Video Gallery

ELA Virtual Family Night, April 9, 2025

Go to Video Gallery Added Apr 14, 2025 •

Copy this URL:
Embed code:	<iframe class="edlio-embed-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="//mai.montebello.k12.ca.us/apps/embed/?v=384652" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Change dimensions

Go HD

If you were unable to join the virtual presentation, here is a link to see the video. Si no pudieron asistir la presentación virtual, aquí está el video.

Show Transcript

thank you for joining us everybody um tonight we will be going over our Ela family night we have 3 wonderful presenters Mr Jonathan Damian he is our SDC 67th and eighth grade ELA science teacher we have Mr Fernando Flores our seventh grade social science teacher and Mr Juan Flores are eighth grade um Ela so she said the teachers as well um our main focus today is going to be on writing we would like to be showing you some of the California writing standards we would like like to also go over our schoolwide initiative that we're doing with all content areas our CER um and what it is and without further Ado Mr Damian I will hand it over to you thank you guys thank you thank you thank you for joining us today I just want to um let it know letting me know this presentation is being recorded for instructional purposes so we will be sharing this video as well so just letting everyone know that it is being recorded all right thank you so welcome thank you for family thank you for joining us for ELA family night like Mr rytary said we will be going over resources tools and strategies for writing today uh I Mr Damian like uh Mr rotari said and then Juan and Mr sorry Mr Flores and Mr Flores will be presenting with us as well through it all right so today's lesson objectives we are going to be going through a few things what are the California writing standards what is CER basics of writing what is a performance task and then also let's learn about resources your child can use in the classroom and at home all right before we get started also um if any questions pop up please put them in the chat box we will try to get to them either in between or at the end of the activity uh just depending on time all right thank you so California writing standards we are focused on uh 3 of the California writing standards in 6 7th and 8th grade here at Macy um in sixth grade we have 2 introducing claims and organizing the reason and evidence clearly and then also supporting claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence using credible sources and demonstrating and understanding of the topic of text so we do look a lot at into the text that we do here on campus for seventh grade as well as introducing claims that were also acknowledging and addressing alternate and opposite claims um as well as supporting claims as well but the the seventh grade it's countering arguments with logical reasoning as well and then in eighth grade we are introducing claims as well except in this area we are getting them from all or opposing claims and then also organizing the reasons and evidence logically uh as well as supporting claims with logical reasoning and relevant evidence using accurate credible sources all right next slide so what is CER CER is claim evidence reason and claim is that the statement that answers the question evidence is observations data and research that support the claim and then reasoning scientific principle that show how the evidence supports the claim I'm going to show you a different way of understanding c as well so it is an essential method for enhancing your child's writing in language arts and we're going to go into it a little bit um Macy intermediate students apply this writing method across all grade levels and content areas so at Macy we do use claim evidence reasoning in math we use it in writing in our English language arts we use it in science so we do use it across multiple content areas claimed this is another way of looking at a claim it's an assertion or an arguable statement evidence it's supporting facts quotes or examples from the text and then reason it's explanation linking the evidence to the claim showcasing how evidence supports 1 second sorry about that how supports the claim all right so is C are important in English it is it helps us improve analytical analytical thinking encourages students to dissect text Trace authors arguments and form opinions enhances communication skills it teaches how to articulate ideas clearly and persuasively it also promotes textual evidence usage instills the habit of recording arguments with concrete evidence so with CER really going into depth on not only do we explain what we read but we show proof by going back into the text and pulling that proof out and then putting it down on paper all right next we're going to be talking about basics of writing um hello good afternoon um yeah so for the basics of writing building off of the CER we do like to focus on uh not Simply Basic editing skills but hopefully at 1 Point perfecting the editing skills so everything from proofreading whether it's spelling uh grammar and punctuation sentence structure and comprehension uh we obviously want them to be able to make claims we want them to provide evidence and reasoning um but once we are certain that they've that they've been able to get there we want them to be able to revise and improve their writing and clean up their writing right um so you know as some examples here you know we we could take a claim we could take evidence we could take reasoning and once we got that down uh regardless of the grade level we could go through and we could check spelling for example um in the red sentence there there is a misspelled word um we could do that intentionally or we could just go through student exercises we could find Samplers of students who uh take care of their spelling or who are better spellers and we can say Okay so this has met a certain level uh but now we want to go in and not in a bad way but we want to nitpick right so we want to find like the misspelling um we want to check for that grammar and punctuation because commas do make uh commas do make a big difference right um periods uh make a big difference there there there are many errors when it comes to just missing periods missing commas um when it comes to