7th grade reading lists

Today with our supervisor Ms. D we discussed possible reading lists for the 7th & 8th grade:

Lists matched up with content area:

-(American perspective on immigration) Return to Sender

-(Caribbean: Haiti) Open the Door to Liberty

-(An American in Europe) Bloomability -
- (Mexico & California during Great Depression) Esperanza Rising

- (Africa) A Girl Named Disaster

-The Breadwinner - by Deboarah Ellis (Afghanistan)
-A Single Shard (set in Korea)
-When my name was Keoko (set in Korea during Japanese occupation)

- (Australia) Ash Road

-Chasing Vermeer (fictional but interesting merge of history & geography)

Plan: pick 2 by Christmas and could implement in the spring

Good list of books: http://www.clpgh.org/teens/books/showbooklist.cfm?catid=6&list=worldnonfiction

A Book I'm Reading: "Reading Like a Historian"

I'm currently reading, "Reading Like a Historian". Our dept. supervisor has all of the Social Studies teachers looking at this book as we consider Common Core and incorporating more literacy into our lessons. The book itself is fairly practical for a teacher; each part is split up with the historical debate, why teach it, and how you might use the materials. It's dedicated primarily to history classes, so I need to "think outside the box" to apply this to my geography classes. However, it's still a good resource for me to be reading as we look at how Common Core will change what and how we teach!

Professional Development Nov. 10

Professional Development Notes

November 10, 2011

8:45-9:45 Breakout Session 1

• 3 types of writing in CC: argument, informative/explanatory, narrative

1. Argument

a. developing argument: starts with opinion—providing examples, reasons for belief, and cause/effect

b. Argument in secondary: claim, evidence, relationships between claim & evidence, formal style

c. IN SS: analyze evidence from multiple primary/secondary sources, make a claim best supported by evidence, argue for a particular interpretation

2. Informative/Explanatory Writing

a. Recall: Intended to increase reader knowledge/understanding.

b. Assumes truthfulness and answers why or how

c. Standard:

i. Introduce topic using varied org. strategies

ii. Broaden support & evidence

iii. Use formal voice and objective tone, with domain-specific vocabulary

3. Narrative

a. Standard:

i. Conveys experience, either real or imaginary

ii. Uses time as its structure

iii. Uses variety: of narrative techniques, of sequencing techniques

iv. Uses precise & sensory language

4. Instructional implications

a. Increased emphasis on writing arguments

b. Emphasis on writing in response to sources (not just prompts)

10:00-11:00 Breakout Session 2

*5-E model in Social Studies

-Engage -Explore -Explanation -Extension -Evaluation

A Quote all teachers should take to heart

I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.
- Goethe

Have Them at Hello!

I like this link:

http://news.yahoo.com/them-hello-205325816.html

and want to write a blog entry about it and its relation to starting a lesson/class instruction......

A Journey Through Time & the Chesapeake with John Smith

Below, I have copied & pasted my entry from the "Roots of a Nation" blog:

I really enjoyed the two-day activity of "Mapping the Course for a New Nation". The activity started at the Project Sultana offices in Chestertown, where we explored the maps and had a "crash course" on what the symbols on the map meant. We discussed the ecology of the region at the time and what the settlers' experiences were like. Chris shared with us the furs and skins of animals from the time. We also got to see hands-on wild rice, wampum, and turtle shells. We discussed how they were used in the time. On the second day of the trip, we paddled out of Turner's Creek landing into the Sassafras River. While paddling, we discussed the possible site of the mysterious Tockwagh Village and identified two areas that would have been optimal locations. We used seine nets to try to catch fish, and explored a tidal freshwater pond (teeming with life, which offered a great food source to the Native Americans). Chris & Mark pulled up the tubers from the tuckahoe/arrow grum. Our 2nd day concluded with a session led by two women from the National Geographic Alliance, who showed us various ways we could use these activities and topics instructionally.

I have learned so much in this two day course! I learned about John Smith's voyages-- which took place in the summer of 1608. I learned that he was a gifted cartographer (although the origin of these skills isn't known). I learned the various different names he used to mark places (ex: Bolus Flue for the Patapsco River). I learned that the Maltese crosses marked the extents of his explorations (sadly none of these have been found). John Smith's maps are oriented to the west, as they would appear to future European explorers. Surely, had Smith and his crew capsized off Tangier Island, the exploration and settlement of our region would have been sorely affected. On the second day my paddling skills were certainly tested-- which I highly enjoyed! I valued the opportunity to explore areas John Smith's crew explored as well. What an amazing opportunity.

