KARCHER STAFF BLOG
Student's of the week for
April 11th - April 15th
- Brent Vieau: (Silver)
- Brent had an absolutely outstanding defense of Serbia in our World War 1 Peace Conference.
- Eban Winker: (Onyx)
- Eban's effort, attitude, and focus have improved tremendously. He is working hard to do his very best and we are so proud of his accomplishments.
- Dawson Weis: (Karcher Bucks)
- Dawson was student of the week in science and continues to be a leader at track practice.
- Kale Dietz: (Diamond)
- Kale always has a postive attitude inside and out of class. He is a creative problem solver that thinks outside of the box.
- Alexis Carver: (Applied Academics)
- Alexis has shown tremendous growth this semester in orchestra. Her attentiveness and drive this quarter really show loyalty, courage, and responsibility as the standout attributes of our 8 Karcher Characteristics.
- Melissa Johnson: (Hive)
- Melissa is always exceptionally positive, industrious, and compassionate towards others.
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Kudos
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- Alyssa Riggs was chosen as the KCB STAFF OF THE WEEK! Congrats Alyssa and thank you all for continuing to reinforce our 8 character traits.
- Thank you Steve Berezowitz for all of your work getting everything set and ready for the Forward Exam this week! It was a LOT of work and we all thank you for that!!!
- Please help welcome our student teacher Ryan Scanlan, fom Concorida University. Ryan is working with Stephanie Rummler and will be with us for the rest of the school year.
- Thank you as well Stephanie Rummler for your service to our profession by giving back and helping be his cooperating teacher!
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Reminders
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Forward Exam Information
Forward Exam Information
- Forward Exam: Computer Assignments for Regular Education
- Forward Exam: Special Education Plans
- There will be no hard copies of the directions for the proctors. All of the directions are online and this is the link to the directions.
- Please assist with letting students know that they will all need headphones for this test. We do not have enough within the building for every student so we will need students to bring a pair in for this exam.
- Modified Schedule for April 18, 19, and 20.
- April 21 & 22 is for 8th grade testing only and our make-up schedule will be on April 26.
Other information:
- BLT Meeting after school Monday, April 18th - we will meet in the library.
- JazzFest is Monday, April 18 starting at 6:40pm @ BHS
- Tech Tuesday is happening this week! Molly Ebbers will be available in her room for any help regarding technology that you might have. Take advantage of this time she is offering up!!!
- PLC Wednesday: Literacy in the library within your departments.
- Please make sure you are bringing your laptops and curriculum needs along in order to collaborate together as to your infusion of the inferencing strategy.
- April 26th - Half Day - Building Level In-service
- Special Education Aides:
- We will be meeting from 12:00 - 12:30 in the library, lunch will be provided.
- MAP testing begins May 9th.
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Pictures from the week
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Ms. Hoffman & Mr. Block team teaching and assisting students with a jump rope routine. On a side note... outstanding classroom management!
Article of the week: Great article highlighting the importance of writing whenever you are going to incorporate a discussion into your lesson design.
Data-Driven Shakespeare
Enhance literature classrooms by using writing to drive conversation.
When it comes to teaching English, Shakespearean sonnets reflect both our deepest hopes and our greatest fears. We hope that these poems will give students rich opportunities to think critically and independently. But we fear that the challenging content will frustrate students who struggle with comprehension and critical reading. How can we set the bar high, but also help students clear it?
Imagine two different middle school teachers working to meet this challenge. Both of their classes are studying a complex text, Shakespeare's Sonnet 65. To develop their students' close reading skills, both teachers have asked students to pay special attention to the first quatrain of the sonnet,
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
and its final two lines,
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
If you listen in on the students' discussion in both classrooms, you might think the lessons were equally rigorous and invigorating. As each class discusses how Shakespeare's use of figurative language helps convey the theme of his sonnet, the students contrast the poet's association of beauty with a delicate "flower," and his use of "brass," "stone," "earth," and "boundless sea" to depict strength. Students also connect this language to the broader theme of the poem—that art, and writing in particular, can give beauty a chance to survive time. A few students make insightful comments that draw the conversation to a powerful close. All in all, it's a rich, engaging conversation.
