Dear Stephanie, That sounds amazing. I teach a block schedule but would love to see my kids everyday. The one thing that I would say is that you could probably cut back each to sixty minutes, and make sure that students are able to take a break between the two classes.
In terms of whole class instruction: this past year my colleagues and I got together and decided what our essential standards-- those standards that are the most important for our grade level (we looked at our own experiences with teaching this grade as well as what the state deems the most important based on numbers of questions present on the CST every year)-- and collaborated about those standards to come up with lessons that we designed to address each area. We rarely use our textbooks: most lessons are taught with outside resources (short stories, essays, etc.) This was amazing! Our collaboration reached a new level when we were able to focus it in this way. Having a common planning period definitely helped. I would only say that teachers need to really know their grade levels and student population to do this effectively, and they also need release time to observe their colleagues teaching successful lessons. There are two other key elements that I wish were in place at our school: The first is direct instruction of key critical thinking and questioning skills- examining Bloom's or Costa's levels of questioning and putting them to use, Socratic Seminar, Philosophical Chairs, Dialectical Journals, Literature Circles......If we were able to address these in a way that each year taught specific skills so that we knew what students would come out of 8th grade with it would be amazing. The other is a comprehensive vocabulary program where they learn a set number of word roots, prefixes and suffixes every year-- with your school it could start really early-- and each grade level would know what roots, prefixes and suffixes each child will know coming in to their classroom. I love vocabulary, and this would be INCREDIBLY helpful for me as an LA teacher. Sorry for the long reply-- you just got me thinking about what I love now and would love to see for my practice in the future! Annie > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of > Stephanie Bartell > Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2008 4:49 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [LIT] Ideal Middle School > > We completely have the freedom to block schedule... and > right now we were > actually thinking about students having the same teacher > for reading & > writing, with a total time of 150 minutes (90 minutes for > Reading Workshop > and 60 minutes for Writing Workshop). Students would then > have a seperate > teacher for Science, Social Studies, and Math. > > We are very interested in not using a textbook, but doing > novel studies, > and small group instruction. Within that model however, > what do you think > is most important for middle school students to get in > terms of whole group > instruction? > > Thanks so much for the advice & resources! > > ~Stephanie Bartell > > > > > --------------------------------- > Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! > Mobile. Try it > now. > _______________________________________________ > 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 > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 _______________________________________________ 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
