UCTE / LA Fall Conference

Utah Council of Teachers of English Fall Conference

This looks interesting so I thought I'd pass it along. It's being held at BYU so it's close by.


Linked for Life
Building Connections through Text
Presenters:

Richard Peck
“I read because one life isn’t enough, and in the page of a book I can be anybody; I read because the words that build the story become mine, to build my life; I read not for happy endings but for new beginnings; I’m just beginning myself, and I wouldn’t mind a map; I read because I have friends who don’t, and young though they are, they’re beginning to run out of material; I read because every journey begins at the library, and it’s time for me to start packing; I read because one of these days I’m going to get out of this town, and I’m going to go everywhere and meet everybody, and I want to be ready.” –Richard Peck, Anonymously Yours

Richard Peck’s witty and thoughtful novels embrace the bittersweet humor found in gaining
independence. Newbery, ALA, and MAE award winner, Richard Peck is the author of over 30
books of various genres and topics. Some of his titles include: On the Wings of Heroes, A Long
Way from Chicago, A Year Down Yonder, and Past Perfect, Present Tense.

Paul Fleishman
Paul Fleischman grew up in Santa Monica, California, the son of children’s book author Sid Fleischman. Drawing on history, music, art, and theater, his books have often experimented with multiple viewpoints and performance. He received the Newbery Medal for Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, a Newbery Honor for Graven Images, the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction for Bull Run, and was a National Book Award finalist for Breakout. He lives on the central coast of California.

Sara Zarr
Sara Zarr is
the author of the young adult novels Sweethearts and Story of a Girl, which was a National Book
Award Finalist. She was raised in San Francisco and currently lives with her husband in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Dr. Roni Jo Draper
Dr. Draper is an active member of the International Reading Association and is currently serving as the Professional Resources Editor for the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. Her research focuses on how to prepare middle and high school teachers to support learners as they interact with a variety of texts in content area classrooms. She is currently
an Associate Professor in the Department of Teacher Education in the David O. McKay
School of Education at Brigham Young University. (luncheon speaker)

Linked for Life
Building Connections through Text
Registration Information October 24, 2008
http://community.weber.edu/uctela/conference.htm

So, In Walk Four Men....

Have any of you had your "visit" yet? On Wednesday during my second period class, in walk four men and begin to observe, arms folded, very intent. They are:
Dr. Allred--UVU
Mr. Muckity-muck Somebody (his boss)--UVU
My Principal
The Assistant District Superintendent over Secondary Ed. for Nebo

Now, I already have this "dry mouth in the morning" problem going on. I drink like two bottles of water before lunch every day (we won't discuss the other repercussions of that). I'm doing a guided reading with my class helping them find context clues in a short story, so I'm feeling the dryness big time--THEN they walk in.

Can I just say Holy Crap?

Saliva glands totally shut down. Tongue must have swelled right up in my mouth. I can barely articulate a word. Then I look back down to see where I'm supposed to be in the story and I see the words, "the damn capitalists."

Yes... I read them. I figured I'd get a call from the district or the principal or UVU by the end of the day.
I'm still in the classroom.

So how are your weeks going?

I'm feelin the stress...

You know when you were in high school and you never gave a second thought to what your teacher's did before, after, or outside of school. Well, let me tell you what they do.

1. Grade lots and lots of papers, with horrible grammar.
2. Keep track of late and missing assignments, with all sorts of different highlighter colors.
3. Putting in your grades on the computer, and making sure every number you punched in is right.
4. Make up hand-outs so that you don't have to write everything on lined paper, and so that you can keep your things more neat and organized.
5. Make multiple trips to the copy center a day, so that you can have copies of these glorious handouts that took hours to make.
6. Sweat, Cry and Worry about confronting one of you about Plagarizing within the first week of the term.
7. Sweat, Cry and Worry about all of you who have 1/2 of your assignments missing and late, and it's only the 2nd week of the term.
8. Sweat, Cry and Worry about the two students in a class that speak maybe 5 words of English and definitely don't write any...In your English Class, by the way.
9. Sweat, Cry and Worry about how the hell they're going to teach you Grammar in a way that you get it and aren't out of your mind bored! (If anyone needs a test and handout on how to use commas...I'm your gal!)
10. Come home, and try to beg, borrow, and steal lesson plans so that you don't have to spend hours making it up all yourself.
11. And last but not least, Spending hours making up your own lesson plans, because no one else's work seems quite the way that you want to teach it.

It's seriously a hard job, and I never thought or imagined my teachers put in this much work, but someone's gotta do it. So far, I can say that I'm glad it's me. Is anyone else feelin the heat???

