Websites of Interest

Here’s a list of websites that you’ve found useful as you created your unit plans (Thanks to Will for jotting these down – LH):

• Literary Vocabulary – Literary definitions
• Engrade – Online gradebook
• NCTE
• Xtranormal – Online movie maker
• Learning A-Z -Teacher resources
• Creative Writing Now – Creative writing ideas
• Tools for Educators – Crossword, bingo, etc.
• Scholastic – Teacher resources
• Glogster – Interactive poster
• Delicious – Online bookmarking site

Performance Tasks and GRASPS

After a short daily write based on looking over a collection of performance tasks, I took some time to outline the nature of the tasks – including roles, audiences, products, and performances – and show some examples from my work as a Humanities 8 teacher at Hillcrest Middle.  I made reference to the following tasks:

– Hot Spots Around the School Poems: After a walk around the school to gather information, I asked students to pick a favourite place in the building and write a free verse poem about that place.  Final copies were published, illustrated, mounted on construction paper, and then posted in the place that was the poem’s topic.  Painless integration of audience and presentation…and stakes!

– The Outsiders Memorial Museum Task:  This culminating activity for The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is described in the handout below.  I showed an example of a student presentation in class:

• The Outsiders Memorial Museum Intro Letter and Task Graphic Organizers

– The Outsiders Opening Statement: The students choose one crime from The Outsiders and act as the attorney for the state or the alleged perpetrator.  In role, they create the opening statement to be presented at the trial.  Here’s the handouts for this activity:

• The Outsiders Opening Statement Task
• Writing Opening Statements & Outline
• The Outsiders Opening Statement Rubric
• The Outsiders Opening Statement Editing Checklist

– Children’s Book Task: My grade 8 classes met and interviewed a buddy in a primary class at a nearby elementary school.  My students studied short story writing and children’s lit before writing and illustrating their own tales.  As a culminating activity, we revisited our buddies and shared the stories.

Here’s the handout that supported the presentation:

• Performance Tasks & GRASPS Handout – 2012

Unit Plan Sharing

I set aside 45 minutes or so for you to talk to your classmates about the activities and highlights of their unit plans.  The post-class feedback indicated that this was time well spent.

Differentiated Instruction

The T in WHERETO stands for tailored; how will we tailor learning to varied needs, interests, [and] styles?

Pre-and During-Reading:

Things got pretty meta here as I differentiated my instruction on differentiated instruction.  I provided you with a selection of articles (DI – content) and suggested that, as you read, you could make sense of the text in a way that worked for you (DI – process) – taking notes in the margins, mind map the text, summarize each paragraph, and, well, the list goes on.

Here are the articles we were working with:

• What’s the Next Big Thing with Literature Circles?
• A New Assignment: Pick Books You Like – New York Times article on The Future of Reading featuring Nancie Atwell
• Formative Assessment: The Driving Force Behind Differentiation
• Differentiating Instruction: Why Bother? – Carol Ann Tomlinson
• Restructuring the Inclusion Classroom to Facilitate Differentiated Instruction
• Differentiate Teaching and Learning With Web 2.0 Tools
• Tools for Schools: What’s New with Web 2.0
• Using Wikis to Differentiate Instruction in Literature Circles
• Make Learning Matter for the Multitasking Generation (with Web 2.0 tools)
• Formative assessment jump-starts a middle grades differentiation initiative
• Building and activating students’ background knowledge
• Actively engaging middle level students with photo journals

Post-Reading:

When the articles were read, I urged you to engage in an activity that would allow you to consolidate your understanding of the reading (DI – process).  Some chatted with a peer while others took notes on how they could use the ideas from the texts in their own practice.  To end, I asked for any key ideas you found while reading.

That’s all for today.

– Lawrence