ELA Weekly:
October 26 - October 30
Curriculum Manager Announcements
ELA Webinars This Week!
Instructional Toolbox Added to the Hub
Curriculum Managers Hold Office Hours!
Every other Wednesday afternoon from 4pm-5pm (opposite Wednesday ELA Webinars) will be a designated "Office Hour" for ELA Managers to visit with George and Colleen about anything related to Secondary ELA curriculum. If you have questions, feedback, or just want to discuss upcoming units or assessments, please feel free to hop on BlueJeans via the links below. These are come-and-go "Office Hours" with no set agenda. All ELA Managers and Coaches are welcome!
For 6th/7th & AP Language & AP Lit (Colleen): https://bluejeans.com/2872300923/browser
For 8th/9th/10th (George):
ELA 8-10 Campus Coaches
11th Grade IDEA Authors Update
Course Specific
6th Grade ELA
SpringBoard: This week's SpringBoard lessons focus on plot, specifically setting, and character analysis. Interim Assessment 1 data showed that students throughout the district performed lowest on 6.6 (plot), which is the TEKS focus for this week. As teachers are reading fiction with students, always review all elements of plot. This provides students the opportunity to practice identifying elements of plot and analyzing how these elements impact the meaning of the story. Students will spend a lot of time this week exploring descriptive words and practice with vocabulary that relates to setting. They will also analyze characters through point of view, physical characteristics, dialogue and character actions. This is a week of several high-leverage lessons that are designed to directly prepare students for success on the EA 1, as well as the level of thinking (cognitive alignment) required for the Reading STAAR.
Do-Nows: Students will work on 6.19C (subject/verb agreement). Students will practice using plural and singular verbs appropriately. Remember to hold students accountable for skills introduced during Do-Nows as they complete all written work in class. Additional practice can also be assigned for homework throughout the week to reinforce the skill introduced during the Do-Now.
Archived Webinars: Please visit the links below to view previous webinars.
September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8E2z/
September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8AMZ/ (SpringBoard 1.14/Expository Rubric and exemplars for EA 2)
7th Grade ELA
SpringBoard: Students will continue to examine expository texts, focusing on text organization, summary, and the connection of ideas within and between texts. Students should understand that text organization influences the structure of the text summary. By this point, students should have been exposed to most, if not all, of the text organizational structures (compare/contrast, chronological, question/answer, cause/effect, description, problem/solution). Once students can identify the text organizational structure used, teachers should guide students to analyze why the author chose that specific structure. Always bring it back to author's purpose and craft! Students will apply their understanding of expository text structure to their own writing as they write and informational text. All lessons for this week are located on the Hub.
Assessments: Students will take BWA 4: Revising and Editing on Friday, October 30th. Please make sure all exams are scanned by the end of the day on Friday, October. 30th.
Do-Nows: Students will work on 7.19C (subject/verb agreement). Students will practice using plural and singular verbs appropriately. Remember to hold students accountable for skills introduced during Do-Nows as they complete all written work in class. Additional practice can also be assigned for homework throughout the week to reinforce the skill introduced during the Do-Now.
Archived Webinars:
September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8E2D/
September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8AN7/ (Strategies for teaching mythology)
September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zrR/
August 19th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zrU/
8th Grade ELA
ELA 8 Webinar: Just a friendly reminder, K. Strickland will be leading the ELA 8 Webinar this Wednesday, October 28 from 4:00 to 4:45 pm. The webinar will focus on one strand from the GET Rubric, IOP Preparation and Rubric breakdown, and application to the curriculum and Course Collaboration 3.
- If you are having technical issues with your laptop or BlueJeans, please reach out to your manager ASAP to ensure the issue is resolved and all Webinar Norms followed.
Bi-Weekly Assessment 4: The scanning deadline for BWA4 is Friday, October 30, 2015 by 5 pm. All assessments have been shared via GradeCam. Please reach out to your Course Leader or Curriculum Manager if you are unable to see the exams.
SpringBoard: SB Activity 1.29 and Embedded Assessment 2 are two critical lessons for this week.
- SB 1.29 focuses on importance of applying literary skills to visual representations. As the teacher, build in multiple CFUs to ensure students are grasping the content depicted in the visual.
