Celebrate National Day on Writing on October 19

October 20, 2012, will mark NCTE‘s fourth annual National Day on Writing (U. S. Senate Resolution 565). Because October 20 falls on Saturday this year, NCTE and collaborating organizations are inviting us to celebrate on October 19. This year NCTE is partnering with  The New York Times Learning Network, National Writing Project, Mozilla Hive Learning Network NYC, Edutopia, National Novel Writing Month, Digital Learning Day, Common Sense Media, The College of Saint Rose, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Creative Commons, School Library Journal, and FridayReads to encourage you and your students to take part in a global conversation on Twitter about writing and the role it plays in your life. For ideas about what to post, just click on the links for any of the collaborating sponsors.

If you decide to participate and/or if you decide to invite your students to participate, please post using the hashtag #WhatIWrite (and if space permits, #dayonwriting). The goal is to call attention to the remarkable variety of writing that people from all walks of life engage in across the nation and to recognize the important role writing has in all our lives.

Let’s get #WhatIWrite to be a trending topic on Twitter on Friday!

EngageNY Publishes Evidence Guide for ELA 6-12

On October 10, 2012, EngageNY published tools to capture evidence of the six shifts in practice necessitated by the adoption of the New York State Common Core Learning Standards for ELA and Literacy. Please take a look at the evidence guide for grades 6-12 to get a clearer idea of the kinds of instructional practices that reflect implementation of the shifts. These guides were developed by Student Achievement Partners.

 

Fall 2012 National Humanities Center’s America in Class Online Seminars

The National Humanities Center has released its online seminar schedule for Fall 2012. These seminars are targeted to provide ELA and social studies teachers with professional development to deepen their content knowledge and to promote the teaching of the analytical and close reading skills called for by the Common Core Standards. America in Class seminars, conducted by leading scholars, will address how to use primary source materials such as historical documents, literature, and works of art to explore topics such as slavery in British North American and consumer politics in the American Revolution, to study works of literature such as The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Poe’s “The Raven” in context, and to examine how artists depict America–among other topics.

Seminar texts are provided free online.

Seminars typically cost $35 each. Teachers in the Greece Central School District may contact me for a promotional code that will enable you to register for Fall 2012 seminars at no charge.