Concerning Our First Session

Dear English Teachers,

It was a pleasure meeting each of you on Thursday. I appreciate your candor and your enthusiasm, and I look forward to our weeks together. I will be out of town this weekend on a trip to San Antonio with our school's Academic Team, but will be back on Tuesday. By Wednesday, I should be caught up with any concerns that you post. I look forward to hearing from you.

You should begin thinking about the lesson that you're planning to prepare and video, as well as who your partner will be. In terms of lessons, I sometimes think that less is more. You want to select a strategy or an approach based on the needs and abilities of your students. Also, because you will be videotaping and analyzing your lesson, keep the scope to a reasonable level.

Concerning topics, think about a lesson that will showcase your work as a teacher and your students' strengths. Think about a lesson that ties in with one of the models of teaching that you're currently studying (e.g., cooperative learning, inquiry learning, community of learners, zone of proximal development, and the like). You only have so much time in this short, hurried class, so try to "tie" these various elements together. In essence, try not to become overwhelmed and do what you can in the time that you have--especially considering all the pressures of bringing the school year (in most cases) to an end.

In the past, students have considered the following types of lessons:

--reader-response lesson
--writing to learn activity
--prereading techniques to help students move "into" a piece of text/work of literature
--oral communications skills
--reader's theatre activity
--poetry writing
--poetry analysis
--modeled writing
--partner reading comprehension work
--small-group reading comprehension work
--imaginative explorations (a lesson that might tie together art, music, writing, and reading)
--vocabulary development work (themed words for a particular work of literature)
--a revision/editing workshop
--a bridging lesson that links prior knowledge (background information) with new material
--a language lesson for a class currently in the middle of a novel
--other topics of interest


Give some thought to your possible lesson and discuss it with your partner. Feel free to run it by me here in the comments section or by sending me a personal email.

And remember: stay calm and relaxed! Harried, nerve-wracked English teachers make for nervous, agitated English classrooms. We need to see ourselves as Language Arts Zen Masters!


We're going to have a great time together.

Best regards for a great Memorial Day Weekend.

Brady

How Can I Help You? -- A Wish List of Resources

I see one of my roles as being a resource provider to each of you as you continue your quest as literacy teachers in 2006. With that said, we will use this strand to raise issues about available resources. For instance, you are interested in finding out some good ways to use "book reports" in your classroom. Place your question/concern in the Comments Section below and I will respond to your query. By putting your concerns here, others in our group may find their questions answered--even if they didn't know that they had a question in the first place.

Think of this strand as a curriculum warehouse. Ask and you shall receive!

How Can I Help You? -- A Wish List of Resources

I see one of my roles as being a resource provider to each of you as you continue your quest as literacy teachers in 2006. With that said, we will use this strand to raise issues about available resources. For instance, you are interested in finding out some good ways to use "book reports" in your classroom. Place your question/concern in the Comments Section below and I will respond to your query. By putting your concerns here, others in our group may find their questions answered--even if they didn't know that they had a question in the first place.

Think of this strand as a curriculum warehouse. Ask and you shall receive!

1st Meeting: March 25th

Dear English/Social Studies Teachers: I am looking forward to being your guide as we explore issues and strategies for teaching the humanities to our students. In our first phase of this class, I'd like everyone to read the chapter on "Reading" in our English methods book. As you're reading, think about the issues involved in helping students become stronger readers (of literature and in general).

You should come away from this chapter with a strong understanding of work by Louise Rosenblatt, Robert Probst, and Nancie Atwell--three of the seminal "voices" in language arts instruction.

As you're studying these three, you will undoubtedly be validated for the work you're currently doing. You may also find yourself questioning some of the current modes of instruction in your classroom. Our goal is to explore different approaches out there, and question those that we are using.

As you come across ideas and issues from these three specialists, feel free to add your personal reactions to the Comments Section at the bottom of this strand.

One of our guiding questions throughout the course is:

What are the essential elements of an effective language arts classroom?

We will be asking ourselves this question again and again, and our answers to this question will form the written work that will evolve.

The Evolving Definition of Literacy

What does it mean to be literate in the 21st Century? Below is a marvelous site that offers many definitions of literacy and lists key websites and articles that English teachers should visit.


Website: http://eduscapes.com/info/evolve.html