Ideas and Features For New Teachers
and Veterans with Class

Welcome back to our StarTeaching newsletter,  Features for Teachers, packed full of tips, techniques, and ideas for educators of all students in all levels.

In This Week's Issue (Click the Quick Links below): What's New @ StarTeaching   School Band Fundraisers   How to Make the English Language Teaching & Learning Process An Enjoyable Experience NEW! Hank Kellner:  "Write What You See": Poems Inspired by Nature Tech/21st Century Corner:  Grading - What Is Our Motivation?! From the Admin Desk: The 80% Solution NEW! Science Activities for Any Setting   10 Days of Writing Prompts   10 Days of Math Problems School Features: Educational Therapy New Teacher's Niche: Journal Writing (part 1) Student Teachers' Lounge: Take Your Time the First Few Weeks Book of the Month Club: Teaching As Story Telling   Website of the Month: Wordle.net   Themes on Life:  "Thanksgiving 8000 Calorie Poem" Article of the Week: "Students Using Cell Phones to Cheat"   Autumn Book Sale for Teachers

Remember to bookmark this page and to visit our website for more great articles, tips, and techniques! http://www.starteaching.com Also, feel free to email this newsletter to a friend or colleague!

School Band Fundraisers Reviewed by Kimberly Reynolds

Talk about your hard workers! Band groups are awesome when it comes to putting forth the effort it takes for fundraising success. The key is making sure they have the right fundraiser that will leverage all that energy.

In this article, we'll consider three band fundraisers that:
*Take some effort
*Are perfect for medium-sized groups
*Produce excellent results

Again, success is best achieved by presenting your offering to large numbers of prospective supporters. Set up a table at any event that draws a large crowd. Offer samples from tiny paper cups. Get the word out to as many people as you can.

Your band group works hard. Make sure you pick a band fundraiser that works just as hard by being impossible to resist. 

	Using Photography To Inspire Writing X By Hank Kellner Poems Inspired by Nature
A veteran of the Korean War, Hank Kellner is a retired educator who has served as an English Department chairperson at the high school level and an adjunct Associate Professor of English at the community college level. For several years he published "Kellner's Moneygram", a newsletter for photographers. He also owned and operated Simmer Pot Press, a small press specializing in cookbooks, for several years. Kellner is the creator of many photographs and articles that appeared in publications nationwide; the author of extensive reading comprehension materials for a publisher of educational materials, and a former contributing editor to Darkroom Photography magazine. His current publication is Write What You See: 99 Photos To Inspire Writing (Cottonwood Press, due out January, 2009) Born in New York City, Kellner now lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Visit his blog at hank-englisheducation.blogspot.com.

Nature As Seen by a Young Boy Here are a poem and photo I received for possible inclusion in my upcoming anthology, Reflections: 99 Photos and Poems To Inspire Writing. I added the quotation by John Keats. The poem is by nine-year-old Erick Moore, a student at Muhlenberg South Elementary School, Beechmont, Kentucky. Angela Todd is Erick’s teacher. The photo is by sixteen-year-old Taylor Dennhy. Taylor is a student at Horizon High School, Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s easy to see that you can use the quotation, poem, and photo together to inspire class discussion that leads to writing assignments. But that’s not all. You could use just the quotation, the poem, or the image individually to motivate your students. Or you could use any combination of two of the items for the same purpose. Feel free to download the poem, photo, and quotation for use in your classroom. If you do, I’d be delighted to read samples of the results. You can contact me at hankpix(at)yahoo(dot)com. “The poetry of the earth is never dead.”  John Keats.           "In the Wild I See" In the wild I see, I see a great blue sky hanging over  me. With clouds as white as snow, at night I see a soft glow. In the wild I see, I see cute little birds singing to me. With beautiful songs they sing with glee. In the wild I see, I see a fawn and its mother dancing around a tree. With gentle grace so lovely. In the wild I see, I see……….Nature           By Erick Moore           Photo by Taylor Dennehy   A Poem about Trees Julie Brown teaches English 11 AP, Journalism, Cinema Study, and Creative Writing at Bolingbrook High School, Bolingbrook, Illinois. I matched her untitled poem with one of my photos to create a page from my upcoming work, Reflections: A Collection of Poems, Photos, and More. I added the quotation that precedes the poem. This book is designed to inspire class discussion that leads to written compositions. Feel free to download  this combination for use in your classroom. By the way, you can click on the photo to enlarge it. I like trees because they seem to be more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do."                       Willa Cather every year, it's always the same the brown, rough statues stand tall feet firmly planted in the ground hoping to grow, reaching the sky just out of grasp then come the pesky green dots spots of color--until mid-spring then they are in full force waving, swinging, attracting attention the trees just sigh and stand by autumn, they've had enough they start to burn the leaves off slowly, one by one green to yellow to red to brown as they fall, the trees regret winter's here and they've lost their coats.           By Julie Brown           Photo credit to Hank Kellner   Copyright 2009 Hank Kellner These poem/photo combinations are from Hank Kellner's upcoming publication, Reflections: A Collection of Poetry, Photos, and More. __________________________________________________________________________ Hank Kellner is the author of Write What You See: 99 Photos To Inspire Writing. Published by Cottonwood Press ( I-800-864-4297) and distributed by Independent  Publishers Group, Write What You See includes a supplementary CD with photos. 8 ½ x11, 120 pages, perfect binding, ISBN 978-1-877-673-83-2, LCCN 2008938630. $24.95. Available at bookstores, from the publisher,  and on the Internet at www.amazon.com and other websites. Ask your school or local librarian to order it.Visit the author’s blog at http://hank-englisheducation.com. The author will contribute a portion of the royalties earned from the sale of this book to The Wounded Warriors Project.

