LibGuides: Novel Ideas: April 2018

Announcements

In this month's newsletter you will find:

Events & activities to celebrate Shakespeare & National Poetry Month
Summer PD opportunities
District Professional Library
Curriculum Day Survey

Curriculum Day Survey

High School Curriculum Day - Thursday, August 9, 2018 - Central High School

Middle School Curriculum Day - Friday, August 10, 2018 - Beveridge Magnet Middle School

Yes, we are already thinking this far ahead! On Curriculum Day each year, we hope to provide you with meaningful and relevant professional development. To help us refine our practices and offerings to meet your needs, please take the brief, three-question survey below. We appreciate your feedback!

CURRICULUM DAY SURVEY

Happy Birthday to the Bard!

While the exact day of Shakespeare's birth is unknown, historians generally agree that it was around April 23, 1564. This coincides nicely with the fact that April is National Poetry Month. Read below for some creative ways to celebrate both Shakepeare and poetry in your classrooms this month.

National Poetry Month Celebration Ideas
National Poetry Month each April is the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K-12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators,
publishers, bloggers, and, of course, poets marking poetry’s important place in our culture and our lives.

Click on the link above to learn more and find out how you can celebrate in your classroom.

Hear ye, hear he! Monday April 23rd is Talk Like Shakespeare Day!

1. Instead of you, say thou or thee.

2. Rhymed couplets are all the rage.

3. Men are called Sirrah, ladies are Mistress, and your friends are all called Cousin.

4. Instead of cursing, try calling your tormentors jackanapes or canker-blossoms or poisonous bunch-back’d toads.

5. Don’t waste time saying it, just use the letter “t” (t’is, t’will, I’ll do’t).

To see more ideas, including videos, CLICK HERE.

To download a FREE poster, CLICK HERE.

"TALK LIKE DAY" PARTICIPANTS IN OMAHA & BELLEVUE

Aksarben Cinema, special FREE small popcorn.
Long Dog Fat Cat (Village Point & 90th Center) FREE gift and treat for our best friends.
Starbucks (72nd & Dodge, 114th & Dodge) FREE tall coffee Noon - 2 PM / both locations.

JOIN NEBRASKA SHAKESPEARE AT SWARTZ'S DELI: SONNET READING from 2 - 3 PM
Swartz's Delicatessen & Bagels, Countryside Village, 87th & Pacific
Sarah Carlson-Brown, NS Director of Education, will read some beautiful sonnets. You are also encouraged to bring and read a favorite sonnet.

Try your hand at writing like Shakespeare!

Nebraska Shakespeare, is accepting submissions for its 21st Annual Anne Dittrick Sonnet Writing Contest.

There is no entry fee for participants. Winners receive cash prize or free tuition to Camp Shakespeare as well as reserved seating for Shakespeare On The Green!

Click HERE for more information.

5 Ways to Celebrate Poetry
During National Poetry Month and all year long, try these fun exercises with students of all ages to encourage a love of poetry.

Articles of Interest

Frickin' Packets
Packets, to be clear, are simply a bunch of worksheets stapled together. They could contain a lot of powersheets, but when a student refers to them as frickin’ packets, it’s highly likely that they are mostly made up of busysheets.
In my experience, when people criticize worksheets, they are referring to a specific type of worksheet, what I will call a busysheet, the kind where students are either doing work that’s fairly low-level recall stuff. Some worksheets are clearly nothing but busysheets, while others, like note-taking sheets or data collection tools, directly support student learning; I’ll call these powersheets. I think a lot of worksheets fall somewhere between the two. Because there is such a range, the only person who can really make the call is you.
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Pin the Quote to the Literary Device
"Teaching literary analysis is difficult and I have developed a way to make it tangible and concrete. It can be scaffolded to any level of secondary ELA, and I’ll walk you through the process.

My students are seniors and they are capable of recognizing literary devices. They can spot conflict. They can come up with a word to describe the tone. They can sometimes even see the symbols and juxtapositions on their own. But they often stop there. They put on the brakes once they have identified the device. They often fail to take the next step, which is the most crucial, and that is to determine how the devices influence meaning.

Analysis is the practice of looking closely at the parts to see how they affect the whole. So when I ask my students to do literary analysis, I want them to see how meaning is made. It’s like biology class. Just as cells are the building blocks of life, literary devices are the building blocks of meaning. They give a text life and function. In my class we are constantly putting texts under the microscope, examining them at the cellular level to see what gives them life."

Click the link above to read the full article.
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The 6 Principles for Exemplary Teaching of English Learners
TESOL International Association, the organization for teachers who specialize in working with English-language learners, has released a set of six principles designed to improve the teaching and learning of English around the globe.
The principles, which the organization developed for use in classrooms with children or adults, are:
1) Know your learners.
2) Create conditions for language learning.
3) Design high-quality lessons for language development.
4) Adapt lesson delivery as needed.
5) Monitor and assess student language development.
6) Engage and collaborate within a community of practice.
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Professional Development

IHE TRAINING: Application Only - contact Julie Schik for details

REGISTRATION INFORMATION FOR COLLECTIONS & SUTW TRAINING: http://inservices.ops.org

Summer PLC Book Study

WHAT: Looking for a group for 6-10 teachers to form a book study group. We will determine what topic and professional book we'd like to explore this summer. Your book will be purchased for you and you will receive a small stipend for your attendance.

WHEN: We will meet 3-4 times during the months of June and July.

