Author, Scott Nailor
Tag Archives: language arts websites
Flipping your Classroom
I have been hearing a lot lately about the “flipped” classroom. If you haven’t heard about it yet, Holly Epstein Ojalvo and Shannon Doyne of the New York Times provide a succinct definition: “an ‘inverted’ teaching structure in which instructional content is delivered outside class, and engagement with the content – skill development and practice, projects and the like – is done in class, under teacher guidance and in collaboration with peers.” It all started when a couple of teachers started recording their lectures and posting them as Power Points on the net for students who were absent. And that is the essence of it really. You provide content for the students to access outside the classroom and structured exploratory activities and lessons based on that content in the classroom. This “flips” the teacher’s role from class lecturer (information provider) to class guide through activities based on the pre-assigned content. … Continue reading
Posted in Common Core Standards, Flipped Classroom, Technology Integration
Tagged classroom technology, Common Core Standards, engage students, flip classroom, flipped classroom, flipped lesson plans, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, Language Arts Lesson Plans, language arts websites, middle school lesson plans, online english, shakespeare, technology integration, Technology lesson plans
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BBC’s ‘State of Debate’ Game Worth Playing in the Classroom
For a while I have been hesitant to write about games in education. I think it’s the old-school teacher in me. Or, maybe it’s the stigma attached to electronic games in school based on the common assumption that they present distractions from and not opportunities for meaningful learning. But recent research suggests otherwise. In fact, a 2009 MIT study suggests well-designed educational games are valuable tools for developing skills in communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and even innovation. Unfortunately, many educational games only present rote learning—repetition of addition and subtraction, for example. But some games are designed to encourage and support critical thinking. The BBC’s “State of Debate” is such a game. It is very well-designed, it is interactive, and it encourages students to think critically about persuasive arguments. Even hardened critics among us will see this one is a game worth playing in school. In the classroom In “State of Debate,” students are … Continue reading
Take “The Brainstormer” for a Spin
A small group of aspiring authors from among my students just started an after-school creative writers’ club. They meet bi-weekly to share ideas, to collaborate, and to encourage each other to write. So the gathering of this new group got me wondering…what kind of cool resources are online for students interested in creative writing? After a little digging around I found a fun application called “The Brainstormer” created by graphic artist and illustrator Andrew Bosley. The Brainstormer, a simple but innovative tool, is comprised of a set of three wheels that you spin virtually by clicking the center for random ideas about things like conflict, setting, and character to spark the imagination. You can also select ideas manually by moving each wheel to a desired topic. This application is also available through the iTunes App Store for $1.99 so students can download it to their iPhones, iPods, and iPads. This … Continue reading
Use Online Newspapers to Meet Common Core Standards
Common Core Standards, Informational Texts, Key Ideas and Details: 2. Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text Online editions of many local, national, and world newspapers are a great place to find resources for teaching students to analyze informational texts for central ideas and how they are shaped. In fact, many newspapers now dedicate an entire section to providing teachers with ways to use the news in the classroom and some even offer alignment to standards. A quick Google search will help you find your local newspaper’s NEI (newspapers in education) section. If your local paper doesn’t have a specific focus for lesson planning, many of the most popular national newspapers do. Among them, The New York Times has an impressive collection of … Continue reading
Teach Students to Use the Power of Images with Worlde, Creatly, and Statworld
The other day a student stood in the middle of my classroom holding his cellphone at arm’s length, pointing it at the white board. I was about to tell him to put it away, but then I realized what he was doing and it gave me pause to think…he was “taking notes” by snapping a digital picture of what I had written on the board. So I wondered, what if I asked him to use those images in his next essay? Isn’t this a way to integrate technology into the language arts curriculum—taking digital pictures and using them with text? But really, when is the last time you asked your students to include images in their essays? Probably never, right? When students include pictures, it’s usually to adorn the cover of the essay beneath one of those annoying plastic report covers. But consider how many images the average student encounters … Continue reading
Posted in Informational Texts, Lesson Plans, Reading, Technology Integration, Writing
Tagged classroom technology, digital text, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, language arts, Language Arts Lesson Plans, language arts websites, technology integration, Technology lesson plans
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Bring Shakespeare to Old Time Radio–Common Core Standard 9
