September 22nd, 2007 walkere
I originally wrote this article for budding freelance writers, but it could be useful for students and teachers as well.
Students always ask, “How long should this be?” Teachers can respond in a number of ways - “Five paragraphs,” “Two pages,” or “400-600 words.” What is the most precise? The word count.
One problem with paragraphs is students could interpret that to mean two sentences per paragraph or ten. Two pages could likewise mean two pages with 2″ margins and 16 point font, or two pages with no margins and an 8 points font. 4-600 words can only mean one thing… 4-600 words.
How do you measure the word count, then? If the document is in MS Word (or any modern word processor), it’s as simple as finding the Word Count feature. Check out this article on Helium to set up MS Word to tell you the word count of an article.
Posted in Resources, Internet, Education | No Comments »
September 21st, 2007 walkere
Teaching in an urban district, I never thought I’d be in this situation. My class is too small. It has one student.
Originally, I thought it was a scheduling glitch, which it probably is. I figured it would get cleared up. The first day of school, I had no students. Then I had one; but she was a junior, waiting to get transferred into a US II class.
Then one day a girl from another one of my US I courses randomly got transferred into my Period 6 Honors US History class. She wasn’t going anywhere; she needed to take US I. Apparently, no one else was coming in. For the past week, it’s been a one student class.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Education, Ramblings | No Comments »
September 21st, 2007 walkere
The first stop in my class on the way to colonization was the Spanish Empire in the Americas. Spanish holdings constitute almost half of what is now the US, so how can we understand our history if we don’t understand those that came before us?
This lesson plan is intended to be a one day introduction to the development and culture of the Spanish Empire. It is far from exhaustive, and I would love to do more with it. However, I don’t have the time in your packed curriculum to dwell on it. So if you’re looking for a short, one day overview of New Spain, read on.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Lesson Plans, Resources, Education | No Comments »
September 20th, 2007 walkere
In one of my education courses, we read the book Urban Teaching by Lois Weiner. It was mildly interesting and informative, but it wasn’t terribly great. There is one phrase from the book that I do remember and cling too, though.
She discussed the broken and twisted nature of the administration in most urban districts. The term she used was “sick.” In the metaphor, the administration (and the school as a whole) is like an organism - a leviathan if you will. When it does not function properly, it is sick, malformed, and dysfunctional. This dysfunction, of course, has deleterious effects on the operation of the school as a hole.
Why do I bring this up? Because the administration in my school is hopelessly dysfunctional. It is unbelievably sick.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Education, Ramblings | No Comments »
September 19th, 2007 walkere
I’m always looking for primary documents to use in class. Documents that are already in electronic form are the best - it saves me the time of typing or copying and editing the documents.
The Virginia Center for Digital History has a small collection of primary documents that are suitable for secondary social studies classrooms. The goal of the website is “helping secondary school teachers … find primary resources on the web, related to their curriculum.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Resources, Internet, Education | No Comments »
September 19th, 2007 walkere
Most kids today have computers and internet access at home. Why not create a class website to help bring your classroom into their home?
There are tons of things you can do with a class website and dozens of reasons to make one. However, you may think that it’s too hard, too time consuming, or too costly.
Some advanced projects would be hard and time consuming, but a simple class website is not. You can set up a free website for your class in about 15 minutes. Check out the guide I wrote on Associated Content, A Guide for Technologically Impaired Teachers to Create a Website to Accompany Their Classes to learn how.
Posted in Resources, Internet, Education | No Comments »
September 18th, 2007 walkere
As I looked at my schedule the day before school started, I noticed that one class was titled “US 1 LEP.” I thought “Hmm… LEP? Does that mean what I think it means?”
In my interview, I talked with the vice principal and supervisor about my experience working with students who had poor reading and writing skills. I talked about my experience working with inclusion classes and students with IEPs. Nowhere did I tell them I had any experience working with ELLs… and that’s exactly what I got.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Education, Ramblings | No Comments »
September 16th, 2007 walkere
In a previous article, I outlined an introductory lesson plan that engaged students in creating a timeline of major events in US I. So what to do if you teach World History or US II?
Here’s a suggestion of ten to twelve major dates for those two courses.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Ramblings | No Comments »
September 16th, 2007 walkere
This lesson plan is an attempt to spice up an otherwise bland section of the textbook - Central and West African Kingdoms, circa 1450. This section is intended to provide students with some background on what the world was like when Columbus sailed west and sparked the colonization of the Americas.
The lesson begins with a simple reading prompt. It is an excerpt from Gomes Eanes de Zurara that I found interesting. In discussing the discovery of Guinea, he describes Africa as being sparsely populated by nomadic peoples. He makes no reference to the large kingdoms (Benin, Songhai, etc) or to Timbuktu.
The students task, then, is to research African civilization at this time period and write a letter to the King of Portugal to convince him that de Zurara was wrong.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Lesson Plans, Resources, Education | No Comments »
September 15th, 2007 walkere
I’m planning on doing a webquest like lesson on Monday, so I’ve been poking around the internet to see how other people have been using technology in their classrooms.
I found an article at A History Teacher with a cool tip. Apparently you can use a Google service to create a custom search engine for your students to use. You can hand select what sites are included in the index, and then students can use it as if it were plain old Google. This would probably help keep them on track, and I might look into using this later in the year.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Resources, Internet, Education | No Comments »