There are a myriad of ways in which I could use these activities instructionally. Chris provided us with an amazing binder of activities-- all of which strengthen students' informational reading skills, analytical skills, and skills of interpreting primary documents. One way I plan to use this immediately in the classroom is to have the students use this map as they conceptualize (geographically) our place in the world-- as residents of Talbot County, Maryland, the Chesapeake, and North America. We will then use current maps to compare how accurate Smith's map was and how the land changed over time. We will use his journals to explore the wildlife and physical characteristics of the region, then identify reasons why these characteristics have changed. These activities will help the students to identify consequences of modifying the environment in a way that is local, tangible & meaningful to them.

Other things I plan to use from this session:
*Analyze maps using "Big Green Kissing TOADS" (border, grid, key, title, orientation, author, date, scale)
*Compare the names from Smith's map with current names (to further scaffold student's awareness of place names in their home state)
*Use quotes from his journals as a primary source analysis piece
*Using journals to identify geographic characteristics (human and physical) and discuss why they are important to put on a map, and how thematic maps have evolved over time (and settlement) to show those characteristics in a more focused way
*Various Earth Day or environmental lessons the women from NGA shared: River report cards, river puzzle, population map, and Who Polluted the Potomac?


This was a highly enjoyable session!

John Smith's Voyages Pt. 1

Today I went into Chestertown for a workshop at Project Sultana. The topic of the workshop is John Smith's 1608 Voyages up the Chesapeake Bay. There were 8 other teachers there and the workshop was led by Chris Cerino.

I really enjoyed the topic! Considering my slight obsession with Roanoke and the Lost Colony, it was exciting to see another part of the pre-colonial puzzle of early America. We discussed Smith's voyages (two in the summer of 1608), what he saw and the location of the mysterious Tockwagh village. No one is 100% certain where this village was located. But beyond this mystery, his map (especially of the western side) is surprising accurate, given the lack of technology available in his time!

Things that amazed me from today's discussions:

*the 1000 year old bald cypress trees he encountered and very large other trees: walnuts, chestnuts, oaks

*the 12 ft. sturgeons

*the Menhaden they tried to catch with frying pans

*the fact that in those days it would take only 3 days for the oysters to fully filter the bay

*the trees in those days protected the landscape and prevented erosion, keeping the salinity in the bay "up", which created a more widespread habitat for oysters (runoff of rain today affects the bay and makes some areas inhospitable to oysters-- too much freshwater)

Tomorrow we will paddle the Sassafras River! I am so excited!!!!

***Here is a good link I found:

http://johnsmith.psu.edu/home.aspx

Curriculum

Today and yesterday I worked with Chrissy Mohan to revise the 7th grade curriculum. It was super fun!

Summer Reading List

My mother (an English teacher) and I are sitting down together, brainstorming some reading list ideas for rising eighth graders over the summer. Here are a few we are thinking of:

Pre-Revolutionary War America
Moon of Two Dark Horses - shows the friendship between a white settler and a Native American


Revolutionary War
Johnny Tremain - great background on the Revolutionary War, specifically Lexington & Concord and the Sons of Liberty.
My Brother Sam is Dead
The Secret of Sarah Revere

Industrial Revolution
Lyddie - Catherine Patterson - about a girl who works in a cloth factory in 1840's New England

Civil War
March Toward Thunder - about a Native American boy who joins the Union army in New York
Amelia's War -




Rising 7th grade book list
-A Girl Named Disaster -
-Bloomability -
-Esperanza Rising -
-Ash Road (Australia)
-The Breadwinner - by Deboarah Ellis (Afghanistan)
-A Single Shard (set in Korea)
-When my name was Keoko (set in Korea during Japanese occupation)
-Chasing Vermeer (? plot looks interesting but need to look into)
-

2003 article on performance-based pay in a computer company

Just came across this Harvard study on performance-based pay in the business world. I do believe that this tenet of RTT was based on its perceived "success" in the business world.

I don't want to go into long analysis of this because quite frankly the concept of merit pay really concerns me. So here are some interesting points:

*For the first six months, everyone loved the new system.Then the complaints began.

*The teams were frustrated that factors out of their control, such as the delivery of parts, affected their work.

*Financial rewards in a fast-changing business environment could undermine a company's ability to build trust and commitment unless management and employees have an honest discussion about their mutual expectations, they added. This is "very difficult to do."

*Going forward, Beer suggested that managers recognize pay-for-performance programs not just in instrumental terms--as a carrot, perhaps--but as a larger exercise in fairness and justice within the organization. "Do not proceed until both sides understand what they are getting into."

As always let me point out that I will respect the choices of our Dept. of Ed and my school district as we transition to Race to the top. But, like this article suggests, I feel it's crucial that I as a stakeholder stay informed about the caveats of merit-based pay. So much of what I love about teaching is rooted in collaboration with my colleagues, trust between my students and me, and the sense of community our building shares and develops throughout the year. But when our individual bottomline within our classroom will determine what we take home, I wonder how much of those qualities will remain.

