Topic: Solving Math Problems with the DRA

10-second review: What are some methods for solving math problems? Drawing diagrams; working backward; simplifying the problem.

Source: G Polya, How to Solve It, Princeton, NJ: Princeton U. Press, 1973. In M Munakata. Mathematics Teacher (February 2005), 387. Publication of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).

Comment: Math teachers were always telling me (K-12 language arts supervisor) that they and their students do not read math textbooks. They only use them as a source of problems. The directed reading assignment with reading problems in math might be something like this: background information on the nature of the problem; pre-teach unfamiliar vocabulary, usually words that mean something different in math from general usage; establish purpose (What are you looking for?) and then use the methods listed above to help solve the problem. Students might then create their own problems like the one they just solved. Just a thought! RayS.

Topic: Intelligence

K-12

10-second review: What are some different kinds of intelligence? Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple types of intelligence: “ The basic claim is that intelligence is not a single measurable entity but that we all possess eight different kinds of intelligence and use them in different proportions.”

Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals.

Logical-mathematical intelligence. It entails the ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think logically.

Musical intelligence involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns.

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. [Hard for me to visualize this intelligence in action. Sports? RayS.]

Spatial intelligence involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas.

Interpersonal intelligence is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people.

Intrapersonal intelligence entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations. It involves having an effective working model of ourselves, and to be able to use such information to regulate our lives.

Source: A. Reichert. Teaching English in Two-Year Colleges. (December 2004), 166. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Comment: Makes sense to me, although the ways in which teachers have tried to make use of this theory have resulted in chaos and frazzled teachers. Still very much worth thinking about. I can remember the little teenager in my class who showed no capacity for English or expressed any personality, but who was actually a country singing star. I began to realize how little I understood the individual personalities of my students when I saw her perform for the first time. She was a completely different personality from the way she appeared to be in my class. I suppose she had musical and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences. RayS.

Topic: Anti-Drug Education

10-second review: What’s wrong with programs designed to discourage teens from taking drugs? Teens say that drugs and alcohol are everywhere, and drug education efforts, for the most part, are a joke. A ninth-grader said, “People do their homework while the health teachers are telling you about the dangers of drugs and the assemblies are going on.”

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer (September 13, 1995), A1/A9.

Comment: No comment. RayS.

Topic: Criticism of American Education

10-second review: What are some criticisms of American education? Frank J. O’Rourke, a writer from New Jersey, says that sex education courses have not produced more responsible sexual behavior among teenagers. He says one reason is that educators adopt programs before testing whether they will work. He concludes that dropping sex-ed would ‘free teachers to spend their time teaching grammar and math and we might get students graduating from high school who can write a sentence and figure an interest rate. Now they seem to know more about condoms than they do conjunctions.' ”

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer. (September 17, 1995), E5.

Comment: Rhetoric over truth. RayS.

Topic: Community in the Classroom

Secondary School Topic

10-second review: What is meant by a “community” in the classroom? “I understood community as interdependent, with each member doing whatever she could to help other members achieve success.”

Source: T Perry. English Journal (January 2005), 89. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: It seems that the author, in making a class a community, is ignoring the strong drive for competition that is a part of American communities and capitalist culture. I’m just being crabby. You learn to work together and how to disagree and cooperate. If you have ever had the experience of the entire class’s working together as a community on a problem or project, you will never forget it. It is a thrilling moment in teaching. RayS.

Topic: Parents

Elementary School

10-second review: Prepare parents to use specific activities with their children. Introduce, model and briefly practice with them. Then they use at home. Parents discuss what happened.

Source: JR Paratore and G Jordan. Reading Teacher (April 1978), 694-696. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: Excellent idea. Most parents know that they should read to and with their children. What about writing? Parents of young children could start with language experience. Child dictates story to parent who records it and child tries to read back what was written. RayS.

Topic: Tutoring

10-second review: Planning sessions: Need assessment (Why are paraprofessionals needed?); strategy, rationale, brief research review and application of the research. Paraprofessionals should discuss what happened after using the strategies with children. Examples of strategies: echo reading, choral reading, preview, repeated readings, phrased readings, sorting of various kinds; summarizing, asking questions, inferring, guided discussion.