If you are interested, please contact Julie Schik at julie.schik@ops.org or 531-299-9573.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION: http://finelines.org/camp-for-creative-writers/

Scholarships for interested students are available. Write “Scholarship” in the margin of the registration forms for the students who need assistance.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION: https://orgsync.com/70904/forms/215208

REGISTRATION INFORMATION: https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/news/events/2018/07/ap-summer-institute.php

Professional Books of Interest

Book Resources

The District Professional Library is home to the district collection of professional books that can be checked out by any OPS employee. Below are some recommended books for ELA teachers. To check out these books, visit the DPLs ONLINE CATALOG. You can also access the online catalog (and much more) from the DPLs libguide: http://libguides.ops.org/DPL.

Visual Note-Taking for Educators by Wendi Pillars
ISBN: 9780393708455
Publication Date: 2015-11-30
We've come a long way from teachers admonishing students to put away their drawings and take traditional long-form notes. Let's be honest: note-taking is boring and it isn't always the most effective way to retain information. This book is a guide for teachers about getting your students drawing and sketching to learn visually. Whether in elementary school or high school, neuroscience has shown that visual learning is a very effective way to retain information. The techniques in this book will help you work with your students in novel ways to retain information. Visual note-taking can be used with diverse learners; all ages; and those who have no drawing experience. Teachers are provided with a library of images and concepts to steal, tweak, and use in any way in their classrooms. The book is liberally illustrated with student examples from elementary and high school students alike.
Oh, Yeah?! by Michael Smith; Jeffrey D. Wilhelm; James E. Fredricksen
ISBN: 032504290X
Publication Date: 2012-08-24
Because everything is an argument "In this book, we'll argue that you can teach the writing of argument so that students will not only exceed the Common Core State Standards, but also be prepared for a future as students and citizens." Michael Smith, Jeffrey Wilhelm, and James Fredricksen The Common Core State Standards are an argument that "students' ability to write sound arguments on substantive topics and issues . . . is critical to college and career readiness." This book is an argument. Oh, Yeah?! will persuade you that it is an ideal resource for helping you teach argument writing to adolescents. And not just any arguments, but the kinds of substantive ones the real-world demands. "We believe," write Michael Smith, Jeffrey Wilhelm, and James Fredricksen, "that instruction directed to improve student performance on standards-based assessments MUST be the most powerful and engaging instruction we can possibly offer." To that end they fill Oh, Yeah?! with proven lessons for writing, reading, and discussing arguments that you can use right now. In addition, they provide ideas for how to create instructional contexts that maximize the power of those lessons through a compelling framework that will help you create your own lessons and units in the future. Life may be a series of arguments, but your decision about how to teach argument writing needn't be complicated. Trust Smith, Wilhelm, and Fredricksen, use Oh, Yeah?! in your classroom, and give students an argument for meeting-and exceeding-the Common Core standards.
Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning by Doug Buehl
ISBN: 0872076865
Publication Date: 2008-11-01
Buehl has revised his collection of literacy skill-building strategies to bring this edition more in line with today's thinking about reading comprehension. The format of the strategies remains the same, but you'll find a stronger emphasis on the rationale for each and a broader variety of classroom examples.
Teaching Graphic Novels by Katie Monnin
ISBN: 1934338400
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Harness the power of graphic novels to promote literacy and engage all secondary students with Teaching Graphic Novels by Katie Monnin! Address print-text and image literacies, from navigating text features to creating standards-based lessons on reading comprehension, fiction/nonfiction, written response, critical thinking, and media literacy. Complete with examples from graphic novels, professional resource suggestions, strategies that can be used with any graphic novel, cross-indexes of middle and high school graphic novels and themes, reproducibles, and extra support for English-language learners. Teaching Graphic Novels was a finalist for both the 2009 ForeWord Education Book of the Year and the 2010 AEP Distinguished Achievement Award in the 6-8 Curriculum and Instruction category!
Vocabulary Games for the Classroom by Lindsay Carleton; Robert J. Marzano
ISBN: 9780982259269
Publication Date: 2010-11-01
Make direct vocabulary instruction fun and successful with this simple, straightforward, and easy-to-use book. Hundreds of critical vocabulary terms handpicked by Dr. Marzano cover four content areas and all grade levels. Each game identifies the appropriate grade level and subject area, as well as whether or not the students should already be familiar with the vocabulary.
The Writing Thief by Ruth Culham; Kate Messner (Foreword by); Lester Laminack (Contribution by); Lola Schaefer (Contribution by); Nicola Davies (Contribution by); Toni Buzzeo (Contribution by); Ralph Fletcher (Contribution by); David Harrison (Contribution by); Lisa Yee (Contribution by)
ISBN: 0872070999
Publication Date: 2014-04-21
It's been said that good writers borrow while great writers steal. Writing thieves read widely, dive deeply into texts, and steal bits and pieces from great texts as models for their own writing. Ruth Culham admits to being a writing thief-and she wants you and your students to become writing thieves, too A major part of becoming a writing thief is finding the right mentor texts to share with students. Within this book, discover more than 90 excellent mentor texts, along with straight-forward activities that incorporate the traits of writing across informational, narrative, and argument modes. Chapters also include brief essays from beloved writing thieves such as Lester Laminack, David L. Harrison, Lisa Yee, Nicola Davies, Ralph Fletcher, Toni Buzzeo, Lola Schaefer, and Kate Messner, detailing the reading that has influenced their own writing. Ruth's beloved easy-going style and friendly tone make this a book you'll turn to again and again as you guide your students to reach their full potential as deep, thoughtful readers and great writers. There's a writing thief in each of us when we learn how to read with a writer's eye