THE HOGGATTEER REVOLUTION
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      • Positive Behavior Conversations
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      • Missouri, USA
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Positive News.  Not Always.

9/30/2020

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To Whom It May Concern:

​It is our tendency to paint things in a positive light.  In fact, that seems to be what most of us do with our (anti)social media accounts.  Other than politics, we like post the good news about our families.  Even with politics, however, we tend to portray our own beliefs with positive messages before trashing the other guy.  Perhaps it comes from years of Madison Avenue telling us about their wonderful products through print and broadcast advertising.

The same must be true of teachers with websites or means of electronic communication with parents.  We want people to see our classrooms, our students, and our teaching as flawless and compelling, always engaging, challenging and unique.  Who has two thumbs and represents those tendencies?  This guy.

Earlier in the week I sent this message to the parents of students in my class:
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Contrary to popular belief, our classroom, my students, and believe it or not, even the teacher is not perfect.  We constantly have to adjust our idiosyncrasies, our thoughts, and our habits to fit the classroom culture and the society in which we live.  We find ourselves making mistakes that hurt others emotionally (and, at times, physically) when we didn't mean to.  Sometimes we even hurt them on purpose and then regret it.  We say things that pop into our heads without thinking about their ramifications.  We go for the laugh without considering the feelings of our listeners.  And we don't have any idea what peers and passersby might be going through internally.

One child lives in poverty, his family scrounging for meals and sleeping on the floor.  Another has a house infested with fleas that keep her up at night.  Still another has to wear the same clothes day after day.  Yet another wonders if her electricity will ever be turned back on.  Too many come to us from broken families, abuse, or other unknown backgrounds, not to mention diagnoses of dyslexia, ADHD, autism, mental health issues, and the like.  Things occur every day that affect our attitudes and outlooks on life.  Our dog dies, someone in the family has an accident, or someone loses a job, just to mention a few.

The same happens with the teacher.  This year has brought a variety of challenges to our family.  Even before a killer virus was on our horizon, crippling our economy, we were met with the challenge of dealing with my daughter's anxiety and conversion disorder.  Just a few months ago, she was unable to walk without some firm assistance, and she often fell completely over even when sitting still in a chair.  In the spring of this year, we thought we might lose her altogether.  And now, my dad, who has virtually no experience with health maladies, is experiencing kidney problems that are knocking him for a loop.  He entered the hospital to address that issue on Monday, and doctors quickly discovered he also has pneumonia.  This, for a 78-year-old man, can be concerning, and I know he and my mom are in the back of my thoughts as I teach.

This year's crop of Hoggatteers is a good one.  My students offer little in the way of behavioral challenges.  Most have a drive that presses them to stick with a problem until they conquer it.  They love to write, paying attention to details.  They know when to be serious and when to be serious about having fun.  But occasionally, we all have "one of those days".  I know it's just as much the teacher as it is the students, but on Monday, things just weren't clicking.  Things weren't in sync.  Everything just seemed off-kilter.  Some tattled.  Some called other kids names and threatened to hurt them.  Some teased relentlessly.  Things finally came to a head.  I needed to remain calm for them. After all, I love my Hoggatteers.  These kids have so much potential.

I want my families to understand that I'm not trying to put lipstick on a pig when I report what is happening at school.  We genuinely do enjoy our time here.  I love presenting lessons differently.  I spend many hours outside of the school day, attempting to get it right and make it memorable.  That is not to say, however, that every minute is perfect and that we don't make mistakes.  My hope is that when I send a message like the one above, that parents will realize that I am being genuine and truthful.  Honesty is the best policy, and I don't ever want it to seem like I'm trying to gloss over something that is not all that glossy.  Yes, I like to stay positive and on top of things, but there are times when I get behind and overextended.  As much as I don't want to admit it, I am only human, and my class is not always bathed in perfection.

Your humble servant,
​Mr. Hoggatt
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Music Appreciation:  Carried Me with You

9/29/2020

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Students are often called upon to read "chorally".
That is, they read together simultaneously

as a group.

Repeating this practice assists young readers with reading fluency - the speed, accuracy, and inflection of  oral reading.

