Free Teacher's Guides

I found free Penguin Teacher's Guides if you need any--they are pretty good

http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/services-academic/teachersguides.html

Reformatting the Summer Reading List

Alright, the time is now. If you would like to see any changes in the Summer Reading List, either in selections offered or requirements, then you must respond. Either post your suggestions to the blog (for those of you reading a print copy, mackenglishdept.blogspot.com) or write me a note on this sheet of paper and put it in my mailbox. Or email me. Or send up a concise smoke signal.

Click here for last year's reading list. Again, if you're reading a print copy of this post, then you should find the reading list on the other side of this sheet.

Let's Meet This Week

We have several important things we must discuss.

1. Summer Reading List - The time is now. Let's identify the works we want to replace, and agree on what work we are demanding along with it.
2. Writing Portfolio - Let's agree on 3-4 pieces per grade level and start working on this next year, with the expectation that we will identify a few more types of writing per grade in the future.
3. If there's anything else, I've forgotten. Forgive me. Let's get this going again.

I propose we meet on Friday, if that's cool with everyone. I can't drop off the boy until 7-ish on Wednesdays, and with the length of the 7:10 am Tim Horton's drive through line, I barely make it by 7:30. I'll talk to you guys individually this week to make sure this is cool.

The Quest to Determine a Book List

Okay, slow but steady movement on the grade level book list. The short term goal of the CLT team is to identify 5-8 novels for 9th grade that could only be taught at that grade level. One of these books would be a mandatory selection, and Anne will be moving to purchase a copy of this book per student.

We are meeting again June 5th and 6th to finish the list. See me with any questions.

10th Grade Academic Intervention Services (AIS)

BPS is moving to comply with state mandates for AIS. Therefore, next year we will be instituting AIS for sophomores. All sophomores who have been designated as significantly below grade level and in danger of failing the Regents exam will have a AIS class that will meet three days a week in addition to their regular English class. The curriculum will be Language! E & F.

So, 9th grade teachers are going to need to compile a list of students whom they feel qualify for AIS. Again, significantly below grade level and in danger of failing the 11th grade exam.

Fluency Assessments - Important!

I attended a Curriculum Lead Teacher meeting this morning at Riverside. One of the main topics was the fluency assessments that are being rolled out in May. Here is a draft of the announcement you will receive in a few days.


We also received this sheet, titled "Quick Tips for Fluency Practice"


And this handout on Reader's Theater




We also received some materials related to fluency. Julie and Anne presented information to help us develop our own fluency materials for next year. These handouts will help us to determine grade level appropriateness.

They gave us a cool tool which lists the selections from the McDougall Littell textbooks, along with their Lexile scores, Dale-Chall scores, and DRP scores. That way, we can figure out if a piece is too difficult to use as a fluency activity.

In order to help us understand what each number means, they also distributed handouts which can be found at the following websites:

• The Dale-Chall list of the most commonly used words in the English language.
• The Fry graph for estimating reading ages, as well as the Fry Readability Formula description.
• The DRP test from the 9th, 10th, and 11th grade McD-Lt textbook (they're all the same!)

I have a copy of the textbook selections in my room. Anne is going to be emailing a .pdf document, and when I receive that, I'll make it available here.