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Rebecca Langrall Secondary Communication Arts Coordinator

Middle School Communication Arts: “Building Synergy” Professional Development Day January 4, 2008. Rebecca Langrall Secondary Communication Arts Coordinator. Four Focal Areas. Diversity Research on Learning & the Brain Best practices Technology Assessment. Diversity.

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Rebecca Langrall Secondary Communication Arts Coordinator

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  1. Middle School Communication Arts:“Building Synergy” Professional Development Day January 4, 2008 Rebecca Langrall Secondary Communication Arts Coordinator

  2. Four Focal Areas • Diversity • Research on Learning & the Brain • Best practices • Technology • Assessment

  3. Diversity • “Mobile Literacy” • Proposed new initiative • “Beat Café • Proposed new initiative • Academic English as a Second Language • Best practices in vocabulary instruction • One lesson from Doug Reeves’s Research with 90-90-90 schools: • Clear academic targets

  4. “I Can” Statements • Core Competencies • What’s essential? • Student friendly language • Demystified standards • Empower students to know where they stand relative to each competency (feedback) • Shared commitments and concepts • Synergy across classrooms

  5. CurricularPriorities • Worth being familiar with • Important to know and do – supports the core • “Enduring” Understanding – core We want to guarantee the CORE From Understanding by Design, Wiggins & McTighe (2005)

  6. Surviving in the Information Age • Self-directed learning • World IS technology • Communication • Self-expression • Analysis • Exploration • Wikipedia vs The Encyclopedia Britannica • New Literacies: Digital, Information, Media (containers, contents, slant)

  7. Technology • Hardware • MS PC Conversion • Smartboards • Document Cameras & LCD Projectors • Senteos • Subscriptions • (proposed) • Moodle • Criterion

  8. 21st Century Learners • Net generation • As workers • As thinkers – from analysis to synthesis Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future (2006) • design • story • symphony • empathy • play • meaning

  9. New Literacies • Friedman, The World is Flat (2007) • Collaborate & orchestrate • Synthesize • Explain (story tellers) • Leveragers • Adapters • Green people • Personalizers • Localizers • Need to strengthen argumentation – Schmoker, Rose • Engaging • High expectations of educational community • Enhances critical thinking needed for 21c work

  10. New Literacies • Strengthen online reading • Finding the best information • Discerning fact from opinion • Real questions • Shared inquiry • Question posing • Provocative texts • Role of non-fiction

  11. Skills • Gone at CM, SM, SWM • Units revert to Comm Arts teachers • Need to locate powerful, provocative nonfiction resources Schmoker asserts that provocative questions, high quality nonfiction, and vocabulary support will allow students real opportunities for developing literacy for the demands of life in the 21st century .

  12. Writing • “Writing is the litmus paper of thought” – Theodore Sizer • Leverage the link between writing and reasoning • Gateway Writing Project (proposed)

  13. Assessment • Patterns in MAP Data • 1.6 – Mixed: Down between 6 and 7th grade, but up between 7th and 8th grades • Promote inquiry • 2.2 - continues to challenge all grades district wide • Looking at models,discussions about effective expression based on examples, practice; Criterion? • 3.5 – Improvement between 6th and 7th and 7th and 8th!

  14. What about Vocabulary? • New resource for MS teachers • Tied to the “I Can” statements • Teach students to fish rather than just giving them a fish…

  15. Articles Burke, J(2007) . “Teaching English language arts in a “flat” world. In Adolescent Literacy: Turning promise into practice, 149 - 166. (Beers, Probst, & Rief, Eds.). Portsmouth, NH: Heineman. Colman, P. (2007). A new way to look at literature: A visual model for analyzing fiction and nonfiction texts. Language Arts,84 (3), 257 – 268. Miners, Z., and Pascopella, A. (2007). The new literacies. District Administration, 26 – 34. Schmoker, M. (March, 2007). Radically redefining literacy instruction. Phi Delta Kappan, 488 – 493. Small, R.V. (2008). Surviving in the information age. Threshold, a Cable in the Classroom Publication, 23 – 27.

  16. Other Handouts • Generational Markers by JenniferJames • The NET Generation, from the National Staff Development Council Conference, Dallas, TX, 2007.

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