Nice To Know In 2009

  • Some tantalizing ideas about grades. Grades do not motivate students like qualitative feedback, self-assessment and reflection. Students will work harder in a classroom that emphasizes engagement, self-reflection and striving for improvement than one that emphasizes grades. Teacher time is better spent on lesson planning than grading papers. Zeros for missing work don’t help you measure student learning. Grading only some pre-determined significant assignments provides sufficient data to measure student learning.
  • A quick solution to a permanent marker used on a write board is to use the correct type of dry-erase marker to write over the permanent ink. Supposedly this breaks down the permanent ink and it wipes away. certainly worth a try.
  • Support the paddling of students? Twenty-one states, primarily Southern states, still allow corporal punishment. Texas and Mississippi are in the lead. Black students represent 35.6 percent of those hit although they comprise only 17.1 percent of student population. Special education students are also more frequently paddled than regular education students.
  • Talk slower! According to Wichita State University the average adult speaks almost 170 words a minute. The average 5-to-7-year-old processes 120 words a minute. Although a high-school student processes 140-145 words a minute, that is still slower than the average adult speaks.

Literacy Sites

About this blog

  • "Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate and compute, using printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning to enable an individual to achieve his or her goals, to develop his or her knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in the wider society" according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In Scotland literacy is defined as "The ability to read and write and use numeracy, to handle information, to express ideas and opinions, to make decisions and solve problems, as family members, workers, citizens and lifelong learners." The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 defines literacy as "an individual's ability to read, write, speak in English, compute and solve problems at levels of proficiency necessary to function on the job, in the family of the individual and in society.' This is a broader view of literacy than just an individual's ability to read, the more traditional concept of literacy. As information and technology have become increasingly shaped our society [sic], the skills we need to function successfully have gone beyond reading, and literacy has come to include the skills listed in the current definition." Hence the titling of this blog: Literacy is All.
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Links to Short Text

Short  text is  the great equalizer in reading and writing workshops; brief passages of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry can be read in just a few minutes by a class or read aloud so that even students who struggle with decoding have the same access to the text as their classmates.  Short texts serve to build classroom community because, over time, the passages shared become anchors or touchstones for learning that can be returned to again and again.  Teachers, who often struggle to locate such text, may want to check out the resources mentioned below.

In "Finding the Hook," Ruth Shagoury helps teachers discover the versatility of the daily newspaper as a source for short text: http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/528.cfm.

Kimberly Campbell's new book, Less Is More: Using Short Text to Differentiate Instruction, is posted online by Stenhouse Publishers. You can browse chapters on using short text from many genres, including poetry and graphic novels: http://tinyurl.com/yugemo.

If you are looking for short text online, Project Gutenberg is the best source for public domain text you can search, copy, and paste for use in classrooms: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page.

February 19, 2008 in Lesson Ideas |

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