KARCHER STAFF BLOG
Karcher 2016-2017 School Calendar
Student's of the week for
February 6 - February 10
- Paige Pirocanac: (Diamond)
- Paige is a kind and respectful to everyone around her. She participates in all her classes and is always on task. Paige represents the Karcher Way.
- Kenzie Robinson: (Karcher Character Bucks)
- Kenzie is a student that is always kind to others in class and in the hallway. She always has a smile on her face and is excited to learn. Her enthusiasm is contagious and she does a great job of representing the Karcher Way.
- Haley Bryant: (Onyx)
- Haley is a wonderful young lady who consistently puts forth her best effort and has such a positive attitude, She often has a kind word or a smile to share with those around her. Thank you Haley, and keep up the great work!
- Paige Tello: (Silver)
- Paige has a strong sense of responsibility and takes every opportunity to learn all that she can. She is a true asset in every class.
- Savanna Schmidt: (Applied Academics)
- Savanna for being respectful and responsible, willing to clean up after paint, always tackling projects with a smile and a sense of humor.
- Cheyenne Hammiller: (Hive)
- Cheyenne is the Hive student of the week. Responsibility is a key trait Cheyenne displays with her work on safety patrol and with her school work. She is awesome in group settings with her peers, treating them with empathy and compassion.
______________________________________________________________________________
Kudos
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
- Hans Block was chosen as the KCB STAFF OF THE WEEK! Congrats Hans and thank you all for continuing to reinforce our 8 character traits.
- HUGE shout out to Brad Fersentou and Stephanie Rummler for putting on an AWESOME Karcher Character Assembly for both 7th and 8th grade!
- Recognizing positive character within our building is what The Karcher Way is all about, thank you to all staff for taking the time to write the special notes to the students you picked, I have received NUMEROUS emails from parents thanking us for the kind words about their son or daughter. Some parents said the words shared with their son/daughter has changed how they feel about school, you have built their confidence... thanks again! You never know when to start a ripple... but it is in these moments that you see the impact.
______________________________________________________________________________
Reminders
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
- February 13, Monday - BLT Meeting in the conference room starting at 2:40
- February 13, Monday - Freshmen Open House - please encourage our 8th grade students to attend from 5:30 - 7:45.
- February 14, Tuesday - Start of our next iTime rotation!!!
- February 15, Wednesday- Essential Skills PLC in the library
- February 16 & 17 - 7th grade students will input their elective course requests into Skyward during 7th grade science with the help of Matt, Steve, Becky, Marian and myself in the commons area.
- Teachers: Reminder to make sure you are working on your budgets for the 2017-2018 school year, budgets are due to Kim by February 24!
- 2017-2018 Budget Information:
- We are slightly under what our school budget was for the 2016-2017 school year. So, please stay very close to what you were in terms of your budget for this coming school year.
- Everything is now within Google Docs!!! So... please complete all of our budget information in Google Docs in the below forms and then send them to Kim via Google Docs. Please do not just share, make sure she knows you sent them to her.
- When naming your below documents please use this naming convention so that it is easy to search: Last Name - Budget Requisition Order Form, Last Name - 2017-2018 Budget Worksheet Form (Example: Ebbers - Budget Requisition Order Form)
- Budget Requisition Order Form
- 2017-2018 Budget Worksheet Form
- If you do not know your Function Number (Example: English 122200) email or ask Kim and she will help with what your number is.
- School sponsored overnight field trips:
- We need to be using the BASD overnight field trip information forms and they need to be turned into the health office two weeks prior to the trip.
- The forms are currently located HERE on the right side of the screen.
______________________________________________________________________________
Pictures from the week
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Students of the week for semester 1!
Students in Ms. Rummler's social studies class presenting their Civil War projects to the judges!
Civil War Board Game tied for first place with the Scooby Doo Episode written and based upon the original plot to kidnap Lincoln. It was a dark and spooky trip through the auditorium.
Students at the leadership conference with Ms. Rummler!
Article of the week: Here is the first half of this article... next week with be the 2nd half! We are well on our way with disciplinary writing with the infusion occurring within our applied academics.
The Writing Journey
A California school district provides a case study in how to improve student writing across the curriculum.
Over the past several years, I have been fortunate to work with an incredible array of teachers from across the United States who have given me valuable insight into their professional challenges. For a while now, I've started each workshop by asking the same question: "How many of you are seeing a decline in your students' writing abilities?" Sadly, no matter where I'm presenting or what the demographic of their students, the teachers' responses overwhelmingly confirm my worst fears: Wide swaths of students are not developing their writing skills—skills we know to be foundational to their literate lives.
