How Do I Use All of These Jottings to Help My Students?

Sticky notes are all over my classroom!  I thought I would not be able to manage all of these yellow pieces of paper.  Instead I have embraced them and have even started using them myself!  I have taught my students how to jot, how to put the sticky notes in their Reading Notebook after they finish the book.  I created a Parking Lot for them to display sticky notes that I want to read and assess. 

 

Then I had to devise a way for me to use these parked sticky notes for a teaching purpose.  So I read through the jottings and put them into three categories: on target, on their way, not on target.  I did this for each of my two literacy blocks.

 

on target

on his way

on his way

off target--copied text from book

off target--no details

 

my notebook where I keep track of my groups

 



I wrote a tip for each group to help them improve their jottings.  I printed the tips on address labels.  I put an address label in my conferencing notes for each child and gave each child a sticker to put in his/her Reading Notebook. I now have a record of what I have told each child to work on and they have a copy of the tip that I gave him/her.

 

my conferencing notebook

 

 

student Reading Notebook

 

 

After Word Work lessons, I will have students respond on sticky notes.  Then I can analyze their spelling and put them into groups to give more directed skill lessons.