Room 2209

When it comes to evaluating students at the beginning of the year, I find that analysis is one of those topics that get swept under the rug. We assume that by high school, students have already learned these skills, and yet we find out, year after year, that that is not the case for some of them. This lesson I created adresses some of those issues. Analysis Overview PreTest, Overview, Close Read, Annotations Things You Will Need to Teach This Lesson: ·        Instructions ·        Analysis Overview PowerPoint ·        Analysis PreTest Handout (Included in PDF file) ·        Analysis PreTest Answer Key (Included in PDF file) ·        The Story of an Hour Handout (Included in PDF file) ·        The Story of an Hour Answer Key (Included in PDF file) Before the Lesson: ·        Please review the lesson plan and PowerPoint.  Delete anything that isn’t applicable to you.  Add things that are.  Make this lesson your own. ·        Print the student handouts for each student. Lesson: Activity

In Texas we have this handy dandy standard: (11)  Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Procedural Texts. Students understand how to glean and use information in procedural texts and documents. Students are expected to: (A)  evaluate text for the clarity of its graphics and its visual appeal; and (B)  synthesize information from multiple graphical sources to draw conclusions about the ideas presented (e.g., maps, charts, schematics). and it has been left so open-ended that it be interpreted any number of ways.  I know that in class we're always evaluating images and maps.  They will come up eventually, so I will not have to worry about hitting the standard that way.  But I don't think I'll have another opportunity to go over an infographic. And even if I do, infographics are fun. So what better way to kill two birds with one stone: handle the standard while also gauging what the kids know and where I need to focus when it comes to essay writing. I lov

The first week we have kids is always the hardest for me.  I’m nervous and anticipatory and all the things that you think would come along with meeting 150 new people all at one time.  That’s a crazy thought.  And it kind of puts things into perspective about why I feel the anxiety that I do. So anywho… Monday was Freshman Orientation, so since I was moved back up again to sophomores I didn’t have kids in my class.  It rained Monday, and I put the finishing touches on my classroom to the sound of it pelting the metal roof and fearing that I wouldn’t be able to get out of the parking lot. TUESDAY We spent a good two hours in Advisory so every class didn’t meet. But for periods 3-9, I had something planned as an introduction that I had never done before. Play- doh! I read  Teach Like a Pirate  by Dave Burgess over the summer and it gave me some serious renewed hope.  I’m going to write a review soon.  But he says that on the first day of school he has the kids play with