I finally finished my Masters Degree! I had to take a leave from the blog to really make sure that I finished and completed my capstone with my best work. After a few weeks of recovery - seriously, that last few weeks before the final turn date was killer - I am reenergized and ready to start planning again. I have sooooo many ideas to share now that came out of my capstone project.
My capstone project investigated the question,“Can growth mindset concepts be embedded into a middle school literature curriculum and instruction, while maintaining rigor and alignment with ELA standards?” My answer is absolutely! In my research, I found that much of the work done in studying the impacts of growth mindset instruction was completed in math and science classrooms, and really was not an integral part of the curriculum. As an ELA teacher, I not only found this frustrating, but confusing. What other subject area lets you connect character actions, author intention, and life lessons to personal thoughts and actions? For me, weaving growth mindset instruction into my literature classes was a no-brainer.
Well, it took an entire year, but I ended up creating tons activities for this project. I am going to gradually break the project apart, and although the larger activities I may sell on TPT, others will be freebies. I love this stuff. I want everyone to have the opportunity to give it a try in their classroom. If kids are being more intentional, mindful, and creative thinkers, it's worth a shot.
One of the fun things that I implemented this past year for this project was a collaborative journal project. This was so much fun, and made tying together personal mindsets, class novels, and choice reading so simple. I posted my initial ideas back on August 16th last year, but I changed things up a bit as I worked through my project. Here's a pic:
Anyway, I'm going to put these up on TPT this week for free! This also includes a in inside cover direction page. Hopefully you all will be able to use it, or you will get some ideas from it to use with your own students.
Like I said, I created so many activities that were just so much fun this year, that I hope to post a little about each one every week.
Glad to be done. Glad to be back. :)
~L
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