Summer Reading and TOSCRF

Good morning, All!

Next Tuesday, June 2nd, we will have a meeting in room 305 at 7:45. We have two items to cover, one of which I will do here on the blog and by distributing information in mailboxes. The second item will likely take up most of our meeting time.

1. Summer reading. I will distribute a list of the summer reading titles issued by Buffalo. Students will read a book off of this list and complete an essay on a given topic by the third week of school next year. I will provide more details at the meeting and through correspondence on email and regular mailbox distribution.

2. This is going to require some help from all of you. We received our TOSCRF data; each school got a lit of students with problems regarding their information. (For example, a student may have taken it in October and not in January.) I will need to confirm if the student was absent or left the class, etc.

I will update with the summer reading list shortly.

Thanks!

Meeting tomorrow...

Tomorrow we will have a meeting and we will be discussing the following items:

1. Summer reading
2. AP Vertical Team
3. Soapstone

Those of you who have the AP Vertical book, please take a look at it and bring any ideas you would like to discuss. (I also have some ideas on how we can integrate the Vertical planning.)

We will meet in room 305 at 7:45. See you then!

Cheryl

Meeting 5-5--recap

This morning we reviewed the grade 9 May assessment. I have forwarded a new copy of the information given. Please check your email or email me with your questions.

Also we have decided to focus on two books per grade level for 10, 11, and 12. We will have a double entry notebook component and an assessment when the students return from summer break. Please think of two titles to suggest for the grade
level(s) you teach.

Hopefully we will be meeting tomorrow afternoon.

Cheryl

Meeting tomorrow!!

Hi, All-

Please do not forget about our meeting tomorrow! We will meet at 7:45 in room 305.

See you then!

Cheryl

Meeting on Tuesday, April 28th

We will have a meeting next Tuesday in room 305 at 7:45. I'd like to discuss the following:

1. Summer reading
2. Soapstone and AP vertical training

If there are any other topics you would like to discuss we can certainly cover them!

See you Tuesday morning!

No meeting and reminder

Hi, All-

There will not be a meeting tomorrow, March 17th. We will be meeting the following Tuesday on the half day.

Exciting news! We will be having plo on the half day with regard to explicit instruction. The presentation will happen in room 305 at 1:00 on that Tuesday.

Cheryl

Meeting next Tuesday, and updates!!

Hi, All-

We had a meeting this morning, and discussed some ideas regarding the 9th grade common assessment. I also met with Bob Maulucci this morning and he suggested some ways that we could take the vocabulary idea further by extending it to all grade levels using the vocabulary list I compiled.

I need for Junior teachers to pack up the exams that are in the safe. I put most of the exams back together and then returned them to the safe. All materials are there, the exams just need to be packaged. Once that is done, then I can complete an analysis of the data and see where our students had trouble so that we can think about that in terms of our instruction.

I’d like to meet next Tuesday at 7:45. I’d like the junior exams to be completed then so that I can enter data, and I will talk more with you about our vocabulary plan.

Thanks!
Cheryl

Meeting Tuesday, February 24th!!!!!!!

Good morning!

I would like to have a meeting next Tuesday, February 24th, at 7:45 in room 305. I will be heading downtown this afternoon and will have more information to share.

Also, we need to be working on common assessments. I have talked with both Mr. Zagst and Ms. Chase, and we are developing a common assessment for research. As soon as you have come up with a plan, please let me have a copy so that we can keep them on file and show these to the ELA department as evidence of our work.

Thank you!!
Cheryl

Our meeting this morning...

Our meeting was mostly informational. We discussed the following.

1. Word walls
2. Objectives
3. Common assessments

4. TOSCRF--I will distribute these as soon as possible with the instruction sheet. The window for completing these is January 20-23.
5. I will give Freshman teachers a copy of the midterm. Midterms should be completed by the end of next week.
6. Vocabulary--I will distribute what I have of the 9th and 10th grade vocabulary lists today. These will need to be updated but they are something to start with.

Thank you!
Cheryl

Updates

Hello All! Hope everyone had a wonderful break. I'm sure it feels like we never missed a day. :)

Anyway, I have some information that I will be giving you later today regarding planning common assessments and vocabulary. Hopefully it will be useful. Please meet with members of your grade level in order to plan some common assessments.

In short, common assessments should include agreed upon skills and concepts, even if the literature you are using is different from other teachers working on the same unit. You'll get an example of this in your mailbox.

Also, we must do more with word walls and vocabulary. We'll discuss ideas at the next meeting.

Lastly, our next meeting will be on Tuesday, January 13th. Please look over the materials you will get later today and come prepared with ideas!

Thank you!