Backchanneling video

Reflection on Backchanneling

So I used back-channeling throughout a lesson! It didn't crash and burn, nor did I have mass mutiny on my hands so I count the day a success!

How I set up the lesson, instructionally:

*Got the kids thinking about the use of laptops & discussing verbally

*Had them post to the class wiki their thoughts about using laptops (focusing)

*Showed them a cool new webtool to make word clouds (get them excited about how to use laptops productively)

*Explained backchannel

*Showed the video and basically... let them go!

Thoughts & Reflections on the day

*Interestingly my first period class went the best (which is usually NOT the case!). Was it because of the kids involved or because I didn't "overthink" it?

*I had one class respond inappropriately to the first written prompt on the wiki (posting "what's up people!" and saying things toward their friends). How did that happen? To refocus I had a quick discussion about it and then had them post a response to why students were posting inappropriately and what we could do.

*The backchanneling was 100% a success. However, it was almost too much to take in. Perhaps it would be better to group the kids into "pods" that can chat and ask questions of each other, that I monitor? That way they can answer each other, and actually have reflective conversations rather than just throw comments into the mix where so few get seen and acknowledged (my last period commented 66 times in 10 minutes!)

Here is a link to a blog I want to read when I get a chance...

Backchanneling?

Today in the car I was just thinking about this, I recently said to my students, "it's wonderful that you think we all want to hear your commentary on everything you see, but it's distracting". And that got me to thinking-- no wonder they think we care what they have to say-- even I am part of the generation "like". I've been posting my inner thoughts and ramblings and vents on facebook and myspace for nearly a decade now. These kids have grown up with it. Their parents have probably been updating statuses since before they could read.

With that in mind I got to thinking about how I can channel this energy and desire to comment (on anything and everything!) in a positive educational light.

*I thought about having the students write a "status" update before class.

*Then I thought, "well maybe they could tweet throughout class". How many tweets would they do? And how can we share it? How would it relate to class discussions? Would it hinder or help class flow?

So I started going through the NYT blog as I am rife to do when I don't feel like doing anything related to cleaning... and I came across this entry: "Students speak up in class, silently, via Social Media". It discusses a teacher using laptops in the classroom to discuss poetry, and backchanneling in college math classes.

I once tried to do a backchannel at St Michaels-- there is a site called today's meet where you can make a one day chat room. I was afraid to use it for fear of bullying but used it with my best group of kids-- and it paid off! It was a fantastic way of getting feedback on topics and I definitely saw more kids involved than usual.

I am limited because I do not have access to a class set of computers to do this. I think tomorrow I am going to put the kids into triads. I will give them one laptop per group and have them comment on our todaysmeet.com chat room throughout a viewing of a video on refugees in Sudan...

I also created a question on Google Moderator for students to answer tomorrow with their triad. Perhaps I could have them go onto the blog to respond, for closure, to the day's lesson.

Great Things Kids Say

Today I stopped by a colleague's room during my planning and a student said one of the best things to me I've ever heard. The teacher has a bunch of fish tanks and he said, "Mrs. Hopper you should get fish for our classroom".

What struck me was that he said OUR classroom! In another teacher's room, no less, he referred to my room as "our" classroom. I loved that!

Teaching kids everyday is the best part of my job!!!

Getting Boys to Like Reading

"Boys Don't Read, Except When they Do"

I don't have time to write a whole bunch, but here are a few quotes from the article that really strike my attention...

"The 2010 Kid and Family Reading Report, sponsored by Scholastic, found that regardless of race, geography or socioeconomic status, boys were lagging far behind girls in reading outside of school assignments. Only 39 percent of boys rated reading outside of class as important, while 62 percent of girls said it was "extremely or very important." A 2005 NEA study by Mark Bauerlein and Sandra Stotsky found that between 1980 and 2004, the gender gap in reading between boys and girls had grown so wide that the authors determined it had become a "marker of gender identity." Again: Boys don't read...

Turning boys into readers isn't just a worry for publishing executives trying to find the next blockbuster series. There are massive policy implications. Girls are outperforming boys in reading in all 50 states, and boys are more than twice as likely to be to be placed in special education classes than girls...

Literacy expert Pam Allyn, founder of LitWorld and the Books 4 Boys program at Children's Village and author of the newly released, Pam Allyn's Best Books For Boys, observes that "illiteracy rates correlate with the risk of a jail sentence later in adolescence, making it twice as likely for nonreaders to be incarcerated." And indeed, 93 percent of the prison population in the United States is male...

