Writing Strategies for Science Teachers

Need ideas to incorporate writing and learning strategies in your science class?  Feel free to download this booklet that connects various strategies to the Grade 6-8 Big Ideas.   

Click Here.

Civics and Argumentative Writing Lesson

Here's another contribution from Mr. Gonella.  The eighth grade Language Art teachers will be using this soon!

U.S. Immigration with Mixed Citizenship Families

In this lesson provided by the PBS documentary series, POV (Point of View), students will explore how United States immigration policy affects families with mixed citizenship status. They will first discuss the challenges faced by a mixed-status family when U.S. immigration authorities schedule undocumented parents to be deported. Students will also explain how the circumstances of such families could impact the United States politically, socially and economically. Finally, they will analyze public policies that address the needs of mixed-status families.

This lesson features a clip from the film Sin País (Without Country), a documentary that tells the emotional story of a family with members of mixed citizenship status who separate when the undocumented parents are deported from the United States and their teenage children stay behind to continue their education.

Link to Resource: http://www.cpalms.org/public/PreviewResource/Preview/59515?NotificationUserId=867ec092-c24a-4c10-9841-9993722054bd

Related Benchmarks:: 
SS.7.C.2.1: Define the term "citizen," and identify legal means of becoming a United States citizen. 
SS.7.C.2.13: Examine multiple perspectives on public and current issues.
LACC.68.RH.1.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.
LACC.68.RH.2.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.
LACC.68.RH.3.7: Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
LACC.68.RH.3.8: Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.
LACC.68.WHST.3.7: Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration.
LACC.68.WHST.3.8: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

Grammar Expectations and Providing Feedback by Ms. Cohen

Ms. Rachel Cohen was kind enough to submit this entry to The Writing Korner.  Thanks Ms. Cohen!  

Students’ lack of awareness of basic grammar rules can seem like bad weather – everybody complains but nobody ever does anything about it.  If you don’t expect correctness in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, you send the message that those elements don’t matter (or only matter in Language Arts classes).   It is important that you make clear to your students that these elements are also important in your field – and that they will be a part of the grade on any written assignment.

            As teachers, we have a lot on our To Do list, and not enough time in the day.  Adding grammar correction to your list may seem overwhelming.  There are ways to correct grammar that will not take you hours.  Here are some ideas on how to address the issue, without taking up too much time:

·       Focus your comments on only one or two types of grammatical problems on each written assignment.  Obviously, you will want to choose areas of concern for most of the students in the class.  If you concentrate on one or two concepts a month, you might even have time to present quick in-class lessons.

·       Set reasonable grammar goals for each student.  Address your comments on how well that student meets his or her goals.

·       Mark all of the grammatical errors in only one paragraph of any paper.  Write a comment indicating that the errors in this section are typical of those in the entire paper.

·       Circle errors you see and list at the end of the paper the most typical types of grammatical errors you found.  It is the student’s responsibility to identify and fix errors.

Writing is a topic that is taught in Language Arts, but practiced in every subject.  If we want our students to become better writers, it is incredibly important that every teacher addresses grammar.  There is a tremendous amount of value in students seeing their mistakes, and correcting them.  If we all work together on this, we will surely see improvement in our students’ writing scores.

RACE Posters and Handouts

Click on these links to access some cool RACE Posters and handouts.  Thanks Mr. Gonella!


https://drive.google.com/a/palmbeachschools.org/file/d/0B-S1q8SLOmFuQW92Tl9LTDFkc1k/edit?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/a/palmbeachschools.org/file/d/0B-S1q8SLOmFuWTYzOTBrSzFxNjg/edit?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/a/palmbeachschools.org/file/d/0B-S1q8SLOmFub094RHB2bEJGdHM/edit?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/a/palmbeachschools.org/file/d/0B-S1q8SLOmFucWNvbElRWHNFTFU/edit?usp=sharing

Some Lessons From CPALMS

Mark Gonella was kind enough to share these lessons.  Both are from the CPALMS site and align with our new standards.  Check them out!

Exploring "Ironic" by Alanis Morisette: Teaching Situational Irony 
This lesson will introduce students to the concept of irony by examining the song "Ironic" by Alanis Morisette. Verbal, situational, and dramatic irony will be explored, but the focus of the lesson will be situational irony. This lesson can be used prior to teaching longer, more complex short stories that contain situational irony.

Link to Resource: http://www.cpalms.org/public/PreviewResource/Preview/26147?NotificationUserId=867ec092-c24a-4c10-9841-9993722054bd

Using Story Pyramids to Comprehend, Compare, and Contrast
Through the creation of Story Pyramids, students demonstrate their comprehension of two literary texts by using evidence from the text to construct their pyramids. Students are challenged even further by using their Story Pyramid to generate a written piece comparing and contrasting the two literary works. A rubric and student samples are provided.

Link to Resource: http://www.cpalms.org/public/PreviewResource/Preview/32127?NotificationUserId=867ec092-c24a-4c10-9841-9993722054bd

Today's RACE activity

Today my third period class began to read The Giver.  To build interest, I showed the movie trailer first.  There are two good quotes in the trailer that I thought could be used to practice RACE.  

The first is, "the way things look and the way things are, are very different." 

"If people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong," is the second.  

I wrote the second quote on the board and asked the class how many agreed with the statement.  Many students raised their hands.  More than I expected.  

I asked, "have you all really made bad choices today?"  

Students-"Yes."

Me-"OK" (who am I to disagree?)

I then told them to RACE the answer out and to give a specific example of a bad choice or decision that they made at one point in their lives.

Some students responded:

"I disagree with the statement 'if people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong.'  For example, One time my dad told me not to bring my iPad into the bathroom but I did anyway.  It fell in the toilet and took two weeks to get repaired.  I should have just listened to my dad."   

This is a complete RACE response but he wrote 'disagree' instead of 'agree.'

"I agree with the statement because a lot of people make the wrong choices and mess up their lives.  Some people don't think before they act." 

 This is not a complete RACE response, so I asked the student to correctly restate the quote and give a specific example to back up his viewpoint.

The entire activity took about twenty minutes.  I made sure to circulate and read every student response.  Many student responses looked like the second example at first, but corrections were made and they all got credit for the assignment.  

Spelling was not perfect.  A lot of "their/they're" mistakes and "your/you're."  I corrected a few capitalization and punctuation mistakes as well in that time.  

RACE Writing Strategy

The RACE writing strategy uses evidence-based writing which is a crucial strategy for our students.   It is simple to use.  It is very important that writing is being practiced in all content areas.  

RACE stands for:

R=Restate the Question

A=Answer the Question

C=Cite evidence (using transitions such as "for example," "in the article,.." "the author suggests that...")

E=Explain how your evidence supports your answer

Here is an example:

Please support evidenced based writing by incorporating RACE into your lessons.  

What is SIRS?

SIRS is a district-sponsored search engine that contains different kinds of text and multimedia. The text is already lexiled for you.  The site also contains primary documents such as newspapers.  

Go to SIRS by pressing the tab above.

Welcome to the Writing Korner

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to the Writing Korner.  As you all know, the way our students are going to be assessed in writing is changing.  Sixth and seventh grade teachers were exposed to the new practice assessments last school year, while the eighth grade teachers prepared for FCAT Writes.  

In order to meet the new challenges presented by a brand new assessment system, I thought it would be beneficial to create a virtual meeting area to share ideas.  The Writing Korner is that area.  Click on the tabs above for valuable information such as rubrics and item specs.

Please feel free to post resources, ideas or random musings as you see fit.  

Have a great year,

Matt