sentence structure we'd like our you know we'd like our students to be able to write more complex sentences to get away from uh the very basic maybe 3 4 words which are always good to begin with but you know you add a good conjunction you add a couple of commas a couple of uh dependent uh Clauses or phrases and you know their writing at a at a much higher level which is always great to see um and then vocabulary we want them to build their vocabulary because they have become uh more and more dependent specially uh because of social media because of uh text um they become a lot more uh used to writing you know acronyms but not the type of acronyms that are spelling out larger words but you know like the LOL um putting you instead of you like the letter instead of the word um we want them to you know have good usage we want them to be able to uh produce that that better level of writing and so that does involve uh proper uh vocab usage um proper verb conjugation um just getting them used to uh writing at a higher level that's uh it is it is an important thing we try to push and then when it comes to revising revising is very difficult and the best way to get a student or students to revise is to actually teach them how to revise um so we once again we start off with with you know basic phrases so I put some more examples here but like if they're at the level of saying pollution harms the environment and their support for that is it's bad you know sure it is bad but we'd like to get them to be able to express themselves more fully to provide more details to be able to revise their writing not only for the mistakes but to provide more details um to make it more impactful to to make whatever are saying to make their statements more effective um so that their writing becomes more powerful right um we want them to be able to analyze and integrate information um use evidence and reasoning which goes back to the CER but we want them to use it and say something more instead of Simply restating the evidence um so when we are working with the CER for example we have uh we've had issues where the students or simply restate the evidence we actually want them to move past restating the evidence we want them to build upon the evidence uh and pass judgment make uh good conclusions um have support for their conclusions we want them to be able to integrate and analyze that information that goes along with it and so in the end you know we want them to be able to make inferences you know educated guesses but not so much a guess as a solid conclusion based on off of to to integrate a little bit of science based off of a bit of a of a educated hypothesis right we want them to be able to take a position and make that inference but we want them to make it closer to being factual then to just come up with something that that someone's just immediately going to argue with and find fault with we we would love for them to be able to write at this level to be able to support their writing and to be able to produce that is effective um because sometimes some students have difficulty with the speaking aspect of it or the reading aspect of it uh but they could express themselves in writing uh so much more efficiently if they know how to write and it's always a good thing to follow back on if you have trouble public speaking or speaking in general or you're embarrassed reading if you are an effective writer um the other person will eventually get the point of what you're trying to say and so we like to cover the basics of writing up into those points uh in support of the C and everything else we do to hopefully make them those very effective writers so that they could communicate whenever they need to communicate you are muted Mr Flores all right next we're going to talk about what a performance task is all right good evening I'm Mr Fernando Flores I teach seventh grade language arts and social studies here at May I'll be going over performance tests now students will be asked to complete a performance test on our state test okay coming up in May it's a California assessment of students performance and progress students at the 3rd to 8th grade as well as 11th grade uh complete this test it includes tests in language arts and math now both the math and language arts students require students to complete a performance test I'll be specifically talking about the language arts performance task all right so it does involve 2 parts it focuses on reading researching and writing it's a real world academic tasks now students will be asked to read 3 to 4 sources its informational material articles passages now the 3 4 uh sources are on a common topic so again it has 2 parts the first part okay they're going to answer research questions some of these questions as our students what are the sources have in common where is it that they disagree then for part 2 they write an extended response essay right so what types of essays will students be asked okay to write it's going to be either an informative explanatory essay an argumentative essay or a narrative essay now it's completely random um a third of the class might be asked to write informative essays I know that argumentative another third narrative so again it's completely narrative um random so they have to be ready for whatever uh essay they get asked to write all right so starting off with the informative explanatory essay the purpose is to lane or inform readers about a topic all right so students must introduce a topic clearly develop a thesis controlling ideas they have to use facts and examples from the for sources to develop ideas they have to organize the information logically use trans positions academic language then concluded the section that summarizes the main points and provides a sense of closure now this can be very rigorous because again they have 3 to 4 sources that they're going to read and they're not simply just summarizing the information what they have to do is synthesize the information from the 3C now what does that mean they have to combine ideas and arguments and evidence from all sources to create 1 new understanding of the information so again it's not simply summarizing it's synthesizing the information so again they are reading the 3 to 4 sources and they have to ask themselves okay so what's the big idea what big idea