Yet if you later assess how well the students in each class analyze a different sonnet in writing, one class will significantly outperform the other. What will make the difference? The teacher of the higher-performing class—Hadley Roach, who teaches at North Star Academy in Newark, New Jersey—has transformed a great literature discussion into deeper learning by skillfully incorporating an under-utilized technique: She asks her students to write before they speak.
Integrating writing into the daily work of language arts instruction can be one of the most powerful tools for improving reading achievement, according to a recent study by Chandra L. Alston and Michelle T. Brown.1 These researchers compared two groups of students—a group that made remarkable gains on standardized tests and another whose scores improved much less significantly—and considered what kinds of writing tasks the students in each group had experienced. The results were dramatic. Students in the higher-achieving group were far more likely to have been assigned rigorous writing prompts in class and to have received feedback on their responses.
How can teachers make in-class writing a daily reality in their classrooms? Here are four simple instructional moves that Hadley Roach uses.
1. Write First, Talk Second
Let's go back to the beginning of the class discussion. In a traditional class, as soon as students finish reading the poem, the class discussion begins with either student reactions or a well-formulated question by the teacher. But in Hadley's class, the first thing that happens, before any conversation takes place, is writing. Instead of calling on a student to initiate the conversation, Hadley asks every student to write an answer to the prompt, What is the purpose of the imagery in these lines?
Write first, talk second—it's a simple strategy, but one that's underused in literature classrooms. Students tend to formulate their ideas more thoughtfully and precisely in writing. And when they write first, all students get an opportunity to verbalize their thoughts—not only the most extroverted students, who might normally dominate the discussion.
In traditional classrooms where discussion occurs first, by the time students are asked to write, they can generate an answer on the basis of what other students said rather than on their own comprehension. Thus, the final essay becomes an exercise in listening comprehension, not text analysis. Teachers can walk away with the false impression that their students have comprehended the material independently. In contrast, writing first gives a clearer picture of what students really understand so that the teacher can better respond to their true needs.
2. Spar with an Exemplar
Although the initial responses to the writing prompt are not graded, students will eventually be asked to write an analysis that shows what they have learned. Most of us who teach literacy have grappled with the difficulty of grading student essays objectively. When you have 30 papers before you, how do you decide what constitutes a high-level response versus a mid-level or low-level response? A rubric is a helpful starting point, but applying a numbered list of criteria to a fully fleshed-out essay is still a challenge. What does a good answer really look like for this particular prompt?
The solution: When you create your final writing prompt, write not only the question students are to answer, but also an exemplar response for your own information. For example, here's an exemplar Hadley could use to set the bar for her students to respond to her pre-discussion writing prompt about Sonnet 65:
Shakespeare engineers a contrast between beauty and time in his first quatrain. He offers up the concrete images of "brass," "stone," and "boundless sea" only to remind the reader that they will be destroyed by time despite their apparent strength. When he compares beauty to a "flower" in line 4, that flower seems so weak in comparison to the metal, rock, and sea used to represent time's strength that beauty's doom at time's hands seems a foregone conclusion. The imagery in these lines shows how hopeless the narrator believes beauty's fate looks at the beginning of the poem.
Why spend the time writing an exemplar when students will complete their own analyses and we don't want to steer them to only one correct answer? Because you really can't do justice to their analyses without thinking through the desired response in advance. In fact, many excellent teachers do more than just write their own exemplar—they "spar" with other exemplars. In preparing her writing prompt, Hadley reads up on the most important critics who have analyzed Sonnet 65 and also compares notes with other educators teaching the poem. In this way, she gets a clear sense of what a deep understanding of Sonnet 65 would look like, even for someone who has interpreted it differently than she has.
This sparring greatly enhances Hadley's own understanding of the poem and prepares her to manage students' multiple interpretations. It can also unearth common areas of focus (for example, she notices that all the critics focus on the words "shines bright" in the sonnet's final lines). In the process, Hadley has become a better student of Shakespeare herself, which makes her a better teacher.
I will include the next portion of this article next week!
