A few people that I know are in the process of populating their shiny new RSS feeds this week. I spent some time updating my links toward the bottom of the left sidebar recently, so take a peek at some of my favorite edublogs, and please suggest others that I might want to add! I’m exploring some new reads here. Why not consider encouraging students to create and keep up with their own feeds this…
You know the kid: the one who grows his bangs a little longer to hide the eyes beneath his glasses. This way, you’ll never know exactly where he’s looking…..up at you or his peers….or inside his desk, where the work that matters most to him awaits. We’ve all had students who are so immersed in a book that they struggle to put it away during class. Tell me your heart hasn’t broken a little when you’ve found…
Daniel Willingham has been known to challenge a popular theory or two. I find his work provocative, and I have refined my own perspectives a bit upon consideration of some of his arguments. Take a peek. Discuss. I’m wondering what others think……
Teachers ask for alternatives to traditional book reporting because they know that if there is anything worse than writing and reading a four paragraph text summary to a classroom full of your peers, it would be assuming the position of audience member AND evaluator. I know that there are more than a few WNY teachers in Florida this week, lounging by pools with stacks of papers next to them, waiting to be graded. That’s one…
Six-Word Memoir book preview from SMITHmag on Vimeo. My six words? Could work well for book-reporting!
Shakespeare On Facebook Published at Scribd A few years ago, Sue Rooney, a teacher at Cleveland Hill High School shared her Facebook literature project with me. The resulting products were very similar to the example above, and I was really impressed by the fact that she was willing to offer up the use of this tool as an alternative to a pen and paper project, even though Facebook was (of course) blocked in her building.…
We’re enjoying winter break in Western New York this week, and I’m glad to have some extra time to myself to catch up on all sorts of fun things like laundry, tax preparation, and car maintenance. Did I mention the dentist? I have to schedule that appointment too. At times, I’m a huge procrastinator, and there is no better way to stall than logging on to Twitter and asking for some help from my friends…
Last month, Bill Ferriter invited his readers to join him in an online study and conversation relevant to Kelly Gallagher’s book, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It (which he made available for free download)! I’m hopping on a plane with my daughter Laura bright and early Saturday morning, and I plan to spend a good chunk of that flight digging into this piece so that I’m ready to talk…
In my corner of the world, I don’t bump up against too many teachers who are resistant to tech integration, particularly as it concerns the work of literature circles. I know kids who circle up around blogs rather than books, and I know teachers who build literature circle roles around the tech skills they want their students to practice. Everyone is getting started in some way, shape, or form it seems. I admire the willingness that many teachers…
When we invite students into literature circles, we commit to teaching processes and skills rather than hyperfocusing on the surface features of any one title. Literature circle work provides teachers the opportunity to discover and leverage so much about their individual students and the strengths that they bring to the table. There is space to discover how we can help kids grow as learners too. This happens through effective formative assessment practices. Formative assessment is…