I start back to school today for my eleventh year of teaching next door to my own high school English teacher. Mrs. Caldwell taught me to write and love literature.
She's a fantastic teacher who is always innovating. Just yesterday, she showed me something new she'd created for her class. She never settles and has won STAR teacher over 20 times.
There is no wonder I admire and want to be more like her. I dedicate this list of 62 ideas in her honor on this first day of school 2012. Here's to one of the best English teachers on the planet- Betsy Caldwell.
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An indexed list of Common Core English Language Arts standards and lessons aligned with those standards. A must-share for grades 6-12 English/ Language Arts teachers using Common Core.
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Using a TED.com video in a Common Core aligned writing assignment as students learn about speech patterns with the purpose of driving a TED-like conference at the school.
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Engage NH has some examples of lessons that they consider exemplars for English Language arts grades 6-12 and math grades 1,2,7, and high school. IF you're looking to see what this looks like in practice, here are some that you'll want to review.
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Excellent material compiling information from On Writing Well and the elements of Style. This is an excellent piece for writing teachers.
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For writers, this excellent article points out great ways to reduce wordiness.
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An excellent list of authors and interesting people that would interest authors (and many teachers.) Each list is curated and updated by the person who creates the list, so follow those you'd like to use.
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The National Writing Project (NWP) has a community open to anyone who is interested in writing. If you teach writing, you should consider joining this community. They also have a "Twibe" (for sharing tweets) that you can use to disseminate tweets on the topic of writing. They've always been on the forefront of writing and research. Great organization and some great conversations about common core as well.
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Storymaker is a website that lets young students make stories with graphics and more. It will create a pdf for you that you can save. The pdf can be put on an ipad and tablet, but storymaker itself requires flash.
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"A wiki is a forum in which students can collaborate, share and contribute content, and peer review each others work. For example, the students in Mrs. Daly’s (White Rock), Mrs. Young’s, (Stanlick) and Mrs. McLoughlin’s (Stanlick) grade 5 classes have been working with grade 5 classes in Buckingham County, Virginia on a shared wiki. Each student was paired with a student in Virginia who is at or near their writing level. We created a wiki for the project and a page within that wiki for each student. The goal of this collaborative project was to provide an authentic opportunity for students to develop their writing skills. Each student was responsible for authoring a writing piece based on a common writing prompt. After the students added their written work to their page they were responsible for peer editing the work of their partner. The students followed a common template for peer review that was shared with all six teachers involved. The students provided the feedback to their partners in Virginia through the discussion feature that is available on each of their pages. This project has been a success. The students were provided with the opportunity to write for an audience. They enjoyed learning about their partners in Virginia. It was a great opportunity to experience writing from their peers in other states. The opportunity to send and receive feedback provided an opportunity for reflection regarding their writing. The student’s in Mrs. Young’s class and their partner class in Virginia will be continuing this project. They are in the process of organizing a wiki in which each pairing of students will co-author a single story." This is a great example of collaborative writing in the elementary classroom. These teachers are using peer review to cover first drafts.
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I think that #engchat and reading teachers would be interested in downloading this list from Linda. She has shared a spreadsheet of reviews by graduate students of teacher books for teaching reading in the content areas. This is an example of how college professors can understand and share resources to help K12 teachers.
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My friend Jennifer Roberts is a digital lead teacher in San Diego. She copresented with us at ISTE on Common Core in the Cloud and rocked it. Here's the website she built about Writing Response groups and what she does in the classroom. She's very knowledgeable and I love what she's doing with her students.
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national Novel Writing month is in November but this website is so much more. I heard Jennifer Roberts share this with our Panel on Writing with Common Core at ISTE 2012 and this website is a phenomenal way to meet the 3rd standard W.X.3 about Writing narratives. Students collaboratively work together. You can do this any time but November is the big emphasis. I think every school should participate in Nanowrimo -- just love it.
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This cool excel spreadsheet lets you put in vocabulary and quick fits the spreadsheet so you can print them out and share them easily (for those still using paper this is a great download.)
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As you work to integrate Common Core standards into your classroom, it may help to look at sample lessons. In this set, you can see lessons, presentations, and assessments working with informational text (grades 3-5). Remember that you can search the site by grade level and common core standard and that other subject areas besides Common Core are included on the site.