I Survived My First Day--How are you all doing?

I met 90 seventh graders today. They did not inflict any permanent damage. In fact they were pretty fun. I have one class that has a lot of "chemistry" in it. Three boys will probably be moved within the week.

I have a "day off" tomorrow because the 8th & 9th graders will be the only ones on campus. I'll be doing my third revamp of lesson plans as I adjust to the ever changing schedule at school. My kids will take the DRP next Friday--my first standardized test!

I'll be thinking of you all tomorrow. You are amazing professionals!

The Sanity is Slipping Away

OK--so does anyone else feel overwhelmed? I've had a real roller coaster day. Up at 4:30 cause I couldn't sleep. Long faculty meeting. Even longer department meeting. I'm using a grading scale I hate (department policy). I've had my brain crammed full of policies and procedures. Still trying to get my bulletin boards hung on the wall (hubby is bringing drill tomorrow). I can tell now who I'm going to get along with and who I will try to avoid. Yikes!! I'm feeling like all the horror stories are true.

:(

Why Can't it Stay July Forever

I can't believe it's already August. I'm not feeling the pressure as much as my fellow interns are (because I have two extra weeks of vacation), but I'm still feeling it. I want it to freeze on July 31 forever. (But then I thought of all the Twilight fans, who would be so miserable waiting in-line for midnight to come so they can by the conclusion to the Bella-Edward-Jacob saga, but I am getting off track). Honestly, I am dreading August because it means that I need to get my butt in gear, start making lesson plans, make a plan of attack, and finish reading The Scarlet Letter (which I've been reading all summer). I still don't have very many ideas for it, or for Beowulf, Huck Finn, and everything else. My creative juices stopped flowing once methods ended because I was like a vampire and sucking the ideas/life from you guys. Those were good times, and I wish we were back there, but it's time to do what our UVU/UVSC superior training has prepared us for, and take that giant leap and hope we land on the other side without any broken bones. (I can handle bruises, and cuts, and scrapes because we need some bodily damage coming out of this, right?!)

Good luck to everyone! And just breathe!
Kerri

p.s. sorry about the horrible Twilight puns, but I just finished reading it and it's fresh on my mind. Which I think might be helpful considering 99.9% of the girls in my class have read it!

NCTE Blog--Check it out

The NCTE has a blog called:

NCTE inbox

I was just looking at their article on thinking maps. The author provides a bunch of links to sites designed to help teachers create various thinking maps for their students. I've been making them using MS Publisher, but sometimes I wish I could just download something. Or I run low on ideas and wish I could look at what others are using. This looks like a good place to start.

The Last Lecture

Today, Randy Pausch, a charismatic professor of computer science at Carnegie Melon, died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. If you ever need a little inspiration, a little pick me up (and as the start of school gets closer and closer we all might find ourselves needing this), take and hour and watch the YouTube video of his presentation at Melon's "The Last Lecture Series." It's on pursuing dreams.

Randy Pausch

Chaucer Audio Files

Those teaching English Literature might find this interesting.

Chaucer Metapage Audio Files

Listen to excerpts of the Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and other poems by Chaucer read in the middle English.

Newly added:

Norton Old and Middle English Audio Files

This has Beowulf read by Seamus Heaney, as well as other cool texts.

Newsweek Education Program Discontinued

But I downloaded some resources from the web before they took the content off. I have a PDF file for the 2007-2008 Essay Collection and teacher guide, along with some of their "tool box" documents. I thought I could use them to help teach reading and writing informational text. If anyone is interested in have these documents let me know. I can post them to my Google pages website or to UEN for download.

List of 10 Books to Read Before You Die

Thought this was interesting. On AOL today there was a blurb about ten books people should read before they die. Here is the list:

10. Gone With the Wind
9. The Lord of the Rings *
8. Harry Potter Series *
7. The Stand (by Steven King)
6. The Da Vinci Code (by Dan Brown) *
5. To Kill a Mockingbird *
4. Angels and Demons (by Dan Brown) *
3. Atlas Shrugged (by Ayn Rand)
2. Catcher in the Rye *
1. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series (by Douglas Adams)

AOL didn't say who recommends these books, but I thought it was an interesting list. I've read 6 of the ten (marked by *). Here is a link for the article. The author has explained why each book is listed.

Top 10 Books

New Blog

I've got the new blog started. This is for ANYONE--not just UVU students. I'll leave it up to you to post anything from this blog over to the other (Kira--lesson plans!).

Feel free to share the addy with anyone you want. Right now I'm leaving myself as administrator. If there are features you want to see on the blog, just post me and I'll add them.

