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Synchonized Literacy

Jejak Panda Hai.. Bertemu Lagi Di Website Kesayangan Anda situs bandarq Some days there is fascinating synchronicity among events.   Today was one of those days. Yesterday was, of course, Veterans Day.   My kids had the day off but I did not, and to make matters more complicated, Amy is at a conference in Florence, so I had to drag both kids to my classes on Tuesday afternoon.   I instructed both kids to bring things to do.   They both brought art and books, so many I had to give them each a canvas bag to carry them in.   (I ended up lugging around Elsa’s bag).   Elsa brought along the second book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, and Cormac had a couple of books on Minecraft and a copy of Wings of Fire:   The Lost Heir , book two of a dragon series published by Scholastic that he’s really into now.   But he also had a copy of Donna Jo Napoli’s The King of Mulberry Street , a work of historical fiction that he’s reading in a book group in his sixth grade Rea

Blogging From The Nwp And Ncte Conventions

Jejak Panda Selamat Membaca Di Situs Kesayangan Anda judi bandarq online Last week, my students and I were discussing professional development and teacher leadership in my Pre-Teaching Secondary English class.   I know.   Sounds exciting, right? Seriously, we had a great discussion that began with a study conducted by Helen Ladd almost a decade ago now which looked at teacher quality and effectiveness.   (For the record, these two factors were measured by peer and direktur review, not by student performance).   The study concluded that teachers are least effective during the first four years of their careers but that, for those who remain beyond the four year mark, teachers attain a level of competence around year five that they sustain for a fifteen year period. There are several interesting things to observe about this study.   One is that the four year mark is consistent with research on performance mastery.   You’ve probably all heard about the studies that show

The Narrative Arc Of Teaching

Jejak Panda Selamat Datang Di Blog Kesayangan Anda Dan Selamat Membaca bandarq terbaik This past Sunday the New York Times offered its list of 100 notable books of the year, and on it there were a couple of great nonfiction works on teaching, including Dana Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars , which I loved and highly recommend. That list got me thinking of the many books I’ve read this year and which ones I might strongly recommend.   One of the best books on teaching I’ve read this year just came out.   It’s Tom Newkirk’s new book, called Minds Made for Stories .   It’s excellent, of course, as is most of the stuff Tom Newkirk writes.   I often found myself stopping to write exclamation points in the margins, thinking to myself, ‘Yes! I feel exactly the same way!’ or, ‘Yes!   I have been saying that for years!’   Too bad I didn’t get to this first, but nonetheless I’m glad these ideas are in print. The book has many good features to offer, incl

Reading With The Kids On Winter Days And Nights

Jejak Panda Hallo Jumpa Lagi Kita Di Website Ini judi bandarq Earlier this week I re-posted a fun article from BuzzFeed about The 51 Best Lines from Literature.   It was hardly a comprehensive list, but there were a number of good lines, and several from books I’ve never read before, so it gave me ideas for new books to read.   Not that I don’t already have a towering pile on my nightstand and another one in my office, as well as a box of books I just picked up to read over break that’s basically the entirety of Illing Middle School’s LA curriculum, which is sitting beside me as I type. Last week Cormac finished up the fourth book in the Wings of Fire series, and since the fifth book hadn’t come out yet (it actually just did, and I got it for him for Christmas, but he doesn’t know either of these things) I suggested he pick up something classic.   One day in his Reading class, because he’d finished his book that morning and hadn’t thought to bring his next

In The Middle, Mostly

Jejak Panda Hallo Ketemu Lagi Di Situs Kesayangan Anda daftar bandarq I spent my ‘vacation’ mostly in middle school classrooms in Manchester and Mansfield, with one quick trip to Canterbury. I’ve been doing a lot of classroom observations, as well as some co-teaching and work with students.   The observations have been insightful, and working in several schools with different teachers, grade levels, and populations of students has given me myriad perspectives.   I’ve also collected great ideas and shared them with all the different teachers I have worked with—a sort of cross pollination. In Mansfield I have been working with an eighth grade teacher on personal essay.   I got to observe a terrific unit using This I Believe , which, if you are unfamiliar, was begun in 1951 by Edward R. Murrow.   The website houses thousands of essays and audio podcasts (about 500 words and three minutes long, respectively) from individuals as famous as Gandhi, Martin Luther Kin

Better Teachers: Teacher Education, Standardization, And Natural-Born Teachers

Jejak Panda Terima Kasih Telah Kunjungin Web Kesayangan Anda bandarq terpercaya Although I spent most of the last few days shoveling snow, I did manage to enjoy some reading. I almost finished Marilynne Robinson’s Lila , and I finished Elizabeth Green’s Building a Better Teacher:   How Teaching Works (and How to Teach It to Everyone) .   Green’s book, along with Dana Goldstein’s The Teacher Wars, were on the NY Times ’ 100 Notable Books of 2014 list. Whereas I loved Goldstein’s book, I can’t say the same for Green’s book.   Part of my lack of enthusiasm may be the fact that there is more focus on math than English, but I also think Green gives too much due to corporate reformers, she limits herself to too few examples (from her evidence, one would think the Mecca of pedagogical innovation is Michigan), and she comes to few conclusions.   One thing I do like in Green’s book is her attempt to explore the notion that great teachers are born not made, th

What's The Point Of Studying Poetry And Then Writing Essays?

Jejak Panda Selamat Datang Di Website Kesayangam Anda bandarq online We spent a month reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance in our English class. Then Mr. Ward—that’s our teacher—asked us to write an essay about it. Make sense to you? Me neither. I mean, what’s the point of studying poetry and then writing essays? When I was at the NCTE Convention this past November, I attended this one session where a woman talked about an after school literacy club she began for fourth and fifth grade girls.   All the books have female authors and protagonists.   I wrote down her entire reading list and bought every single book for Elsa for her eighth birthday in January.   The book I was most eager to read myself was Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming , which was a National Book Award Finalist in 2014.   I finished it yesterday.   It was awesome. Brown Girl Dreaming, in short, is an autobiography told in a series of poetic vignettes, divided into five sections,