An archived stack of papers: October 2006
Quads, Pairs, Then Solo
In a stack of papers called Instruction.
- Oct
- 24
- 2006
We’re near the end of The Scarlet Letter and I realize, once again, that I take entirely too long with novels. This makes week 5 of the unit and we’ll likely keep these books for yet another week. It’s difficult to forge ahead with a novel, though, when only 5 students have read. And so I slow down and give people a chance to catch up. Some of them just need an excuse to even... read more
Is Nonfiction Writing The Answer?
In a stack of papers called Writing.
- Oct
- 18
- 2006
The suggestion that fiction writing cannot prepare students with the same rigor that nonfiction writing can is ridiculous. It shows poor faith in teachers to do what they have been hired to do. If you’re teaching writing, you’re teaching writing regardless of the genre.
The Article
Instead of building an argument for the need to assign more research-driven writing, how that... read more
Magnets And Twice
In a stack of papers called Instruction.
- Oct
- 16
- 2006
I just finished teaching 2 of my classes about a model of how to respond to literature. Working off a handout I got from a friend of mine (another guy who causes me think about teaching certain literature because of his interpretations), I tried to present 2 different views of the model. There are a few things that I don’t want to forget.
Magnets
Your whiteboard is likely magnetic,... read more
JuCo
In a stack of papers called Personal.
- Oct
- 13
- 2006
He teaches high school along with me and he also teaches a few classes at a local junior college. He has the types of conversations in his classroom that I always want to have. He’s the reason I teach “The Myth of Sisyphus,” a text that results in pushing my seniors to think a different way more than anything else I’ve tried so far. His ideas about texts continue to challenge me... read more
Pay More Attention
In a stack of papers called Instruction.
- Oct
- 12
- 2006
Today was a professional development day and, while it wasn’t perfect, it was far better than just about any other training session I’ve been to. We covered ways to teach Macbeth to English Language Learners (ELL) and several ideas are ones that can be used with just about any complex text.
The Wrong Focus
But the part that bothers me is the rationale for why the... read more
Use Your Data
In a stack of papers called Grading.
- Oct
- 06
- 2006
Just a quick note before I head off for the weekend. First of all, I have a stack of 20 essays I simply must finish by Sunday night. Add that to the fact that I and about 6 other teachers will be back in my classroom tomorrow morning at 9:00 (that’s right, 9:00 on a Saturday) to grade some schoolwide writing prompts, I’ll be grading a lot of writing this weekend. That usually means that... read more
AYP, API, And Horse Pucky
In a stack of papers called Testing.
- Oct
- 05
- 2006
Two observations from this past Wednesday’s inservice. We spent the time talking about and looking at some test data, specifically with regard to our AYP. We did not make our AYP. Adequate Yearly Progress, that sounds like a horrible thing to miss. These two observations are about why we missed that AYP and they are both incredibly ridiculous,... read more