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From the Administrator's Desk:  Leadership for Today's Administrators
	The 80% Solution By Jerry Judge, Educational Consultant

The 80% Solution

During my years as a school principal I have observed many situations that required having the entire staff on board. After a few years I came to the conclusion that you will rarely have the entire staff agreeing on anything. 

That is why I came up with 80% solution. 

Whenever I felt that 80% of the staff was behind an issue, I felt comfortable acting. 

Many administrators who work closely with school-improvement teams (or North Central teams) have used this solution to receive consensus before enforcing a new policy or program. Just think of how many meetings that you have participated in where an issue is discussed and discussed and no action has been taken simply because you do not have then entire staff agreeing on an issue. 

For example, how many staff meetings have you sat through where the topic of gum chewing was hashed over and over with no obvious solutions, when you could have been discussing real school improvement issues?  Probably far too many.  That's where the 80% rule would be very effective.

Student Teachers' Lounge:  For The Things They Don't Teach You In College
	Take Your Time the First Few Weeks

One major component is your classroom rules and procedures. We like to provide students with a handout they show their parents and keep with them over the year. But don't just provide a handout (see our article from the Sept issue). Teach those procedures and discuss the rules and expectations. Review them daily, even if its just for a few minutes. We even have writing assignments and short quizzes so students can actually use what they've learned from you.

You'll be teaching them many procedures for running a smooth class too. The students must learn your expectations for taking notes and tests, reading and writing in class, posing questions and asking for help. You'll have procedures for collecting work, giving assignments, handing back work, and dismissing class. And you'll have expectations for leaving your room, whether it is to get a drink, use the bathroom, or head for the library or lab. Each of these, among the many of your class, needs to be taught, modeled, and practiced by your students. Take plenty of time training them right, and the rest of the year will be smooth.

Spend plenty of time during your first few weeks in teaching, reviewing, and even quizzing your students on class rules, expectations, and procedures. The more time you and your students spend over the span of several weeks, the better the students will know and understand (and remember) these expectations.

Interested in FREE writing activities you can print out and use immediately in your classroom? Simply click the following link to our writing page: http://www.starteaching.com/writing.htm

Be sure to check out our website for the FREE teacher Who-I-Want-To- Be plan and other great Freebies for new teachers. Simply click the following link: http://www.starteaching.com/free.htm

Do You Have Great Ideas, Tips, or Techniques to Share with Our Readers?   Are You Looking To Be Published? Submit Your Articles On Our Website At:   http://www.starteaching.com/submit.htm

TECH/21st Century CORNER
	Grading: What is Our Motivation? By Mark Benn Middle School Teacher

Have you ever thought about why you take grades? I used to believe that it was important to grade every assignment that I had the students do. I felt I was doing a disservice to them if I didn't grade everything. This resulted in a lot of grades, but did it result in a lot of learning?

I believe it builds a wrong way of thinking in the students and causes them to see school as a place where they get a lot of grades, and not as a place of learning.  It also leads us, as teachers, to think the same way. Do you teach to get grades, or is your motivation to help children learn?

Grades are just a measure of what someone understands and their level of understanding. At least that's what they're suppose to be. We should be using formative assessment constantly to know where students are, but should these assessments be graded. Does this reflect where a student is at, or how they learn?

What do I mean by that? Think about how you learn. When something is new to you and you are just learning about it, do you truly understand it at first? Probably not at first. But as you deal with it over and over again you get better at whatever the skill is. Let's use math as an example. When I'm learning my multiplication facts, I don't learn them all at once. I also don't' learn them at the same speed as others. Maybe it takes me longer. Now let's factor in taking grades on everything a student does. Does the grade reflect whether they know the material, or how fast they can learn it? Is learning about speed, or understanding?