the the all 3 through 4 sources communicate and then they write their essay to explain the topic so for example they might be asked explain how renewable energy can help communities so again they're taking information from all 3 to 4 sources and they're using you know text they're citing textual evidence from all 3 sources in order to communicate that idea uh they might also be asked to write an argumentative essay now the purpose is to take a position is not an issue and supported with evidence students must clearly State their opinion or claim they have to support their point of view with reasons and evidence from all the texts they have to acknowledge opposing viewpoints and then come up with their own Conor argument then finally the end with a strong concluding statement uh so for example students might get 3 sources on school uniforms then they have to decide all right so what side are they on on this issue are they in favor of school uniforms are The against have to support their thesis or their their position with usually it's too good reasons that come up with an opposing Viewpoint and a counter argument okay finally they have to be ready for a and the purpose of this type of writing is to tell a story so students are asked to write a fictional narrative they have to include facts details or information from the sources they have to develop characters setting plot use dialogue to description and affected pacing they have to organize their events in a in a clear sequence so for example a prompt they might get is something like write a story about a character who overcomes a challenge of climbing Mount Everest all right so going back to the sources read they would read say 3 sources all on Mount Everest now those 3 sources almost become like research for their story in their story they have to include facts and details from those resources so again let's say they are riding a story about Mount Everest and their story they have to include some of those facts that they learned while reading those 3 sources so for example in their story they would have to include the fact that Mount Everest is located in the country of Nepal it's over 29,000 ft High you know the locals are called Sherpas um the Moana is part of the Himalayas so again the sources they read become research for their story again it is a victim of narrative but they do have to make it somewhat uh realistic when they include some of those facts details from okay those sources all right so what is the performance tests measure measures reading comprehension so it's not just writing you know the writing is a response to something they are reading so again if students are not reading those sources they're not going to be able to effectively write or complete this Prof performance tests so that's the first part is you know really taking their time to read those 3 to 4 sources then in their writing they are going to cite evidence from those sources um it tests their ability to organize and write uh clearly it measures critical thinking and reasoning skills finally communication skills all right so the testing will occur in May usually about the second week of May students usually spend 2 or more class periods completing the performance test you know it's not uncommon for students to take up to 40 even 5 days it is very it's very rigorous then result results are shared with parents and scoring parts that are usually mailed over the summertime also how can you support your child encourage reading at home especially non-fiction the 3 sources they will be reading again it's informational material it's non-fiction it is not fiction stories uh what else can you do to help you know talk about current events talk about some articles that students are reading K Books you know ask students what or your kid what you know their opinion is on certain current events and um have them explain why or support their opinion uh create a quiet study environment then review your core rapport with your child from last year um see how they did on the performance task and then help students set goals um BAS based on how they scored last year okay finally um encourage your child to take his or her time on this performance test again it's very rigorous it's very demanding students like I mentioned sometimes take 3 4 5 days even to complete it and really encourage them to really try their best give it their best effort Mr Damian you're on mute thank you sorry next I have a little video to share with everybody uh it's it is a writing help for kids who hate to write I know not all kids hate to write but because it is a um a writing resource activity today uh we just to remind families that not everyone loves to write and maybe some things that we could do to support writing either at school at home maybe things we could do to encourage writing um especially soon and before uh the testing is beginning so let me start this can you guys just give me a thumbs up if you guys can hear it lots of kids hate to write and I feel like I've actually heard teachers talking about writing being something sort of tricky to teach people tend to think it's not really teachable but it totally is um I think like with reading we have to redefine what writing looks like if you're reading a book and at the end you want to summarize it sure you can write an essay um but you could also do some sort of like a visual collage or make a movie poster if it's like a narrative book so those are types of I would argue writing because they're an expression of your understanding or their expression of yourself but they're not necessarily like writing by hand the other thing I'm a strong advocate of is assistive technology so students can type students can dictate use word prediction again that cuts out some of the frustration and why kids hate to write is because those things are are tricky a lot of kids um have trouble with spelling and then they don't want to write anything because they're a little bit too anxious about whether or not they'll spell something right or wrong so then using dictation or having spell check which is built into everything now um can help alleviate some of that anxiety I'm having kids write about things that they're interested in um can still build on the same skills so um I really like to use persuasive writing because and even if a