Why are writing skills in decline? To answer this question, one might start by reading a recent study of U.S. middle schools conducted by the Education Trust (2015), in which the researchers examined a key question: Do classroom assignments reflect today's higher standards? Their findings were sobering. Only 38 percent of assignments were aligned with a grade-appropriate standard. About 85 percent of assignments asked students to either recall information or apply basic skills and concepts. (The assignments were "largely surface level," the report noted.) Only 1 percent of assignments required students to think for extended periods of time; most assignments could be completed in one class period.
This lack of rigor was especially evident in schools' writing expectations for students in middle school (see fig. 1).
Figure 1. Writing Expectations for Students in U.S. Middle Schools
Writing component
|
Percentage of assignments (rounded)
|
|---|---|
No writing required
|
18
|
Short note-taking
|
16
|
1–2 sentences
|
17
|
Multiple short responses (For instance, students answer five questions by writing 1–2 sentences per question.)
|
27
|
A single paragraph
|
14
|
Writing longer than a single paragraph
|
9
|
Source: Education Trust. (2015, September). Checking in: Do classroom assignments reflect today's higher standards? Retrieved from http://edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CheckingIn_TheEducationTrust_Sept20152.pdf
| |
Middle and high school teachers do not need elaborate studies to understand that many students come to us with weak writing skills. We read their papers, and we see firsthand what happens when they have had limited writing experience. We remain concerned that young, competent writers are becoming an endangered species, and we know this will only change when decision makers in schools make teaching writing a top priority.
Reasons to Write
So how can schools refocus on the importance of writing? One model is found in the Anaheim Union High School District (AUHSD), a grade 7–12 district in southern California serving more than 30,000 students in 16 schools. I teach at Magnolia High School, one of those schools. The district is in its third year of an ongoing effort to raise the volume and quality of student writing across the curriculum—an initiative called the Writing Journey. The early results are promising.
AUHSD's Writing Journey began in fall 2014 when all of the district's 1,300 teachers were brought together to kick off the initiative. Rather than starting with a focus on how to get more writing in the classrooms, teachers were asked to consider why writing is crucial to students' literacy development. At the kickoff, teachers were reminded of five reasons why students should write more in all content-area classes.
Reason 1: When students write, they generate deeper thinking in any content area.
Students—and some teachers—think that the only reason kids are asked to write in school is to demonstrate what they already know. ("Did you read the chapter? Okay, then answer this question.") But as Langer and Applebee (1987) found years ago, writing is not simply a vehicle that allows students to express what they know; writing is a tool that generates new thinking. The very act of writing leads students to new ideas that they would not have produced had they been simply asked to listen or talk.
Another national study found that when students write, they reach deeper levels of understanding, generate new ideas and thinking, enhance their critical-thinking skills, and are more likely to retain learning in the content area (Graham & Perin, 2007). The research is clear: When students write, they learn more and remember more.
Reason 2: Writing helps students become career ready.
In a report from the National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges (2004), Bob Kerrey, chair of the commission, said that writing is both a requirement of high-skill, high-wage, professional work and a gatekeeper skill with clear equity implications. People unable to express themselves clearly in writing will find limited opportunities for professional, salaried employment. Kerrey added that "unless our society pays attention to developing all of the education skills (including writing) of all segments of the population, it runs the risk of consigning many students who are poor, members of minority groups, or learning English to relatively low-skill, low-wage, hourly employment" (p. 19).
This bears repeating: When students' writing skills are limited, doors to opportunity are closed. Students who write well will have a leg up when it comes to finding and keeping a job.
Reason 3: Writing helps students become college ready.
David Conley, author of College Knowledge: What It Really Takes for Students to Succeed and What We Can Do to Get Them Ready (2005), examined the gap between the skill levels of graduating high school seniors and the literacy demands awaiting them at the university level. Many students will be shocked to learn that the As and Bs they earn in high school are not indicative of their readiness to take on university work. Conley suggests a number of ways that schools can better help students make this transition. Of his many suggestions, one of them—found in a landmark, in-depth study of the skills and content students need to succeed in college—stands out: "If we could institute only one change to make students more college ready, it should be to increase the amount and the quality of writing students are expected to produce" (Conley, 2007).
Of all the things schools can do to improve their students' college readiness, the most important move can be summed up simply: Students should be asked to write more, and they should be taught to write better.
Reason 4: Writing across the curriculum is now assessed on many state tests.
As part of their assessment systems, many states have now adopted tests that require students to produce on-demand writing. In many cases, this writing is generated after students have closely read passages culled from various content areas. As such, these state tests are not designed to assess a school's English department; they are designed to assess the entire school. The entire school will do better on these exams if students write regularly in all classes. Schools that put the burden of teaching writing solely on the backs of their English teachers will not adequately prepare students for these exams.
Reason 5: We want our students to be lifelong writers.
This may be the most important reason of all. We want young writers to grow into adult writers. We want our kids to become adults who create thoughtful blogs, write compelling letters to their elected representatives, and post coherent and trustworthy Yelp reviews. We want an intelligent citizenry—an intelligence anchored in lifelong writing.
