The Freedom Flyer
11-14-14
Friday's Co-Cur Schedule
SOAR 8:00-8:30 in Gym. Students will stay in there when the 7:50 bell rings.
2nd- 8:40-9:10
3rd- 9:15-9:45
4th- 9:50-10:20
Kinder- 10:25-10:55
1st- 11:00-11:30
Upcoming Dates
November 17th- PTA Give Thanks Dinner 6-8 PM
November 21st- Early Release Noon/PM to be used for planning/End of 6 wks- collect writing for 2nd 6 weeks/Team Leaders please send Winter Party Time for your grade level to Varon
Decmber 1st- Staff Meeting at 3:20 PM
December 2nd- 4th Grade Math Planning Day with Greeling
December 3rd- Picture Make-Up Day
December 4th- 3rd Grade Math Planning Day with Greeling/4th Grade District Writing Training
December 5th- Winter Wonderland 6-8 PM
December 8th- Dynamic Duo Meeting 3:20 PM- Read Soup to page 120
As the holidays approach
As the holidays approach, please keep in mind our instructional hours are valuable and all lessons/activities are expected to align to grade level TEKS. I know it is tempting to get "artsy-crafty" for the holidays, but the instructional expectations and district frameworks do not change based on the time of year. (This includes watching videos. Please see the AR about watching videos in the classroom.)
Teaching Students to Find the “MVP” Phrase in a Text
In this article in The Reading Teacher, Carolyn Strom (New York University) suggests getting students to use the athletic concept MVP – Most Valuable Player – to choose the most important phrase in something they have read. “A conversation about a text’s MVP prompts students to champion specific lines of text and explain their significance,” says Strom. “Facilitating this kind of purposeful talk encourages students to elaborate on their ideas and to develop their overall understanding of a text.”
Before using this strategy, Strom recommends that students achieve a literal understanding of the text so they’re reasonably familiar with it. At that point, students can use MVP as a mnemonic device, asking themselves if a phrase does at least one of these:
- M – conveys the Main idea of a text;
- V – provides a Vivid mental image, enhancing comprehension of the overall text; this encourages students to pay attention to both semantics and syntax and tune in on compelling language, stepping back from a text’s literal meaning to reflect on sentence structure, craft, rhythm, and lyrical qualities.
- P – is a “Phrase that stays” with a reader because it adds nuance to the way a concept or idea is understood, adding to a reader’s developing schema.
In small- and large-group discussion, students are challenged to justify their choice of an MVP phrase or sentence meeting one or more of these criteria.
“Designating the MVP: Facilitating Classroom Discussion About Text” by Carolyn Strom in The Reading Teacher, October 2014 (Vol. 68, #2, p. 108-112),
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/trtr.1287/abstract; Strom can be reached at chs289@nyu.edu.