- Suggestion: Review the BWA and the IA to ensure that question stems are gathered and used to push student understanding of the visual. This critical step with strengthen the alignment in your classroom instruction to that of the curriculum and assessments.
- Use multiple levels of questioning and clear CFUs such as a think-pair-share, IOP prep, or a Stop and Jot to challenge student understanding of the content being delivered.
- The Embedded Assessment has multiple components that students should complete. Be strategic on how you will use time in class and what will be assigned at home to ensure students complete the rigor of the assessment.
- Suggestion: Take time to review the Unit Road Map and, if necessary, use a Teacher Flex Day to provide additional assistance and/or presentation time for students. Giving groups a specific time frame for presentation will also help map out the amount of classroom time to provide.
Grammar Focus/Do Now: The focus for this week is punctuation marks (8.20B) explicitly focusing on hyphens. Ensure students can articulate two key items in their response: 1) What is the error and 2) What should this change be made.
- Suggestion: You can add additional errors for the student to correct in order to spiral in previous grammar TEKS covered.
- For example, you can lowercase the beginning of the sentence, remove the punctuation, and add in additional errors to challenge the students to recall previous TEKS as well as use academic vocabulary.
- The Grammar Focus/Do Now slides are a foundation to support the specific TEK in the Unit Road Map; however, you can add to the slide to ensure continuous coverage of prior material.
Archived Webinars: Please visit the links below to view previous webinars.
- September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8D_S/
English I Pre-AP
ELA 9 Webinar: Just a friendly reminder, C. Medina will be leading the ELA 9 Webinar this Wednesday, October 28 from 4:00 to 4:45 pm. The webinar will focus on one strand from the GET Rubric, IOP Preparation and Rubric breakdown, and application to the curriculum and Course Collaboration 3.
- If you are having technical issues with your laptop or BlueJeans, please reach out to your manager ASAP to ensure the issue is resolved and all Webinar Norms followed.
Bi-Weekly Assessment 4: The scanning deadline for BWA4 is Friday, October 30, 2015 by 5 pm. All assessments have been shared via GradeCam. Please reach out to your Course Leader or Curriculum Manager if you are unable to see the exams.
SpringBoard: SB Activity 3.12 is critical to preparing students for the additional component on the embedded assessment, which is having students create a Shakespearean Sonnet.
- As the teacher, ensure you are building in multiple Checks for Understanding throughout the lesson to help students see the expectations and framework of a Shakespearean sonnet as well as the exact requirements they must complete in order to fulfill this requirement on the EA.
- This component will be the hardest for students to complete because it places specific parameters around their poem and challenges them to select words that will meet the 14 line/10 syllable/ABABCDCDEFEFGG requirement.
- Anticipate this struggle and you aid students through the process of creating their EA especially their Shakespearean Sonnet.
Grammar Focus/Do Now: The focus for this week is punctuation marks (9.18B) explicitly focusing on hyphens. Ensure students can articulate two key items in their response: 1) What is the error and 2) What should this change be made.
- Suggestion: You can add additional errors for the student to correct in order to spiral in previous grammar TEKS covered.
- For example, you can lowercase the beginning of the sentence, remove the punctuation, and add in additional errors to challenge the students to recall previous TEKS as well as use academic vocabulary.
- The Grammar Focus/Do Now slides are a foundation to support the specific TEK in the Unit Road Map; however, you can add to the slide to ensure continuous coverage of prior material.
Archived Webinars: Please visit the links below to view previous webinars.
- September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8D_U/
- September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8Av6/
- September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8D_V/
English II Pre-AP
ELA 10 Webinar: Just a friendly reminder, A. Blanco will be leading the ELA 8 Webinar this Wednesday, October 28 from 4:00 to 4:45 pm. The webinar will focus on one strand from the GET Rubric, IOP Preparation and Rubric breakdown, and application to the curriculum and Course Collaboration 3.
- If you are having technical issues with your laptop or BlueJeans, please reach out to your manager ASAP to ensure the issue is resolved and all Webinar Norms followed.
