The Edublogs server was down during and after school today.  I apologize for the delay in weekly notes updates.

Genesis: I worked with G/E students in the general classroom to assist with their interviewing, brainstorming, prewriting, organizing, and revising of their biographies, and provided support for students’ drafting and word processing of biopoems. 

Legacy: Students completed station work that helped them investigate the world classic as genre study.  They brainstormed the reasons why they might abandon challenging independent world classic reading, and expressed them through their “graffiti walls” that our class “tagged” during our gallery walk with extended response and dialogue.  Students learned how to “problem-solve” their reading challenges through generating fix-it strategies for understanding tough text.  I conducted reading conferences with all students about their world classic novels, with this week’s focus to help students identify where they possessed gaps in critical background knowledge that was needed to make meaning of their book.  Students also learned new strategies for paraphrasing and strategic notetaking (which involves synthesis of both reader response and analysis of author’s purpose).  They also applied metacognitive strategies to facilitate comprehension of texts that begged the question, “Why do we read the classics?”–this activity included close reading of aphorisms by Italian writer Italo Calvino.  Students learned how to approach the reader response blog assignment that is weekly homework for our reading class, and set goals for this trimester’s word stem and SAT vocabulary study.

Explorers: The Explorers continued their lessons with Mrs. Franks and Ms. Iannotti (please see Field Notes for additional information).  I received preassessments and interest/learning inventories from G/E students that I use to individualize instruction for our upcoming novel study with the Legacy Team (mid-September).