Why not, since it's called "choral" reading anyway, actually read the chorus of a song? ​
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Pirate Cartography

9/28/2020

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​This class loves to write!
After studying pirates off the east coast of the American colonies in 1717, each student was tasked with creating a pirate map, complete with all the standard map properties.  We took a quick look at some antique maps, and we discovered some of the unique features added by cartographers - tall ships, sea monsters, mermaids, and scrolly framework. Of course, we had to add some of these to our own maps.

​We also "aged" our mapss by ripping the edges and wadding the papers until they were wrinkled and felt more like fabric or animal skin.


Everybody worked through some creative reasoning in making chronological stories to go along with their maps.

I love watching my 2020/1 class of Hoggatteers at work.  They surprise me every day with their work ethics, their kind demeanor, and their light and positive attitudes.  Some of these kids will give their best effort on any writing project I assign, with no complaint, no whining, and no backtalk.  It's not hard to love this job when you have such a wonderful collection of students in your classroom.
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Constitutionally Speaking

9/27/2020

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A More Perfect Union

In this video, produced for George Washington's Mount Vernon, we learn of the struggle to produce the Constitution of the United States.

27 Ammendments

The Preamble

Try your hand (or your brain) at memorizing the Preamble to the Constitution.

Music Appreciation

After the Rain
We're All in This Together
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Life in the 18th Century:  Basketweaving

9/26/2020

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Life in the 18th Century (the 1700s) was a bit different from our life in the 21st Century.  Some work that existed then no longer exists for us.  Other work might have been more difficult.  At the same time, this type of hands-on, physical work might have also been more fulfilling. 
  • What do you notice about the process of blacksmithing in the 18th Century?
  • Why is it called blacksmithing?
  • What questions might you have about the process?
  • ​What else might you wonder?
  • If you were to represent blacksmithing to your classmates, what artifacts might you bring to show them the process and/or the resulting product?
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Bulletin Board:  Prewriting to Final Paragraph

9/25/2020

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These kids turn out some excellent writing, and I was so proud of it that I took over the unused bulletin board across the hall.  Earlier in the week, we organized our writing by using the veins on some tobacco leaves. Students then used the three most important "veins" as the three supporting details in an organized paragraph.  Considering some had very little concept of a paragraph when we began (not even understanding to indent the first line), they did a phenomenal job of neatly writing their final product on regular notebook paper.  Tobacco is a harmful substance, but we used it to produce positive results in this project.  The bulletin board looks pretty nice, as well!
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Book:  The Doughnut Fix

9/24/2020

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I finally got my hands on the last book on the 2021 Mark Twain award nominees, but I can't say it was worth the wait.  I'm not sure why this one made the list.  As much as the premise works, the execution of the story simply doesn't work.
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From Goodreads:
Tristan isn't Gifted or Talented like his sister Jeanine, and he's always been okay with that because he can make a perfect chocolate chip cookie and he lives in the greatest city in the world. But his life takes a turn for the worse when his parents decide to move to middle-of-nowhere Petersville―a town with one street and no restaurants. It's like suddenly they're supposed to be this other family, one that can survive without bagels and movie theaters.

His suspicions about his new town are confirmed when he's tricked into believing the local general store has life-changing chocolate cream doughnuts, when in fact the owner hasn't made them in years. And so begins the only thing that could make life in Petersville worth living: getting the recipe, making the doughnuts, and bringing them back to the town through his very own doughnut stand. But Tristan will soon discover that when starting a business, it helps to be both Gifted and Talented, and it's possible he's bitten off more than he can chew.
If you're waiting for a raccoon to eat a donut, or doughnut (as the cover implies), you can just keep waiting.  The raccoon doesn't even show up until the end, and then is only written off as something that matter-of-factly occurs as Tristan gets his products to market.  In fact, there are multiple things that have nothing to do with the story and are never resolved. While the story is not a bad one, surely this one does not merit a state award.
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Using Tobacco Leaves to Organize a Paragraph?