Here's the addy:
http://eng-la-zone.blogspot.com/

Inviting some new people

Hey! How's summer? I just got done with the Nebo New Teacher Induction--four days of fun.

I met some people who were interested in the blog. Thought I'd better run it by you guys first before I just invite them. So here are my questions:

1--Should I give them the addy but not the password or sign in?
2--Should I give them the whole shebang?
3--Should I just forget it and never post them any info?

It should be known that some of these are "BYU" people. I 'm discovering they do have a certain way about them.

Let me know what you think.
Rillene

So, How Many Units Will I Need?

OK--so I should have thought of this sooner, but I didn't so now I'm forced to look like an idiot and ask this dumb question. Anyone have an idea approximately how many units it takes to cover a year of school?

I mean, I know I need as many as it takes to cover the standards. So far I have 8 in outline form and I still have weeks of school left. How are the rest of you doing? What are you discovering? Do your schools have curriculum maps they ask you to follow? How do the various teachers keep track of what the others are doing? Are your Departments well oiled machines, or are there funky things going on? I've had my first "situation of the day" moment and school hasn't even started yet. Yikes!

Book Shelf

I thought this might be a cool element to add to the Blog. Anyone wanting to add a book to the bookshelf can go to
http://www.shelfari.com/login.aspx
Sign in using methods2spring2008@gmail.com for the username
The password is the same as the blog.

If we all add a book now and again we could bet a great list for our classes.

And, Melissa, if you'd rather we not have this on the blog, go ahead and take if off. This is, after all, your site.

Rillene

Reluctant Readers

So I forgot the username and password for our website, so I am just going to post a comment. I was doing a research paper about motivating elementary kids to read, and I had an interesting thought as to why students become classified as "reluctant readers" so if you're interested in my theory you can check out my blog at russellkerri.blogspot.com.(it's the first posting on the page, for now).
Kerri Russell

Poetry Out Loud

Those of you teaching HS might find this site interesting.
Poetry Out Loud
I just got done listening to a really really old recording of Alfred, Lord Tennyson reading "Charge of the Light Brigade." Then I listen to Sylvia Path read "Lady Lazarus." Talk about powerful! Check it out.

Convert You Tube video for use in PowerPoint

I was working on this lesson I have to do tomorrow at a school I'm observing/helping at when I thought it would be great to do a PowerPoint as a cue set. The lesson is for a "Read 180" class (remedial reading help) and we are working on summarizing. The reading for the lesson is an excerpt from a textbook on child labor. So I find this great video clip on YouTube and am getting ready to put the presentation together when I remember I need to convert the file before I can insert it.

Luckily, Suzy Cox (Instructional Media) found a way to do this. I went back to the blog she had for our class (Fall 2007) and found the link. She may have and even better way to do it now, but here is the way I learned to do it. The instructions are pretty clear. If any of you are in her current class, and she's got a better way to convert them now, post it.

How to Embed YouTube video in PowerPoint

Kira Inspired Me

So, after looking at what Kira was doing on Google Pages I thought I'd give it a try myself. Let me know if you find any errors on the pages. Should I offer a prize for whoever finds the most?

Gotta Share

Kira's Book Projects

Are all ya'll sick of me now? I am going to post like all of my assignments...so get over it ;D

Here are my book projects (hey ... please post yours or leave them in the comments because I want to make a better list!) and here is the project I actually made (it is a movie poster for Ethan Frome, I chose an image that I though described the book, the tagline is a quote from the book that I think is interesting and revealing, and I chose the cast as people who I thought could really play the parts (Kim Basinger [she seems easily hate-able] as Zeena, Scarlett Johansson as Mattie, and Adrien Brody as Ethan).

This I Believe

Want a great source for short essays--plus ideas for writing? Check out This I Believe. org (link at right). There are down-loadable ideas of High School and College classes, links to pod casts of authors reading their essays, and info on the original radio program that aired in the 1950s.
ttfn,
Rillene

Resources Galore!

The Greece, New York School District web page is a gold mine of information. The link in the list takes you to an academic page listing reading strategies, but if you go back to the home page and search the site, you won't believe what you'll find.

A note about the reading strategies--you'll notice that the listed strategies are linked as well. Click on the strategy of your choice and you'll go to a page with DETAILED info on that strategy. Be sure to check out the left had side of the page. Many also have down-loadable graphic organizers and examples!!!!!!
ttfn,
Rillene

Reading Resource for Novels

Doing a little surfing tonight. I came across this site.
Novel Links
There are lots of resorces, plus they are divided up into before reading, during reading, and after reading. Looks like it would work right into reading strategies.