Bi-Weekly Assessment 4: The scanning deadline for BWA4 is Friday, October 30, 2015 by 5 pm. All assessments have been shared via GradeCam. Please reach out to your Course Leader or Curriculum Manager if you are unable to see the exams.
SpringBoard: SB Activity 3.11 and Embedded Assessment 1 are critical lessons for this upcoming week.
- SB Activity 3.11 presents a question from the text and challenges students to provide an answer, support, and a page number. You can challenge students to articulate their responses through an OER Single Story response to review the skill if your students are facing difficulties with the OER SS.
- During this activity, ensure students are finding sound textual evidence to support their answer.
- Frequent Checks for Understanding are critical to ensure this lesson is successful. As the teacher, think of three specific actions: 1) What CFU am I going to use during this activity, 2) What questions will be asked of students before, during, and after the CFU, and 3) What must I do as the teacher beforehand to ensure successful CFUs for this lesson.
- Embedded Assessment 1 has several components that will challenge students to research, present, and synthesize information. ELA 10 has multiple teacher flex days, do not hesitate to take the time necessary on this activity to ensure it is successful.
- During this week's webinar, A. Blanco will cover IOP Prep and Rubric. Please plan ahead an come with questions on how the IOP Rubric can be used to get a strong data read on where students are at with the soft skills that must be acquired from the TEKS and classroom presentations/interactions.
Grammar Focus/Do Now: The focus for this week is punctuation marks (10.18B) explicitly focusing on hyphens. Ensure students can articulate two key items in their response: 1) What is the error and 2) What should this change be made.
- Suggestion: You can add additional errors for the student to correct in order to spiral in previous grammar TEKS covered.
- For example, you can lowercase the beginning of the sentence, remove the punctuation, and add in additional errors to challenge the students to recall previous TEKS as well as use academic vocabulary.
- The Grammar Focus/Do Now slides are a foundation to support the specific TEK in the Unit Road Map; however, you can add to the slide to ensure continuous coverage of prior material.
Archived Webinars: Please visit the links below to view previous webinars.
- September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8D_X/
- September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8Avc/
- September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8Avb/
Unpacked Assessment Visual: Making a direct connection of your lessons back to the Unpacked Assessment visual will provide students with a crystal clear representation of what you are doing in class and how this correlates back to their assessment. Make some marker or indication noting coverage of a specific section of the visual. Provided below are some examples of Unpacked Assessments. If you have yet to create yours, construct one before the assessment and ensure this activity is done before the lessons are taught.
- Shout out to Mr. Samuel Moreno from ICP Mission for creating his unpacked assessment a unique way! This was the work in progress when I visited ICP Mission; I will send out a finalized example in next week's weekly. Sam would like to share credit with Mr. David Gonzalez from IDEA Quest CP for Africa visual. Way to be one Team and Family.
Sample Unpacked Assessment
Sample Unpacked Assessment
S. Moreno's Example
AP Language
SpringBoard: Students will focus on editorial writing this week, analyzing rhetorical strategies and evidence used to impact an argument. As students are analyzing evidence to support a claim, they will explore which kinds of evidence are more convincing, and how authors use evidence to support ideas. This quarter's focus essay is the Argument FRQ, so teachers should also incorporate timed-writing opportunities in class as time permits. Students will write their first formal Argument FRQ next Friday, for BWA 5.
Archived Webinars: Please use the links below to view previous webinars:
September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8E2G/
September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8ANu/ (Norming the Synthesis Essay for IA 1)
September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zsh/
August 19th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zsi/
AP Literature
SpringBoard: Students will continue to read Pygmalion, and explore archetypes in additional texts. They will also review satire, which was studied in depth in AP Language & Composition. Students will draw connections between archetypal patterns and humor. Students will write their first formal Prose Analysis FRQ for BWA 5. Teachers should incorporate timed writing opportunities, as time permits, to provide students exposure to writing under time constraints.
Archived Webinars: Please use the links below to view previous webinars:
September 30th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8E2W/
September 16th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8ANI/ (Implementing timed writings in class/Integration of poetry during prose lessons)
September 2nd: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zsn/
August 19th: https://bluejeans.com/s/8zsm/