Writer's Notebook Bingo Card Set: Now there's an August Card! - Writing Lesson of the Month Network Because we have to be back at school this summer during the second week of August this upcoming year, Dena and I created/finalized an August Writer's Notebook Bingo Card over the last two weeks. If you already purchased a copy of our Bingo Card set, you should have just received an e-mail with a link to freely download the new August Bingo Card. Contact me at corbett@corbettharrison.com if you purchased the $9.00 set in the past three years and did NOT receive the update for the tenth card fro me today. On June 1, the price for the Bingo Cards will increase by two dollars. If you'd like to obtain the set before the price goes up, please use this link . Our September Bingo Writer's Notebook Bingo card --as always--will remain available as a free download to all of our website's visitors. I hope your school years end as well as I predict ours will. Yours in teaching, Corbett & Dena Harrison ( )
The 20 Features Teachers Should Know about The 21st Century Classroom We have been talking a lot about the 21st century skills teacher need to have but what about the 21st century classroom ? Do we know how it looks like ? How much of technology is used there and why should there be any technology it after all ? These are questions that Open Colleges is trying to anwser in their awesome infographic below. Honestly I was thinking that the Flipped Classroom is the type of classroom we will have in the future but I don't think I am right so far. Edudemic has also helped in the realization of this infographic and it even summarized its key elements in the following bullets : 91% of teachers have computers in the classroomJust 20% think they have the right level of technology in the classroomMore than half of all colleges surveyed say their biggest priority is upgrading their wi-fi system43% of teachers surveyed have used online games in the classroom29% of teachers use social networks… 80% of college professors do too.
Infographic: 5 Tips for Teaching Close Reading (and 5 Things to Watch Out For!) The following blog post is part of a blog series called "Comments on the Common Core," written by Eye On Education's Senior Editor, Lauren Davis . For more insight from Lauren Davis, check out her book series Common Core Literacy Lesson Plans: Ready-to-Use Resources . Close reading is a hot topic these days. At IRA’s recent convention , there were countless sessions about teaching close reading for the Common Core. The Common Core State Standards place a high priority on the close, sustained reading of complex text. ...It often requires compact, short, self-contained texts that students can read and re-read deliberately and slowly to probe and ponder the meanings of individual words , the order in which sentences unfold, and the development of ideas over the course of the text . In other words, close reading means starting up close and then pulling back to the larger meaning (words to sentences to full text). 5 Tips for Teaching Close Reading Broaden your definition of “text.”
Blog-a-thon Post 9: Complex Texts or Complex Kids: Which Texts Are “Worth” #CloseReading Welcome to the fifth week of our 7-week blog-a-thon on #closereading. Each week posts are added to the Contributors page and we are looking forward to your addition. Let’s closely read the practice of close reading together! Also a reminder that we have two workshops coming up this December called “Fall in Love with Close Reading.” I will be in Brookfield, WI on December 6. Complex What Now? If you are a Common Core State Standards state, the standards your state adopted have only one thing to say about the complexity of texts students should be able to read by themselves: In Reading Standard 10, across grade levels, the standard reads: “By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature/informational texts in the grades X-Y text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed…” One phrase that I find important: “by the end of the year.” by basibanget used under Creative Commons lic I Choose Complex Kids, First In the opening to our book (sample here), we write: Learning to Love
Common Core: Assessments What We Know About the PARCC and SBAC Tests • Testing will take 8 to 10 hours. But additional time may be available for students who need it, according to PARCC. • SBAC will offer adaptive-form tests. As a student works on one question, the computer is generating two more. • PARCC will offer fixed-form tests. • Reading passages will be more complex. Schools—maybe including yours—have started to dip into the Common Core, and assessments aligned with the new standards aren’t far behind. The stakes are high, and so is teacher anxiety. And though experts say the drop was completely expected—the Common Core, after all, holds students to a higher standard—teachers nationwide are wondering how to best prepare their students for tests that are still being developed. Before you panic, take a deep breath. Using Technology Currently, a typical language arts assessment requires students to read a passage, then respond to five or six multiple-choice questions based on the passage. More Writing
Using Padlet (f.k.a. WallWisher) across the curriculum Over the last few years, I’ve been looking for ways to make interactive whiteboards actually interactive. Despite the hype around them, iWBs still promote stand at the front content delivery and the interactivity is limited to the two students/teachers holding the pens. Everyone else is still pretty much a passive observer with regular doses of disengagement. With the recent creation of iPad mirroring software like AirServer and Reflector, the whiteboard has become more interactive with the ability to project multiple iPad screens onto the board. Formerly known as WallWisher, Padlet started out as an online pinboard where unlimited users could post notes on topics being discussed en masse. Access. One of the benefits of Padlet is that it doesn’t require registration if you just want to create a board for quick use. Padlet has a wide array of sharing tools to make your wall accessible. Creating a Padlet Wall. Adding content Padlet is extremely easy to use. That’s pretty much it.
