A 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises It’s the perfect time to restart your engine and get back into writing. Here, I offer up a 12-day plan of simple writing exercises to help you keep your creative juices flowing without eating up too much of your time. Follow this plan and in less than half a month, you’ll not only be impressed with what you’ve accomplished, but you may also have something worth publishing. The 12-Day Plan of Simple Writing Exercises Day 1: Write 10 potential book titles of books you’d like to write. Day 2: Create a character with personality traits of someone you love, but the physical characteristics of someone you don’t care for. Day 3: Write a setting based on the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen. Day 4: Write a letter to an agent telling her how wonderful you are. Day 5: Write a 20-line poem about a memorable moment in your life. Day 6: Select a book on your shelf and pick two chapters at random. Day 7: Write a letter to yourself telling you what you need to improve in the coming 6 months. Brian A.
The times (for kids) The U.S. Open 2012 tennis tournament began with a bang on August 25 at Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day, the annual kickoff event at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, NY. Honoring a Legend The event celebrates the life and legacy of Arthur Ashe, the first African-American male tennis player to win a Grand Slam title, at the U.S. In his lifetime, Ashe was committed to showing kids what was possible. An Action-Packed Day Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin (left) shows off her gold medal to singer Carly Rae Jepsen (right). In the morning, kids enjoyed a variety of activities, including face-painting, tennis drills, relay races and tennis games played on stilts. Later, everyone gathered at the Arthur Ashe Stadium for a concert starring Carly Rae Jepsen, The Wanted, Owl City, Rachel Crow, and Mindless Behavior. Owl City and Carly Rae Jepsen sang their hit “Good Time” together onstage as the crowd cheered and danced. Game, set, match!
All About Adolescent Literacy Scaffolding Complex Texts Strategies The explicit teaching of reading strategies helps students to become increasingly skillful at interpreting, understanding, and analyzing text. As with any new skill, these reading strategies should be taught through a scaffolding method, which includes modeling the strategy, providing students with opportunities for guided practice with the strategy, and then having students independently apply the strategy. Because students have different reading styles, they are not likely to find all reading strategies equally useful. While a particular strategy may reinforce a strength that one student has or may provide the key to overcoming a reading difficulty, the same strategy may prove to be cumbersome or tedious to another student. For this reason, the explicit teaching of reading strategies should also include opportunities for students to reflect on the effectiveness of the strategy. By considering questions such as: How does this strategy help me to understand the text?
Standards Based Curriculum Map: Freshman English Syllabus: A Curriculum Guide for Language Arts written by: Trent Lorcher • edited by: SForsyth • updated: 2/18/2014 This standards-based curriculum map for language arts contains links to unit plans, lesson plans, and handouts. It contains activities for honors level and regular level 9th grade English. Your Map: A Curriculum GuideAttention Freshman English Teachers: This is your lucky day. Ideas for Idiom Activities I began including an “idiom template” as well as some powerpoint slides in the weekly idiom list, but neglected to mention how I used the template! My Students filled out one box on the template each night with an idiom activity. Here are the ones we used: Used the idioms in sentences: great for Monday night so you can check students’ understanding early. Sketched figurative and literal examples of the idioms: don’t look a gift horse in the mouth would lead to a sketch of a guy looking at a horse’s mouth and a sketch of someone questioning a gift.Researched an idiom’s origin: as explained here. Big share out the next morning.We’d conclude the week by “summarizing our weeks” using all five idioms. Please let me know what you come up with at ian@byrdseed.com.
2.0 BE ON TIME! (if your child is tardy they will have to sit in the office until the next test begins) Go to bed as early as possible (GET LOTS OF SLEEP!) T Eat a BIG healthy breakfast (not sugar loaded they will have to sit for a long period) Most important! With all of the griping about SAT testing let me remind you why it is the BEST week EVER! 1. 2. ** I have purchased everything needed except 10 bottles of vegetable oil and toilet paper. 3. 4. Have a GREAT week! Love, Mrs. What an AWESOME field Trip! Landform Learning. Our Awesome projects! Finding God newsletter button Stations of the Cross (They will not have a test on these but I am taking a grade on the project we are doing in class) Glory Be Prayer this 9 weeks. Check out Spellingcity.com for fun games and practice tests each week! Six! Skills: Genre: HF words : Oral Vocabulary: Vocabulary Words Sups Begin Chapter 12. 3D geometric figures Make sure you CHECK the page numbers for homework assignments!
Common Core: Seven Opportunities to Transform English Language Arts Curriculum Brenda Overturf is a member of the International Reading Association's Board of Directors. You can reach her at boverturf[AT]reading[DOT]org. This is part two of a three-part series that examines the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Part One introduced CCSS and provided context for those new to the standards. Part Two will review the key features that offer opportunities for educators to transform their teaching. In Part Three, we will take a look at how various states are starting to implement the standards. As educators start to understand and implement the CCSS, many are forming professional learning communities and statewide development teams, as well as regional and national consortiums of state representatives. 1) Interdisciplinary Learning 2) Argumentation When writing and reading, persuasion and critical literacy are key factors in how students read and respond to text. 3) Text Complexity 4) Text Exemplars 5) Close Reading of Text 6) Technology
Five close reading strategies to support the Common Core I walked in to my first college class, Political Science 101, eager to learn. For my inaugural college assignment, my professor asked the class to read the first three chapters of the textbook for the next class period. That night, I returned to my dorm room, determined to learn everything I could in those three chapters. I pulled out my textbook and highlighter. Growing up, that is what I always saw the “older kids” using when they read a textbook. However, when I opened my textbook it was unlike anything I had read in high school. I shrugged, pulled out my highlighter and started highlighting. I quickly realized that I had no real game plan for reading this complicated textbook. Flash forward to my first few years of teaching. While this method may have been slightly more effective than what I used that first day of college, it was still too vague and ambiguous for my students. Last fall, I attended an AVID workshop about critical reading strategies. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. · Ask questions.
How to Make the Most of Virtual Field Trips Teachers share their secrets for making virtual excursions worth the journey. This how-to article accompanies the feature "Internet Explorers: Virtual Field Trips Are More Than Just Money Savers." How do you keep virtual field trips from becoming the modern-day version of the filmstrip -- something students just passively watch? A few tips from the pros: Have a Goal "One thing I look for is a purpose," says Angie Haynes, a media specialist at Altamaha Elementary School, in Baxley, Georgia, who is a fan of virtual field trips. Another practical idea is to use a virtual field trip to ready students for a real visit to a similar locale, says Chris Dede, a professor of learning technologies at Harvard University (and a member of The George Lucas Educational Foundation's National Advisory Council). Keep It Short Continue the Lesson Offline One of Angie Haynes's favorite assignments is having students keep a travel journal of the countries they visit online. Link Up Know the Limits
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