Reading and Writing SandBox

Musings of a middle school ELA teacher who also blogs at Teach with Picture Books (http://teachwithpicturebooks.blogspot.com) and How to Teach a Novel (http://howtoteachanovel.blogspot.com).

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30+ cool online tools for assessment! 

More fun than they sound.

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Google Lesson Plan Search cuts to the chase when you're seeking lesson plans, not ads or overly busy web pages.

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Effective lesson openers focus student attention and increase motivation for learning, and good openers can double as closure and reflection pieces.

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When in Doubt is a simple site that pairs a phrase beginning with "When in Doubt..." with a relevant image.

Good possibility for a writing exercise, but proceed with caution before sending to this site.

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Primary documents and archival footage document America's response to the Holocaust.

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Any teacher will tell you that when a student is angry and yelling it is very hard to calm down the situation and can throw off your entire class. This doesn’t happen often in my classroom, but occasionally people have bad days and middle school students have a tough time figuring out where to...

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So, you’re looking for creative ways to use GOOGLE DRIVE in the classroom?  Great!  Me too!  As I was reading through some old essays from my students, I realized that they needed to work more on their thesis statements… In other words, I need to work more with them on their thesis statements.  

So, I immediately sent out a Google Spreadsheet.  3 columns for each section I teach: 1) Names, 2) Thesis Statements, & 3) My Responses.  I shared this link with each of my students and gave them all editing rights.

It was amazing!  Students started putting in their tentative thesis statements and I starting giving them comments.  Not only could they see the comments for their own thesis statements but they could see their classmates as well!  It was great!  They could see all around the sorts of comments that I was giving them.

It was a great way to collaborate - across time & space.  Students and myself could work on this and view this whenever they wanted.

What are some of the ways that you have used Google in, and out, of the classroom?

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Kurt Vonnegut's classic lecture on the shapes of stories, now in an infographic. 

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BookLamp is a book analytic engine powered by the Book Genome Project. BookLamp's technology has applications in book discovery, reader advisory, and book suggestions similar to how Pandora.com analyzes music. BookLamp can enable author fingerprinting, trend identification and manuscript analysis for publishers, and book discovery for readers.

In other words, find books similar to those you already dig, but also play with the book's "DNA" (its attributes) to go a new direction.

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Cool interactive literature, poetry, and drama, with suggested questions.

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15 Tips For Facilitating Online Discussion - Edudemic

Facilitating discussions between students is one of those things that is infinitely easier when you’re teaching in a physical classroom rather than online. When the students are all in one room, discussions happen more naturally. Facilitating the same type of productive, useful discussion when teaching online is more of a challenge. The handy infographic below …

Cool infographic; helpful if you're venturing into this instructional mode.

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Surprisingly easy to "get" once you read this article, participles should be a part of every young writer's toolbox. Links here to other interesting grammar and usage articles.

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Funny and smart cartoons which provide a relief from the stress of teaching!

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The Tongue Untied

A Guide to Grammar, Punctuation and Style

Nice articles, lesson ideas, resources for teaching grammar in context.

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Some pretty cool ideas for writing poetry, fiction, and more in the classroom, complete with printable hand-outs.

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The SAT is making the essay component of the college admissions exam optional. Is this a sign that writing can't be properly graded?

Great discussion here with several teachers (and, of course, lots of readers) weighing in with their opinions.

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Bleached Out T's at Design Mom. Fun craft project with cool results!