3/5 meeting

This semester of NCTE is turning out to be a great one so far. We had a great and productive meeting last night, with the new design for the t-shirts selected, the first round of helpful handouts from Abby and Casey, a presentation from guest speakers and a prize drawing to end the night!

NCTE members heard from Lona Bunton and Jennifer Cooper, 8th grade team teachers of an interdiciplinary unit between English and History brought us helpful packets with all the information needed for a new teacher to plan an Interdisciplinary Unit, the musts and benefits, lesson plans and grading rubrics.


Musts:

• The disciplines working together must have the same students

• The instructors must be able to work together, be flexible, and have something to add to the process.

Benefits:

• Students learn to do research in English - actually do the research in Social Studies; students actually only have to do one research project well vs. two quickly. This provides students with the skills they need to do the research, and the topic comes from social studies and is pertinent to both courses.
• Students get to read every day from independent novels.
  
• Helps students to see education as connected and integrated - not just isolated skills.

The course themes include:

• Skills and Drills
• geography
• grammar
• poetry
• literary terms
• Myself My World
• self selected reading
• current events
• careers
• Watership Down: A study of self and society
• Honor and Service
• To Kill a Mockingbird: A study of significant historical events that create heroes in our world
• Africa & Middle East: A study of social hierarchy, civil rights abuses and leaders who have confronted these issues through honorable methods.
• Faith & Belief Systems
• The Odyssey: Study of polytheistic beliefs (Greek Mythology)
• Middle East: 3 monotheistic religions, with a focus on Islam
• Asia: Hinduism and Buddhism
• Development of personal belief system
• Economics & Politics
• Animal Farm: A study of political systems through literature
• World Economic and political systems
• Europe: A study of the Russian Revolution to today
• Environmental Exploitation:
• Misssing Persons League: Exploring current and future exploitation of the earth
• South America: The Amazon rainforest
• North America: Drilling for oil in Alaska, East St. Louis
• Autobiographies
  

Upcoming meetings:

• March 26, the Wednesday after Spring Break. Our guest speaker Nelda Issacs will tell us about what an administrator is looking for in a new teacher's interview, and will enlighten us on the qualities of a successful resume!
  
• April 9, Nola McMillen from Bennett Elementary will discuss teaching ELA.
• April 23 we might hear from a Peace Corps representative about teaching abroad!

We look forward to seeing you all there!