Source: C Cobb. Reading Teacher (April 2007), 186-188. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: Examples of these strategies can be found on the Internet. RayS.

Topic: Reading and Visualization

10-second review: “Can you picture it?” Key to visualization.

Source: K Onofrey and JL Theurea. Reading Teacher. (April 2007), 681-684. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: One method for helping students improve comprehension through visualization is to have students express what they see when they read—the scenes, the dialogue, the conflict, etc. RayS.

Topic: Reading vs. Phonics

10-second review: Emphasis on phonics today leads to students’ becoming word callers rather than comprehenders. Antidotes to word calling are thoughtful questions, not the ready—made, easily identifiable rote questions, and another is to allow children to talk about what they have read. Assumes that what they have read is interesting.

Source: DD Massey. Reading Teacher (April 2007), 657-666. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: Phonics is an aid to word recognition, recognizing words the student already knows. An overemphasis on phonics could lead to word-calling, reading the words accurately, but not comprehending or understanding the meaning of the words. Good suggestion on how to help students comprehend the words they have read. RayS.

Topic: Reading Comprehension

10-second review: Meaning is developed by activities, explanations and reflections. In other words, meaning does not stop with decoding print.

Source: CH Ikpeze and FB Boyd. Reading Teacher (April 2007), 644-654. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: In other words, “reading” is not finished until the reader does something with the ideas read, including activities, explanations or reflections. Makes sense to me. RayS.

Secondary School Topic: The Foxfire Idea

10-second review: An article on the purpose and values of the Foxfire project in northern Georgia, an idea developed by Eliot Wigginton.

Title: “Foxfire in the City.” D Insel. English Journal (September 1975), 36-38. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary/Quotes: “The Foxfire Book is a book of local coloresque home remedies, directions for log cabin building, soap making, and meat preserving. It is a collection of anecdotes, hunting tales, and other homespun stories told to high school students by the elders of a community in northern Georgia. The students collected and prepared the information for publication almost entirely by themselves.” p. 36.

Eliot Wigginton, the creator of the project: “English, in its simplest definition, is communication—reaching out and touching people with words, sounds and visual images. In their work with photography (which must tell the story with as much impact and clarity as the words), text (which must be grammatically correct except in the use of pure dialect from tapes that they transcribed), lay-out, make-up, correspondence, art and cover design and selection of manuscripts from outside poets and writers—to say nothing of related skills such as fund raising, typing, retailing, advertising, and speaking at conferences and public meetings—they learn more about English than any other curriculum I could desire. Moreover, the curriculum has built-in motivations and immediate and tangible rewards.” p. 37.

The author tells how she used the same kind of project in South Boston.

Comment: Of course, much work has been done with WWII veterans, who are disappearing from our world rapidly. What’s left? The many retirement homes soon to be filled with baby-boomers. That could be the next “Foxfire” project. The emphasis might be on the professions and how they have changed over the years or the experience of women in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, or the changes in technology. And don’t forget the many small towns that still remain vibrant. Foxfire is a form of history that celebrates the individual life. The Foxfire idea is too good to let it disappear from the landscape. RayS.

Topic: Reading Defined

10-second review: “…making of meaning from print with an emphasis on phonemic awareness, vocabulary, phonics, fluency and comprehension."

Source: TL Williams. Reading Teacher (April 2007), 636-652. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: “Fluency” is a late-comer to the definition of reading. RayS

Topic: Teachers' Instructions

10-second review: Student when asked to decode the first letter of the word “made,” did so, but then said the first letter was “d.” He didn’t understand the word “first” in “first letter.” Don’t assume students of ESL (English as a second language) understand what are basic assumptions to you, the teacher.

Source: M Aukerman. Reading Teacher (April 2007), 626-634. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: I’m afraid I am as guilty as any other teacher in assuming that students understand all the words in my instructions. Have the students explain to you, the teacher, what you have asked them to do. Have students start their homework at the end of class to be sure that they understand what you have asked them to do. RayS.