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This webpage has eight activities to use in literature circles and instructions for you to use as well.
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9 Amazing Word Cloud Generators For The Classroom http://t.co/g1b6jPlL #flatclass #edtech #engchat
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If you use wordclouds to help extract meaning on a topic before beginning, (try pasting the Gettysburg address into one) then these 9 word cloud generators will be of use to you.
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Lots of ideas for teaching persuasive writing. It is important to have students write about the things that are of interest. This is why blogging is such a great platform - typiclaly first person is allowed students can share their opinions.
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Some lessons to teach students about the passive voice (in multiple langages.)
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This booklet is about Shakespeare for all ages and stages. Download this for ideas about how to integrate this important author into your curriculum at all ages.
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An introduction to “Myths and Legends” and “Mythical Monsters”. Text studied, Robert Nye’s “Beowulf”.
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Very interesting presentation by Ira Socol about how students are using the MITS Freedom stick - preloaded with some apps - for their reading and writing. If you're a high school language arts teacher or a curriculum director, you would benefit from browsing through this presentation to see what college students are expected to be able to do. It isn't just about paper any more.
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This website has a treasure trove of reading comprehension resources that you can download and use including a chapter by chapter comprehension guide to accompany Harry Potter.
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Help students with their reading comprehension with these lesson plans. Reading comprehension is such an important thing and many of these lessons are cross curricular.
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Hundreds of creative writing prompts (great for journaling) http://t.co/d57iM57l #engchat #writing
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Here are some lesson plans for phonics and writing for younger students to use in your classroom. I've sorted it by the most popular first including some Outdoor ideas and some phonics games you could play.
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This lesson plan for middle school teaches about Haiku and also reviews the concept of syllables. Very extensive resources to use on this one.
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A nice downloadable resource to teach students about Haiku. (via TES)
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Haiku starter printout.
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Happy Birthday William Shakespeare! http://t.co/ABYdvyr9 #engchat
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Shakespeare's birthday is tomorrow - April 23 - lesson plans http://t.co/8vS5vsqs #engchat
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An autobiographical writing skills powerpoint and activity including a differentiated lesson plan and more traditional one. I like having different options. This is for older (high school) students.
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If you're teaching Shakespeare or Webster, this Jacobean England presentation will be a nice introduction for you.
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A friend of mine passed this lesson plan on to me with this note to Literature teachers: "Sick of Jacobean literature meaning Shakespeare? Check out this resource on Christopher Marlowe's Faust. " I think that this is a very good point and is the type of lesson that AP literature would use in the US. There is a reading guide, powerpoint, and it also incorporates John Milton's Paradise Lost as a comparative text.
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This article in the Washington Post, I've seen several mentions by teachers. The slow reading movement is one that advocates really getting into a book and also becoming intimate with the "author" even to the point of memorization. It is about relaxing and getting into a book instead of rushing through a lot of them. "I have therefore joined the slow reading movement. Like the slow food movement, it is about more than just slowing down, though that is part of it. It is about an intimacy with authors; it is about paying attention, about caring, about rereading and savoring what we read. It is about finding the right pace. About pleasure more than efficiency. Slow reading is also about recovering old practices that have traditionally aided readers in paying attention — oral performance, annotation, exploring complex and difficult passages. It is about reading that generates ideas for writing, what Ralph Waldo Emerson called “creative reading.” And even memorization."
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Teaching resources covering the different types of poetry.
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Japanese Haiku resources and worksheets.
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Great collection of lesson plans and information on Shakespeare. There are a lot of downloadables here for literature teachers.
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Get started! Open Educational Resources infoKit http://t.co/WWA25DYr #flatclass #edchat #edtech #engchat
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Grammar girl has so many great ways to remember things in grammar. I've missed the words "effect" and "affect" in the past and am working on improving my own grammar. It is one of those things i've been taught all of this and when I was valedictorian I knew it but somewhere in there between there and here I've forgotten some of it. I go to grammar girl to give me ways to remember it. OK affect - verb; effect - noun. Grammar teachers will enjoy her.
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Get ready to read poetry! World Poetry day is March 21. Here are a lot of lesson plans and ideas for that day including some digital e-poetry booklets that you could download as well as mp3's and videos that you can use as well as lesson plans.
