Yesterday we were building our genius ladder in 3rd grade language arts. The ladder looked like this (only going from the bottom up- visualize here please)

The ____________________________ stopped.
The roller coaster stopped.
The Exterminator roller coaster stopped.
The Exterminator roller coaster stopped because everyone was yelling too loud. One of the kids got sick. (Then my student with severe autism- who usually imitates or echoes chimes in.) Nobody else would ride that roller coaster!

It was awesome! Oral writing using the Genius Ladder is amazing!

very cool!

Rebecca,

Thanks for sharing! That's an awesome Genius Ladder!

I'm going to "borrow" your blah sentence tomorrow.

Tiffany
WBT Intern, 2011-2012

So cool, Rebecca!!!

I love your blog Liann! Thank-you for sharing!!

Heather Hansen
Wbt Intern
2011/12

Love your blog, if i did not know better I would say I wrote it! This is how my week has gone and exactly the things I am working on. Talking too much, calling an individual name, having to get in private talks, same scoreboard-wow. We even lost 1 minute of recess they did not like that! BUT, we did earn 2 minutes of mind soccer because almost all the parents came to open house. Ta da
Annette, oh-yeah

Oh wow, Rebecca! That inspires me so much!!! I haven't made my genius ladder yet, but I sense a new addition to the classroom walls coming on SOON!!!! Very inspiring!

Thanks Wendi! You need to add this as soon as you can. I had to be out on Tuesday and my 3rd graders begged the sub to do Genius Ladder! It was way cool! Students don't beg to do worksheets!

I modeled the Genius Ladder in both Third and Fourth grade this week. The students are amped!
Went back on Friday to observe the teacher doing the Genius ladder, and they were ON it!! Yes!

I'm going to have to try this again. I think when I did it I was not doing it right. I will re watch the live stream broadcast on genius ladder and give it another go. Thanks for re inspiring me.

I've started adding in more advanced standards. My 8th grade students are supposed to write narratives with dialogue, and they have no idea how to use dialogue. So, following Coach B.'s advice to get them to do it right a bunch of times, today the blah sentences was:

"Please, sir, can I have some more?" he asked.

Which may seem fairly un-blah, but for 8th grade, it's pretty blah. They turned it into this:

"Please, sir, can I have some more hot Cheetos?" he asked.
"Please, sir, give me some more hot Cheetos," he said, "because I'm starving."
Please, sir, give me some more hot Cheetos," he said, "because I'm starving. I haven't eaten in days."

Of course, not all of their punctuation was correct, but then we peer edited it. Fantastic!

WBT Intern
2011-2012

I had an idea yesterday. If anyone would like to do a genius ladder "sharing" lesson. One classroom would come up with a blah sentence labeling subject (noun) and verb. Another classroom would build the spicy sentence, a third the complexor extender, the fourth and fifth classrooms with adders, and finally a sixth classroom could come up with a concluding sentence. We can then alternate so that each group gets a different role. Hey, that would make 6 different genius paragraphs! Let me know if you want to participate and I will set it up. My class is grades 3/4 so maybe stick with that age range, maybe up to 5th.

Dave ... you get the first ever Sparkly Prize For Creativity! Fantastic use of the Genius Ladder! Anyone else see variations that could be built from Dave's dialogue ladder ... or other tweaks? Don't you desperately want your own Sparkly Prize?! Dave ... put this one on your Mind Mantle.

Woo! It looks great on my mantle! I just put up a star on my Super Improvers card! This is the thing I love most about WBT: its flexibility.