Antigone Would Bury Boston Bomber There’s a great article in the recent on-line New Yorker applying classic Greek literature to issues that have arisen over the burial of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev . I provide a short version here but recommend that you go read the piece in its entirety. The article’s author Daniel Mendelsohn sums up the burial drama as follows, noting that the cadaver [was] seemingly so morally polluted that his own widow would not claim it, that no funeral director would touch it, that no cemetery would bury it. Indeed, even after Peter Stefan, a Worcester funeral director, had washed and shrouded the battered, bullet-ridden body for burial according to Muslim law, the cadaver became the object of a macabre game of civic and political football. Mendelsohn than goes on to talk about burial beliefs and practices in classical Greece and mentions their appearance in various works of literature. Likewise, the suitors at the end of The Odyssey are allowed a ritual burial.
James Franco: “I really felt I was in conversation with Faulkner” WHEN YOU STUDY Southern literature, it sometimes feels like all roads lead to William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, even if you had no intentions of going there. Case in point: while researching for a book on Truman Capote, I found a review he wrote in 1949 about — of all things — a modern dance adaptation of “ As I Lay Dying .” And this discovery led me to a whole string of adaptations of the novel, including a French avant-garde mime drama, an opera, different forms of physical theater, and a multimedia performance with marionettes. Now, 73 years after the novel’s publication, Faulkner’s vision is finally coming to the silver screen, adapted and directed by James Franco, who also stars in the role of Darl. MICHAEL BIBLER: When did you read “ As I Lay Dying “ for the first time, and what was your reaction? JAMES FRANCO: I read it twice in high school. MB: When did you decide you wanted to make this novel into a film, and why did you choose this Faulkner novel over all the others?
Bringing Web Tools to Gatsby's Party: A Digital Path into a Jazz Age Classic (L-r) CAREY MULLIGAN as Daisy Buchanan and JOEL EDGERTON as Tom Buchanan in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ drama “THE GREAT GATSBY,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures © 2013 Bazmark Film III Pty Limited "I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity." -- F. The new film adaptation of The Great Gatsby starring Leonardo DiCaprio might move teens to fall in love with the story of the book, but it won't make them better readers of the novel. Playing with the Text We begin our text exploration with Wordle. As a word tool, Wordle gives "greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text" (Feinberg). I explain how Wordle works and then give students time to puzzle over its patterns. "Daisy must be the most important; look at how big her name is," notes Luis, sitting with three other students at the blue table. "There are several action words, too." A Digital Concordance The Color of Curiosity
Using Google Drive for Online Discussions of Primary Sources This same information is included at the end of my slideshow on Teaching With Technology and Primary Sources , but I wanted to share it as a separate post as well just in case people had trouble accessing the linked document at the end of the slideshow. One of my favorite ways to use the commenting feature in Google Documents is to host online discussions around a shared article. Doing this isn’t a radical departure from having a classroom discussion about an article that you’ve printed and distributed to your students, but there are some advantages to hosting your discussion in Google Documents. The first advantage is that your students can participate in the discussion from anywhere at any time they are connected to the Internet. Here’s the process that I use for hosting an online discussion about a primary source. 1. 2. 3. 4. Using this process in a classroom that is not 1:1 If you teach in a classroom that is not 1:1 you can still take advantage of some of this process.
Common Core Practice | Pigs, Cicadas and Wrestling As you know if you’ve been reading these posts, Jonathan Olsen and Sarah Gross have made reading and writing with The Times a focus in their ninth-grade humanities classes since September. The first thing their classes do every day is read the paper (in print) and write about an article the teachers have chosen, matched with a prompt they’ve devised early that morning. Each prompt addresses either the argumentative, narrative or informative writing standards of the Common Core. After they write, their students volunteer to read their writing aloud to their classmates, who offer what the teachers say is “mostly praise, with the occasional criticism.” To date, these students have written over 120 essays each based on Times articles. Before the school year ends Mrs. We hope you’re as impressed as we are. Narrative City Room: “ Little Pigs, Little Pigs, Let Us In on Your Secret Past ” Common Core Standards: RI3, RI6, RI10, W3, W4, W10, RH5, WHST4 A mystery was born. Extension Activity
Connecting 21st Century Learning, Technology, and Common Core Standards 21st century learning and technology integration are part of the Common Core design. 21st century skills include: c ommunication and c ollaboration c reative thinking and innovation c uration : research and informational fluency c ritical thinking, problem solving, and decision making digital c itizenship c omputing skills: using technology to learn, communicate, consume, c ontribute, design, and produce In the introduction of the Common Core , those skills are referenced, and specifically outlined as a key design consideration , and placed in a portrait of a student who is college and career ready. They are also interwoven in the anchor standards , which can be viewed by specific grade levels . Academic conversations Academic conversations are part of 21st century learning and the Common Core Standards. Academic conversations are no longer coming just from the teacher; they are taking place face-to-face and digitally with peers and others. Final thoughts
Google Poetics | Google Poetics how-to How to find a good poem?Google autocomplete suggestions differ greatly between local Google versions (google.com, google.co.uk, google.it…). Your results also vary depending on whether you are logged in to your Google account or not.Remember that Google updates the suggestions constantly - no poem is set in stone. If you manage to catch an awesome poem, make sure to take a screenshot right away.Aim for poetic results. Our email address for submissions is english@googlepoetics.com. Please, send screenshots only - it is difficult to reproduce your poem. General screenshot instructions: thanks,Sampsa and Raisa