HC English Department

"Here's an example of a partially deconstructed standard. RI.8.3 Analyze how a text makes connections among and distinctions between individuals, ideas or events. * Students can explain the differences between individuals, events and ideas * Students can attribute the organizational structure of text to the differences between individuals, events and ideas * Students can produce a generalization about the effect of making connections and distinctions between individuals, events and ideas * Students know how to integrate the elements of a well-structured text-based analysis * Students know how to produce the elements of a well-structured text-based analysis"

"Welcome to Storyboard's first annual year-end roundup of top storytelling: 34 of our favorite pieces in audio, magazines, newspapers and online, "

A "Connected Educators Month" in the United States - the rapid rise of Twitter PD - the coming of age of the Personal Learning Network. No question: It's been an historic year for connected professionals, including PLP's extended family of teacher and school leaders.

Poetry's role in the common core skill set!

"The Life of Poetry is a sublime read in its entirety. Complement it with James Dickey on how to enjoy poetry, Edward Hirsch on how to read a poem, and Mary Oliver on the secret of great poetry."

"Two years ago, Griffith was one of 10 students at the Lawton C. Johnson Summit Middle School, in New Jersey, to be selected for the school's first TEDx program. Modelled on the popular TED talks, TEDx allows community organizations, towns and schools to put on their own version of a TED talk, featuring local experts, authorities or even teenagers, rather than nationally recognized figures. More than 10,000 TEDx events have been held around the world since the program was launched in 2009, including those put on by schools like the one in Summit. To be recognized as an official TEDx event, organizers need to apply online for licensing and agree to TED's detailed set of by-laws. What's critical to the success of a youth-run TEDx program is the active participation of a teacher, says Salome Heusel, Deputy Director of TEDx."

"My previous post reviewed research on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and described the four qualities that have been identified as critical to helping students motivate themselves: autonomy, competence, relatedness, and relevance. In this post, I'll discuss practical classroom strategies to reinforce each of these four qualities."

"Often poetry is able to say what prose cannot. We've been seeking poets and poetry to provide fresh insights for our programs. We're collecting the results of those efforts here, whether they're from our programs, blogs, or special features."

" It's possible to avoid gripe sessions while providing opportunities for feedback and reflection that are strategically integrated into classroom routines. The ideas below can be insightful for students and teachers."

"So below are (at least) 60 thing you can do with Google Classroom. We'll be updating this list as new ideas come in, the platform changes, and we learn more about its subtleties on our own."

"The most frequent cliché I hear regarding educational policy is, "We're doing this for the good of the students." We undoubtedly mean that, but the fact that students are not included in district-wide and school-wide decision making essentially excludes them from expressing what they perceive as "for the good of the students." It should be conventional wisdom that including students directly and empowering them to help shape high school and district policy would be educationally beneficial for both schools and students."

"A novelist scrawling away in a notebook in seclusion may not seem to have much in common with an NBA player doing a reverse layup on a basketball court before a screaming crowd. But if you could peer inside their heads, you might see some striking similarities in how their brains were churning. That's one of the implications of new research on the neuroscience of creative writing. For the first time, neuroscientists have used fMRI scanners to track the brain activity of both experienced and novice writers as they sat down - or, in this case, lay down - to turn out a piece of fiction."

"In order to see a rise in the proportion of students who class themselves as engaged in school, we must build a better understanding of how they are learning outside school and take account of that in our learning and teaching practice. There are (at least) six powerful motivations fueling learning socially. I call them the Six "Do-Its" and explain them as follows."

"Research shows that reflecting after learning something new makes it stick in your brain."

"Below, all our E.L.A. and arts-related posts. On June 11 we'll publish a list of all of the Student Opinion questions we have asked this year. And if you'd like to go further, here are five more years' worth of lesson plan collections for English language arts, from 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014."

"Below, you'll find a categorized collection of Times articles and Opinion pieces from the 2014-15 academic year about all aspects of higher education - from getting in, to thinking about why you are there, to considering how to fix what's broken. We hope you'll find plenty to discuss. As the school year began last September, Frank Bruni, a Times Op-Ed columnist, issued a challenge to college freshmen to "construct their world from scratch" and seek out people who think differently: Now more than ever, college needs to be an expansive adventure, yanking students toward unfamiliar horizons and untested identities rather than indulging and flattering who and where they already are. And students need to insist on that, taking control of all facets of their college experience and making it as eclectic as possible. We hope some of the pieces below can help."

"A year ago, we were approached by The Princeton Review to help them design a survey about Student Life in America. Rather than focusing on academic performance, they wanted to understand students' academic process. What goes through their heads when they do homework? Where do they turn for help when they're stuck? How do they think and feel during a typical school day? In short, the survey was designed to find out what only students can know: their thoughts, feelings, and goals. The results suggest that if we want to fix education, then we have to move away from blaming teachers, resources, or classroom size, and start talking seriously about what students are doing to create academic success -- and how we can best support them in that process. Here are some of the survey's most telling results."

Students can test themselves on using vocab in context. All exercises link to NY Times articles.