Hawk Herald
News and Notes for Teachers- May 14
Dear Staff
Hope you had a good Mother's Day and were able to connect with your mothers or your children. As the weeks slip by remember our students are getting more and more anxious as Summer aproaches. Some in a positive way and others with worries about the uncertainty of their lives. The more we can keep things routine and engaging the better it will be for them.
Have a great week.
Mary
“Do not anticipate trouble or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.”
– Benjamin Franklin
Academic Seminar- Wed.7:50
Conversations and evaluations
Leadership meeting
Discipline survey
This is your opportunity per the contract to give input for our discipline plan for next year. You are also invited at any time to attend our discipline task force. We will be tweaking the current documents and talking about our next year’s plan.
Staff Survey Link: https://goo.gl/forms/rKAEwhb22zv3IFx02Meetings and Events
Monday-7
- Assistant Meeting during advisory in library
- Advisory lesson: Review on fighting https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zLqjZZEzufwuaqKSg-HUYx7VTnLRlOXpr5u4SAaAyL4/edit#slide=id.p
- ELD meeting 10:15
Tuesday-8 Mendez at district office
- Team Meetings-Cooper hawks and Red-tails Pod 4(counselors)
- Advisory: Erins Law Lesson 3
- 7th: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1j7bGJIIde5Ttna6entm_v0pOfK2slvL
- 8th: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aLhOeG9fngCIG89wFPYgmgzklTpf92rh
Wednesday-9
- Academic Seminar: Module 5
- Attendance Meeting 10:10
- Team Meetings-Sparrow hawks and Royal hawks pod 1(admin)
- AVID excel learning day room 236
- Advisory: Erin's Law Lesson 4
- 7th: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1j7bGJIIde5Ttna6entm_v0pOfK2slvLV 8th: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1aLhOeG9fngCIG89wFPYgmgzklTpf92rh
- coaches meeting 2:30
- Discipline Task Force 3:30
Friday-11
- SST 8:00
Mike Schmoker on Writing Across the Curriculum
In this article in Educational Leadership, author/consultant Mike Schmoker says that having students write across subject areas, if accompanied with lots of reading and discussion, could have more impact on college and career success than any other practice. His argument:
• The powerful impact of writing – “Decades of research attest to writing’s unrivaled ability to facilitate understanding and help people evaluate, reconstitute, and synthesize knowledge,” says Schmoker. “Writing enables students to generate their best thinking in its most effective form.” That’s why, when business and industry hire new workers, they look for writing skills over managerial skills.
• What works in classrooms – Content-area writing is basically “thinking on paper,” says Schmoker. Students need to:
- Read texts (or examine data), underlining, annotating, or taking notes;
- Zero in on the notes, quotes, or underlined passages that are central to their analysis;
- Write to explore, clarify, or explain how these portions support the student’s arguments, observations, or interpretations.
- Do this kind of writing (as short as a paragraph, as long as a term paper) on a regular basis – every week, and at the end of every unit.
Frequent, text-based argumentative writing is the best way to put students on the path to long-term success.
• Prompts to promote higher-order thinking – Here are some writing prompts that help students make coherent arguments:
- Evaluate the credibility of a scientific theory, a mathematical solution, a politician…
- Explain why you agree (or disagree) with a fictional or historical character...
- Analyze/interpret/debunk a math or science model or data table, a work of fiction…
- Compare and contrast two musicians, artists, mathematical arguments, works of drama…
- Make recommendations or propose solutions for some real-world quantitative problem or social/environmental problem…
“I can tell you from experience and observation that students find such questions and prompts highly engaging,” says Schmoker. “They activate the intellect and lend purpose to learning in every discipline – including math, where writing is essential but grossly underutilized.”
• Not letting grading discourage frequent writing – “Individually correcting errors on student papers is among the least efficient uses of a teacher’s time,” says Schmoker. “The most powerful, time-efficient way to improve students’ writing is through focused, whole-class instruction. Teachers should model one aspect of writing, with each step followed by student practice, during which the teacher observes (and addresses) whole-class patterns of progress or need on that writing skill.” Repeating this cycle of instruction, practice, and feedback through a lesson, anchored by examples of good writing displayed on a document camera, “guarantees better writing,” says Schmoker – with the teacher grading only a few student writing products.
South Meadows Middle School
Email: mendezm@hsd.k12.or.us
Website: http://schools.hsd.k12.or.us/southmeadows
Location: 4690 Southeast Davis Road, Hillsboro, OR, United States
Phone: 503-844-1220
Facebook: facebook.com/SouthMeadowsMiddleSchool