9/23/2020

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After studying the plantations at Jamestown, Virginia, in the early 1600s, we discovered that the main, money-making crop was tobacco.  We know this to be a hazardous substance when smoked in the forms of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes (and also when taken in other forms).  However, to make the lesson bleed into another area of our curriculum, we decided to utilize the large leaf for a pre-pre-writing exercise.
I cut the "leaves" from large sheets of brown construction paper and drew simple "veins" onto one side.  For a finishing touch - and to push it over the edge - I sprayed each leaf with a pumpkin-scented air freshener.  We had watched a video about tobacco farming - including a good deal of conversation about the dangers of tobacco use - so students seemed to instinctively pick up their leaves to smell them.  The subtle scent brought them to life and added a little extra interest to do well in the upcoming assignment.

The assignment?  It was pretty open-ended actually.  Students were to choose a topic - an object with multiple parts.  On one side of the leaf, each was to write his topic.  On the side with veins, they were to write the parts of their chosen topics, one for each vein.

The next day, we discussed writing an organized paragraph.  Students eagerly took to writing their own sentences, and finally rewriting them in paragraph form.
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Roaring River State Park:  The Devil's Kitchen

9/22/2020

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One of the "rugged"-rated trails at Roaring River State Park is called the Devil's Kitchen.  The trail is named for the rock ridge and formation that skirts it.  Somehow, when this area formed, there was a square "room" developed, with four walls of stone.  It is rumored that guerilla fighters hid out in the "kitchen" during the Civil War.  Sections of the walls have fallen through the years, but the main structure is still impressive.

My son and I hiked this trail - all the way to the top of the mountain and back down. We noticed limestone formations, caves, beautiful, tall trees, fallen trees charred from lightning strikes, one friendly little snake, and a variety of flora.  I was especially pleased with the photo I caught of a bee on some yellow flowers.  Our state truly sports some gorgeous landscapes.
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NWEA Report

9/21/2020

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This is a report from our "fall" NWEA assessments.  It shows which students achieved high scores on the tests, as well as how well they did or did not improve since the battery of tests they took a year ago.  Not all students had previous scores to justify their placement on this chart, so they are not on this report.

The green plusses indicate math scores, while the purple squares represent reading, and the gray pentagons are language scores.  Ideally, we want as many students in the green quadrant, showing that they have achieved high scores and increased by a significant amount.  Those students in the pink zone are the ones with the most concern.  The ones in yellow have decent scores, but did not make much progress in the last year, and the orange section is for students who improved, but still did not score high enough.
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Everything here is based on the 50th percentile, meaning the yellow and green quadrants are for individuals who scored higher than the half of the students who took the test nationwide, and the green and orange quadrants display students who improved more than half of the students who were tested.

Here are some observations:
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  • High achievement:  Math - 7 students; Reading - 12 students; Language - 11 students
  • High improvement:  Math - 5 students; Reading - 10 students (two overlap);  Language - 8 students
  • Low achievement:  Math - 8 students; Reading - 3 students; Language - 4 students
  • Low improvement:  Math - 10 students; Reading - 6 students; Language - 8 students
  • Close to the high achievement line (Raising scores could move them to the right side of the chart.):  Math - 5 students; Language - 3 students
  • Close to the high improvement line (Significant improvement could move them to the top half of the chart.):  Math - 1 student; Reading - 4 students; Language - 2 students
  • Close to high achievement and high improvement lines (A higher score and decent improvement could move them from the pink to the green.):  Language - 1 student
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Father of American Archaeology

9/20/2020

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Art Appreciation

​Observe the artwork below.
  • What do you notice?
  • What do you wonder?
  • What is happening?
  • Write your thoughts.
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Music Appreciation

Dig a Little Deeper

The Mound Builders

Learn something about other pre-Columbian people before doing a project about them.

Mound Excavation

Today, we have a couple of articles to read about the "Father of American Archaeology".  Who do you think it might be?  Read on to find out who it is and what he found:
Excavation of an Indian Burial Mound
Think about that:  a man in the 18th century was interested in history, and now we study him.  Why are people so interested in the past?

