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As I found this article on reflective journaling, I thought what a great idea for an English middle or high school classroom. The point is to have students sit and reflect about their learning for that day, week, month, and even the entire school year. By thinking back on their learning process students and even adults can begin to understand how their knowledge has grown over a specific period of time. The article quotes the following, "you don't know what you know till you've written it down." What is a reflective journal? A reflective journal - often called a learning journal - is a steadily growing document that you (the learner) write, to record the progress of your learning. You can keep a learning journal for any course that you undertake, or even for your daily work.

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This is a great website that will assist you in finding a journal article.

Thank you for sharing, Renee!

NPR interview with Walter Dean Myers, the current ambassador for Young People's Literature. The theme for his ambassadorship: "Reading is Not Optional."

I love Walter Dean Myers, and think he is great for reaching boy readers. I read Dopesick for my Young Adult literature class last semester, and think he is accessable for various students.

Ediger, M. (2000). Teaching Reading In The Social Studies [Abstract]. College Student Journal. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCR/is_1_34/ai_62839401/?tag=content;col1 For my first journal article I choose an article that covers teaching in reading in social studies. The article discusses how teachers should use methods of guiding students to comprehension and understanding of ideas in print. Students need word recognition skills which can lead to meaningful learning. This is crucial for students to develop necessary skills to achieve a higher understanding in this subject area. To do this teaching reading across the subject will benefit as students learn the important facts, concepts, and ideas the curriculum. As a social studies teacher, you need to be active in students reading by helping with comprehension which can lead to a better understanding of the material. The article offers several methods on how to do this. These include adding new words found in readings as vocabulary, reading orally in small groups, using a student aid to read orally, using tape recordings of the section, individual readings, and using journals during readings. Overall I thought this article was great because while it provided you many ideas and practices that you could actually use in your classroom. In the end, having actual methods to use first hand will benefit us as teachers the most. It will just be up to use to master using them in the classroom.

Since my goal is to be a special education teacher I figure I'd make that the focus of my article search. This particular article is meaningful because it lists specific strategies to help the student with a reading disability. The first strategy listed is to encourage reading by finding reading material that the student enjoys. Reading material they want to read will help to improve reading comprehension and fluency because the student won't feel forced to read something they are not interested in. Keeping a graph of the student's reading progress helps to motivate them to improve their reading skills by making it a challenge. Also readers who struggle can track with their finger or a ruler in order to keep their place and their focus. Sounding out stumble words is a strategy to use when the student is struggling with a particular word. A strategy that I have never thought to use before is to record the student reading so they are able to listen back and judge their own fluency. For secondary students, have them keep a word journal notebook. They can record the words they get stuck on when reading and then study them. Lastly, using reading games is a great strategy for any age group. Even high school special education students enjoy a game of Scrabble, and playing word games improves their reading skills. The bottom line is to make reading fun for all students, and especially for readers with disabilities.

Nice job pulling out the specific strategies, Wendy.

The article I read for this journal focused on the differences between readers who are engaged and those who aren't. An engaged reader is a student who wants to read both to gain knowledge and for their own enjoyment. Sometimes it seems as you talk to students that there aren't that many of these. As you could probably assume, students who are engaged in reading are more likely to be successful readers. The reason that I chose this article was first because it was directly applicable to our class. Another was that I would like to be able to get more students to become engaged readers. If it is possible to get some students to want to read on their own it would be a great accomplishment. I think very often students don't like to read because they aren't interested in the readings they are assigned. If, as a teacher, you are able to find subject matter that can interest students they would be much more likely to be engaged readers. The research in this article found some interesting information. One interesting bit was that students' motivation to read decreased as they aged. This seems to make a lot of sense to me. For one thing I believe that very often the reading that students are assigned is very, for a lack of a better word, boring. It could be a good thing to try to provide students with a greater variety of books that may be able to evoke more motivation to read. Another part of this article spoke to the idea that relating the information in readings to real life experiences. This seems to me to be one of the most important things a teacher can do. If teachers are able to relate the information in the readings to real world experiences the students are more likely to grasp the information. Simply having the students read a text and then not providing any real-world context doesn't accomplish a whole lot. For me, the information that has stuck with me the longest is that which was related directly to stories that the instructor told

Engagement and motivation are huge topics in education right now. Small things we can do to tap into students' interests can provide links to help students make connections between school content and their worlds.

 http://www.amazon.com/Motivation-Breakthrough-Secrets-Turning-Tuned-Out/dp/0743289617/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1328620537&sr=1-2-catcorr The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning On the Tuned-Out Child, author Richard Lavoie, is a well written resource guide for teachers who wish to figure out how to motivate their students. Parents can learn from the guide as well, but the author primarily addresses educators who seek to improve relations with their students and figure out how to help them work to potential. Richard Lavoie is a consultant and a lecturer with over thirty years of experience as a teacher and an administrator at special education facilities. He explores strategies and techniques that are proven to inspire children to learn. He outlines strategies that will be most effective in igniting the interest and eagerness of kids, especially given their different needs. He outlines several different ways that children are motivated to do their best work. He teaches of the six Ps to motivate children. Some seek praise; others seek prizes, power, projects, or prestige. Some are people-oriented and are motivated when they work with people. Six different chapters address the various motivating factors and how they can be identified and used in the classroom. Personal accounts from Lavoie's years as a teacher allow us to see how he has put his lessons into practice. I appreciate the way that Lavoie challenges teachers to find out what motivates their students, even those students with special needs or who are classified as difficult. He encourages parents and teachers to work together to spark any child to reach his/her full potential. He covers learned hel

Wendy, it looks like maybe your review got cut off. You can add to it by adding an additional comment.

This sounds like an interesting book, and strategies for inspiring students to learn is always a good thing. I would like to add this book to my professional library. Even though I will not be a special education teacher per se, I have special education students in my classroom. Anything that I can do to help them will be valuable.

This website allows you to create a "corkboard" page where you can link all your favorite websites for your students to use.

Well done, Jamie! This could also be a way to curate resources for a content unit.

What an interesting idea! I would love to create one for the math classes I teach. I always have parents asking what they can do at home for review. Having a central location for them to go to would be a great educational tool. Thanks for sharing.