts with children at home.

•Ask your child to summarize an important excerpt from the text for you.

•Read with your child.  As you do, pause to ask open-ended questions about the vocabulary and meaning of the text.

•Ask children to make a claim about the selection.  In other words, have them take a position about what they have read.  Once they do, challenge them to support their position with specific evidence from the reading.

Visit the EdToolBox to learn more about close reading and see a video from nationally renowned expert, Dr. Douglas Fisher.

As you work with your child on writing assignments, understand that a student's ability to support his or her assertions and claims about the content of the reading is critical to success in school.  Help your child understand that there is a difference between an opinion (often a focus in elementary school) and a claim.  The difference is that a claim is accompanied with specific support from the text that backs up the writer's opinion.  Learning the difference between an opinion and a claim is a new experience for most middle school students.  Parents can help students at home by defining the difference between a claim and an opinion and insisting that students can support their claims.  Building writing structures for students is one way to help them learn the process of answering a question in a very detailed way that includes support.  One process you can encourage at home is R.A.C.E.

Teachers at MSW help students answer text-dependent questions by using the RACE approach to writing. 

RACE is an acronym that stands for:

Restate the question.  Rewording the question as a part of the response helps the writer frame his/her answer and helps the reader put the answer in context.
Answer the question.  This entails understanding the content one has read (why close reading is so important).  Be sure to answer all parts of a question.  Often, students only answer part of a question when the question is asking about multiple things.
Cite evidence.  Here is where the support comes in.  When citing evidence, students should use specific pieces from the reading.
Elaborate, or explain.  In this final step, a student writer explains his/her own reasons (beyond the specific examples cited from the text) why he/she believes the answer is correct.  These reasons can be connections the student makes to prior/existing knowledge and inferences made based on the reading.

As a principal, I love getting questions from parents about how they can help their children excel.  It shows me how much our parents care.  For that, I'm grateful!  I hope these strategies help you work with your child at home and give you some important insight into how instruction is happening in the classrooms at Middle School West.

STEM Club

Students Learn App Design in STEM Club

The GMSW STEM Club continues to offer students opportunities to explore topics that excite them in a comfortable club setting.  One of the common interests that students talked about when surveyed was app design.  To help students understand the basic steps to app design, we began with a brief introduction to MIT's android platform app design program, App Inventor.  We were fortunate to have Marcie Aiello, GLHS computer science & programming teacher, visit our club to conduct a lesson in App Inventor with the students.  Students were able to design simple apps that incorporated a picture of a cat.  When the user tapped on the cat's image, the cat meowed.  App Inventor is a simple program that anyone can learn, and it lays the basic foundation for programming with a simple drag & drop format.

The video below gives you a glimpse into the simplicity of App Inventor. 

As you can see, App Inventor is simple to use.  Even if you don't own an android phone, you can still design apps and use the computer as the interface.  Why not check it out at home and design an app with your children?  App Inventor can be a great way to use technology in a creative, engaging way with students.



Marcie Aiello teaches students the basics of App Inventor.



Students work independently during STEM Club to design apps using App Inventor.



Speaking of apps in education, visit the following link to learn about apps that help improve students' reading comprehension.  

15-of-the-best-educational-apps-for-improved-reading-comprehension/               

What's Up at West?           

• February 14th - GJPS School Board Meeting (6:30pm at Clark Hall, 3rd floor)

• February 14th - District Middle School Orchestra Concert for 6th & 7th grade strings (7:30pm at MSW Auditorium)

• February 18th & 19th - NO SCHOOL

• February 21st and 26th - Parent/Teacher Conferences (4:15-7:45pm) Please call 614-478-5570 to schedule a conference.       

Common Core 101: An Introduction for Parents

Moving from the State Standards to the Common Core

The common core standards have been adopted by 45 states and 3 territories. They represent a common set of learning standards aimed at measuring  students' mastery of important academic skills.  The common core includes standards in mathematics and English/Language Arts and aims to increase the level of rigor in classrooms across the nation.  The standards focus heavily on the concept of literacy, including literacy standards in content areas such as science and social studies.  Further, the standards include an emphasis on writing, speaking, and listening.