kid wants to write a paragraph about hating writing I mean you can get really meta with it or you can I've had so many kids write paragraphs about um how much they hate homework or whatever the case may be you can still work on all those underlying skills of persuasion or informative writing why I don't want to clean my room you know things like that and so you can work on the skills but build in some sort of um interest component because we shouldn't write just because our teacher or parent told us to most people write because they want to communicate something so and kids have a lot to communicate so to support them in that all right nice so it's just a quick little Glimpse uh you know a reminder that not all students do love to write and that's okay um we just need to remember and try to find other avenues or areas that they are interested interested in and then support their writing through those Avenues so here are just 7 ideas and 7 fun ways to encourage your child's writing um 1 of them is writing convince me letter uh play a game with pictures at play a tell me how make an I can book play a fortunately or an unfortunately uh make a journal jar or create a family scrapbook I'll go into details about each 1 of the activities but just like in the video um finding anything that your child is interested in and asking them to write a piece on that will encourage their writing yes we really you know we push a lot of writing writing writing and sometimes we forget you know to tell our our children enter our students why it's important to write and I think that's the important part is just reminding them of the importance of writing um but 1 of those ways right to try to kind of encourage them is writing a convinced me letter so this is a letter where you know it's not just about telling stories right but reporting on books there are many ways that your child can use words including you know trying to convince others to agree with them um you can also have them practice a type of writing and letting them maybe argue with you but in that writing right so convincing you to do something you're convincing you that you know 1 way is the right way but having them write it down on paper and then for you guys to kind of write it out see what that process looks like choose a topic that you don't agree on maybe with your child such as an allowance or a bedtime right I know bedtime is is uh is is really important for us for us adults now but then also for children in middle school you know they stay up late or or they don't want to go to bed right so maybe maybe having them write a convince you letter based on why you don't why you don't think you should be going to sleep early right and then going over those facts and you know just having a good time with this activity a next activity would be um playing a game with and so sometimes we forget that you know writing is not just all about oh put any words that you want down on paper you know you can get ideas of writing from also illustrations books pictures magazines something that you find online you know sports teams um anything that again your child is interested on right photos and images are a great way to start some kind of writing experience or brainstorming something um you know sometimes it might be fun to talk about you know who just write writing a piece on whether or not you agreed with who just took the March Madness Nationals or you know why why um certain laws are you know things that we want to talk about now or not um but again you know just giving them a couple ideas or a notebook and saying hey let's write about these pictures and let's just see what we can get out of it is a good Avenue as well um another game another another writing activity as a play tell me how and so this activity is your child pretending right again just pretend your child you know is is going to meet a space alien he doesn't know anything about our culture right so tell me how you would do something right if um I identify as um Mexican and Hispanic so if I was to tell an alien maybe how to create or make tamales right how are you going to put that down how are you going to put that down on paper step by step and sometimes you know by writing step by step we elaborate on our steps because we forget that in order to do 1 Step that 1 Step might break down into multiple steps so again it's more writing more thing that we do on paper and it's just a good way of putting down our work words on paper to see what what we have another game that we can play or another writing opportunity is make an I can book right so as your child learns to write um he or she will be learning other new skills right making an I can book will let her will let them practice practicing skills to keep track of uh their accomplishments right staple together a bunch of blank sheets of paper right uh new Milestones so if your child uh you know just won a football game or they're in basketball or they are learning a new software online they're learning to code online that anything that they are trying to do this would be a good opportunity is I can hey you know last week you and your friend um you know where we're at you're at their house and you guys were building this Lego well what did you guys do so I can what write it down write a paper on it write a paragraph on on it just to explain or get a little bit more of what they're doing another 1 play fortunately and unfortunately so this is a turn activity it's a game that is based on uh kids books uh Remy and Charlie so um this 1's kind of fun this is uh every sentence needs to start with either fortunately and then transfer to unfortunately so I gave you guys a little example here all right so fortunately I will woke up for school today unfortunately I was running late fortunately my friend offered me a right to school unfortunately her dad had car troubles this morning fortunately I had just got a new bike for my birthday so it's going back to fortunately unfortunately so it's switching not only you know the way we're thinking but we're also reminding ourselves okay can we go back and forth with our writing process and give a positive and a negative a positive and a negative so this is a good way to kind of balance back and and get away from our typical you know what you're thinking let's just write everything