Bell-ringers

Why Use Bell-ringers?

I've found that writing often falls by the wayside; that reading and content instruction takes up so much time, that I'm unable to even mention writing time, let alone teach it! Because of that, students lose their writing endurance and lose skills slowly over time. When I incorporate a daily time to write, students are practicing every day and aren't losing their stamina!

What's really nice about bell-ringers is they give you an extra 5-8 minutes to get the lesson set up! When you have the prompt displayed and a timer running (no less than 5 and no more than 8 minutes), you have: first, a nice bit of extra time to finish setting up the lesson, and second, a consistent, natural procedure, where all you need to do is make sure they're writing! 

I wouldn't use less than 5 or more than 8 minutes, since your time is so valuable. At least 5 minutes makes time for pulling up all the tabs and logging in that you'll need, finishing up some last-minute grading, quickly adjusting and saving lesson plans, or any other last-minute thing you may need to finish before starting class. 8 minutes is the limit, since you will be having students share their writing. We don't want to go over 10 minutes, since ELA instruction (especially CKLA instruction) can take a LOT of time. If your class really enjoyed the prompt for the day, or they have really good responses, I'd increase the total time to 12 minutes, but I wouldn't do this consistently. 

I've found that having student names on a random generator (Ooo so high-tech!) or on popsicle sticks (How old-fashioned!) works best to keep them honest. Personally, if they were called on and didn't have any writing done, I'd have them work on it during recess (or at some other activity they'd hate to miss out on) the same amount of time the timer had been going. When incorporating bell-ringers, for about the first month, I wouldn't be doing anything else while students were writing, and rove the room, making sure everyone's pencils (and not their mouths instead) are moving the entire time the timer is running. This does mean you won't be able to benefit from the extra few minutes for a month, but you should be able to use it after students know the expectations for bell-ringers.

If students are bummed on not being able to share their responses or want to talk more about them, add it to the line-up procedure or while students are waiting for something. Make sure everyone's quiet and listening, just like they would be, sitting at their desks!

What's nice about Google Slides is that individual slides can be copied and pasted to other presentations easily. If you want to make them pretty, make the background in another application (I really like Canva!), save the slides as PNGs, then upload them as a background in the slide. Google doesn't like to use other people's fonts (*ahem* Google developers, where you at?), so this is a nice workaround for that.

I compiled all the CKLA prompts I made into Google Slides and added two timers: 5 & 8 minutes. If you're interested in this resource (click here). When you make a copy of the Google Slides link (it should force you to), delete the timer you don't want on all the slides OR add your own YouTube timer! My timers should be set to start right when the slide is presented, so make sure you add that feature to your own timer if you choose that option. You can use the prompts directly from the file you copied OR you can copy each individual prompt into your own Google Slides presentation.

Overall, I've loved using these bell-ringers, and I hope this helps you with your CKLA instruction, too!