After working with you for the past several days, and thinking about the common threads that are tying these SI experiences together for me, I wanted to direct you toward an article, specifically the section on networked learning communities: If We Didn’t Have the Schools We Have Today, Would We Create The Schools We Have Today?

This article has guided me in thinking about my own role in leading the SI, and may inform some of your own thinking about your role within the SI. Please take some time to read the first section of this article, including the section regarding Networked Learning Communities. Here are some of my thoughts…

Check it out!  http://greatsentences.blogspot.com/

Flamingnet is a resource for YA Book Reviews that are student-produced. This is a great resource for students looking to find interesting reading material, as well as a possible avenue for publication. Students who are interested in becoming reviewers must have an adult sponsor and pay a one time fee of $10 to cover the cost of mailing books. For more information, take a look at the website.

Textbooks 2.0

Thanks to Scotsman On A Horse for this post:

Looks like we have a grassroots effort to provide textbooks that are free and not controlled by school boards or worse

Textbook Revolution

Textbook Revolution is the web’s source for free educational materials. This is a student-run, volunteer-operated website started in response to the textbook industry’s constant drive to maximize profits instead of educational value.

My county offers this service — Think.com – seems like a parallel package for Gaggle.net.

I can’t say enough about this family of sites: http://www.4teachers.org/tools/. Worth some time in the ol’ schedule.

The Reading Standards:
Implementation, Assessment and Evidence  
Click here to download

Document Overview
The Georgia Performance Standards regarding reading are listed below. Key portions of the standards (matching the materials that follow) are highlighted in blue. Each of the materials or activities listed are either hyperlinked to an Internet source or downloadable pdf., or they are listed in an open format inviting teacher interpretation. Materials relating to more than one standard (or standard subset), are repeated or listed after cumulative standards.

While the primary purpose of each material/activity is to provide evidence (documentation) of standards implementation in the classroom, materials may serve as both instructional and assessment tools. Teachers should supplement, revise or update these materials to suit the needs of their specific classroom environments. The primary source material and authorship for these documents is attributed to The English Teacher’s Companion, by Jim Burke.  

Ideas for Use
In addition to student-maintained reading folders, teachers could keep a duplicate (or ‘master’) folder that serves as a record of tools used throughout the semester for various learning activities. The teacher’s ‘master folder’ could contain both original copies of materials as well as models of student and/or teacher completed forms that document both content and date/frequency of use.  As a supplement, or as an alternative to a purely electronic text, teachers could download and assemble a hardcopy of these materials and use them for copying, distribution, documentation, etc. 

Note: In order to have full access to the materials referenced in this document you must be connected to the Internet. 

The Georgia Performance Standards

GPS Standard ELA7R1 The student demonstrates comprehension and shows evidence of a warranted and responsible explanation of a variety of literary and informational texts.

Critical Component:  For literary texts, the student identifies the characteristics of various genres and produces evidence of reading that:

a.  Distinguishes between the concepts of theme in a literary work and the author’s purpose in an expository text. 

Aligned Material/Activity:

• Reading Bookmark
• Narrative Writing Tools
• Expository Writing Tools
• Persuasive Writing Tools
• TAP (topic, audience, purpose) Planner

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b.  Interprets a character’s traits, emotions, or motivations and gives supporting evidence from a text. Aligned Material/Activity:

• Character Study
• Character Bookmark 
• Reading Bookmark
• Text Connections
• Conversations Across Time
• Claim, Evidence, Interpretation
• Cause & Effect
• Four Square Perspective
• RAFT (role, audience, format, topic)
  

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c.  Relates a literary work to information about its setting or historical moment.
d.  Analyzes recurring and similar themes across a variety of selections, distinguishing theme from topic.
e.  Identifies events that advance the plot and determines how each event explains past or present action(s) or foreshadows future action(s). 

Aligned Material/Activity:

• Reading Bookmark
•  Anticipation Guide
• Making Predictions
• Claim, Evidence, Interpretation
• Cause & Effect

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f.  Analyzes characterization (dynamic and static) in prose and plays as delineated through a character’s thoughts, words, speech patterns, and actions; the narrator’s description; and the thoughts, words, and actions of other characters. Aligned Material/Activity:

• Character Study
• Character Bookmark
• Reading Bookmark
•  Text Connections
• Conversations Across Time
• Claim, Evidence, Interpretation
• Cause & Effect
• Four Square Perspective
• RAFT (role, audience, format, topic)
  

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g.  Explains and analyzes the effects of sound, form, figurative language, and graphics in order to uncover meaning in literature:i. Sound (e.g., alliteration, onomatopoeia, internal rhyme, rhyme scheme)
ii. Figurative language (e.g., simile, metaphor, personification, and hyperbole)
iii. Graphics (e.g., capital letters, line length, word position).h.  Identifies and analyzes how an author’s use of words creates tone and mood, giving supporting evidence from text. 