Many parents ask what the difference is between the current Ohio learning standards and the common core standards.  There are many differences, but the main difference is that the common core standards lead to greater rigor for college & career readiness and deeper levels of understanding.  Whether through reading texts of greater complexity, applying mathematical concepts to novel situations, or writing to defend an assertion with specific support from a text, students and teachers are being asked to dig deeper into understanding than ever before.  Go to Core Standards for more information on the common core standards.

At Middle School West, parents often ask how they can help their children excel in school.  I think the best thing parents can do for children is to make reading a priority in the family.  Now, more than ever, parents have so many opportunities to make reading exciting and fun.  While trips to the library are certainly exciting for students (there's just something special for kids about picking out their own books), technology affords busy parents an opportunity to keep high-interest literacy support in front of their children at all times.  Below is a collection of apps compiled by Vicki Windman for the 12/28/12 issue of Tech & Learning.  The list includes apps to support learning in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and mathematics.  See the current issue of Tech & Learning for expert commentary on the shift to the common core.  Visit Education.com for more parent resources.

GMSW Students Present to School Board

At the January GJPS School Board meeting, Mr. Harmon introduces Braden Neal (8th grade)
and Jenaisa Payne (6th grade) as they share their involvement with MSW's Rachel's Challenge  IMPACT
initiative.  Guidance Counselor, Kathy Spencer (not pictured), also spoke to the Board about the group's plans for their
20 Acts of Kindness project.

What's Up at West?

• February 7, 2013 - Early Release.  Students are dismissed at 2:10pm.
• February 7, 2013 - PTO meeting (7pm in GMSW Library)
• February 21st & 26th - Parent/Teacher Conferences (4:15-7:45pm)  Call the office at 614-478-5570 to schedule a conference.

Using Multiple Representations in Middle School Math

Teaching for Understanding:  Why Using Multiple Representations is Essential for Math Learners.

 

A common belief held by many people is that math is difficult to learn.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, each of us is a mathematician, and all students have the ability to make substantial growth in math.  It is true, perhaps, that math could be very difficult to learn if all it is to students is an exercise in tedious memorization.  You see, math is about much more than learning algorithms and memorizing multiplication facts and formulas. 

MATH IS ABOUT THINKING.  

From infancy all children wonder about the world around them, seeking out answers to problems based on the information available to them at the time.  To help students grow as math thinkers, teachers and parents must get past thinking that memorizing math facts is enough.  To grow and excel in math, students must be challenged at the earliest ages - even before kindergarten - to think about math critically.  One of the best ways to help students develop this critical thinking ability is to expose them to multiple representations of mathematical concepts while challenging them to create representations of their own.

What would this look like for students in a middle school classroom?  Given that math is about thinking, we must accept that it is also about communicating our thinking - and about challenging our thinking and questioning our approaches to problems.  Consider the importance of these concepts in this brief video from Dan Meyer, doctoral fellow at Stanford University.



 

 

 



Recently, 8th grade math students at MSW were challenged to use multiple representations to analyze a non-linear pattern of growth.  Their teachers, Nikki Kelley and Denise Wolfe, wanted students to share their thinking as they examined one another's work.

 

"Students had to use various representations (tables, graphs, equations, pictures) to analyze a non-linear pattern of growth.  They had to make connections between the representations with the idea that given one they should be able to create the others.  The teams worked together to create the posters.  Then the teams went on a Gallery Walk to analyze the other teams' posters.  First they had to give feedback on the patterns the other teams created and critique the work the other teams produced.  Then they had to compare and contrast the work done by different class periods that had the same rule as them.  Overall the students should have a deeper understanding of multiple representations for algebraic problems."  ~ Nikki Kelley

 

Some examples of student work from the Gallery Walk:

 



 

One of the best indicators of a student's math understanding is his/her ability to explain their mathematical thinking.  As you sit down with your children to review their homework each night, ask them to explain their strategies for tackling problems.  You'll be surprised how much you know about math and about how impressive our students are!

 

 

What's Up at West?