Most students are probably not aware that copyright protection laws are relatively new, so they might be surprised to learn just how many famous authors like Shakespeare borrowed and adapted others’ ideas. They should already know (I hope) that Stephanie Meyer’s books aren’t entirely original vampire stories, but they probably don’t know how many earlier “versions” of Romeo and Juliet you can find. Common Core Standard 9. Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare). Although there are many authors who treat themes and topics from earlier works in their own, Shakespeare is one of the easiest to approach with students simply because one can find more information online about him than nearly any other author. If you are lucky … Continue reading
Posted in Audio, Classical Literature, Common Core Standards, Drama, Lesson Plans, Shakespeare, Technology Integration, World Literature
Tagged classroom technology, Common Core Standards, digital text, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, language arts websites, middle school lesson plans, romeo and juliet, shakespeare, technology integration
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Blending Art, Literature, and Problem Solving at the J. Paul Getty Museum
Common Core Standard 7 for Reading presents teachers with many possibilities for mixing all kinds of art forms with literature. Music, photography, painting, sculpture, and many other media are easily brought into the classroom today because of the internet…the important thing is to use these resources heuristically. 7. Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus). Teaching students to analyze subjects or scenes in comparative forms gives us an opportunity to explore with them the traditions of storytelling—the many and various ways stories can be told and have been told throughout history. Poetry, short stories, plays, and even novels and epic tales have important connections to art and present new, thoughtful ways to analyze and evaluate themes. To start, you … Continue reading
Posted in Classical Literature, Common Core Standards, Lesson Plans, Reading, Writing
Tagged classroom technology, Common Core Standards, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, Language Arts Lesson Plans, language arts websites, online english, technology integration, Technology lesson plans
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Online Resources for Analyzing Character
This week we look at the last of three standards under “Key Ideas and Details” in the “Reading” section of the Common Core: Standard 3: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme. For students to understand how a character develops over the course of a text and how his or her interactions impact plot and theme, they first need to know where to begin. A good place to start is to help them get into the mind of the character. The idea is to help students take a character and, to borrow a quote from Atticus Finch, “climb into his skin and walk around in it.” The internet offers many ways to facilitate this creatively with technology. Here are a few ideas and sites that might work … Continue reading
Posted in Common Core Standards, Lesson Plans, Reading, Writing
Tagged Common Core Standards, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, Language Arts Lesson Plans, language arts websites, online english, online lesson plans, technology integration, Technology lesson plans
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Writing about Theme with iWrite
Continuing with our exploration of the Common Core, this week I’ve discovered a useful website for the second standard under “Key Ideas and Details.” Standard 2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. This standard is a broad one but also a very important one as it focuses on analysis which is among those higher order thinking skills so important to students becoming independent learners. It is unlikely you could (or should) cover this standard with one lesson. Students need multiple opportunities to learn about and meet this standard. iwrite from Great Source (Haughton, Mifflin, Harcourt) offers a lot of useful material online for both teachers and students exploring not only central ideas with writing but also … Continue reading
Posted in Common Core Standards, Lesson Plans, Writing
Tagged classroom technology, Common Core Standards, digital text, high school, high school english, High School Lesson Plans, interactive lesson, language arts, Language Arts Lesson Plans, language arts websites, lesson plans, online english, online high school, online lesson plans, online writing, technology integration
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Animoto: Another Great Tool for Adding Music and Video to Your Lit Plans
Summer has finally arrived here in Maine. I hope many of you, like me, have finished up the school year and can now take some time to recuperate. Looking forward to a productive summer, I am planning a series of blog posts focusing on the Common Core State Standards Initiative. My plan is to post regular articles with a simple goal: each blog post will take one specific CCSS outcome and demonstrate a resource and/or method for utilizing technology to meet that standard. Essentially, I envision a CCSS curriculum map for Language Arts, based completely on technology integration. I’m hoping to begin this series the first or second week of July. Meanwhile, I have found a website I think will be fun to use with students in the fall…Animoto. Animoto is a basic online tool that allows you to create “video slideshows” or montages with music and text. The basic … Continue reading
Posted in Audio, Lesson Plans, Presenting, Reading, Video
Tagged classroom technology, Common Core Standards, Edgar Allan Poe, engage students, high school, High School Lesson Plans, language arts websites, middle school lesson plans, online english, online lesson plans, technology integration
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