TEMS520

Although none of us are currently teachers in Arizona, I thought this article hit close to home.  In a nutshell, the Arizona curriculum (led by a Republican state education superintendent) is banning minority study type books because of a fear that teachers may not use them appropriately.  So, even though schools need to teach a minority studies, they can still be removed if it is determined that by using an antiwhite curriculum to foster social activism. What a load of bunk when trying to shape young minds.  Scary how quickly a government can decide what books to offer and not offer students, regardless of what political party you sway towards.

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OK- so maybe this is a stretch for extra credit, but even if it isn't worth any extra points - still cool to share - hopefully all you "real" teachers unlike myself know about this!  Any k-12 student that reads 5 books gets 2 for 1 pricing on tickets plus no ticketmaster fees - yay for sports and reading!

Not a stretch at all, Gina! The whole idea is to share what you find. If its new to you, it's likely new to someone else. In my case, it was a good reminder! :)

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How often do students look up to celebrities, right?  I thought this list was so cool.  If anything hopefully it gets one student interested in a book because their favorite star is too! I feel so special - Tyra, Halle and I have a special bond!  Our favorite teenage book is Are You There God?  It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume!!!!!!! p.s. I think Hillary Clinton wussed out.  NO recommendation for teen/adults and Goodnight Moon for your fav childrens book? c'mon Hillary!?! p.p.s.(or is it p.s.s.?) With a soft heart I noticed that Whitney Houston's fav childhood book was the bible. RIP Whitney...

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The disclaimer below the title is exactly what you will find - even though I want to teach secondary, this blog has a ton of resources for teaching math and science through literature.  I never knew cute books existed that combined reading and math for young kids.  I have fun scrolling through the math and earth science tabs on the right side of the page.  I even wrote down a few titles to purchase for my daughter and me at home - after all, I really need a break from Umizoomi!

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The author presents a convincing argument for emulating instructional design found in "Angry Birds."

2003 report of the National Writing Commission

This packet contains colorful posters to teach 14 non-fiction text features! -guide words -title page -table of contents -index -glossary -heading -keywords -illustrations & photographs -captions -diagrams -labels -text box -maps -charts

Free downloadable posters to teach text features!

For teachers who are looking for new activities to get students more involved in reading and writing at home, here are a handful of suggestions.

Journal Writing Every Day: Teachers Say It Really Works! This article lists benefits for journal writing with special education students.

This is an activity to help with writing skills for middle schoolers. It's a great way to have fun while learning. It can be used in the classroom or at home.

INSERT is a strategy with several uses. Students mark a text (with pencil or sticky flags) with symbols such as +. -. !, ? to monitor their comprehension during reading. These marks can then be used by the teacher to help students engage in discussions, and clarify understanding. Students can also use the marks to make notes after reading.

This is actually 2 articles from American Educator Spring 2011 -Putting Students on the Path to Learning: The Case for Fully Guided Instruction -Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know The first article asserts that "teachers are more effective when they provide explicit guidance accompanied by practice, not when they require students to discover many aspects of what they must learn." The second article presents 10 research-based principles of instruction, along with suggestions for classroom practice.

"This article describes dictogloss, an integrated skills technique for language learning in which students work together to create a reconstructed version of a text read to them by their teacher."

"The Teaching for Learning Framework, a project of the Michigan Department of Education - Office of Education Improvement and Innovation, was created to support effective instruction in challenging content across all grade levels and content areas. The Framework outlines 77 research-based Essential Skills (organized into __ Fundamental Processes and three Core Elements) that can be learned, practiced, and utilized by classroom teachers to efficiently and effectively deliver instruction."

"The mission of the Michigan Assessment Consortium is to improve student learning and achievement through a system of coherent curriculum, balanced assessment and effective instruction. We do this by collaboratively Promoting assessment knowledge and practice.Providing professional development.Producing and sharing assessment tools and products." Includes resources and archived videoconferences

Second-Language Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Learning with Multimedia Lee B. Abraham Hispania , Vol. 90, No. 1 (Mar., 2007), pp. 98-108 Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20063468 This article presents a research study where ESL students were put into 3 groups a control group, a forced look-up group, and a choice look-up group. The study was trying to find out if using multimedia would aide in the increase in vocabulary in ESL students. The study found that students in the control group had little vocabulary growth, but the students in the two other groups had the same percentage growth of 18%. When I first started reading this article, I was interested to see if using multimedia tools would increase the vocabulary. I was specifically interested in the use of technology. There is no differentiation about which types of multimedia are better. As I further read, I thought that the students who were given a choice of what to look up would make more growth, because they would be working off their own motivation, but the study showed that whether they were forced to look up words or had a choice, they made the same growth. This reinforces the importance of teaching my students to use context clues, but when that doesn't help, to learn how to use a dictionary and the computer to find the meaning for words.