The Significance of Low-stakes writing

A post about the significance of response writing:
http://tomakeaprairie.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/writing-meaningfully-about-meaningful-reading-part-1-a-look-at-low-stakes-writing/

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Conceptual Inquiry Project

Conceptual Inquiry Project It's year-long! As part of a yearlong research project, juniors at MEHS research a thematic topic of importance such as Truth, Beauty, Justice, Honor, Same/Other, etc. This month, they continue their inquiry by finding one book-length reading of non-fiction to fuel their knowledge and also listen to two radio documentaries on the topic. We offer them this list of sources: Multi-modal Inquiry PRX: http://www.prx.org/ NPR: http://www.npr.org/ Radio Lab: http://www.radiolab.org/ Re: sound: http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/library This American Life: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/ Ideas: http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/ The Next Big Thing: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/tnbt/2006/jan/ Fresh Air: http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/ Snap Judgment: http://www.snapjudgment.org/ I am so excited to see how the students' understandings of their topics--understandings that have been building of the course of the whole school year--will grow and develo...

Learning with Significance

What is Learning of Significance? By helping students to make their own connections and understandings, these awesome teachers of significance have helped students to find meanings that will resonate with them. How to do it? connect with real issues right-size the learning task (and then make it even more challenging) problematize texts use multimodal prompts and texts show students how experts make meaning What does it look like? English -- a student researchers the war in Afghanistan with a partner and presents his findings about the Soviet invasion, the Taliban, and the U.S. involvement following 9/11. These same students connect this powerful new knowledge to The Kite Runner . In turn, the complex events leading up to and following 9/11 help focus the reading of the novel and vice versa ; as meanings become connected, webs of understanding reinforce significant knowledge. Science -- a teacher challenges his students to read a textbook excerpt describing...

Classroom Controversy

Constructive Controversy I want to draw my students into a supportive classroom environment that normalizes struggle and controversy. Argument does not have to be a winner-take-call debate or (on the other extreme) a series of head nods to a commonly agreed-upon platitude. Democracy takes more work than that. The empathy and rationality of rich humanism requires greater depth and search, as well. Even after 21 years of teaching, I am still learning so much about how to set the stage for respectful and engaged discussion. What about you? Praise, Pressure, and Performance This short unit focuses on setting the norms of inquiry and engagement that will lead to constructive controversy. Please check out any of the lessons, or the whole unit! I taught this in the 2013-14 school year in grade 9, but it could easily run in grades 8-11. This topic is so compelling, I think, because it will help students...

Teachers of Significance

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