Topic: Poetry

10-second review: Students select and record lines of poetry because they are memorable.

Source: I Wendt. Classroom Notes Plus (April 2007), 1-12. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: It’s never too early to get students in the habit of saving bits of language that are memorable to them. RayS.

Topic: Teaching

10-second review: What is teaching all about? “It’s about loving to teach and loving to learn.”

Source: L J Rodriguez. English Journal (January 2005), 45. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: I sometimes think that English teachers forget the “continuing-to-learn” part of teaching. Not only can they learn from their students by engaging in action research (research in the classroom) but they can continue to learn by reading literature and by reading professional journals. That’s why I am writing this blog and others (“Books and Ideas” and “10-second Literature,” “English Updates,” “English Education Archives,” and “Teaching English, How To….”). RayS.

Topic: The Arts in the Curriculum

10-second review: How would you characterize a world without art, music and literature? When the teacher raised the issue of dropping art and music from the curriculum because of budgetary reasons, one student said that would be OK, he could enjoy them on his own, he didn’t need classes in art and music. Students debated with him. The question came up, “What would the world be like without art, music and literature?”

The teacher proceeded to take down all of the posters in the room, dropping them on the floor, leaving the classroom bare. The students recognized his point: “…you are showing us what the world would be like without music, art and writing. It would be a hospital.” The author is dramatizing the art of the teachable moment.”

Source: KF Carter. English Journal (January 2005), 15-16.A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: No comment. RayS.

Topic: Students

10-second review: In what way should students never be identified? “A child should never be known by a number or a test score….”

Source: K Bomer. Language Arts (January 2005), 168-176. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: Which is about what happens with the SAT. Don’t have a score of 1100? Then you can’t get into engineering at Penn State. “We’re sorry, but we only take the most intelligent students at Villanova University.” [Actual letter to a student from the Dean of Engineering at Villanova University.] Next number, please? RayS.

Topic: Teaching

10-second review: What are the roles that teachers must play with their students? “Instead of being a coach, a trusted elder, who would guide my young students into the world of reading, I became their examiner and their judge.”

Source: K Bomer. Language Arts (January 2005), 171. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: The fact is, teachers need to be both “coach” and judge. Can’t get around it. RayS.

Topic: Teaching

10-second review: How help students summarize the class at the end of each period? Creates “exit slips.” With 10 minutes before the end of class asks students to respond to a prompt related to the objective for the class period. Students turn their “exit slips” in to the teacher as they exit the classroom.

Source: B Wagner. Classroom Notes Plus (August 2005), 1-3. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: Good way to find quickly whether the students understood what you were teaching. RayS.

Topic: Roles of the Teacher

10-second review: What should teachers’ attitude be toward their students? “We are not gatekeepers; we are gate openers”

Source: Yagelski. English Education (July 2005), 268. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: And therein lies a problem. Unfortunately, teachers are BOTH gate openers, inspiring students to learn, AND gate keepers, evaluators. I don’t think teachers see themselves that way. They tend to be EITHER gate openers OR gate keepers. RayS.

K-12 Topic: How Students Learn

10-second review: How do students learn best? “Students learn best when they find their own experience useful to their learning.”

“Students learn best when they feel confident and when they find a reason to learn.”

“Students learn best when they discover the relationship between personal experience and public knowledge.”

Source: H Roskelly. English Education (July 2005), p. 289. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

Comment: Yes! Students learn best when they know the answer to the question, “What’s in it for me?” And use their own experience to help them learn. RayS.

K-12 Topic: Teaching

10-second review: How can teachers reflect on their teaching? Encourage teachers to write in a journal about, take notes on and ask themselves questions about their own learning experiences and teaching practices.

Source: G Brent. English Education (July 2005), 300. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: Good idea. I didn’t do it. And I regret it. I would have been a much better teacher if I had spent time writing and reflecting on my learning experiences and teaching practices. PLEASE! Don’t do as I did. RayS.