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[DOC] Instructions for Classroom Dynamic Criteria Mapping Instructions for Classroom Dynamic Criteria Mapping © 2005 Bob Broad Dynamic Criteria Mapping (DCM) is a process by which you and your students can discover what you, the instructor, value in student work. DCM yields a more empirically grounded, more detailed, and more useful account of your values than traditional rubrics can. The process is a streamlined form of grounded theory (as summarized by Strauss and Corbin in Basics of Qualitative Research, Sage 1998). Here is a brief set of instructions by which you can try classroom DCM. Read What We Really Value: Beyond Rubrics in Teaching and Assessing Writing by Bob Broad (Utah State University Press, 2003). The book offers historical and theoretical background on DCM, a detailed example of DCM in action, and more specific instructions on how to undertake the process at both the classroom and programmatic levels. Collect data. Once you have handed back to your students two or three substantial sets of responses to their work, ask your students to gather together those responses and bring them to class on the appointed day. Ask students to prepare by noting specific comments you made, in response to specific aspects of their work, that show something(s) you value. Note: you show what you value both in those qualities whose presence you praise and in those qualities whose absence you lament. On the appointed day, ask students to work together to generate a long list of qualities, features, or elements of their work that you have shown you value. Ask for illustrations or quotations that demonstrate each value they identify. Ask for passages or excerpts from their work that demonstrate those values. Analyze the data. After you and your students have created a large "pile" of evaluative statements and indicators, it is time to analyze the data to create a representation ("map") of your values. The key is not to rush this

National Writing Project article about the English Companion Ning.

A lasting online resource and a companion project for Shakespeare in American Life, a radio documentary produced by Richard Paul and narrated by Sam Waterston, airing on Public Radio International (PRI) stations beginning in April 2007.

Ryan Goble, who often coaches teachers in what he calls the "mindful" use of technology, has written today's guest post on user-friendly tools that enable the creation of student projects.

St. Columba's College English department's transition year extended essay assignment is a great project.

ambitious digital writing project and alternate reality game

One of the projects I enjoyed the most this term was the book talk videos created by one of our fifth grade classes.

boys, blokes, books and bytes promotes reading. It is a project of the Centre for Youth Literature,

MYBC allows students 10-14 years to share their love of reading. We invite you to tell us what you are reading, post book reviews, participate in discussions and celebrations.

(1) A wiki debate visualization tool that lets you: present the strongest case on any debate that matters to you (2) A web-based, creative commons project to increase the transparency and rigor of public debate everywhere-by making the collective insight and intelligence of the global community freely available to all and filtering out the noise. (3) A global graph of all the debates that enables us to visualise and deepen our understanding of the ways in which different debates are semantically interrelated, and ways in which these interrelated debates shape, and are shaped by, each other.

History of English (Source: A History of English by Barbara A. Fennell) The English language is spoken by 750 million people in the world as either the official language of a nation, a second language, or in a mixture with other languages (such as pidgins and creoles.) English is the (or an) official language in England, Canada, Australia and New Zealand; however, the United States has no official language. Indo-European language and people English is classified genetically as a Low West Germanic language of the Indo-European family of languages. The early history of the Germanic languages is based on reconstruction of a Proto-Germanic language that evolved into German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, Yiddish, and the Scandinavian languages. In 1786, Sir William Jones discovered that Sanskrit contained many cognates to Greek and Latin. He conjectured a Proto-Indo-European language had existed many years before. Although there is no concrete proof to support this one language had existed, it is believed that many languages spoken in Europe and Western Asia are all derived from a common language. A few languages that are not included in the Indo-European branch of languages include Basque, Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian; of which the last three belong to the Finno-Ugric language family. Speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lived in Southwest Russia around 4,000 to 5,000 BCE. They had words for animals such as bear or wolf (as evidenced in the similarity of the words for these animals in the modern I-E languages.) They also had domesticated animals, and used horse-drawn wheeled carts. They drank alcohol made from grain, and not wine, indicating they did not live in a warm climate. They belonged to a patriarchal society where the lineage was determined through males only (because of a lack of words referring to the female's side of the family.) They also made use of a decimal counting system by 10's, and formed words by compounding. This PIE language was also highly infl

Fakebook allows you to create Facebook profiles for school projects.

A great reminder about why & how teachers should integrate technology in the classroom.

The new National Writing Project site: Lots of resources

A large range of resources collected in one place - will take some time to get around and discover what is there