down on paper um it kind of challenge our students is challenging is your children and a different approach on writing as well all right another 1 is a journal jar here in my class uh we do journals uh we do journals every week right and they are on multiple topics sometimes I choose a topic sometimes the students choose a topic um but this 1's pretty fun what this 1 does is you just make a bunch of different topics a different ideas you put them in a jar and you can play this in different ways just pull out pull out a um a journal prompt and then come up with a new Journal you know once a week or or once a week it just depends um but the journals don't have to be a diary and and you know sometimes I know with boys uh with guys they always think oh you know it's a diary it's a journal I don't want that right but getting away from that notion of oh it's a diary it's a girly thing right uh it could also be a book where your child writes about ideas or answers questions like if you could do anything next summer what would you choose right so just finding fun activities or fun ideas to write about uh in my class yesterday we talked about spring break spring break is coming up and so our Journal was to write a journal based on our partner spring break activities and and and plans so it wasn't ours we wrote a journal on our partner and what they had planned for when uh for spring break and then we took our we took turns and we shared what our partner was going to do so not only did we you know get away from riding what we're thinking or writing what our partner is thinking and then on top of that we're sharing what our partner is going to be doing so this is a this is a fun 1 and again it could be on any topic that you that you can think of it could be a family something something going on with your family it could be something in sports related it could be medicine related it could be you know um a holiday related again just anything that is entertaining to your child and getting them the idea or the spark and wanting to right this is a this is a really good activity creating a family scrapbook this is always this this is a fun 1 as well this is something that you could do with your child um if there's multiple people in the family you guys and I'll just do you know a different scrapbook share your guys's ideas together so a family scrapbook is a great way to save memories and jumpstart your child's writing use an inexpensive photo album to keep Souvenirs of things you do together this can include photo ticket stubs uh any found objects uh you know pretty leaves things that you maybe find outside in nature and then have your child talk about it right when when did they find that object or when did this take place when did that activity you know who was who was um involved in that activity was the activity fun right things like that not only is it writing but also if your child is creative um and illustrative they can also draw things as well so we don't have to limit it only on the writing aspect we can do the writing and then you know add a add an additional picture um you know clip something from a magazine again making and building on that writing experience so it's not just pen and paper or pencil and paper it's more than that all right and then writing drafts so this part as well uh it's very important this is something in my class that uh we started to really hone on last year and and 1 of the reasons it's so important is because it provides um students you know a place where they can explore their writing what they want to talk about but maybe they're not really sure how to how to lay it out yet um the best thing that that you can do for um your child is reminding them to to make a draft to make a graphic organizer before they meet their draft to do some kind of outline before they meet their draft right so the writing process involves a lot of different areas but just reminding this reminding our children you know the first place to start is coming up with your topic and then from there expanding by using some kind of graphic organizer and using that graphic organizer it can be sentences it could be words on a graphic organizer and those words go from word like Mr Flores was saying was 1 Word to a sentence right to a simple sentence maybe a compound sentence and then they elaborate on that sentence through their draft and through their writing process so this part right here another reason why drafts are so important right so it's exploration of idea generation if students do not know where to start drafting writing an outline doing some kind of graphic organ gives them that opportunity to explore and think of what they're going to be riding about organizing and structure without a draft it's very hard for students to know their structure and their writing how their essay or how their paragraphs are going to look so showing students an example right or giving students something to look at an outline to look at an outline to be able to prepare and organize their writing is going to be very helpful before they turn in that final draft uh refinement and revision this is a very important part um and we have some tools that we're going to talk about as well that help with the revision and the ref meant uh you know tools such as text to speech grammarly things like that um that part is very important aside from you know teachers and and and supports in class where you know a student might give us piece of paper and on that paragraph we might you know oh uh indent here you know this word is misspelled you know this is a fragment sentence this is a run-on sentence you know these are areas when they're doing in draft form right it's not their final piece of writing so a lot of students what I know in my class I've I've run into this year is uh students will turn in their work and they think they're done right but they forget that when I mark their papers you know when some kind of Correction or punctuation capital letters lowercase letters um you know if if they missed some kind of compound together when I give their back it's reminding them it's reminding them that it's important to review the notes that the teacher or the instructor assistant put on that paper and then from there correcting or asking for support on how to how to make those Corrections uh overcoming