The fact is that boys are reading. Just like girls, boys are hungry for stories that speak to them, that excite their imaginations and reflect their experiences. They are hungry for information to help them make sense of the world, or achieve a goal or just to geek-out on whatever is holding their attention at that moment....

A researcher at the University of Ontario recently looked into the reading lives of boys and found that almost all of the boys in her study described the reading they enjoyed, just like young Matt De La Peña and I did -- game manuals, fact books, graphic novels, sports magazines -- as "not really reading...

He argues passionately that schools need to broaden the tent of "what counts and does not count as a valid literacy activity," inviting so-called 'low culture' into the classroom alongside 'great literature' and showing that the interests, needs, and tastes of boys are valued and have a place in a reading life.

There are plenty of fart jokes in Shakespeare, and plenty of pathos in Captain Underpants.

Who are we to say which is "real" reading?"

Interactive Teaching vs. Lecturing

Interactive vs. Lecture?

That's the question this article answers. A recent study showed that students benefit from an interactive classroom where they can use "clickers" to respond to questions posed by the instructor. This is similar to the Turning Point resources we have in our buildings; I believe all Math teachers have them.

"The interactive method had almost no lecturing. It involved short, small-group discussions, in-class "clicker" quizzes, demonstrations and question-answer sessions"

How can I use this in my classroom?

1. Organize discussion by objectives. Hold quick discussion, "think alouds" with groups, then an individual clicker response

2. Use the responses to decide on next step: more demonstrations or more talking? Move on to next topic or unpack the previous topic more?

3. Have teams make up question/answers related to topics we discuss and then lead group discussion that way

How could this influence American education?

First, I am concerned by the way it starts out. By saying it doesn't matter "who" is teaching, but "how" it's taught, it backs up the recent arguments by Bill Gates-- that the level of education of teachers is inconsequential. They argue that bonuses or higher salaries for teachers with masters degrees don't pay off in student achievement, so should be phased out from salary ladders. Of course, I believe achievement is one part of the issue. As a professional community there should be incentives for teaches to further their knowledge and improve their skills. Offering higher salaries is an obvious incentive to encourage teachers to get their masters degrees-- but how can we show the link between highly educated teachers and improved student achievement? And if that link isn't there, what is it saying about the teachers-- both the masters degrees they've attained and the types of education classes being offered at graduate levels? Who is behind the times-- teachers in public schools or the higher ed institutions that are training them?

Could this study lead to further arguments that schools should be led by "grad ass't" types and not "highly qualified educators"? Is this a thinly veiled attack on teachers-- their salaries, their efficacy, and their value? Or is this wholly aimed towards the college level? Is it trying to convince higher ed. institutions to get with the times and the actions of their peers in public education? We have been using clickers for over 5 years in my county. I started my teaching using Quia.com, a site where quizzes can be made and taken online, and test items can be broken down by objective.

One thing is for sure-- the way we as humans learn IS changing. Or is it? Is it just the way we teach and tell ourselves that our teaching is working? What would Socrates think of all this???!

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

Today's equity session was led by Marlecia Autrey. We talked about Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. This video sums it up, but isn't made by the Pacific Education Group.

Interesting Article on Education Reformers

This is an older article by Michael Winerip (Apr. 17 2011) but I found it while perusing the NYT today. Among the interesting things it states, are these things:

*He lists Michelle Rhee, Bill Gates and Ted Kennedy (due to his part in the NCLB) as influential in current reform efforts yet all three went to private schools.

*"Today, the consensus is that there is little difference between President Obama and former President George W. Bush when it comes to education policy. Nor is it easy to distinguish differences between the secretary of education under Mr. Bush, Margaret Spellings, and the current secretary, Arne Duncan."

*"Does a private school background give them a much-needed distance and fresh perspective to better critique and remake traditional public schools? Does it make them distrust public schools — or even worse — poison their perception of them? Or does it make any difference?"

This article raises a really interesting thought. What qualifies a person to reform an industry? Is a businessman qualified to reform public education, when he has no experience in teaching or learning in one? Is a teacher qualified to go into a hospital and reorganize how it is run? Is a lawyer qualified to tell an engineer how he will be assessed as an employee? In general, what qualifies each of us, as participants in American society, to use our "stakeholder" status to bring about reform and improvement? I think it has to be the fact that education is publicly funded, and thus tax payers have a right to have a "say". However I find it odd that the very people pushing vouchers to get their kids out of public schools are also trying to change public schools. What benefit would they have to pushing Race to the Top, if they are not sending their own children to these schools?

Equity Team 4/14

Had a really great discussion today led by Nancy Dome from Pacific Educational Group. It was talking about technology and equity change.

Among the things we discussed were:

--Anderson Cooper's 2010 story on students picking the "good child" versus the "mean child"

--illdoctrine.com

--UCLA rant on Asians in library

-Tim Wise