Teacher resources and professional development across the curriculum

Teacher professional development and classroom resources across the curriculum

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Learner Log

A place to explore teaching and learning

Develop Your Students’ Love For Reading

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May is Get Caught Reading Month.  Looking for inspiration for readers young and older? The following Annenberg Learner resources will get you started.

Observe 7th-grade teacher Carol O’Donnell teach her students to make connections between what they read and their own lives. Students examine the social and cultural experiences of the characters, and reflect on their own definitions and experiences of identity in Teaching Multicultural Literature, workshop 1, “Engagement and Dialogue.”

American Passages places literary movements and authors within the context of history and culture. Students study an expanded view of American literary movements, reading a diversity of voices and tracing the continuity among them.

Glimpse the appeal and power of great literature as celebrities, academics, and people who just love to read talk about their fascination with The Epic of Gilgamesh, Popol Vuh, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and more in Invitation to World Literature.

ELL BOSTON4Watch authors Katherine Paterson, Leslie Marmon Silko, and J.K. Rowling discuss literary works that inspired their own writing in the Author Notes, Part III of In Search of the Novel. Scroll to the bottom of this page and click on the VoD.

More resources for Get Caught Reading Month:

Teaching Multicultural Literature: A Workshop for the Middle Grades

The Expanding Canon: Teaching Multicultural Literature in High School

Voices & Visions

“Students reading” image copyright: yanlev / 123RF Stock Photo

Recognizing Women’s Contributions Across the Curriculum

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By David Lopez-Wade (guest contributor)

Happy Women’s History Month! This year, we are celebrating women committed to improving our world through promoting peace and using tactics of nonviolence. Integrate Women’s History Month into your classroom with the following resources, regardless of whether you teach history or not.

Civics

With the passage of the 19th amendment, women gained the right to vote (even though many women of color had to continue to fight for suffrage for themselves). Democracy in America, program 2, “The Constitution: Fixed or Flexible,” examines the search for balance between the original Constitution and the need to interpret and adjust it to meet the needs of changing times. The unit includes useful questions on the history of women’s suffrage and what it takes to make changes to the constitution.

Art

Performance art has been used to evoke emotions and bring up perspectives that traditional art cannot. Read about feminist performance artists Karen Finley and Laurie Anderson in American Passages, unit 6, “Search for Identity.” 

History

After the protests of the 60’s, on the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment and standing on the shoulders of their foresisters Ida B. Wells, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, women peacefully marched down to the mayor’s office of St. Louis, carrying signs supporting such causes as legalized abortions, children’s day care centers, and passage of an equal rights amendment by Congress. Bring this topic to life in your classroom with this photo from Essential Lens: Analyzing Photographs Across the Curriculum.

Math

Women are making history all the time in STEAM. In our Reading and Writing in the Disciplines series, we look at epidemiologist Traci Bethea who uses statistics to trace the health conditions of African Americans. She translates her data into powerful words as she advocates for health care reform. Using her knowledge of statistics, she is making history by working with public health officials to create a positive impact on the lives of African American women.

Celebrate Women’s History Month by sharing our blog post with your students and fellow educators!

Digital Learning Day (Feb 28)

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Physics interactiveToday is Digital Learning Day! Below are three ways Annenberg Learner and our partner, Journey North, can help you incorporate technology into your lessons.

1. Browse our interactives page for online activities that students can use to improve spelling, control the U.S. debt, build a roller coaster, and create an ecosystem. You can search by subject area and grade level. Many of the interactives include online printable assessments. Interactives make great classroom lab activities, as well as great self-paced homework assignments.

2. Considering flipping your classroom? Learner.org streams content videos in all subject areas. Assign videos or parts of videos as homework to prepare for cooperative learning projects or discussion activities in the classroom. Since the videos are streamed free, students can watch and rewatch them at their own pace, take notes, and jot down questions they have. Search available programs here.

3. The Journey North citizen science program, now run from UW-Madison Arboretum, and Explore.org teamed up to present live cams of animals around the world. Live cams capture moments in time from places around the globe. Bring the outside world into the classroom. Explore how sunlight drives seasonal change and affects all living things. The live cam experience is a springboard to research and discovery. How do animals in different parts of the world respond to seasonal change? Viewing guides with classroom activities are available for each cam.

 







6 Ways to Engage Students in Their Communities

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As educators, we know it’s important to engage students by providing real-world applications of classroom content. Taking this a step further, it’s possible to develop students’ sense of agency by providing opportunities for them to learn about the different ways people contribute to communities and begin to identify and address issues within their own communities, big and small. Keep reading for lessons from a variety of subject areas and grade levels.

1. Tell Community Stories Through Podcasts (high/language arts/social studies)

In Reading & Writing in the Disciplines, “Writing for New Media,” students create podcasts about issues and stories from their school community while learning effective journalistic practice. They develop interview, research, writing, and technological skills.

2. Beautify an Empty School Space (high/arts/social studies)

One activity in The Art of Teaching the Arts, “Making the Most of Community Resources,” shows a visual art teacher and her students working with community members to create a sculpture garden in an empty courtyard at their school.

3. Examine Effectiveness of Waste Collection  (high/science/art/math)

In the “Garbage: The Science and Problem of What We Throw Away” activity from Essential Lens, students collect data from photographic evidence of community waste and compare this data with EPA standards for reducing and recycling discarded materials.

4. Protect the Community From HIV and Address Social Prejudices  (high/middle/science)

As part of a longer unit on HIV and social justice, students teach their peers about the epidemic and examine claims made in articles about the disease. Reading & Writing in the Disciplines, “Peer Teaching,” also describes the class activities before and after the lesson in the video.

5. Prepare a School Improvement Budget (elementary/social studies/math)

Students learn about cooperation, community participation, budget, and planning when their teacher involves them in a project to remodel their school. The district superintendent meets with students to answer questions. This lesson is from Social Studies in Action, “Caring for the Community.”

6. Identify Civil Servants in Our Communities (elementary/world languages)

Elementary Arabic students identify civil servants and their roles in their communities while practicing the alphabet and language in Teaching Foreign Languages Library, “Arabic: People Who Help Us.” The lesson is subtitled and adaptable to other language classrooms.

Image Copyright: Cienpies Design







You Don’t Have to Be an Adult to Write a Novel

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notebook stack with coffeeWho says writing novels is just for the adults? November is National Novel Writing Month, when the nonprofit NaNoWriMo challenges adults and children around the world to channel their inner novelist to write that first draft by the end of the month. Students and educators may sign up through NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program. Online resources allow students to keep track of their word count and provide prompts and tips to keep creative juices flowing.

Add the following Annenberg Learner programs to your list of novel-writing resources:

Where do novels come from? After watching workshop 4 of In Search of the Novel, you will be equipped to create a lesson plan that helps students develop their own stories by connecting imagination, experience, and reflection.

It’s easy to think that professional writers just sit down and write a perfect piece on their first attempt. So why does it feel so hard when we (and our students) try to get something, anything, down on paper? One writing strategy is imitation. In workshop 7 of Developing Writers, students read works by different professional writers and then write by imitating the voices of those authors. This imitation helps students develop their own voice by building their confidence.

Younger students learn about the crucial elements that make up a story using the fairytale Cinderella in an online interactive. Students explore the function of characters, conflict, and resolution as they break apart this well-known childhood story.

Image: bluelela / 123RF Stock Photo