writer's block again another reason d another reason a um the way you organize uh an essay is very important is because when students are given a writing piece to write about it is difficult to start writing or at least I know a lot of students struggle with uh Mr Damian you know I I don't know what I'm going to write about um I I don't like I don't like I don't like I don't have any um specific foods that I like you know or I don't have a specific holiday that's my favorite it's like okay well let's brainstorm holidays let's talk about what holidays we know holidays we like and then from there expand right so it's getting students to be able to finally put something down on paper once it's done on paper then their brains maybe start working and then start having more ideas and then they can elaborate based on what they're actually finally putting down on paper developing your voice also that's a very important part right um it depends are doing is this uh first person narrative is this uh you know second or third person um how are we writing but also what are we going to be saying in our text or in our writing that we want to make sure it's clear and then time management I know students uh Middle School right uh we're really big on being able to procrastinate and my essay is not due till next week I'll wait until Wednesday we got time and then Wednesday shows up it's like oh I have 2 days to write this they write out their introduction the paragraph they write out you know the parts that it's going to be needed and all of a sudden it went from oh we're writing a 4 Page 4 paragraph essay to there's a lot of pieces that this essay and this writing assignment is asking me for so being able to give them you know that time management and letting reminding them you know these writing activities sometimes don't only Take 5 or ten minutes it takes them sometimes 2 or 3 days right so making sure that they break it up apart and then if it's too much in 1 Section to sit down and complete it all you know breaking up that breaking up that essay into multiple parts and taking on just 1 part A Day taking on you know introduction in paragraph 1 day 3 body paragraphs breaking those up maybe doing 1 paragraph 1 day right talking to your child about it going over reading it with your child asking them where their ideas are coming from where trying to go with this writing piece is really going to help them with the time management and as well as just the overall draft before they turn in their final draft all right primarily grammarly is an amazing app that the students have right now um there is a free version that the students are allowed to download it is on their Chromebooks uh grammarly is an English language writing assistant software tool it reviews spelling it reviews grammar and tone um of a piece of writing as well and it also identifies possible instances of plagiarism so here I gave uh or I I put an example um there are this is what grammarly looks like on Chromebook and when you type in a sentence or a paragraph or some kind of writing assignment it will come up just like a Google doc will it'll come up with misspelled words it'll come up with maybe grammar or punctuation and things like that that grammarly is picking up and saying hey there's something wrong here let's let's take a look at it let's fix it when you hover over it it'll give you a suggestion and then it makes a suggestion questions if you click on it and it fixes it for you so it's a it's a good way of of having students check in themselves first before going to check in with the teacher um I'm not saying that they can't check in with the teacher it's just less that they're going to have to do on their paper right so if they turn in an activity like I said they turn in a writing piece right I check it I'm like oh man there's a lot of misspelled words here and there there's punctuation I get it I give it back to the back to my student they fixed those they give it back to me there might be some more grammar now I'm looking at grammar now I'm looking at maybe run-on sentences right I give it back to them so again drafts are important grammarly is important it's a great software tool that they can use I know right now they have a student version that is free on on their Chromebooks they can download it um they just need to log in with their Google account from manto and it it will it will add it in as a as a link that they could use on on their on their Google Google Drive whether it's it's a slides it is I believe it is also um and Docs there's a question yes Mr DL sorry uh my name is dillian I'm here listening for some reason my phone uh doesn't want to play the audio out of both speakers so it's really hard to hear here um what for the grammarly What is the your suggested time and place to use it because I would see that grammarly would be good to make sure or the child can get a good grade but not necessarily help them to understand where all the punctuations need to be uh it's if I turn my child turn something in and it comes back wrong the teacher can explain why the um the lower grade but if they're doing the work then have grammarly turn it in or or edit the um the essay and they turn that in then there's not really showing what the child actually knows right so when like I might have missed it but when is the best time to use grammarly so again this is um with any other tools that I use in my class or were suggesting to use is that these are always tools to support our writing not to take care of the writing process altogether so what I have my students do in in order to use grammarly is after they have their graphic organizer um and they're starting to create their sentence is with their graphic organizer they are becoming aware when they're typing out their essay the words that they are misspelling so sometimes what I've noticed in my class is that when my students are writing their essays out and this was before grammarly when writing them out they're not aware they're not being made aware that they are misspelling a word with grammarly when they are typing out their essay now grammarly is letting them know hey you are you are misspelling accomplish right and if that's something that they are trying to spell correctly at least grammarly is supporting them by telling them hey there's a