Dear all,
So here are two articles that raise valid points for us all
to think about.
The Most
Important Lesson Schools Can Teach Kids About Reading: It's Fun
“We’ve come away from our study thinking that
teachers of reading and literature need to make pleasure more central to our
practice. We think that the implications of this resolution are enormous.
For example, instructors should be mindful of the variety of pleasures that
readers experience and not privilege intellectual pleasures, the characteristic
province of school. Our participants enjoyed making thematic
generalizations, figuring out metaphors, and analyzing the aesthetic choices an
author makes—intellectual pleasures all. But more frequently, these young
people experienced the deep pleasure of entering a story world, living through
the character’s actions, considering the character’s perspectives, and
pondering what it might mean for their own lives.
We’re not the only ones who think pleasure
reading is essential. An extraordinary new analysis done as part of the British
Cohort Study—which is following the lives of more than 17,000 people born
in England, Scotland and Wales in a single week of 1970—makes a compelling case
for why pleasure should be more central to policy discussions about
reading. This analysis establishes that reading for pleasure outside
school had a significant impact on young people’s educational attainment and
social mobility because it actually “increased cognitive progress over time.”
The impact of pleasure reading on live outcomes was more than three times
greater than the level of parents’ educational attainment.”
The Writing Revolution
“And so the school’s principal, Deirdre
DeAngelis, began a detailed investigation into why, ultimately, New Dorp’s
students were failing. By 2008, she and her faculty had come to a singular
answer: bad writing. Students’ inability to translate thoughts into coherent,
well-argued sentences, paragraphs, and essays was severely impeding
intellectual growth in many subjects. Consistently, one of the largest
differences between failing and successful students was that only the latter
could express their thoughts on the page. If nothing else, DeAngelis and her
teachers decided, beginning in the fall of 2009, New Dorp students would learn
to write well. “When they told me about the writing program,” Monica says,
“well, I was skeptical.” With disarming candor, sharp-edged humor, and a shy
smile, Monica occupies the middle ground between child and adult—she can be
both naive and knowing. “On the other hand, it wasn’t like I had a choice. I go
to high school. I figured I’d give it a try.”
New Dorp’s Writing Revolution, which
placed an intense focus, across nearly every academic subject, on teaching the
skills that underlie good analytical writing, was a dramatic departure from
what most American students—especially low performers—are taught in high
school. The program challenged long-held assumptions about the students and
bitterly divided the staff. It also yielded extraordinary results. By the time
they were sophomores, the students who had begun receiving the writing
instruction as freshmen were already scoring higher on exams than any previous
New Dorp class. Pass rates for the English Regents, for example, bounced from
67 percent in June 2009 to 89 percent in 2011; for the global-history
exam, pass rates rose from 64 to 75 percent. The school reduced its
Regents-repeater classes—cram courses designed to help struggling students
collect a graduation requirement—from five classes of 35 students to two
classes of 20 students.”
Transforming our Classrooms #3
Game Based Learning
Project Examples:
- 7th Graders (And One Teacher) Learning With Minecraft
(Rebekah Madrid)
- Minecraft Mania (Alex Guenther)
Last week someone asked me about my blog that I use to share
articles with parents so just in case anyone is interested here is the link http://4u2nomore.blogspot.com/ So far
this year I have posted 35 articles for parents to read about education or
other matter that might affect their children.
Have a great weekend,
Yours
Adrian