So why do we grade everything, when a student is just beginning to learn it? This makes no sense, unless our motivation is just to teach the students and get grades.

Let's raise the bar of our profession higher. Our motivation should be to teach in a way that helps everyone become a lifelong self motivated learner. Our grading should reflect that, and not hinder it with certain attitudes.

So what should we do as teachers do? Formative assessment should be a constant, and because of these assessments we should adjust our teaching to help those who aren't understanding it yet. Grades should only be taken when you feel the students have had enough experience in the skill. From this assessment, we have another chance to reassess whether our method of teaching is working, and if not, adjust again. All of this works towards that final summative assessment. 

In summing up, it's not about how many grades we get, but the quality of what our grading reflects.

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Guest Writer
	How to make English language teaching and learning process an enjoyable experience- a practical approach By V.Sankaranarayanan

(The author is a practicing teacher of English in PSG Tech Coimbatore and he can be contacted at the e-mail id:  v_sankar_ind@yahoo.com) V.Sankaranarayanan Department of English PSG Tech,Coimbatore

As a teacher of English, I have seen students especially from Tamil medium translating sentences from Tamil to English verbatim which has disastrous results. Students often use sentences like “I burn dog with stone” or I understand the fan” with ease and confidence as they feel that their translations are perfect owing to the blind trust that their teachers cannot commit any mistake.

When I was ruminating over a solution to the aforesaid problems I chanced to read Mr. Hugo Williams article on Making English Language teaching effective (16-6-10) which while praising the current system of the state of education in Tamilnadu like motivating the students to come to schools by giving them free food, free books and free cycles and inducing them to learn by the introduction of the activity based learning methods like ALM (Active Learning Method) which stresses on greater interaction among students thereby making learning an enjoyable experience, comes down heavily on the archaic teaching methods in the secondary level where teaching is examination oriented and so most of the teaching remains passive and uninspiring.

At the SSLC and the +2 levels the teaching of English is confined to passing the examination. Teachers know that any deviation from the prescribed method either in the syllabus or in the question paper pattern will result in the decrease of pass percentage and so they dare not deviate. This inability to deviate from the prescribed pattern will inevitably result in loss of interest both in teaching as well as in learning. Also the text books in English and the question paper pattern do not allow any room for deviation with the result that the English that they learn is neither useful to them for communication nor for real life situations. For example the stress on sentence patterns like SV,SVO, SVC, SVOO, and SVOC which form a major question in any question paper is neither useful nor necessary and so the teaching of these patterns becomes ineffective. If a student is asked to give a pattern for a sentence ,he will say SVC or SVO because as far as he is concerned there is no difference between Object and Complement. Same is the case with the teaching of change of voices and Modals. This is because the teaching is academic and the approach structural, rather than situational where the student knows the purpose of learning a grammatical item. This problem is overcome by teaching English in Tamil and when these students come to college they expect the same method of teaching even in English classes .When they find the teachers teach in English they become scared and this scare gives rise to silence fear and awe. So in an English class the students learn to be silent--they ought to be talking—and when the class is over they heave a sigh of relief.

In order to overcome the problem of lack of interaction owing to shyness, nervousness and fear which may become terror when the teacher starts shouting at them in English, the students should be made to relax in the class and once they relax they become confident, and once confidence is in them, they develop an inner urge to learn English. The task o the teacher lies in kindling this urge by convincing them that English is also like any other language and that there is nothing to be scared about.

In order to replace fear with confidence ,the English class can be a place where the participants gather and exchange ideas. So the students instead of sitting in one place move about gathering data from others like name, place of stay, hobbies, etc. Once all the data are collected, which will take around fifteen minutes; they can be asked to present them in the class in their own English. Their presentation would be full of mistakes both grammatical, and semantic. Many would struggle for words and their speech may be interspersed with silence and some words. In spite of all these, if they are motivated to continue, they will have a feeling that they can also talk and once this awareness dawns on them they will definitely talk the next time if they get a chance

These types of interactive sessions can be made use of for taking lessons and for teaching grammatical items.

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Educational Therapy Courtesy of K12Academics.com

Educational Therapy is a method of working with troubled children who struggle with learning. It is a technique that combines psychoanalytic and educational insight and techniques.

Children in school can experience difficulties, which may prevent them from accessing the curriculum and managing in class. A better understanding of the complex issues underlying these problems helps teachers to find new ways of thinking about children and strategies for helping them both therapeutically and by preventing difficulties from developing.

