Literacy Practice with the Ash Hi Chat

The school paper comes out today!  Kathy Saunders, AHS English teacher, has a great literacy tip to use with Ash Hi Chat:

• Divide the class into groups.
• Assign an article for each group.
• Groups read the article, identify the main idea, and then write an objective summary. (This addresses the Reading Information Standard and district literacy goals.)  Mrs. Saunders suggests having students create a poster or PowerPoint with this information.
• They report back to the class through presentations.

Mr. Dillion and his students work very hard to create a great resource for our students.

Vocabulary Tied to Text

Julie Pack, Director of Secondary Education for ACS, sent me the article below from The Forum's The Friday Report.  Please read it as it provides additional evidence for why vocabulary should not be taught in isolation.  I also added an infographic on 10 Principles for Effective Vocabulary Instruction from Eye on Education.
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NAEP Data on Vocabulary Shows Achievement Gap and Emphasizes Relation to Reading Comprehension

    

    The recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress report found further evidence to back research that vocabulary knowledge is important to text comprehension. In 2011, 4th and 8th graders performing above the 75th percentile in reading comprehension on NAEP had the highest average vocabulary scores. Likewise, those 4th and 8th graders scoring at or below the 25th percentile had the lowest average vocabulary scores.

    The NAEP report also revealed stark achievement gaps in vocabulary across racial and ethnic groups, as well as income levels. The achievement gap shown in vocabulary follows trends of the gap shown in other reported assessments of the NAEP. In 4th grade, there was a 31 point gap in vocabulary on a 0-500 scale between students who are eligible for free or reduced lunch and those who are not. In 8th grade, the gap was 28 points.

    Previous NAEP assessments have included some vocabulary questions, but the revised framework for reading set new criteria for developing vocabulary questions and increasing their number in order to allow the test to measure students' vocabulary performance and report it as a separate item.

    Words selected for inclusion in vocabulary test questions were specifically selected to be characteristic of written language (as opposed to everyday speech), used in a variety of content areas, generally familiar concepts, feelings, or action, and necessary for understanding part or all of the passage in which they appeared in the test. For fourth graders, words such as "barren," "Detected," and "eerie" were problematic, with fewer than half of students identifying their meaning correctly. "Urbane" showed the same results for 8th and 12th grade students. North Carolina students scored in line with the national average on vocabulary scores. (Erik Robelen, "NAEP Data on Vocabulary Achievement Show Same Gaps," EDUCATION WEEK, 11/6/12)

Article source:

The Forum:  Public School Forum of North Carolina.  The Friday Report.  15.23 (14 Dec 2012).  Online.

Persuasive E-Book

Laura Popp, 6th grade English/Language Arts teacher at South Asheboro Middle School, created a "Persuasive Writing e-Book" that students can use independently or in small groups to learn about persuasive writing, while going through the writing process.

The e-Book is interactive with lots of visuals, audio, graphics, and links to reputable sites.  It is a large PowerPoint file so I have created a Dropbox folder to house it.  Click on this link to get to the file:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/fnq0cthxsnxdekb/Persuasive%20Writing%20Ebook.pptx.  Then click on "Download" to access the PPT with all its links.

~Chandra and Laura Popp

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fnq0cthxsnxdekb/Persuasive%20Writing%20Ebook.pptx 

SAT Prep: Answers Imagined

Answers Imagined provides an entertaining and informative visual in addition to enhance SAT practice. The site also applies both math and English through passage-based reading, identifying sentence errors in writing, and multiple choice math problems.

Through an interactive model, students not only attempt the correct response to the question but are also provided a video walk-through that deduces, explains, and defends the correct response. It is a true think-aloud and a great support for all learners.

Answers Imagined is great for both independent practice and bell-ringers. You can locate the link here: http://sat.collegeboard.org/practice/answers-imagined#aiAnimTop or through College Board.

I have condensed the information into one resource at: http://apsaunders.wikispaces.com/SAT+Practice

Enjoy!

~Kathy Saunders, AHS English Teacher

(A note from Chandra:  Don't forget to check out the SAT Words Animoto videos that students in Kathy's AP English Literature class produces every week.  A link can be found in Monday Musings.)