Cheryl

Regents exam vocab

I spent a painstaking amount of time today combing the Regents exams of the last four year to find vocabulary words our students may need to know. This list was generated from approximately 15 exams that were in multiple choice questions and answers. Some of these words are easier than others, but depending on the aptitude of the students they may need them. This is just a preliminary list but I wanted to keep it complete for now until I decided which words were unnecessary. So here you go Cheryl, my grade 11 list and I think you have my 10th?

Reminder

Please make sure I have a list of vocabulary for each grade level and a copy of the grade level assessments...I will be making copies of the vocabulary and distributing them among teachers as soon as possible.

Thank you!

I will also be updating the blog with a summary of our meeting yesterday.

Cheryl

Meeting on Tuesday, the 25th

Hi, All. Our next meeting will be Tuesday morning at 7:45.

I left a copy of an article Anne gave to me on Friday regarding SSR. Please read it, and we will discuss it on Tuesday morning.

I am hoping that Mia can give us an update on the AP vertical planning. We will need to discuss common assessments and specifically what skills we would like students to master at each grade level.

Also, we need to discuss teaching tier 2 vocabulary.

Lastly, we will continue looking at the regents data from last year.

Thank you!

Meeting on 11/18

Today we discussed the following:

1. Vocabulary list--a list of vocabulary from different courses is being compiled.

2. Spelling bee--We will be working on preliminary assessments for an upcoming spelling bee.

3. We began to assess last year's Regents exam to determine, based on student results, what steps we need to take to improve student performance.

Please be ready at the next meeting to discuss other areas you see students' needing to improve on and best practices to share. The next meeting will be on Tuesday, November 25th, at 7:45 in room 305.

Thank you!

Cheryl

Vocabulary and Data analysis

Hi, Team!

I have placed a request in teachers' mailboxes asking for vocabulary that is important to their subject area, or that they find students struggling with and it is something that crops up repeatedly. I'm hoping that teachers will respond to this and we can work on incorporating some of this vocabulary into our instruction.

Also, I've completed a data analysis of the unsuccessful regents exams from last year. We will be able to look at the types of questions missed and share ways to increase our best practices.

If you can't make the next meeting, please check the blog and hopefully I will have a second meeting so that more members can attend.

Thank you!
Cheryl

Next meeting

Hope all is going well with everyone. I do want to schedule another meeting. I'd like to meet on Tuesday, November 18th at 7:45 in Room 305. Hopefully I will have some data from last year's English Regents to share. We will be going over strategies for getting the students ready for the Regents this year, as well as continuing our discussion from the last meeting.

Please add to the comment section if there is something else you'd like to cover.

Cheryl

AP Vertical Team--meeting fri. 10/17

Please, please, please be in my room by 7:30--Cheryl will be in around 7:45
We really have to get going on these things. I know we are all overwhelmed with things to do right now, but we need to get some main points down.
1. Grade-level literature
2. Portfolio material
3. mid-term assessments--let's not do the lame book one again. Let's find old tasks 1,2,3, and 4. Let's put someone in charge of each now. December will come quickly.
4. Literary terms that will be the main focus per grade level
5. Grade-level vocab lists. (I think I gave out a couple last time? But basically, they come out of the units in the book. I have an SAT list for gr. 11)

AP Vertical Team--short meeting --postponed

9th-Romeo and Juliet,

10th-To Kill a Mockingbird

10th (Caccamise)--Of Mice and Men, Othello, 12 Angry Men, Night, Lord of the Flies, Stuck in Neutral, A Lesson Before Dying

11th--Raisin in the Sun, The Crucible, Scarlet Letter, (see ap syllabus)

12----

Grade 10 AP Vertical Post

Ok my thoughts:
1. Literature for Grade 10. I think a few classics like To Kill A Mockingbird or A Tale of Two Cities and a Shakespearan play (Caesar or something else) along with a historical piece like Night should be mainstays for sophomores. I have found success covering longer pieces of literature by listening to some of the lit with audio and discussing it as a class as we move through it.
2. Literary Elements/Techniques. I think all the basics (setting, theme, plot, conflict, point of view, symbolism, characterization, personification, simile, metaphor,etc...) plus connotation, dennotation, allusion, structure.
3. Types of written works. I think there should be some kind of research based (AP citations) paper (maybe research literary critiques with like the Masterplots series or something critiquing a short story/literary work including annotations),Regents based essays including AP driven tasks (literary analysis), creative writing including memoirs, possibly poetry, narratives. I am also a big advocate of journal writing. My students write a 5 minute journal response for me every other class day on various topics. It is good to keep them writing.
4. Essay skills. I think students should be able to construct a solid thesis statement with topic sentences to write a cohesive 4 paragraph essay. 10th graders need constant practice developing thesis statements along with supporting details.
Ok that is all for now. I did my homework!