Twice a year, we formally assess students writing. I hand out a prompt and grading rubric about one week before the date of the assessment in order to give the students time to organize their thoughts in advance of the prompt. They then have two class periods to write their essay. It allows us to create a portfolio of writing samples from about second grade on, and the assignment also gives them some practice writing timed essays in class. Usually, the prompts are expository, based on the literature we have been reading in class the mid-year assessment was about Great Expectations in the seventh grade and A Tale of Two Cities in the eighth but in the spring, when the flowers are blooming, birds are singing, and attention spans are short, I opt for a more creative topic.
This was the prompt I handed out last week:
Crossroads Academy’s core virtues curriculum is a central part of your education. Just as your education in math, literature and science informs your academic development, your education in the four core virtues informs your moral and social development. For your essay, please choose one of the virtues – justice, temperance, fortitude, or prudence – and write about a moment, experience, or event in your life when you relied on your education in the core virtues to guide you.
I love grading these essays. The stud
Read more…
RIVERSIDE, Calif. – UC Riverside authors will speak in Redlands and Riverside this week at events sponsored by the Inlandia Institute.
The institute will celebrate the launch of “New California Writing 2011,” a collection of thought-provoking articles, fiction and poetry about California, with readings by contributors on Tuesday, Oct. 4, and Wednesday, Oct. 5. The anthology was published by Heyday in April.
Among the speakers will be Susan Straight, professor of creative writing at UC Riverside and author of the award-winning “Highwire Moon” and “A Million Nightingales”; and Rebecca K. O’Connor, a UCR alumna and author of “Lift” and “Falcon’s Return.”
The Oct. 4 event begins at 7 p.m. at the San Bernardino County Museum, 2024 Orange Tree Lane, Redlands. On Oct. 5, the book launch begins at 6:30 p.m. at UC Riverside’s Culver Center for the Arts, 3834 Main St. in downtown Riverside.
Eliud Martinez, UCR professor of creative writing emeritus, will be the featured speaker at a public literary event on Thursday, Oct. 6, at 7 p.m. in the Downtown Riverside Public Library, 3581 Mission Inn Ave.
For the second consecutive year, state Superintendent Tony Evers has used his bully pulpit at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to imply that the Badger State is throwing more money at a voucher program that is inferior to a traditional school system which is receiving less. But a closer inspection of Mr. Evers’s gamesmanship reveals the tricks he employs to attack a program he once called “morally wrong.”
Just like last year, Evers distributed a press release this week asserting that students in the Milwaukee and Racine voucher programs scored no better, and in some cases worse, than district students on Wisconsin’s standardized test. We all know that such comparisons are problematic because of “selection bias” since nobody can be sure whether kids using vouchers and those using the public schools differ in important ways. (The former might, for example, have fled bad districts precisely because they were doing poorly there.)
Especially galling was Evers’s use of the Racine data.
His press release claims that far more district students in that city scored at grade level or better in reading and math than did Racine students who chose the private school voucher, barely half of whom were rated proficient in either subject.
But what the superintendent failed to note was that voucher recipients had been in their chosen private schools for only two months before taking the test. In other words
Read more…
Twenty-nine students from Hamilton County Schools joined approximately 400 of their high school peers in Nashville on March 9 to express their views on public education in Tennessee at the Tennessee School Boards Association (TSBA) Student Congress on Policies in Education (SCOPE). The event took place on the Avon Williams Campus of Tennessee State University. This year’s event kicked-off with an anti-bullying performance by the harmonic vocal group, The Standards. The Standards have been hailed as one of the most sought after harmony vocal groups of today, and have enjoyed success worldwide for their unique approach to vocal entertainment. Even with a demanding schedule, The Standards still find time to offer advice to the youth across America through their “Music with a Message” program.
Oran Dixson, 2012 SCOPE President from East Ridge High School, presided over the conference. A picture of student participants from Hamilton County Schools is attached.
Now in its 30th year, SCOPE is designed to give students a voice where public education issues are concerned and to involve young people in finding solutions to the topics that are discussed. Atten
Read more…
Teacher morale is down and critical reading scores on the SAT are at their lowest point in 40 years, but no worries; Khan Academy and the iPad are here, and they are going to save American education. That salvation, in all its Chinese hand-buffed resolutionary glory, is as close as the nearest Apple store.
I hate to harsh the media buzz, but up here in my neck of the New Hampshire woods, there are a few obstacles between my students and this shiny vision of American education.
The internet, for one.
I teach in the Upper Valley, a gorgeous swath of New Hampshire and Vermont along the Connecticut River. Its the land of Dartmouth College, Newsweeks hottest college for the tech-savvy, and yet even here, the 21st century vision of connected learning remains more of a promise than a reality. That vision, shaped by smart phone-tapping technology boosters, is appealing, but they seem to forget that many people in America dont have access to the information super highway. Technology may be the road to the future, but as they say in these parts, you cant get there from here.
Id like to fill these technology visionaries in on my technology reality.
I teach English, Latin, and writing, and despite the wealth of online educational resources, I cant assign anything that relies on access the internet. It wo
Read more…