It benefits children and young people with:-

Learning and communication difficulties

Poor social behavior in school

Poor social relationships

The threat of school exclusion

Children who have experienced separations, accidents, bereavement, mental or physical illness in the family, violence, sexual abuse or emotional deprivation and are unable to concentrate and learn in school.

These pupils are often identified early in their school career and given additional support to which they do not fully respond. Educational therapy can be offered as a preventive intervention at this stage.

The child or young person meets with the therapist, usually for one session a week for 50 minutes. Treatment takes place during school term time and may last for four terms or more. The use of stories, drawings, educational activities, games and play provide experiences which help the child make sense of their difficulties and gain the confidence necessary to become a learner. Regular interviews are held parents/careers and with teachers. Educational therapy can also take place in groups.

The purpose of Educational Therapy is:

To develop a relationship which enables the child or young person to feel more settled in the classroom

To explore and resolve the emotional difficulties which are holding back learning

To encourage the child to make emotional and social progress.

 

 

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New Teachers' Niche:  A Place for Teachers New To The Craft
	Journal Writing (part 1)

We use the journal writing style for several applications in class.  The number one goal of mine is to provide students with a place to record their thoughts and to reflect on their lives.  I also advocate writing activities that can (and should) be done on a daily basis.  I really believe students need to write a lot and often; they become better writers with a lot of practice.  You can't expect students to be good at writing if they only write a few times each month or marking period.  But I also don't believe students need to formally write essays each time either.  Journaling is one way to break up the monotony of the formal style.

Creating journals is a very easy and fun activity that gives the students ownership of the journal. Pass out ten or so pieces of regular lined paper to each student.   I always keep a basket of lined paper at the front and back of my room anyway, so students can add pages to their journal at any time they need.  Then pass out colored construction paper for the front and back covers.  Each student receives three fasteners to hold it all together.  A suggestion is to NOT punch holes in the covers, as the fastener heads sometimes slip through, and the journals can fall apart.  I allow the students to decorate their covers with anything, as long as it's tasteful and appropriate for school.

Students must be given the freedom of choosing their own topics if they wish.  However, I always provide a topic for the students to use if they are unable to generate their own ideas.  Students are allowed to use my topic, or to change any part of it.  I'll share a few of my classroom journal topics in the follow up to this article.  Any idea can be changed into a journal topic - I usually add a few guiding questions for students to consider when making their responses. 

Some students also enjoy writing on the same topic for more than one writing session.  I even have some students who are writing stories, and complete chapters or stanzas during class time.  They may take a break once in a while and write on a different topic, but they usually end up back at their story.

So what are the rules for a journal write?  Basically you get to decide!  Just keep them consistent and students will know what you expect within the first few writes.  In my class, students are allowed to choose the genre, such as poetry, drama, or prose.  They are encouraged to try out different styles.

Since the journaling is actually a form of active brainstorming, I don't worry about complete sentences, spelling, or mistakes in grammar or mechanics.   These are the guidelines we use, but you can feel free to adjust them to suit your class and needs.

In the follow up article, I will explain the easy grading system that is set up to MINIMIZE the amount of teacher work.  This stress-free system allows your students to write more and write often, without the massive paper stack for you to grade at home.  I'll also provide some of my sample topics to get you started.

Use this link to access this writing assignment on our website for your own classroom use:

http://www.starteaching.com/writing.htm#writingideas

Part 6 of this series will discuss commonly asked questions regarding the writing process and paragraph/essay writing.

Interested in FREE writing activities you can print out and use immediately in your classroom? Simply click the following link to our writing page: http://www.starteaching.com/writing.htm

Be sure to check out our website for the FREE teacher Who-I-Want-To- Be plan and other great Freebies for new teachers. Simply click the following link: http://www.starteaching.com/free.htm

Be sure to check out our website for more great information, tips, and techniques for new teachers, student-teachers, and interns in teacher prep programs. Also be sure to check out our Who-I-Want-To-Be teacher plan for preparing yourself to enter the educational profession.  Simply click the following link: http://www.starteaching.com/free.htm Want to check out the articles in our Student-Teaching series?  Check out our special Student-Teaching page through the following link:  http://www.starteaching.com/studentteachers.htm

 

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TONY VINCENT
Learning in Hand is an educator's resource for using some of the coolest technologies with students.
Tony is a teacher who wants to make education effective, relevant, and fun. He knows handhelds are small computers that can make a big difference in classrooms!  He hopes Learning in Hand inspires and motivates teachers to use technology that students crave.
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Using Photography To Inspire Writing By Hank Kellner Visit his blog at: hank-englisheducation. blogspot.com.

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"Cell Phone Cheating"

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