April update

Hello fellow NCTE members!

As we gear up for the final push of the last five weeks of the semester everyone is busily trying to tie up loose ends. I have a few loose ends of my own to share:

Last meeting Casey and I went over what we found to be the best and most educational of the many seminars we attended at the Colorado Language Arts Society Regional Conference. It was a great weekend at the Inverness Hotel March 7-9, even if we did not hear from Niki Giovanni or Gene Luen Yang.

The highlights for me were the many sessions on using Film and Graphic Novels in the classroom. We heard from Jessica Keigan and Kim Brady from Horizon High School in Thornton, CO on Film Literacy in the Integrated Classroom - the phenomenal handout from this session alone is an entire unit plan including, among many other useful instructional plans, feature film reading activities for:

Gladiator
Kingdom of Heaven
Melinda and Melinda
Titanic
Cinderella Man
Bend it Like Beckham

Casey shared tips and strategies from a session on How to Save Time Grading and Change Lives - given by David Cohara, Wendi Johnson, and Benjamin Reed from Standley Lake High School, discussing the benefits of using the MicroConference and the E-Conference with twenty-first century students in our rapid society. Tips included details on how to:

Assess and Prioritize,
Make comments - not corrections,
Praise,
Discuss the writing,
and how to use shortcuts to streamline the grading process.


Our next meeting tomorrow night in Eddy 8 from 7-8 pm we will discuss the t-shirt options for our club this semester, and we will have a drawing for a teacher-iffic prize, before we hear from this week's guest speaker: Nola McMillen from Bennett Elementary will share hints and advice for teaching Second Language Acquisition in the Language Arts class.

We hope to see you all there!

Upcoming Events:

* Northern Colorado Writers Conference -
Fort Collins Hilton April 4th and 5th
For registration and information visit - http://www.ncwc.biz/

* CSUnity -
Forms are available in the SLICE office, located in the Lory Student Center
Sign up as a group or individual
Must sign up by March 14th at 5:00 p.m.

* CSU Writing Project Workshop
Held on campus on April 19th
For registration and information please e-mail nctecsu@gmail.com

New Logo!

This is the logo that will appear on the front of our t-shirts - with the phrase:

"Caution: Corrects Grammar"

on the back!
We are also looking into ordering some with:

"Been there - read that"

And we are checking prices between hoodies and shirts - so come to the next meeting to find out about ordering yourself one!

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!