While We're on the Subject

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Where Is the Oldest City
​in the United States?
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Life in the 18th Century:  Brickmaking

9/19/2020

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Life in the 18th Century (the 1700s) was a bit different from our life in the 21st Century.  Some work that existed then no longer exists for us.  Other work might have been more difficult.  At the same time, this type of hands-on, physical work might have also been more fulfilling. 
  • What do you notice about the process of blacksmithing in the 18th Century?
  • Why is it called blacksmithing?
  • What questions might you have about the process?
  • ​What else might you wonder?
  • If you were to represent blacksmithing to your classmates, what artifacts might you bring to show them the process and/or the resulting product?
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Field Trip to Washington, DC

9/18/2020

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On Wednesday, our class hooked up with Michaela and Ben at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.  The emphasis was on storytelling and the storytellers of historical events, and students were able to contribute through an online program called Pear Deck.
Though our audio connection wavered for us, students still surmised the main points of the presentation:
​
  • that the storyteller or the historian could have bias
  • that people see events from varying perspectives (that could color their account)
  • that the winners get to write the history
  • that the heroes tend to embellish their own stories
  • that minorities often get left out of history
  • that history could be revised with new findings

I was pleased with my students when they were patient with the sound issues, when they responded appropriately to the presenters, and when they asked better questions at the end.  Some of them thought it was pretty cool that they were interacting with people in Washington, DC. 
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Another Archaeological Find

9/17/2020

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Why teach how to write an intelligent paragraph by using a textbook or prescribed process when, with a little extra effort, it can be made much more inspiring and interesting?  Our "burial dig" gave us the opportunity to stress some writing skills, while at the same time letting students get into a moment and use their creative minds.

Students were encouraged to approach the comical skeletons with respect and take notes about the details they observed.  After gathering the facts, they were able to make inferences.
Pay attention to the details.

Three burials were surrounded by coffin nails and discolored soil.  Students were led by the details to infer that one was a soldier, sporting a blue sash and injured by a musket ball.  Another was a respected and loved citizen who had a debilitating disease.  The third was an important religious leader.

The last three burials included a Native American, buried with wheat and sea shells and sporting some animal bite marks.  Another was the victim of survival cannibalism, and the last was an example of human sacrifice.
We only spent about 15 minutes making their original observations before we shared a classroom discussion about their findings.  We talked about the soil and the nails, and students helped their teammates interpret the evidence they had already gathered.  Then, they each recorded a correctly formed paragraph, complete with a main idea and three supporting details.
I did discover that the class is deficient in simple paragraph writing.  Some even told me they did not know what a paragraph was, and they hadn't heard of indenting.
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Students worked attentively throughout the day, with divergences into a math lesson, a reading exercise, and required breaks and recesses.  The diligent manner in which they paid attention to instructions is also something to note, as this was not a simple project (even if they perceived it to be so).
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Our Classroom:  September

9/16/2020

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Our ceilings are now adorned with the Union Jack, in memory of the British colonies in America during the 17th and 18th centuries.  Our lessons are three-dimensional. Students are enveloped in a setting that keeps their focus on the studies at hand.

These aren't the typical classroom decorations - the most recent ducky designs, cartoon slogans, and anchor charts.  We decorate differently, with items that don't show up in teacher catalogs. Teachers, please don't limit yourselves to the ideas you get from following your peers on Pinterest:  imagine better. Think outside the classroom!
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    Bookshelf

    Recommended Reading
    (For state award reviews,
    ​go to THE LIBRARY ZONE.)

    Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko

    Because of Mr. Terupt
    by Rob Buyea

    Charlotte's Web
    by E. B. White

    Chippin Cleats
    by D. Ed. Hoggatt

    Crumbling Spirit
    by D. Ed. Hoggatt

    Echo by Pam Nuñoz Ryan

    Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

    Holes by Louis Sachar

    The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

    Loser by Jerry Spinelli

    Love That Dog
    by Sharon Creech

    Mumsket
    by D. Ed. Hoggatt

    Out of the Dust
    by Karen Hesse

    Out of the Wind
    by D. Ed. Hoggatt

    Petey by Ben Mikaelsen

    Ramona the Pest
    by Beverly Cleary

    Stone Fox
    by John Reynolds Gardiner

    There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar

    Touching Spirit Bear
    by Ben Mikaelsen

    Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

    Yankee Girl
    by Mary Ann Rodman
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