Keep the Quote

Keep the Quote - I first heard about this community building strategy while scrolling through Pinterest and came across Miss 5th's blog. Let me be honest here, I had started pinning ideas for my Grade 6 classroom while still teaching Music at my old school and before I even had an interview. Okay, let's go one step further. I started pinning ideas the night that my friend told me about this position. I love teaching Music. I love getting to know most of the kids in the school and watching them grow from year to year. You can build relationships with a lot of kids but it develops over time. What I missed the most about being a classroom teacher was being able to develop relationships quickly (out of necessity at first) and to create a classroom that was a safe place for learning. 

Have you read any of Louise Penney's Inspector Gamache mysteries? They are my favourite. Gamache is a multifaceted character and one of his abilities is to quote poetry or other literature at will. I do not have that ability. My brain is a sieve. What I wanted for my students was for them to feel inspired. To be able to draw upon quotes that would build them up and to see these traits in the students around them. If you check out Miss 5th's post you can see how she set up Keep the Quote for her class. I had to do mine differently.

My lettering skills are basic so I could not use a roll of paper and just write out a beautifully scripted quote. I needed to practice and copy some ideas I found on Pinterest and by doing a Google search. 

Once I was happy with my practice pages I would use some Sharpies and write the quote out on 11x17 (later 8.5x14) paper and attach it to a large black stand-up clipboard I found at Ikea. I tried to find quotes that would match the season (back to school, Thanksgiving etc.) or that would fit with the character trait for the month (responsibility, cooperation, fairness). 





At the beginning of the week I would share the quote and we would have a conversation about what we thought it meant. Throughout the week the students were reminded to think about which one of their classmates exemplified the quote. By Thursday the students were required to vote. I would encourage them to do it at home using a Google Form but many of them would forget so I would give them a little bit of time during morning work to cast their vote. 

I would export the Google Form results to a Google Slide document to see which student received the most votes and put together a certificate for him/her that included some of their classmates' justifications for why they deserved to receive the quote. At the end of the day on Friday (I was not always good at remembering to do this) I would present the "Keep the Quote" poster with the certificate glued on the back to the winner and it would be a chance for us to celebrate him/her. 


My students really looked forward to seeing what the new quote of the week was and a few students brought in quotes of their own. It was also neat to see that one of my students would copy down the quote in her sketchbook each week. 

For next year, I plan to get a whole bunch of quotes done during the summertime to ease my back-to-school workload and encourage some of my students to take over by making it a classroom job. If you search #keepthequote on Instagram you will find a whole bunch of ideas.