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Great lesson that turns writing students into music producers to improve writing. Designed for the middle school classroom.
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An excellent video about Google lit trips and how it works.
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ALERT: Have you cleared your Google web history? http://t.co/JGfoyry9 #privacy #edchat #engchat
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This is a fascinating holistic through through Shakespeare by English teacher, John Field. Including Much Ado about Nothing and Romeo and Juliet. He calls these his "tudor hall shakespeare units." If you teach Shakespeare, you may want to look at this and the other items here. Here's a tip: If you look at the classification at the bottom KS3 means high school and then you can click on Plays by Title and click on just about any play you will teach to find a lot of lesson plans and information for that play. If you're a beginning teacher or looking for new things, you'll want to drill down. I hope you'll share too. I'm having a love thing this February. ;-)
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Debate the crucible as the Salem Witch Trial anniversary approaches. This is a lesson plan and assessment rubric, and a character sheet for assignment of roles.
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Using ipads to teach vocabulary. In this mainstream media article, students are using Toontastic to create stories and learn new vocabulary. My students enjoy Puppetpals, another great one to use.
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there is a reason that this resource is going viral over at Tes. This masterful set of lesson uses comic books with a wide range of writing activities: short story, informative, biography, and comic strip. You have lesson plans and instructions for how to use this. Use comics to teach biographics. Many teachers groan about teaching nonfiction. I love this.
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Is the written word gone? Is it lost? I know fore me, I have a cross pen and waterman with beautiful ink. I still write in my journal and I still write letters, although I have to admit, not as much as I used to. This is a great post to share and use for reflection and debate in your composition classes. With over 239 comments as of the writing of this, it has a lot of meat and thoughts in the comments as well.
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mr. Thorne is out of the UK. He has great phonics lessons. Yes, he has a british accent, but you could listen and redo these lessons in your own classroom if you are US.
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Charles Dickens birthday is February 7th. Here are resources and lesson plans to help you.
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This will be a fascinating Twitter-centric event on February 2nd. Sign up now to participate. "Organised by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Ask Shakespeare is a one day, online event taking place on February 2, 2011. From the SBT: "On 2, February 2011 we are asking Shakespeare organisations, enthusiasts and scholars and professionals worldwide to sign up and join us on the Ask Shakespeare panel through their twitter accounts. On February 2, 2011 this panel will be ready to answer your Shakespeare questions." If you would like to represent TES English on the Ask Shakespeare panel, please message me."
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This is interesting. ETS has launched a website about: "Educational Testing Service (ETS), the world's leading measurement and research organization, has launched a new website to stimulate discussion, debate, and promote empirical research to help teachers and students meet the goals of the English language arts (ELA) Common Core State Standards." but this is most definitely a wiki (looks like wikispaces.) I find it fascinating that a company would use a wiki because so many have resisted this. I wonder who can join and who can edit. Interesting. It says you can join. It will be interesting to see what they are doing with this. Perhaps some of you common core experts should join.
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20 Dyslexia friendly writing tips. (Yes, I've spent the evening browsing the ideas on the Tes website.)
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Language arts teachers of all ages will love the free lesson plans on this website. They are standards based and organized by grade level.
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Lesson plan on pronouns using the New York Times.
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Paula has collected resources for helping students with irregular English verbs. I'm struggling with helping my fourth grader learn them and have a whole week to get ready for the test and will be using these sites, review games, and activities! Thank you Paula!
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So you need a writing prompt or ideas to get students excited about writing. Here is an idea that used Mario and Sonic to encourage writing. This describes how a games based approach can be used for collaboratively building descriptions of characters and or settings. It can be used as the initial stimulus for imaginative writing by providing "concrete" experiences for learners.
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I love this lesson plan linking Christmas, New Years, and writing to help children focus on work ethic and goal setting. Nice lesson plan blog.
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30 Ideas for Teaching Writing - National Writing Project http://t.co/OlLaokHH via @writingproject #engchat
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Nice overview of exercises and activities for prewriting.
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HUMOR: 56 best/worst similes "sardines were packed as tight as the coach section of a 747" http://t.co/gR4gRu6I Via @donnaroman #engchat
