Hour of Code in a Language Arts class?

After hearing about Hour of Code - I decided to dedicate an hour with my 7th grade Reading/Writing class to explore...

They had a blast, and the range of emotions experienced by these kids was fantastic...they were excited, frustrated, challenged, surprised, determined....and not one of them gave up! All of my students finished and got the certificate to prove it!!

They offered help, accepted help and did not give up!!

 After completion they went to their Kidblog pages and reflected on the experience....you can view those blog posts here: Mrs. Rahn's Kidblog page

I think their words say it all:

    

        "I’ve just completed The Hour of Code. At first I enjoyed it and didn’t have to think much about what I was doing. It was very fun but then as I got to the end it got difficult and hard. It required lots of thinking and time. Finally I had finished. I had written 116 lines of code and finished all the 20 levels of code. I was amazed at myself, I thought I would’ve never finished, but I did. I got a certificate that said I had successfully completed “The Hour of Code."

        "My hour of code was very challenging but I got through it and beat the challenge. I exited out to fast so I did not see how many hour of codes I got. But I know I didn’t do so well until a friend showed me on 10/20 then after that I did all by myslef and I did great. I liked this activity today. I really do believe that computers are the next generation to life. They really are amazing, they have thousands and thousands of activites on the internet."

         "I thought The Hour of Code would be hard! No way, not with my smart brain! The Hour of Code was pretty hard, but admit it, it wasn’t that bad. It was fun and a good experience!" 

       "You can call me clutch because I  just finished the hour of code. It was not that hard, but it was a little challenging and frustrating, but I got through it and completed it. It was fun and thought provoking which I like. It also looked very simple to do, but it was harder than I thought it would have been. So just to say I completed it felt good. Soo you can call me clutch."

     "I wrote 109 lines of code, it was so much fun... kinda. At first i didn't want to do it because it sounded dumb and hard, but it was not that hard and really fun! I cant wait to do lines of code again! Have you ever done lines of code? I really want to do it again i loved it so much!!!"

"I loved the hour of code. It was really hard but I completed it with 154  lines. Some of them were harder than the others. If you did it how many lines did you get?I was suprised how hard it was. I thought it was going to be really easy but it was not. I really liked it. I hope I can do it again."

"Right before I posted this post, I did "an hour of code" or something, and programed a character to travel to the goal 20 TIMES IN A ROW! when I first started I was like "oh... well I'm gonna fail" then a while after I was like "you're kidding me, this is like playing a video game (I'm pretty good at video games)"

I teach English classes full of reading and writing activities - and today we explored computer programming and coding. The kids were reading, using higher level thinking skills, reflecting on their decisions, analyzing the next move, predicting what might happen, drawing conclusions, making inferences, determining cause and effect relationships....sounds like English class to me!

And then they reflected on the experience through writing - on their blogs - for an authentic audience!

Hour of Code in Mrs. Rahn's class. Higher order thinking skills...here we come! pic.twitter.com/vUdHnpZ59F
— Blue Ridge MS (@BRMSbulldogs) December 12, 2013

It was a great day in Mrs. Rahn's Classroom - developing 21st Century Skills! 

Talking About Books...In Person and Through a Screen

I truly didn't start to love reading until late elementary school, or possibly even middle school. It was around that time that I found YA literature and there was no turning back. The best part and the happiest memories were trading books with my friends and talking about them.

What surprised us, what we laughed about, what made us sad...Some of our teenage sleepovers actually included sitting around and reading books, trading them and talking about them.

As this school year began and I made the move to teaching 7th grade English, those middle school memories came rushing back. I soon realized that I was faced with the 21st century tween/teen. They were raised with screens - TV screens, computer screens, video game screens, cell phone screens and the book screens (Kindles/Nooks). The idea of sitting and reading a book was not at the top of the priority list for most of these students. These kids were abandoning books left and right...just not able to find a good book that would keep their interest.

And so we began our first book clubs of 7th grade. I introduced a pile of books that I had read over the summer - in preparation for the move to middle school - did book talks and did what I could to sell these kids on these books. I wanted them to read, but a selling point was that they would be able to "talk" about the book after with others that had also read it. That first round of book clubs went well, the kids enjoyed the books and the conversation afterwards.

They were looking forward to the next book clubs, and I was trying to figure out how to add to the experience for them.

I love technology and enjoy finding innovative ways to weave tech tools into classroom instruction. After a #litjourney twitterchat and some pondering about how to move book clubs into the 21st century, I decided to pursue online discussion forums for my students. I wanted to give them more opportunities to collaborate, communicate and create discussions around real books.

some screenshots of student discussions online...

I discussed the possibilities with our Technology Teacher at school and explored on my own. We use a Moodle based virtual classroom and discussion forums were available within the virtual platform. I created a discussion forum for each book that we were currently reading; shared with the students, and they were off and running! (Click on the picture above for a larger image)


One of my most resistant readers was one of the first to post in the discussion forum, and he did it from home! The kids were excited about this, and as I shared during the next class what was happening virtually, more students were interested and more posts were coming.

We are continuing to have our face-to-face book club meetings, but with this added feature, there is more discussion and the discussion about literature is happening at all hours of the day and night. I am receiving online posts from the breakfast table, at midnight on Friday night, Sunday morning, and throughout the afterschool evening hours.

The reactions from the students have been fun to watch. Some took to the excitement of talking about books through a computer right away, and wanted to try it out. Others had to be convinced.

As we continue to move students into the 21st century and help them create, collaborate and communicate - we need to provide opportunities for them to have meaningful discussions. I'm looking forward to more analytical book discussions, whether it be online or face-to face.

Motivating students to read, and giving them a variety of ways to share their reading is a facet of my classroom that I hope to see grow as the students grow in their exploration of literature and their communication skills!