Group items tagged

Nice article at edweek about the informational texts versus great works of literature debate and what Common Core will do to lit. The one important, practical issue that all parties to this discussion MUST recognize - the classroom time is FINITE. Teachers would love to cover EVERYTHING but it just isn't practical. So, if one thing is emphasized over another, it may push something out. Unintended consequences are happening as people "align" their curriculum to common core standards. As all of the pundits and advocates argue this, it would be telling to sit down with an actual aligned curriculum to SEE what happens where the standards meet the lesson plans and what is actually pushed out - until then - it is all, rhetoric. Give us practical application, we're teachers, after all. From the edweek article: "Until recently, the closest we'd come to a major speech on the nonfiction-versus-fiction question was a piece in the Huffington Post by the English/language arts standards' co-authors, David Coleman and Sue Pimentel, insisting that literature "is not being left by the wayside." The message to rally the troops must have gone out, however. Because since the Coleman/Pimentel piece appeared, the common core's defenders have stepped up to counterbalance the literature-pushout crowd. The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation's Kathleen Porter-Magee, for instance, posted a piece arguing that it's a misinterpretation of the standards to say that teachers will have to teach less literature. In a recent email blast, the Foundation for Excellence in Education-led by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, one of the common core's biggest backers-declaimed the "misinformation flying around" about what will happen to literature under the common standards. "Contrary to reports," it said, "classic literature will not be lost with the implementation of the new standards." A glance at the standards' own suggested text lists, it noted, "reveals that the common core recognizes the importance of b

Don't just ask students to "identify the conflict" or "note the setting." Use Respondo! to click up some creative literature response questions.

Use this tool in the Language Arts classroom to differentiate and create some creative literature response assignments.

We believe that a child who graduates from high school without an understanding of culture, the arts, history, literature, civics, and language has in fact been left behind. So to improve education in America, we're promoting programs, policies, and initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels that provide students with challenging, rigorous instruction in the full range of liberal arts and sciences.

Very heartening to see a growing movement advocating a knowledge-rich, intellectually rigorous curriculum for schools. They've got the funds to hire good photographers and models with nice skin, too.

history and literature explained in an interesting way

A book that is self-guided walking tours in NYC based on children's literature.

Literacy literature digital literacy future of education curation of content.  Good writeup on Twitters role in curation

and the useful tags are: administrator all_teachers bestpractices edublogger grants curriculum history literature math science technology language edu_news edu_trends edu_newapp digitalcitizenship techintegrator professionaldevelopment edublog

Our Mission The mission of the International Children's Digital Library Foundation is to excite and inspire the world's children to become members of the global community - children who understand the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas -- by making the best in children's literature available online.

The Andrew Blake (1757-1827) Archive in North Carlolina, USA, is "not a physical repository of Blake's collected works, nor is it a clearinghouse through which users can obtain reproductions of those works. [...]" It is "an online hypermedia environment that allows its users to access high-quality electronic reproductions of a growing portion of Blake's work.

Useful for literature or modern history classes.

This 2004 study on second-language writers determined that although students prefer oral feedback that e-feedback has a greater impact on the revisions process. Online feedback is a valuable tool in the revisions process.

I have kicked off the first "Plurknovela" a collective digital story told by Plurkers around the world. Wanna join in the fun? Great for language students creating microblogged fiction on the fly!

Plurk novellas are emerging -- this is very cool. This could be used in writing. You can see how threaded microblogging is DIFFERENT from twitter. I think there is room for both.

Plurk novells are emerging. This is cool. You can see how threaded microblogging is DIFFERENT from twitter. I think there is room for both.

This December 2005 report talks about best practices in teaching literacy. For those of you who like to review best practices from around the world, this came in from the International Dyslexia Association in their Summer 2011 Perspectives on Language and Literacy "Global Perspectives" column.

Welcome to Poets' Corner, one of the largest and oldest text resources on the web. The goal of this ongoing project is to develop a user-friendly library that is both a useful reference and an appealing place to browse and explore - and there is a lot here to explore. The collection covers nearly 7,000 works by almost 800 poets - ranging from some of the best known works in the English language to works that were never widely known or whose popularity has been obscured by time.

Free textbooks in a variety of topics on CK-12. This is promoted as "learning made simple." Do students know how to find and download alternate sources of information? Can they find and search for the topics they are currently studying? This is a valuable way to compare and research topics.

Focus on close reading in Common Core.  Many fear teachers are not prepared for this dramatic a shift where the textbook is the first, sole focus.  

This is an awesome sliderocket about how to use Google Docs to facilitate a Writing Workshop created by Susan Oxnevad. Look for links to examples within the presentation so you can use everything she shares. This slide show shares not only best practices in running a writing workshop but also is a best practice itself in creating a stand alone presentation that instructions in a powerful way. Writing teachers everywhere should take 10 minutes to work through this slide show this week.

Tackk is a quick, simple way to create a page (without really having a website.) This page links to all of the tackk's relating to education. This is a cool, unique idea and I haven't seen anything quite like it. Sort of pinterest/ glogster mixed together. Cool. Writing teachers or anyone who has students do quick projects might be interested in this.