Fallacy Handout and Reading Strategies

Here is a copy of my Fallacy Handout I'm going to use for our informational text presentation thing.

oh and here are my reading strategies

So I'm Working on This Thing

called a really crappy, stock-looking, cookie-cutter website for lesson plans.

WARNING: 1)These are totally boring lessons. 2)They include a lot of questions, so they look really long.

When I post up new lesson plans, I'll send all ya'll a link to them.

Here it is: SEXY LESSON PLANS

My quick SIX TRAIT RUBRIC

My Word Choice lesson from class a few weeks ago


6 Traits--10th grade (this was my unit for Lorraine's and Glen's classes)
Word Choice

Fluency

Organization

Conventions

Ideas

Voice

Graphic Organizers

I posted a few links to Graphic Organizer sites. The one listed as "Blank..." takes you to a 50+ page .pdf file of blank organizers for use with selections of fiction. The site says they are fourth grade organizers, but I think one could augment them for our use. What do you think?
Later,
Rillene

Partial Unit Plan and Web Quest--American Short Story

I've got a partial unit plan on American Short Storys with an accompanieing Web Quest posted on my UEN website. Fellow classmates Ben, Dylan, and I worked on this web quest together in Instructional Media Fall 2007. After so much time invested, I decided to do my unit plan for Methods 1 around it. Only problem is not all the lessons are comlpeted--just the five Lorrane had us do.

My UEN page is found at http://my.uen.org/202580. Look for the documents box--you can download the files from this site. If you run into any problems, post me at RilleneN@gmail.com.

Melissa's Lessons Thus Far

First off, when I took CIA (Curriculum) we were required to write a Unit Plan with at least 5 LPs and to incorporate some of the 10 Models of Instruction that we learned. This is my Transcendentalism Unit Plan that I wrote for that class. It's not perfect, but the basic ideas and matierals are solid. I converted the files into PDF form. That's the only way I could figure out how to get the files on the blog. Anyone have any other ideas?

http://convert.neevia.com/prods/739d2bd1-a940-474f-b4fb-c3debfa0ad44.cvn/Lesson%201-WebQuest.pdf (Lesson 1)
http://convert.neevia.com/prods/a889452a-5eb9-4cd0-ac5a-a7285f0ccbe8.cvn/Rubric%20for%20WebQuest%20Projects.pdf (Lesson 1 Rubric)
http://convert.neevia.com/prods/b0159fbb-23a5-4909-b312-96e4f54f96ba.cvn/Lesson%202-Walden.pdf (Lesson 2)
http://convert.neevia.com/prods/0024600f-60ee-41b1-8f5b-a5b359ecb88d.cvn/Lesson%203-Event%20Map.pdf (Lesson 3)
http://convert.neevia.com/prods/bb05359e-9bbc-47d2-ae9d-1716d281e73a.cvn/Event%20Map.pdf (Event Map Worksheet)
http://convert.neevia.com/prods/628b05f0-e1f0-41b5-87fb-67cacfc8c077.cvn/Event%20Map%20Evaluation-Rubric.pdf (Event Map Rubric)
http://convert.neevia.com/prods/57588813-12e5-46d8-8984-24a45b523614.cvn/Lesson%204-Nature.pdf (Lesson 4)
http://convert.neevia.com/prods/c87e69f0-8806-48ba-af44-783208b31470.cvn/Lesson%205-Socratic%20Seminar.pdf (Lesson 5)
http://convert.neevia.com/prods/591bcd73-efe4-4925-944f-eb23249bc5af.cvn/Lesson%206-Transecendentalism%20Connection.pdf (Lesson 6)
http://convert.neevia.com/prods/53a1fe19-dde2-4242-9d5d-77122b47ee23.cvn/Transcendentalism%20Unit%20Outline.pdf (unit outline)

I had a couple of other documents, but the converter website I was using only let me convert 10 documents in a day. So, there are a few more documents that I have for this unit.

Thanks, Melissa

A Brilliant Idea

Keri, Rilenne and I were talking about how we like to not only write our own but, borrow and steal lesson plans. So, we thought that the idea of having a blog for our class would work out great! Hopefully everyone will take advantage of this site. Not only can we share lesson plans, but keep up on where we are in our teaching, teaching experiences, and even good books that we have come across. This is really just a way for us to share ideas, and keep in touch with eachother. In order to make a post each of us will need to know the email address and password. Anyone can change up the layout of the blog. If you come across an awesome website add it to the list. Blogger.com is very user friendly, so if anyone is having trouble with it just let me know and I can give you a tutorial. (But I'm not an expert either.) Welcome!

Love: Melissa