Group items tagged

This a fantastic site. Interactive, click on the floating links to hear interactive stories told in English as well as indigenous languages. 

Some great ideas here for integrating ICT to facilitate better writing and formative assessment. Any experienced English teacher knows the drill: on the dreaded due date, students bring printed copies of their essays to class, where we collect them, take them home, jot inscrutable comments in the margins, bring them back to class, return them, and then watch students promptly toss them in the recycling bin on the way out of the room. The whole cycle borders on farce. Students pretend to spend many hours writing their papers, teachers pretend to spend many hours grading them, and we all pretend like repeating this process over and over again leads to something we in education like to call "student growth."

This could be a good whole class launch or independent launch activity for BODMAS/ order of operations

"Teachers have known forever that happy, engaged students are better learners - especially when it comes to tough material. And learning how to spell is so hard for many kids."

Some free Readers' Theatre scripts for use in your literacy groups.

A great organisation, lots of amazing work going on, also a great website for older grades to explore and gain their own insight into Indigenous literacy and issues and the challenges they present for our nation.

Some good topics here, some are more for secondary students. 

Wow what a great chrome extension. This looks like a great tool for all writers. I especially like the 'collect highlights' tool. Make sure you watch the accompanying video to see how it works.  Read&Write for Google Docs is a cool extension I found on Web App Reviews that can benefit ELLs and struggling readers. The extension provides you with a special toolbar on the top of your Google documents.

Some great information and teaching ideas for the collaborative work by Shaun Tan and John Marsden

Some interesting resources here for the arrival. Quotes, newspaper articles including a podcast about the author. 

Using Shaun Tan's book the Arrival in the classroom. Free lesson plans and ideas to incorporate Shaun Tan's book "the Arrival" into your classroom.

We asked Shaun some questions about why he decided to produce Sketches from a Nameless Land, the companion title to The Arrival. Here he talks about the book as a manifesto for the art of illustration. For more information on The Arrival and Sketches from a Nameless Land, see www.thearrival.com.au

Academy Award winner, illustrator and author Shaun Tan takes you through the creative process in the privacy of his studio. Shaun Tan's award winning animation 'The Lost Thing' screened with a live music score at the 2011 GRAPHIC Festival on August 20 in the Concert Hall.

We asked Shaun some questions about why he decided to produce Sketches from a Nameless Land, the companion title to The Arrival. Here he talks about the way The Arrival mirrors a multicultural society as well as the background characters of the city. For more information on The Arrival and Sketches from a Nameless Land, see www.thearrival.com.au

This morning I received an email from a reader who was looking for some recommendations for websites that her students can use to learn and practice new vocabulary words. I have made a couple of lists on this topic in the past but it's been a while since I updated them and a couple of the items in those lists have gone offline. Therefore, I put together a new list of the websites that I recommend.

For some students the hardest part of starting a creative writing assignment is generating an idea to write about. Here are seven good sources of writing prompts that you can share with your students.