APSI Stuff: Other Things We Discussed

Reading Lists:
These two reading lists were generated by teachers who attended the Rice University APSI in July of 2008 and by teachers who attended the UNM APSI in June of 2007.   These lists are intended as brainstorm starters only. The presence of a book title here does not imply any kind of approval from anyone. It simply means that a teacher in AP summer training decided to write it on a list. Please check out titles carefully before you make a choice for your class.

Remember what we discussed in class: lower reading level means that your students will not have difficulty understanding what happens in the story and rich text means that you will have fun digging through the text for meaning.   The right book will be fun and interesting for you to read over and over again.   Notice which ones are mentioned multiple times, on two or three different lists at once.

Albuquerque reading list from 2007
Rice list from 2008
Reading lists from sources other than APSI participants can be found here.


Movies
At OU, we generated a list of movies/movie clips and how we could use them:
arranged alphabetically by movie
arranged by literary element or purpose

We also talked about John Golden's books, Reading in the Dark (about fiction) and Reading in the Reel World (about documentaries). These books are filled with great ideas of film clips to use for different purposes. Golden also lists and explains activities which will help our students analyze and apply their close reading skills to film.

Remember to look in the APSI links section to see more info about teaching with movies.


Good Books about Teaching
These are some of the titles we discussed in class during our institute. Each author is linked to a bio and each title is linked to a discussion of the book. Let me know if you have others to add or if you want more info about one of them.


Forget, Mark. MAX Teaching with Reading and Writing.
Gallagher, Kelly. Deeper Reading.
Jago, Carol. With Rigor for All.


Foldables
Remember our discussion about foldables. We said that foldables:
-- help students feel ownership of their work
-- help brains remain engaged
-- link learning to a product students can hold and look at
-- help students organize information...

and look in the APSI links section to see where I found all of them.


New Stuff I Found as I Cleaned out my Classroom
Good SynonymsThis is a list I always wrote very small on the tiniest sticky note I could find. I carried the sticky note with me as I graded. This way, I always had a fresh way to tell students they had done a good job. Like so many things that we do, it was a long time before I knew how this impacted my students, but they all told me it meant a lot to them. Some of the words are "weird," which means they are outside of students' normal experience, so it was a fun exercise, too. "Why did you write 'dandy' on my paper?" Great conversation starter.

From Austin
Killgallon in Action
Golden Horcruxes an imitation of "The Red Wheelbarrow" by Wm. Carlos Williams
How to Prep for Sentence Strip Activity


Stories:
The Chaser, by John Henry Collier

The Story of an Hour, by Kate Chopin

A list of more stories


Bringing More Parents to Our Schools...for positive experiences:
Have students do presentations at Open House. Perhaps this will entice more parents to come to our school.


A List of Strategies--or "What I Learned on My Summer Vacation":
We waxed nostalgic at the end of the week and compiled this list of things we learned, compiled from several different classes over the summer.


The Lesson From the End of the Week :
Here are the detailed instructions for the lesson that we completed on the last day.


Good News Note Cards :
On the first day of school, have each student write his/her home address on a note card. Make a point of finding a good news note to write on those cards. Choose a few each week, and mail them home. Sounds VERY mangeable.


Three Before Me:
To help those students who always answer first, the ones who feel they must answer every time we ask a question, pull them aside and tell them "Three Before Me." This means that their own special instruction is to wait until three others have spoken before they put in their own two cents. Great idea! Those heavy talkers stay engaged and really listen (we hope) to make sure they aren't then repeating what was already said.

An Idea for the Outer Circle :
Give each student three cards--one green, one yellow, and one red. They can use these cards to indicate their agreement (or lack thereof) with the current comment.

On the Subject of Grammar Codes:
Require students to find the grammar/usage errors that match the code on the bottom of the page. They must correct them and turn in the essay again.

How to Make Sure They Really Read It:
I'll have to look up a few things before I can complete this part.

Monte Carlo Quizzes : This is an abstract of an article, but it gives you the general idea.

More later.


This Is Just to Say:
From Tulsa
From Las Cruces


Ideas for Writing Prompts :
List Yourself--a book of lists which might easily be modified to use as prompts

A winner's biggest muscle is his heart.

Some prompts we wrote from our own level 3 questions.


For UNM Participants:
Jenny's email: jennywilsonward@yahoo.com

Email Jenny to find out more about the Writing Project.

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