LibGuides: Novel Ideas: February 2018

Announcements

February can be a tough month to slog through. Between the weather, testing, super duper moons, and the daily grind it can be easy to succumb to the negative. So many things may feel out of our control. But there are small things we can do to regain our footing - one day at a time. This is the perfect time of year to begin letting go of things that are weighing us down. "Some believe holding on is a sign of great strength. Yet, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it." Ann Landers is one smart lady, and not just about etiquette. Sometimes holding on can do more damage than letting go. What are you hanging on to, instructionally or personally, that it might be time to let go of? Something on which to ruminate. If you're not quite there but still looking for a pick-me-up? Try the 30-Day Happy Teacher Challenge. Each day tackle one thing to improve the world around you and make yourself feel good in the process.

ACT Resources

Curriculum and Practice Resources for ACT

1) ACT College and Career Readiness Standards and Benchmarks

ACT College & Career Ready Standards as PDF
English and Writing Curriculum Review Worksheets
Ideas for Progress

2) Preparing for the ACT

Full-Length Practice Tests, Including a Writing Test
Strategies to Prepare for the Tests
What to Expect on Test Day

3) ACT Online Prep (AOP - Juniors ONLY)

4) Open Ed Resources - ALL TEACHERS

OpenEd is the only K-12 educational resource library focused on aligning resources to learning objectives. Specifically, OpenEd uses machine learning to accurately align videos, games, and assessments to learning goals.

5) TestNav: the test delivery engine used by examinees to take the tests.

ACT Practice Tests
- Test NAV 8 Examinee Tutorial
- English, Reading, and Writing (times and untimed options)

Grants

The Ritonya-Buscher-Poehling Teacher Grant Program
The Ritonya-Buscher-Poehling Teacher Grant Program is offering grants for this fall and next spring. Grants may be submitted for funding from now until March 26, 2018. Requests for these grants should be no more than three pages. Also include material cost that will be needed for the project.

Teachers may apply on our website at www.rbpteachergrants.com.

Thank you!
Mary Lou Cavlovic, Board Member

Essay Contests

2018 Youth Writing Festival Sign-Up Form

Articles of Interest

The 30-Day Happy Teacher Challenge
Let’s face it; teaching can sometimes be a stressful gig. It is so easy to fall in the trap of focusing on the negative, but doing that only gives you more stress! There are so many little things that you can do to make your day a little bit happier. The 30 Day Happy Teacher Challenge is designed to help you connect with students, build staff rapport, organize your school life, keep yourself healthy, and help you focus on the positive! Ready to get started? Just download and print the challenge calendar by clicking the image below, put it on your desk at school, and do your best to accomplish each of the daily challenges.
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Should We Limit “Screen Time” in School?
A truism of school reform has long been the promise that technology, properly applied, will fuel dramatic improvement in teaching and learning. When tech-enabled schools or online learning programs haven’t delivered the hoped-for results, some have dismissed these shortcomings as implementation problems—or evidence that we haven’t yet deployed the right tools or the most effective strategies. But what if the challenge is bigger? What if today’s connected youth are not well served by spending school hours in front of screens?

In this forum, Daniel Scoggin, co-founder of the GreatHearts classical charter-school network, makes the case for school environments that put face-to-face dialogue and inquiry at the heart of learning. In contrast, Tom Vander Ark, CEO of the advisory firm Getting Smart, argues that K–12 education is poised to transform itself through wisely employed ed-tech.
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Hooks for Essays Are Overrated
Let’s Stop Asking Students to Start Every Essay With a “Hook”

Because writing an essay is hard enough.
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When Helping Hurts
Learning includes developing time-management skills, making choices, meeting deadlines, and coping with possible failure. This becomes harder when adults try to make students' lives too easy.
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Tech Tips

Teaching Books Lib Guide
TeachingBooks.net is an easy-to-use website that adds a multimedia dimension to the reading experiences of children's and young adult books. Our online database is developed and maintained to include thousands of resources about fiction and nonfiction books used in the K–12 environment, with every resource selected to encourage the integration of multimedia author and book materials into reading and library activities.

TeachingBooks.net is a portal to thousands of multimedia resources that can enhance and enliven your reading experiences. All resources in our collection are selected following our Collection Development Policy.
Primary Source: Educating Global Citizens
Do you teach about global cultures or world events in your classroom? If so, Primary Source created this podcast for you. In every compact episode, What Teachers Need to Know offers vital insight for understanding world cultures and current events so that you can facilitate deeper learning about the world with your students. Meet subject-matter experts and explore online resources that can help make a complex and dynamic world accessible for K-12 classrooms. Together, we can prepare the next generation to be informed and engaged global citizens.

Professional Development

New Novels: 9th Grade

Life of Pi by Yann Martel
ISBN: 9780156027328
Publication Date: 2003-05-01
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry; Robert Nemiroff (Introduction by)
ISBN: 9780679755333
Publication Date: 2004-11-29
When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever."--The New York Times.