misspelled word here go ahead and click on it it asks for suggestion and then whether or not they accept it another thing that I do with my students as well right because um like you said you can't you can't just rely solely on grammarly grammarly is going to be again a supportive tool but I have the students highlight their text and then have them do the speech to text or sorry text to speech so they can hear their their essay or their prompt just to make sure that it sounds coherent that's the first step once they return it to me whether it's it's my made me whole class activity small group activity or 1-on-1 then we go into detail of hey okay we are I've noticed a lot of um a lot of us in the class are doing a lot of run-on sentences let's talk about that and then we'll do a activity in class to specifically focus on maybe some of those aspects that the students need more help in but again grammarly it's an amazing tool to support our writing not to take care of all of the writing process does that kind of answer your question yeah it did thank you yeah of course thank you all right next so here are more tools that uh that we can use to support our writing as well right but not to take care of the entire the entire part of it Mr Flores do you mind explaining some of the tools that that you you put on here yeah so it's a it's a piggyback on both Mr Damian and and your question you know we'd like to see that the students are capable of you know understanding comma placements understanding their limitations when it comes to spelling right um I'm not a you know the the irony of my life is I'm not a very good speller and yet I teach English but it's 1 of the things that I'm able to do with the students is that hey I can recognize that I might be misspelling a word and sometimes I might have spelled it correctly but it's that knowledge that I need to go back and check this I need to go look this up and it's not simply to just rely on what the program whether it's grammarly whether it's any of these many programs like some of these programs I I've never even heard of because they pop up so quickly um but but you know they are programs you know you love you run a search and they'll come up um but it's being able to recognize that okay I need a little bit of help with my spelling and and our perfect world uh I would I would hope that the our students our kids if they understood that they misspelled a word they would know where to look right they know to look in a dictionary they know to look in the glossary um it's okay if they go on Google for example when they search up you know how to spell this word kind of like what grammarly does it'll help them out it'll finish the word and then they'll see the correct spelling of it but at the same time like you know like Mr Damian was mentioning it comes to the point where we do have to be careful about what they're doing and how often they're using it so you know I know that they use grammarly and I know their limitations because I don't have them right and I'll read their writing and then I'll have them turn in an assignment and it'll be like oh this is fantastic for someone who's writing you know at a at a certain level but I've seen your writing right so it's very important to especially if you want want to be sure to see that writing in person you know all those suggestions the wonderful suggestions Mr Damian went over of just writing and seeing how they write in different forms because because then when they do use the computer which they're inevitably going to do and whether we want them to or not whether it's whether it's word or Google Docs or whatever you know program is going to pop out that's going to want to fix the vocabulary for them it's going to want to fix their spelling for them it's going to suggest a better way to write the sentence we could see it's like okay uh you know you're close right you're missing some commas you're spelling is most on point you know the machine is helping you with the commas right and you know if it's not taking away from what you're trying to say that's great you know it's it's just adding that little bit of support but if it's completely changing writing that's when you know we look at everything that is provided that these students can find and if they if they can't find any of this stuff they'll find something else um will be able to see like hey you know I understand how well you write because I've seen your actual writing this is written at a 1213 grade level you're using vocabulary that I've never heard you use of the things that I like doing when I suspect that they're relying too much on programs like these is I will intentionally point out like I'll pick out some of the words that they're using and I'll ask them hey what does use this word in a sentence and some of them can do it and it makes me feel you great when I asked them used this word in a sentence and they can and it's like okay that's pretty cool I like to be proven wrong I it's never a problem but then I will have every every now and then all right use this word in a sentence and they will look at me with the uh Joy of a child in that they just got caught and they're like I have no I have no idea what like what like why are you asking me this word right and it's like well use this word and several other words I haven't used since I wrote my college essays you know many many years ago and it's you know it's fantastic that you're like you're using this stuff but it's not you and so we just have to be very wary of using and our our kids and our students using all of these just so many different programs that you know you could you could see them here it'll it'll help them write it it'll write it out right it'll revise it it'll replace it it'll solve and this isn't even for just English and writing it'll do math it'll it'll it'll do just about everything it'll create entire presentations notes graphs pictures it is is a ridiculous Mountain that that every day we have to try to help them climb because when they're using these tools they are you know they're hurting themselves and we want them to have those skills we want them much like much like your concern we want them to understand that they're doing something wrong and that there is ways for them to get that assistance but we don't want them to solely rely