November 6

Wayne County Regional Enhancement Education Millage Proposal

 

School districts in Wayne County have placed a proposal on the November 8th ballot to provide added funding for our schools. It is the “Regional Enhancement Millage Proposal.”

If approved by the entire county, the 2 mil proposal will generate approximately $6.2 million from Dearborn but the District will receive $7.8 million in additional funding for our schools.  Money would go to local schools starting this year and the millage expires after six years.  Continue reading

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November 6

Wayne County Regional Enhancement Education Millage Proposal

 

School districts in Wayne County have placed a proposal on the November 8th ballot to provide added funding for our schools. It is the “Regional Enhancement Millage Proposal.”

If approved by the entire county, the 2 mil proposal will generate approximately $6.2 million from Dearborn but the District will receive $7.8 million in additional funding for our schools.  Money would go to local schools starting this year and the millage expires after six years.  Continue reading

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October 23

It’s about community

This article struck me and I had to post it. So many FHS students and their families have similar stories. The students will find success; they will rise to the top. So many of our American-born FHS students are active in making the lives of those around them better. What if they heard this story? What might they do? It’s worth the read. It’s worth an article of the week.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-janitor-felt-invisible-to-georgetown-students–until-one-changed-his-life/2016/10/12/cf8c27fe-9087-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html?wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

October 14

Text Based Questions

Our students struggle with supporting their answers with evidence when put into a multiple choice situation. ReadWorks.org comes through again with leveled text and questions. Use them as Articles of the Week, as part of a text set; whatever you choose, it’s about providing opportunities for students to practice. Happy Reading!

https://www.readworks.org/rw/k-12-articles-text-based-question-sets?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=10.13%20questions

 

October 13

Notice for AOL Email Accounts

Dear Parents,

If you are an AOL email user, please be aware that you may not receive email notifications due to AOL policies. We are working to resolve this issue with AOL.

Thank you for your patience while we work with AOL to make sure you get classroom notifications from your teacher.

Sincerely,

Technology Department

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October 11

The importance of genre

Disciplinary reading practices are imperative if we are going to lead students to reading closely and critically. This article provides a small piece of these practices. We must expose our students to a wide-range of reading in a wide-range of contexts if we are to move them to being proficient, independent readers. This article is intended for teachers.

Hall Talk vs. Bar Talk: Noticing Nonfiction Genres

October 10

9 Instructional Moves for Teaching with Texts

Totally “borrowed” this from Gretchen Bajorek’s blog!

We are awesome at over-complicating things. (Teachers, I mean.) For example, take any lesson in which we need our students to read something.

by Dave Stuart, Jr

Authentic Redundant Literacy Schmoker graphic bounce pass (2)

 

We have two objectives in any lesson where kids need to read. First, we need our kids to understand the text. Second, we need them to do something with that understanding (analyze, argue, compare, determine, develop, integrate, interpret, summarize, etc. I’m just pulling words from Jim Burke and Barry Gilmore’s Academic Moves for College and Career Readiness — all fifteen of those are strong foundations for post-understanding, text-based lesson objectives). If we teach our students to do any of those things with their reading of a text, we can sleep well. We are investing in their long-term good.

To achieve these objectives, there are just nine moves at which we need to become awesome.

Before reading, we can do some or all of the following:

  1. Hook them into the reading,
  2. Introduce any vocabularythat might get in their way, 10 words or less,
  3. and/or set the purpose for their reading — explain how what they’ll be doing after they read ought to inform how they’ll read.

During reading, we can do some or all of the following:

  1. Model reading — e.g., demonstrating how to purposefully annotate, or reading/thinking aloud the first paragraph;
  2. Check for understanding;
  3. and/or allow for independent practice. Our goal for this last piece is that we’ve done just enough with the preceding moves to enable each student to effectively grapple with the text.

After reading, we need to teach our kids how to do one or more of the following in light of the text:

  1. Discuss (I like using Think-Quad-Share, a variation ofThink-Pair-Share; Jennifer Gonzalez of Cult of Pedagogy likes to use strategies such as Gallery Walk and Concentric Circles);
  2. Debate (I obviously like Pop-Up Debate);
  3. and/or write (I like Graff and Birkenstein’s They Say, I Say templates; the two-paragraph version is ideal for texts that make claims).

That’s it.

Those nine things, in the simplest, most minimalist combinations possible, are the moves we ought to be practicing again and again as teachers. My students don’t seem to be on the brink of revolt when I use those same nine pieces, all year long, with dozens upon dozens of articles, documents, excerpts, chapters, poems, etc. I suspect that this is because the ideas in the texts, the challenges they present, and the work we do after reading them have become a part of who we are as a family and a team.

LINK: Dave Stuart, Jr’s blog

 

October 3

Calling all Science Teachers

Check out ReadWorks.com for some great science articles to get students reading outside the textbook! Check out this article on the

“Human Microbiome: The Role of Microbes in Human Health” (1175L).

If the lexile is too difficult for all of your students, click on the “Step Reads” tab for a lower reading level; a great way to differentiate your instruction!

https://www.readworks.org/rw/k-12-science-articles?utm_source=email&utm_content=9.30.16%2520science%2520articles 

September 7

Paired Texts

As we begin the school year and think about Articles of the Week, some may find these paired text options useful. As a bonus, texts are leveled and come complete with questions, most of which elicit higher order thinking. Remember, our students need lots of practice with evidenced based reading and writing.  Check these out when planning your AOWs.

https://www.readworks.org/rw/k-12-paired-texts-and-text-dependent-questions?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=9.6.16%20paired%20text

September 1

Grading Practices

I will begin the year with an interesting article I found this week about grading practices and instilling hope in our students. It is necessary to look at things differently and think outside the box. Grades are important, but are the ways in which we are grading truly reflective of what our students know or are they a reflection of their behaviors and poor choices. This article in Edutopia provides some food for thought.

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/do-no-harm-flexible-smart-grading-andrew-miller