• 11/26 - Winter Sports Pictures at 3:45pm
• 11/27 - Students return from Thanksgiving Break
• 11/29 - Coffee with Mr. Scruci (7:30-9am at Tim Horton's)
• 11/29 - 6th grade Strings w/LHS orchestra (7:30 pm at GMSW auditorium)
• 11/30 - Progress Reports Go Home
• 12/6 - PTO meeting (7pm in GMSW library)



RED RIBBON WEEK

GMSW Students Learn About the Dangers of Drugs

 

 

 

Spice. K2. Salvia. Bath Salts. Meth. X. Inhalents. Do you know about these drugs? If not, you should. Young people are being exposed to these street drugs earlier and earlier in their lives. In Ohio and across the country, the variety of drugs being offered on the street is exploding. Some even seem harmless. One looks like a clump of brown sugar, another like a child's multi-vitamin - complete with an imprint of a Transformer. Teens need information from caring, responsible adults about the dangers of drugs & alcohol if they are to understand the negative effects drugs have on one's life. As teachers and parents we must first understand what dangers these drugs pose before we can understand how to advise teens to make good choices about avoiding them. One thing is certain: Those who would push these products on children are not telling them the truth about the damage they can do.

During RED RIBBON Week at MSW, students had an opportunity to show their spirit and commit to following a drug and alcohol free lifestyle. Seventh and Eighth grade students had the opportunity to hear from retired Sergeant Mike Powell about the dangers of street drugs, including marijuana and alcohol. Sergeant Powell served in the Franklin County Sheriff's Office for over 32 years and now he continues to work as a public information specialist with Franklin County, conducting drug awareness training for students and parents all over the United States of America. Sgt. Powell was a supervisor with the FBI Drug Task Force here in Columbus. He is a member of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia, and is widely recognized as an expert on illegal drugs and their manufacture, sale, and impact on our society. He also happens to be a former GMSW Parent. We are excited to announce that we are planning a training for parents led by Mike sometime this winter. Look for more information coming soon. In the meantime, visit Operation:StreetSmart on Facebook.

Sergeant Mike Powell (Ret.) speaks with GMSW 8th graders about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.



What's Up at West?

• November 7th - MSW Skate Zone Party, sponsored by the GMSW PTO (6-8:30pm)
• November 8th - Early Release Day. Students dismissed at 2:10pm.
• November 8th - 7th & 8th grade strings rehearsal at GLHS Band Room (6:30-8:30pm)
• November 15th - MS & HS district orchestra concert (7:30pm @ LHS auditorium)
• November 19th - 8th grade district choir concert (7:30pm @ GLHS)
• November 21-23 - Thanksgiving Holiday. NO SCHOOL.
• November 26th - NO SCHOOL. Teacher In-Service Training.



Why READING is so important.

Sustained Silent Reading During PRIDE Period Helps All Students Grow

 

 

 

 

All students at MSW have time each day to read during their PRIDE period.  Why is this such an important part of their academic growth?  There are several reasons.  The most important of these is that when students are able to choose what they read and are given time to focus on that reading, they grow at an astonishing rate.  As Bernice Cullinan of New York University writes in Independent Reading and School Achievement:

Age level is a primary factor that shapes why people read, what they read, how much they read, and what they do with what they read. Furthermore when students started to read affects their subsequent school experiences and reading competence. Developmental influences are strong.

Unfortunately, many studies suggest that it is during the middle school years that students begin to read less on their own, often enticed by other emerging interests and pursuits common for their age and development.  For this reason, it is essential that students are afforded the time each day to choose rigorous, high-interest, engaging text that is appropriately complex for them. 

“There’s no better way to inform and expand your mind on a regular basis than to get into the habit of reading good literature . . . You can get into the best minds that are now or that have ever been in the world.” – Stephen Covey
 

Please take the time to discuss with your children what they are currently reading and encourage them to continue to read for extended periods at home.  READING is a habit of success.  Let' make is a habit for all.


What's Up at West?

• October 22nd - Red Ribbon Week Begins (anti drug and alcohol awareness)
• October 26th - Red Cross Blood Drive (noon - 6pm in the auditorium)
• October 26th - End of the First Grading Period