on it we want them to be able to use it and to not you know use it and not abuse it essentially right like old old saying um but there is so much uh that is there available so it really does come down to you know we do what we can to try to look through the work we're getting in a perfect world you know everybody every parent every teacher is able to look through that work and see like hey you know this doesn't sound like you and my child it's like I know how you write because we were writing journals the other day we were writing letters the other day we did a scrapbook the other day I know how you write and now suddenly you're writing like this right like did you use this the point of just like getting simple assistance right and so it's very important that you know every once in a while like I said this this list will become so much bigger um but it's it's very important that once in a while um I and I think Mr Damian has it in the next slide that we check in with our students or with our kids that we know what the tools are that they're using that you know not couple years but everybody that can that we review their work because we want them to have that ethical Integrity of this is my writing I'm I'm here to get better no 1's going to put me down or judge or you know hold it against me that maybe my writing is at this level that's low but eventually you know the goal for everybody who writes is to get better the only way to get better when it comes to is simply to write more and to become more comfortable with that writing to improve your vocabulary to be able to revise your own work when you can't get a colleague or a peer or a friend or a parent or anybody that graded for you you're able to look through that and graded on your own and if if we don't go through and tell them hey look these are tools much like the hammer is a tool you know these are tools to help you do a job not to do the job for you we still have to pick up that hammer and drive the nail in you know some of the kids we don't want them to get used to letting the hammer do all the work because that's the tool they have it's not simply something that has to be picked up it's something that could literally do it all for them and so we just have to remind them and we got to check in with them and we definitely have to review their work and so if all they're doing is typing um you know nothing wrong with that that'll that'll be you know that's how it is in the college days you know even even when we went it was like turning your type testing right but especially in the primary and the secondary level very important that we have them right because we want to see that writing ability we want to see if they're getting better when it comes with that writing ability and then much like with a dictionary or glossary or anything else it's like these tools are there to help you get better not to replace you right because that that is our biggest fear it's like the the worst thing I want is for a student um to be considered as achieving and then they actually have the right and it's like wow how did they get to this level they you know they weren't producing the work that we thought they were producing um that that is what we are concerned about that's why we that's why we go over the writing that's why we do the CER that's why we go over vocabulary and sentence structure that's why we'll still give them the the tests formative summative because we want to be sure that they're able to do that aspect of it the the writing and of course the reading and everything else but we want to make sure that the writing especially because the machine will do it all for them right thank you thank you Flores yeah so just like Mr Flores was saying um again it's a tool right it's a tool that going to support us not complete our work for us uh and it's just reminding that um but again we don't want to shy our our our children away from using the tools either right uh we have to stay up with the times and if you know AI and and we have tools that are are here to help us we need to to learn how to use those tools but what most is importantly is using those tools effectively and appropriately um so making sure to check in always to making sure that's okay um the last resource I have to share is Renaissance and this is found in our students class link um and it is a digital reading platform so uh we just finished a reading diagnostic uh this is more of a reading resource however right with reading it's going to support our writing so we just finished uh diagnostic for I ready and your child should have received um or increase their Lex our reading um or have at least Alexa range that they can read from Renaissance is a free app on their class link there is tons of books in multiple subjects in multiple areas whether it's Sports it's it's it's literally every there's so much in there there's Comics there's magazines there's there's articles there's books there's read aloud books there's read long books um there's a lot and that is a application on their Chromebook that they can get to and start accessing books especially now that spring break is coming up it'll give them some time to sit to read and then you can use 1 of those tools that we talked about earlier of hey what did you read about can you write it can you write about it all right um so that's the last that's the last slide we have um in our resources uh we want to thank everyone for coming today thank you so much if anyone has any questions um you guys can ask us now or you guys can also follow up on our emails um thank you I appreciate it Mr retire great job everybody um a lot of resources here so please reach out to us if any of you would like a a copy of the presentation with all of the resources available for you um tomorrow night we have our math family night so please join us as well that will be in person in the library um great job any questions parents if I could just remind everyone there is a link if you guys don't mind just signing in letting us know who attended uh it would be very appreciated all right uh without that thank you everybody thank you so much for participating in today's English language arts family night thank you good night everybody thank you thank you thank you

Video Gallery

ELA Virtual Family Night, April 9, 2025

Popular Videos