The Unedited Adventures of a Soon-To-Be High School English Teacher. UPDATE: I will be teaching 10th and 12th graders during my student teaching this fall. I use Tumblr as a place to veg, find and share teaching resources, and, of course, connect with other teachers. My dream is to someday teach at an urban high school in a high-poverty neighborhood. Shout out to my wonderful fiance (a soon-to-be science teacher, awesome!), my dog, and my crazy cat. Couldn't do anything without my little family :)
This quote from Ira Glass is totally in-sync with Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour theory (that it takes about 10 years to become an expert in your field). My students found this so fascinating when we read Outliers, and were encouraged to keep striving towards excellence.
(via thelifeguardlibrarian)
Challenging independent book project ideas!Dearest Education community,
In short, you rock. Here are all your thoughtful, amazing, creative project ideas for my 7th grader’s independent reading assignment. I’ll keep you update on what he ends up choosing! l Again, thank you!
- Rewrite the endings! [revolutionizeed]
- If you have a mac lab, use iBooks Author to create an interactive report, analysis, retelling, etc. [bbandsam]
- Read a graphic novel and write it into a short story (use their dialogue, but add narration). [ana-coluthia]
- An arts integration lesson- have him make Brian’s Winter into a comic book. Rewriting text/dialogue and adding illustrations! [ndrummond]
- Give a presentation, on powerpoint, a poster, or whatever about his favorite author and why. [rshoney]
- The 6 word stories. Or expanding moments and same story, different perspective type tasks. [aimingforpretty]
- Fan fiction (using the story’s world/characters, but coming up with your own plot). [practicingempathy]
A super huge thanks to theimprobablefiction, who had several rockin ideas:
- Character’s last will and testament. Which personal items would he leave behind? To whom? Why?
- Write a personal essay connecting your own experiences/values with an issue raised by the novel.
- Write a letter to one of the major characters giving him/her advice about life, decision making, problem solving, etc. Then write the character’s letter back to you.
- Write a poem that accurately reflects the values of a character.
- Write something in the voice of the character (ex. a missing chapter). Or design a survival guide based on the story.
And also to lhuddles, whose amazing (!!!) document had far too many ideas to include, but here are a few of my favorites:
- A board game should come with three parts: the playing surface, the pieces, and the rules.
- A book trailer is a short film that makes the watcher want to read the book—it does not give all the facts nor does it reveal the book’s ending.
- Write an advice column either to a character in the book or from a character in the book.
- A found poem takes memorable or important lines from one text, pulls them out as individual lines, and then rearranges those exact words to form a new poem.
- Create a song that relates to your focus. Your lyrics must be turned in (typed), and your song must be performed in front of the class.
(via teachertoolbox)
Say “fork shortage” out loud.
Or the word ‘arduous.’
(via missescargotpudding)
Go California! This study surprises and comforts me.
I’ve worked with inner-city students for several years now, and one of the biggest adjustments I had to make when I got to my current school was in my expectations about homework. Once I got over that paradigm shift, I rarely assigned homework and I watched my students become more engaged and…
great post, read the whole thing.
Awesome post. I have a feeling this will be my strategy when I start teaching socioeconomically disadvantaged students. With struggling readers and writers, and just downright busy students, immense amounts of homework are unrealistic and thoroughly disheartening.
(via revolutionizeed)
Five Ways to Get Cheap Books For Your Classroom Library
Posted in Teaching on May 9, 2012
So, you’ve thought about creating a really nice library for your classroom, but you’re short on cash? Here are five places you can get books on the cheap!1. Craigslist
Craigslist is a…
I’m letting my kids vote on which topic(s) they want to talk about after the state test.
So far epidemiology and human evolution are in the lead, but only a handful of kids have voted at this point.
(I’m hoping for history of science, but somehow I doubt that will be a popular choice!)
I always like the idea of giving students choices.
(via adventuresinlearning)
![An Inconvenient Lawsuit: Teenagers Take Global Warming to the Courts
Alec Loorz turns 18 at the end of this month. While finishing high school and playing Ultimate Frisbee on weekends, he’s also suing the federal government in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The Ventura, California, teen and four other juvenile plaintiffs want government officials to do more to prevent the risks of climate change — the dangerous storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, and food-supply disruptions that scientists warn will threaten their generation absent a major turnabout in global energy policy. Specifically, the students are demanding that the U.S. government start reducing national emissions of carbon dioxide by at least six percent per year beginning in 2013.
“I think a lot of young people realize that this is an urgent time, and that we’re not going to solve this problem just by riding our bikes more,” Loorz said in an interview.
Read more. [Image: Victoria Loorz]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3raw96rJI1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
An Inconvenient Lawsuit: Teenagers Take Global Warming to the Courts
Alec Loorz turns 18 at the end of this month. While finishing high school and playing Ultimate Frisbee on weekends, he’s also suing the federal government in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The Ventura, California, teen and four other juvenile plaintiffs want government officials to do more to prevent the risks of climate change — the dangerous storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, and food-supply disruptions that scientists warn will threaten their generation absent a major turnabout in global energy policy. Specifically, the students are demanding that the U.S. government start reducing national emissions of carbon dioxide by at least six percent per year beginning in 2013.
“I think a lot of young people realize that this is an urgent time, and that we’re not going to solve this problem just by riding our bikes more,” Loorz said in an interview.
Read more. [Image: Victoria Loorz]
(via from-student-to-teacher)
