I have used the Daily Edits from Educational World for my 6th and 7th grade classes last year. I liked it because we could address grammar, punctuation, and facts about subjects as a class warm up activity. Sometimes I had the students do the edits individually, then we would share. Sometimes we would pass to another student to correct their work. They got to see it again, so it was a review. It was a teaching tool and an assessment. We also edited in teams of two where they would complete it together and discuss it. I plan to do it again this year as an opener 1-2x a week. I thought it built some background knowlege.
I think a timeline of historical events might be a great way to build background knowledge and have it run around the top walls of the room. When was the Am. Revolutionary War? Civil War? Ancient Greek and Roman Empires? Great Depression? Add dates of novels and stories as we read them... We have a new adoption by McDougall Littel that has a great vocabulary workbook. We spent two weeks in a unit and finished Unit 12 last year. These were sets of 15 words per unit for 6th & 20 words per unit for 7th grade. (20 words x 12 = 240 words that are linked to our AIMS tests) We also learned words from our new anthology readings plus from the novels we read. We defined these words in our own words, wrote the word in our own sentence, drew a picture of the word, and then discussed our definitions compared to the glossary. It was tedious at times, especially grading the vocab workbooks but I thought of it as a review when we would grade them aloud, and discuss as we went. I would like to hear how others are teaching vocabulary in middle school classes and building background knowledge. Thanks. Lucinda 7th/LA teacher Tucson ----- Original Message ----- From: "Caroline Mooney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 9:42 AM Subject: [LIT] building background knowledge > > the article of the week sounds good. i found something recently that i > believe will be potentially useful for building background knowledge in > class. > > has anyone tired the daily edits from education world > (educationworld.com)? what about factmonster.com? > > the daily edits consist of 4 sentences with 10 errors, spelling, > punctuation, verb tense, etc. students can do this as a starter. but the > neat thing about this is that the sentences actually provide students with > factual information about history, science, technology, etc. it isn't > just incorrect sentences. check it out at the website. i'm planning to try > this in august. > > still in educationworld.com, type in fact monster. students have to find > information within the fact monster encylopedia. what's really cool about > this is that students learn how to search for information, look up key > words, figure out the topic, and skim, many of the skills i try to teach > while using informational texts. i'm going to give this a try as well. > we'll see how it goes. > > has anyone done either of these two things? > > also, i'm still struggling with the vocabulary issue. like many of you, i > enjoy working with words, and it's so good for the kids. but if students > are reading different books, and the words need to be contextually based, > then how do i come up with a list that will benefit everyone? i've tried > getting students to generate thier own list from their own reading, but it > just doesn't work out the way i want it to. any ideas on a good list to > begin with for a daily word? > > one last word--all this "5 min. a day" stuff is really starting to take a > bite out of my 50 minute reading class. > > caroline > 7th grade reading > dalton ga > _______________________________________________ > The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org > > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. > > Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive > > > -- > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.9.14/883 - Release Date: 7/1/2007 > 12:19 PM > > _______________________________________________ The Literacy Workshop ListServ http://www.literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/lit_literacyworkshop.org. Search the LIT archives at http://snipurl.com/LITArchive
