Staff Meeting #3 - August 20th

This morning we met in room 404, along with the history department. Mr. Tydus and Ms. Morrell came and spoke to us about lesson plans and gradebooks. We spent the rest of the time researching commonly used editing marks in order to develop a comprehensive school wide plan for feedback to students.

Staff Meeting #2 -- August 13th

I've been derelict in my blogging duty, and have yet to update the minutes from last week. So, here's a recap of what we did last week.

Roll Call:
* Murray, Jermaine, Britt
* Lesley, Joel, Mia, Marty

Final Exams
We decided that we are going to institute final exams for 9th and 10th grade. These exams will constitute 20-25% of the fourth quarter average (instead of a 5th "quarterly" grade).

English I - Listening (Task I) and Critical Lens (Task IV)
English II - Factual Reading (Task II) and Controlling Idea (Task III)

We'll have to modify the exam for Language!, and that's something we can talk about during the year.

More importantly, we reviewed the 9th grade NYS ELA performance indicators to determine which pieces 9th grade students will work on for their portfolios.

Here we go:

• Process Essay Analysis
• Research Paper - Factual research paper related to another subject area...possibly related to historical period.
• Controlling Idea Essay - There are PI's related to the controlling idea, but we will probably push this into the 10th grade year.
• Personal Response Paper - Students will write a personal narrative or memoir related to a novel. In other words, they will identify a situation or theme or setting related to the novel and compose their own original work.
• Compare and Contrast Film to Play - You get it.
• Critical Lens Essay
  

So, there is a working draft. We need to talk about poetic forms and also get input from the rest of the department.

AP Syllabi

We've been discussing backmapping and aligning our curriculum based on the AP Language class. Cheryl just emailed the AP Language syllabus that she and Mia developed. I am also uploading a copy of my syllabus for easy reference.

(If you notice, you can download this file, or visit the file hosted at Scribd. Just look below the file for options. You can also enlarge the file within this window, but the place to do so has teeny tiny text.)

AP Language Syllabus


AP Literature Syllabus

First Summer Professional Development Meeting

Ok, today we outlined three goals for our meetings and going into next year.

1. Portfolios - We would like to identify common writing pieces that highlight skills we want our students to develop for each grade level.

2. Review AP Language Curriculum & Build - Look over Mia & Cheryl's AP Syllabus and
Align Grade Level Curriculum and plan from there.

3. Align Curriculum by Grade Level - Starting from junior year and working backwards.

Here's What We Did:

Essentially, for two hours, we looked at Mia & Cheryl's AP Language Syllabus & discussed things we need to see addressed over English 9 & 10 to support AP Language. We decided that a few skills that need emphasis and alignment are:
standard editing makrs
process of editing, peer revision strategies
multiple choice strategies
annotation emphasis & strategies (especially since students will not have their own books) with an emphasis of strategies
Vocabulary - we discussed this at length and came up with no definitive answer as of yet
we discussed working in open book tests & using opening exercises to help out with attendance
Utilize common acronymic strategies to approach literature and nonfiction
Identified the common writing pieces in AP Language syllabus that we need to address....

Next Meeting We'd Like to Accomplish
List English III types of writing
Identify and list English II Tasks for the Portfolio