Brigitte very generouslyhas translated and shared with us in German those transitional phrases that Drew posted here a little while ago. I will make a category for them. We need them in French and Latin. (The kids are told that they may use this sheet as a reference for any in-school writing assignments/tests, as long […]
Although Jody works with elementary kids, I think her approach to early writing, described below in a comment from last November, is a great way to get some writing going on in any classroom. Many of us have not yet this year seriously turned our attention to writing in our level one classes, as it should be, but
Drew’s semester exam assessed all four skills. Below, I have pulled information from discussion with him here a few weeks ago about his use of thesis statements to create meaningful writing. By meaningful I mean writing that is interesting to the kids and is not just another prompt from a teacher. Using a novel over the
Drew sent these transitional phrases. I will tag them under the new Writing category here. If anyone creates a list for other languages, please get it to me and I will put it here with the Spanish list. Drew explains: (Every year in Spanish II, III, and AP we hand this out to the kids. As
In a blog entry last summer I had asked Doug Stone to comment on the idea of change to new ways of teaching, or change in any field. His response is repeated here: Hi Ben, So the idea for the model for resistance to change came from my experience with acculturation which began not long
I am behind on keeping up with all the bios that are still outstanding. I’ll get to it. In the meantime, we have a cool bio to read from Sally, whose background spans the globe! Great job on the Ohio thing by the way, everybody. I will unsticky that post. Hi Ben, This is Sally Brownfield,
Here is an article from Mary Beth about Finnish schools. She said, “I loved the line a few paragraphs in, stating that there’s less homework, they engage the children in creative play, and no standardized tests …hmmm …sounds a little like what we are trying to do our CI-based classrooms!” http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/#.TwIURsoUctY.facebook
I have started to call roll about 2/3 of the way through the class period. It is so fast to do it that way because I know, since I have been teaching to the eyes for a half an hour up to that point, exactly who is absent. I just tell the kids we are going to
I have started to hang lists of verbs up so that I don’t have a Verb Wall per se, which takes up too much space, I place each poster of verbs (10 verbs on one laminated sheet) on a hook on which the verb sheet hangs. When the kids know them, can sign them and instantly identify them,
If something is wrong in a school building, if the vibe around you feels off, makes you feel somehow paranoid, or if the energy feels dark in some way, it is likely that there IS something wrong in the building. For years, I concluded from that vibe that there was somehow something wrong with me.
We can provide perfectly fine CI instruction without PQA and stories. We can even make CI work without personalization. It’s not so interesting to the kids, but it works. How? Just read a ton and spin minimally, using a kind of modified R and D. How far to go into the D part of R
I am going to sticky this post at the top of the blog posts until we get a bunch of text bites as discussed in the comments below in pink bold. We need to do this. We only have until January 6th on this. They take the link down on Friday. Another thing we need
