Chris asked for a sample script from Anne Matava’s new book of scripts to set up Le Nouveau Houdini/El Nuevo Houdini. I’ve chosen the script written for Chapter 3, about the house rules Brandon had to follow when his parents went to Hawaii. In my level 1 class, instead of Brandon’s grandmother or a fireman […]
Do we need to limit structures to two or (typically) three structures for a story to work? Why do we have three structures and why have experts like Laurie Clarcq in recent years limited her stories to two structures? The answer is that when a student hears too many new things in a story, he
I know I have been juking people around on Anne Matava’s new scripts for the Le Nouveau/El Nuevo Houdini novels by Carol Gaab, but after some final editing by Martin Anders (TPRS Germany), they are ready. Translations were by Sabrina Janczak (DPS/French version) and Laura Avila (Anne’s colleague in Belfast, Maine/Spanish version). I am expecting
I should have got this on here sooner. Nathaniel could probably use our feedback/ideas/suggestions before Friday on an upcoming presentation, although what he describes below is pretty badass already: Hi Ben, Friday is a professional workshop day for us at Shepherd Hill Regional HS (Dudley, MA). The recent trend has been to get as many
In this report, Melissa brings up a question about second year CI classes, one that many of us have experienced, but one that we have never fully addressed here as a group: Hi Ben – I have just re-read Stepping Stones to Stories and am feeling it in my soul. Next year I will have
Andrew Edwards has sent us a description of an alternative to dictée. I like it. Yes, it does move the students up and out of the conscious mind, but so does regular dictée. Pure input isn’t there, but it is a nice blend of input and output as the student tries to represent ideas and
We have a category on Rigor from which we in times of need share with others who like to bring that word up. Uneducated observers often come into our classrooms and, seeing the kids just sitting there listening, assume that they are not “doing” anything rigorous and therefore are not in a rigorous classroom. They
Q. My school has a policy about allowing kids to make up quizzes if they have an excused absence, and I am not sure how to handle those with the quick quizzes. They miss 90 minutes of instruction, and I was wondering what you do with quizzes for students who are absent for legitimate reasons.
Corinne Bourne in California is one of the best of the best comprehension based teachers I know of. Even years before I met her, I remember that her name often came up because Susan Gross would often talk of her great work as a Russian and French teacher who really gets comprehensible input. If that
A nice report from Diane: Hi all, Just wanted to share how happy I am with the trip I just took with my 8th graders (oldest students in their fourth year with me in Chinese). We traveled to San Francisco Feb. 24-28, 2014. We’d go to China if there was more time and a bigger
This isn’t really a report from the field, just something Andrew sent to me in an email today which I wanted to share with the group: …going free form can feel a bit scary. Plus we have to deal with people looking at us like we are nuts all of the time if we just
This is from Chris Stoltz over on the Forum today: This is really interesting. There is research about the neuroprocessing of intention and action. As Benjamin Libet found (and as has been repeated zillions of times), intention and action happen (neurologically) at about the same time. In other words, we don’t “decide” on what to