Aligned Material/Activity:

• Listening to Voice
  

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i.  Identifies and analyzes similarities and differences in traditional literature from different cultures. 

Aligned Material/Activity:

• Claim, Evidence, Interpretation
• Cause & Effect
• Compare/Contrast
• Comparison Notes

Critical Component:  For informational texts, the student reads and comprehends in order to develop understanding and expertise and produces evidence of reading that:

a.  Analyzes common textual features to obtain information (e.g., paragraphs, topic sentences, concluding sentences, introduction, conclusion, footnotes, index, bibliography). 

Aligned Material/Activity:

• Textbook Analyses
  

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b.  Identifies and uses knowledge of common graphic features to draw conclusions and make judgments (e.g., graphic organizers, diagrams, captions, illustrations).
c.   Applies knowledge of common organizational structures and patterns (i.e., logical order, cause and effect relationships, comparison and contrast, transitions).
d.  Recognizes and traces the development of the author’s argument for and against an issue.e.  Identifies evidence used to support an argument. f.  Understands and explains the use of a simple device by following technical directions. 

Aligned Material/Activity:

• Reading Bookmark
• Claim, Evidence, Interpretation
• Cause & Effect
• Compare/Contrast
• Comparison Notes
• Fact vs. Opinion
• Making Predictions
• Pre-reading Notes

GPS Standard ELA7R3 The student reads aloud, accurately (in the range of 95%), familiar material in a variety of genres of the quality and complexity, in a way that makes meaning clear to listeners. The studenta.   Uses letter-sound knowledge to decode written English and uses a range of cueing systems (e.g., phonics and context clues) to determine pronunciation and meaning.

b.   Uses self-correction when subsequent reading indicates an earlier miscue (self-monitoring and self-correcting strategies).
c.   Reads with a rhythm, flow, and meter that sounds like everyday speech (prosody). 

Aligned Material/Activity:

• Think Aloud
• Student-centered, performance-based learning activities —poetry, personal narrative, plays/skits, digitally recorded narration, podcasts, etc.

GPS Standard ELA7RC1 The student reads a minimum of 25 grade-level appropriate books or book equivalents (approximately 1,000,000 words) per year from a variety of subject disciplines. The student reads both informational and fictional texts in a variety of genres and modes of discourse, including technical texts related to various subject areas. 

Aligned Material/Activity: 

• Reading Log (included with agenda) 
•  AR tests
•  Various school-sponsored reading challenges

GPS Standard ELA7RC2 The student participates in discussions related to curricular learning in all subject areas. The studenta.   Identifies messages and themes from books in all subject areas.

b.   Responds to a variety of texts in multiple modes of discourse.
c.   Relates messages and themes from one subject area to those in another area.
d.   Evaluates the merits of texts in every subject discipline.
e.  Examines the author’s purpose in writing.
f.   Recognizes and uses the features of disciplinary texts (e.g., charts, graphs, photos, maps, highlighted vocabulary). 

Aligned Material/Activity:

• Reading Bookmark
• Literature Circles
• Main Idea Notes
• Discussion Notes
• Conversations Across Time
• Collaborative Annotation
•  Annolighting a Text
• Annotating a Text
• Reciprocal Teaching
• Dense Questions
• Question Generator
• Anticipation Guide
• KWL
• Text Connections
• Interactive Notebook
• Transactional Reading Journal
• Key Concept Synthesis
• Sociograms
• RAFT (role, audience, format, topic)

GPS Standard ELA7RC4 The student establishes a context for information acquired by reading across subject areas. The studenta.   Explores life experiences related to subject area content.

b.   Discusses in both writing and speaking how certain words and concepts relate to multiple subjects.
c.   Determines strategies for finding content and contextual meaning for unfamiliar words or concepts. 

Aligned Material/Activity:

• Reading Bookmark
• Frame of Reference
• Inferential Reading 
• Key Concept Synthesis
• KWL
• Text Connections

GPS Standards: Vocabulary
ELA7R2 The student understands and acquires new vocabulary and uses it correctly in reading and writing. The student

a.   Determines the meaning of unfamiliar words using context clues (e.g., contrast, cause and effect, etc.).
b.   Uses knowledge of Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon roots and affixes to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.
c.   Identifies and explains idioms and analogies in prose and poetry.
d.  Determines word meanings through the use of definition, example, restatement, or contrast. 

ELA7RC3 The student acquires new vocabulary in each content area and uses it correctly. The student

a.   Demonstrates an understanding of contextual vocabulary in various subjects.
b.   Uses content vocabulary in writing and speaking.
c.   Explores understanding of new words found in subject area texts. 

Aligned Material/Activity: 

• In addition to ongoing mastery of vocabulary in context, students will engage in directed word study (stems) which will be routinely assessed in a variety of forms, including but not limited to tests, projects, etc.
• Vocabulary Squares