Resource Roundup
Resources for the Middle School Teacher
April 12, 2013
Literacy Strategies Edition
This Literacy Strategies Edition has a variety of creative ways for embedding reading, writing, and critical thinking into your classroom.
April is Poetry Month!
The Poetry Idea Engine
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/04/the-poetry-idea-engine-helps-students.html
http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/poetry/poetry_engine.htm#
Illustrated Six-Word Memoirs by Students from Grade School to Grad School
As an autobiographical challenge, the six-word limitation forces us to pinpoint who we are and what matters most — at least in the moment. The constraint fuels rather than limits our creativity. - Larry Smith
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/01/09/six-word-memoirs-students/
Integrating Six-Word Memoirs into Social Studies
My students had just finished a unit on the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, so I thought it would be easy to twist the traditional autobiographical six-word memoir to other people's biographies. I asked my students to create six-word memoirs for the leading thinkers of the Enlightenment. If people like Voltaire, Newton and Diderot only had six words, how would they describe their accomplishments?
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/clarity-brevity-6-word-memoirs-jonathan-olsen
Why Word Order Matters in Google Searches
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/02/why-word-order-matters-in-google.html
20 Useful Google Search Tips You Probably Don't Know
Google search tips aren’t uncommon–but useful search tips are another thing entirely. Add in useful tips that you’ve probably never heard of and–well, you just got better at Googleing didn’t you? Included in the visual are 20 Google search tips that will help you better find what you’re looking for!
http://www.teachthought.com/technology/20-useful-google-search-tips-you-probably-dont-know/
Teaching Persuasive Writing Through Art
http://educationcloset.com/2013/03/22/teaching-persuasive-writing-through-art/
Three Simple Tools to Support the CCSS Academic Vocabulary Shift
The Common Core identifies six instructional shifts needed to effectively implement the standards in ELA/Literacy. Shift 6 suggests an instructional change in the teaching of Academic Vocabulary. While there are many specific vocabulary standards in the K-12 Language strand, it’s helpful and important to look at Academic Vocabulary from the big picture view known as Shift 6.
Make Your Next Summarization Activity Interactive, Artistic, and Kinesthetic
In the body sculpture technique, also known as the statues technique, groups of students determine the essential attributes of a concept, idea, process, fact, sequence, or skill, and then design a frozen tableau using all the group members’ bodies in a way that best represents those essentials. Although they have a lot of fun molding their classmates’ bodies into an assembly of “statues” to represent what everyone has learned about a topic, there’s more than fun going on here. The analytical discussions students have while creating the sculpture and the discussions that their classmates have about the finished tableaus help the information move into long-term memory.
10 Tactile/Kinesthetic Vocabulary Activities
This *free handout details 10 tactile/kinesthetic vocabulary activities for middle or high school that support's Marzano's "Six Steps to Effective Vocabulary Instruction."
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/10-TactileKinesthetic-Vocabulary-Activities
*To access the resource, you will need to set up a free account with Teachers Pay Teachers.
Your Brain on Books: Ten Things that Happen to Our Minds When We Read
Any book lover can tell you: diving into a great novel is an immersive experience that can make your brain come alive with imagery and emotions and even turn on your senses. It sounds romantic, but there's real, hard evidence that supports these things happening to your brain when you read books. In reading, we can actually physically change our brain structure, become more empathetic, and even trick our brains into thinking we've experienced what we've only read in novels.
The Resource Roundup Library
Miss the previous editions? Find them here...
April 2, 2013: Content Collection https://smore.com/wfjt
March 29, 2013: Technology Tools https://smore.com/vv12
February 13, 2013 https://smore.com/g9r8
February 5, 2013 http://smore.com/vkdu
January 18, 2013 http://smore.com/a535
January 9, 2013 http://smore.com/h5cc
Jamie Neibling
Martial Artist, Thinker, Reader, Learner
Email: jneiblin@nkcschools.org
Twitter: @jamieneibling