English Update March 12, 2007

Archive
Curriculum..... Grouping..... What are some types of student grouping other than ability? Some types of groups other than ability grouping: needs groups; interest groups; research groups; tutorial groups; reading level; departmentalized teaching—one teacher teaches reading and language arts, another math, a third social studies; multi-grade and multi-age grouping; ungraded—students move through reading and math levels; dual progress—core program half day and electives the other half of the day. WH Miller. “Some Less Commonly Used Forms of Grouping.” 989-992.

Curriculum..... Humor...... What are some common experiences with language that could be improved? Offer a mini-lesson on how to tell a joke. PL Earls. “Humorizing Learning.” 107-108.

Curriculum..... Inquiry..... What are some language investigations in which to involve students? Ask students what letters are silent and in what circumstances. RE Sabaroff. EE. 395.

Curriculum..... Inservice..... What are some unusual methods of teacher inservice? “Coaches used writer’s notebooks to capture the process of their own learning.” A Donnelly, et al. LA (May 05), 341. Teachers collaboratively plan a lesson. One teacher teaches it. The others observe and collect data. The lesson is then revised and taught again to a different group of students. J Hurd & L Licciardo-Musso. LA (May 05), 388-395. [File]

Curriculum..... Inservice..... What is the purpose of teacher inservice programs? “Our belief is that what teachers experience in professional development will transfer to their work with students in the classroom.” CH Casbon, et al. LA (May 05), 365.

Curriculum..... Inservice..... What are some models for lesson plans? Form used in “lesson study”: Date; site; planning team; title of lesson; goals of the lesson; relationship of the lesson to the California standards; rationale—what do students understand about this topic? What more do we want them to understand? Lesson description: introduction; activities; summing up; evaluation; what we want to look for during the lesson observation; conclusions. J Hurd & L Licciardo-Musso. LA (May 05), 392.

Curriculum..... Inservice..... How improve teachers’ knowledge of children’s and Young Adult books? Give teachers brief annotations of the latest children’s and Young Adult books reviewed in professional publications. Suggested by LL Godfrey & FB School, “Annotated Bibliography for Third Graders.” The annotations are brief but clearly indicate the story line of each book. 124-131. [File]

Curriculum..... Interdisciplinary..... What is the rationale for interdisciplinary studies? “They [Postman and Weingartner] insisted that all academic subjects are, in essence, studies of the language of these disciplines….” TP Moran. EJ (Nov. 04), 25.

Curriculum..... Learning..... How teach students how to learn? Teaching students how to learn by involving them in tutoring. ES Friedland & DM Truscott. JAAL (Apr. 05), 550-562.

Curriculum..... Literacy across the Curriculum..... How chart teacher growth in understanding of interdisciplinary studies? Article contains questions asked by pre-service and inservice teachers about literacy across the curriculum—at the beginning of class, during the class and at the end of the class. M Lesley. JAAL (Dec. 04), 320-334. [Having the students try the techniques on themselves to see how their own learning was affected and then projecting how the activity would affect their students would be one suggestion I would make to the author. She had them write a “place-based” paper on some place they observed. However, she gave no purpose for the assignment and students were unable to understand its relevance. I would anchor my approach to literacy across the curriculum in the DRA, writing to learn, the essay exam and research paper, activities that would fit comfortably with what content teachers already do. The class involved angry confrontations. The teacher gave little direction except to have students try to figure out the answers to their questions about literacy across the curriculum and to understand by themselves the relevance of activities. She gave no direction about how to operate in groups, just put them into groups and gave them the task. The teacher tried to demonstrate critical literacy by having the students engage in it, but she offered no suggestions as to how to control and direct the process in their own classes. Most teachers will not let anarchy reign in their classrooms and this was anarchy in the teacher education classroom.]

Curriculum..... Math..... How apply student learning to real-world situations? The Math Standards recommend that students should learn math in contexts outside of math, in other words, in real world applications, like finance. HS Shultz. MT (Apr. 05), 531-532. Author sets out to answer the question, “How fair and accurate are drug tests of student athletes,” another real-world application of math. IE Lyublinskaya. MT (Apr. 05), 536-543. “Teaching probability and statistics through game shows.” MA Carlton & MV Mortlock. MT (Apr. 05), 564-564. Connect what students are learning in school to what people actually do with these skills in the real world. BV Street. RTE (May 05), 417-423.

EE = Elementary English. LA = Language Arts. EJ = English Journal. JAAL = Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. RTE = Research in the Teaching of English. MT = Mathematics Teacher.