HC English Department

This is the list that Kathy Dittirch sent out. Some interesting pairings here. "The classics tend to dominate English teachers' plans, and throughout grade school, high school and college you're often stuck reading the same ol' tomes off the same ol' lists. So, let's fix that. The writers at HuffPost Culture teamed up to create an alternative back-to-school reading list, in which books like The Giver and Heart of Darkness are replaced with works like On Such A Full Sea and The World and Me."

"Whether you're a formative assessment newbie or a veteran, these techniques can help spice up how you check for understanding in the classroom. They range from the classics, like exit slips, to ideas you may have never thought to try."

Melissa Mongi, did you write this? "The secret is improv games. I call them warm-ups and play them once a week at the beginning of class. Many students tell me that warm-ups are the best part of their day."

"Using data with students encompasses classroom practices that build students' capacity to access, analyze, and use data effectively to reflect, set goals, and document growth. Using data with students encompasses the following activities: Students use their classwork as a source for data, analyzing strengths, weaknesses, and patterns to improve their work. Students regularly analyze evidence of their own progress. They track their progress on assessments and assignments, analyze their errors for patterns, and describe what they see in the data about their current level of performance. Students use data to set goals and reflect on their progress over time and incorporate data analysis into student-led conferences."

"The goal of any close reading is the following: an ability to understand the general content of a text even when you don't understand every word or concept in it. an ability to spot techniques that writers use to get their ideas and feelings across and to explain how they work. an ability to judge whether techniques the writer has used succeed or fail and an ability to compare and contrast the successes and failures of different writers' techniques. Remember-when doing a close reading, the goal is to closely analyze the material and explain why details are significant. Therefore, close reading does not try to summarize the author's main points, rather, it focuses on "picking apart" and closely looking at the what the author makes his/her argument, why is it interesting, etc. Here are a few of the helpful questions to consider in close reading, from the handout by  Kip Wheeler, a college English professor:"

Some interesting ideas here on designing rubrics and assessments based on standards

For those of you who teach The Crucible, this is a 7 minute interview with Stacy Schiff who has a new book called The Witches: Salem,1962

"English and education professor Gerald Graff (2003) writes that "argument literacy" is fundamental to being educated. The university is largely an "argument culture," Graff contends; therefore, K-12 schools should "teach the conflicts" so that students are adept at understanding and engaging in argument (both oral and written) when they enter college. He claims that because argument is not standard in most school curricula, only 20 percent of those who enter college are prepared in this respect"

Opinion piece from a medical examiner that could be a good to use as a model or as an option for students to respond to.

"These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar's Story Artist. "

A century of research shows that traditional grammar lessons-those hours spent diagramming sentences and memorizing parts of speech-don't help and may even hinder students' efforts to become better writers. Yes, they need to learn grammar, but the old-fashioned way does not work.

"What we do know is that a plethora of assessment-related research has shed light not just on the importance of students' mindsets, but also on the importance of continual feedback and how active retrieval of information, in carefully spaced intervals, can produce long-lasting learning. Research also shows that providing students with choice enhances attention and engagement -- and confirms that the arts can help deepen long-term memory consolidation (Hardiman). Specifically, the following research is helping to change our understanding of the correlation between teaching and learning -- and altering our approaches to student assessment."

"In a small Southern town during the Jim Crow era, a black man is accused of raping a white woman. During his stormy trial there are threats of lynching, as well as intimations that the white woman had been the sexual aggressor. That tale summarizes the plot of Harper Lee's novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," a staple of high school English courses. But it also describes part of the more complicated and less morally uplifting real-life story told in "Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair," a half-hour documentary to be broadcast Friday on NPR stations as part of the "Radio Diaries" series (www.radiodiaries.org)."

"Holden won over the young, especially the 1960s generation who saw themselves in the disaffected preppy, according to the cultural critic Morris Dickstein. "The skepticism, the belief in the purity of the soul against the tawdry, trashy culture plays very well in the counterculture and post-counterculture generation," said Mr. Dickstein, who teaches at the Graduate Center of the University of the City of New York. Today, "I wouldn't say we have a more gullible youth culture, but it may be more of a joining or togetherness culture." The culture is also more competitive. These days, teenagers seem more interested in getting into Harvard than in flunking out of Pencey Prep. Young people, with their compulsive text-messaging and hyperactive pop culture metabolism, are more enchanted by wide-eyed, quidditch-playing Harry Potter of Hogwarts than by the smirking manager of Pencey's fencing team (who was lame enough to lose the team's equipment on the subway, after all). Today's pop culture heroes, it seems, are the nerds who conquer the world - like Harry - not the beautiful losers who reject it."

Room for Debate - Five short articles answer the question: Does "Catcher in the Rye" resonate with teenagers today? Does the Holden Caulfield version of alienation speak to a generation connected on Facebook?

"Fifty-seven years later, Irving Adler still remembers the day he went from teacher to ex-teacher at Straubenmuller Textile High School on West 18th Street. It was the height of the Red Scare, and the nation was gripped by hysteria over loyalty and subversion. New York City's temples of learning, bursting with postwar immigrants and the first crop of baby boomers, rang with denunciations by interrogators and spies."

"WHEN ARTHUR MILLER'S drama ''The Crucible'' first opened on Broadway in 1953, the country was in a panic about the so-called Red Menace. On Nov. 27, the first American movie of ''The Crucible'' will have its premiere. To understand why it took 43 years to make this film -- not to mention its contemporary relevance -- it pays briefly to recall the red hunt that no longer beleaguers us."

"In this lesson, we explore ethical dilemmas that face normal people around the world, in all walks of life. Some of their cases are familiar, while others are obscure. But they hold one thing in common: They feature individuals who followed the guidance of their own moral code, often risking personal injury or community censure to do so. We'll ask students to examine the underlying characteristics of such episodes, and consider whether some acts are more deserving of support than others."

"Though often considered second best to his "Death of a Salesman" and opening to lukewarm, if not downright hostile, reviews, Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" continues to be mounted and taught worldwide because it speaks to universal fears of social isolation and the unknown - fears especially present in a rapidly changing world, not to mention in the topsy-turvy social order of school."

"What are the roots and legacy of minstrelsy and the Scottsboro Trials? How can stereotypes be used not only to reinforce a bias, but also to satirize that very bias? In this lesson, students learn about the minstrel tradition, consider how it echoes through stereotypes of African-Americans today and explore the legacy of black stereotypes and the Scottsboro Trials in popular culture, history and literature."