Graffiti Mat

A Graffiti Mat is an instructional strategy that we, as a staff, used during our Summarizing & Note-taking Marzano session. This small group strategy requires a large piece of chart paper and markers/crayons.

Directions are simple! Draw a square in the middle of the paper, then divide the rest of the space according the number participants at the table. Each person has their own space to share their knowledge on the subject.

Our assignement was to write all we know about the Summarizing and Note-taking strategy. When everyone is done, they share their knowledge. As a table, a group summary statement is created and place in the center box.

During this strategy, participants accessed their background knowledge and located information from the text by taking notes on the Graffiti Mat. The group then had to work together to write a summary that included all important pieces of information for the center. It involves higher levels of thinking when they are critiquing and judging the information for the summary statement.

Here are a few examples from the professional development day:





A few weeks later, one of our teachers took this strategy and applied it to her classroom. Her language arts class was reading Nothing But the Truth. Each student was responsible for writing their own prediction about Phillip's actions. As a group, they had to create a consensus for the prediction.

Here are examples of a teacher using this strategy in their classroom:

Wiki's in the classroom!!

As most of you know, we have a Wiki set up for Rosemore staff. (Reminder: A Wiki is an online site that can hold documents that can be opened and downloaded anywhere. It is also meant to share multiple resources with a select group of approved people.)

www.rosemore.pbwiki.com

Our Wiki holds our pacing charts, common assessments, websites, and notes to peers. Only people who have approved access can open any of our documents. This provides one common place for valuable documents that are needed quite often.

You can also create a Wiki for your classroom!! Think about it...what kind of documents do you share with your students? Lesson Plans? Worksheets? Notes? Graphic organizers? This way students who have computers at home or at the library have access to all assignments. This is great for when students are absent or need to make up an assignment.

Situation 1: Student A is at home for multiple days because they are sick. They can open the lesson plans and download the assignments while at home.

Situation 2: Student B is missing 3 assignments because they lost the originals. They go to the library to locate and print the assignments and complete them.

Here are a few Wiki sites that are easy to use for both the creater and the user:

pbwiki.com
http://www.wikispaces.com
http://www.wetpaint.com

For a video on how wiki's work, check this out:

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=c04c7bfc822caf7c7459

The Book Room!!

We are lucky enough at Rosemore to have an amazing bookroom! Because of that, other schools have asked to see what it looks like and how it is set up! Here is my attempt at giving you a tour of our bookroom!
This is the view from when you first walk in from the hallway. It is a regular classroom size room. There are three tables that are used for PD.

This is the only bulletin board in the room. We use this to recognize the staff that participate in the PD. The left side is divided into four sections: 6th, 7th, 8th and unified arts. I use the right side to post pictures of the staff or examples of Marzano strategies in action. Under the bulletin board is a shelf with baskets. The baskets each hold a different type of Thinkmark that the teachers can use in their classes. The colored paper on top of the shelf is used in Writer's workshop and is used as draft and final draft paper.

The majority of the bookshelves in our bookroom contain small sets of books that can be used for guided reading or literature circle sets. They are leveled based on the Fountas & Pinnell guided reading leveling system. We have over 1000 sets of books. Each set can have 4-8 copies of a book. The levels covers all ranges, interests, and abilities.

This is the view from behind my desk. This shows you the three different rows of book shelves with leveled baskets.

The bookshelf on the left contains two rows of author books that are used for author talks or author studies. The bookshelf on the right is filled with picture books that are grouped according to genre or topic.

The first two bookshelves on the left set an example of what a classroom library should look like. Each of our language arts classrooms has 250 or more books. The last bookshelf contains author sets that can be used along with the author talks or studies.

Finally, this is an example of a teacher resource shelf. There are four of these in the book room. This one contains poetry resources and small sets of teacher books that can be used in book studies or PLTs.

Hope you enjoyed the bookroom!! We certainly are proud!