New EET Store Product - Questions (and Answers) for Every Chapter of Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

 

Hi guys!  I have a new product on the Extreme English Teachers Store - questions and answers for every chapter in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.  The chapters are short (mostly) and that makes for very adaptable lesson plans, because let's face it - you can plan out the semester all you want, but between special assemblies, drills, inclement weather days, and just the differences in the speed of each class, those plans are usually off track sooner than later.  This book is great in meeting your needs on the fly.  

The chapter by chapter questions let you  mix and match to meet the speed of your class and can be used as review, reading questions, check up quizzes, or moved into an online quiz format like Quizizz or Blooket pretty easily.

These questions were written for struggling readers in mind, so most are plot level, with a few deeper thoughts.  Some are opinion questions and most are aimed at helping the students focus on what will be important later on in the book.  A favorite tactic for me to use is to ask my students why I asked that particular question.  Gets them thinking.

If you haven't taught Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, you should!  Read this post on why.

You may also be interested in this one: Before Reading - An Introduction Activity for Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

I have plans for more activities for this novel to come out.  If only I wasn't so busy teaching, I could spend more time on this!  :)

Turdsworth

 

So I ran across this in an article by Olivia Rutigliano on Literary Hub.  It was just too funny not to pass on to you guys to check out!  So if you want to read the article and find out what Samuel Taylor Coleridge called him, please do over at: https://lithub.com/lord-byron-used-to-call-william-wordsworth-turdsworth-and-yes-this-is-a-real-historical-fact/

Happy Pi Day

"3.141592," Tom said piously.

Well, math teachers shouldn't get all the fun!

The Cover Letter and Resume - New Resource at Extreme English Teacher!

 

I've posted a new resource on the Extreme English Teacher store - a lesson on how to write a cover letter and resume!

I teach seniors and many of them do not know how to write either one of these.  Writing and communication falls under the purview of the English curriculum and it is a lesson that many of them can use right away.

It is a short lesson (will take about a class period).  The lesson has bonus slides to include if teaching it asynchronously and it has an assignment should you wish to take it from an introduction lesson to an activity.

As an added bonus, there is a slide with interview tips!  I have sat on enough hiring boards to know that people NEED these tips!

I also have it as a bundle so that you can save some money by buying both this lesson and Writing Formal Emails lesson.

If you try it out, let me know what you think and leave a rating on the store.  I try to keep all of my products highly affordable (we're all in this teaching game together, you know) and the ratings help me get noticed!

Visit the store at: Extreme English Teacher

Tired of Little Black Boxes? Try the Ten Minute Virtual Face to Face

 So last semester, I taught several students that I still have no idea what they look like.  I do not require students to turn on their cameras because we live in a rural area, so many of their Internet connections are spotty enough as it is and many have homes that they do not wish to show in their backgrounds.  It's frustrating to teach to a screen of black boxes, but I can do it and I utilize the chat feature in Zoom for interaction.

But graduation is coming and I will not even recognize the majority of my seniors when they come by in our drive through ceremony.

So I am trying something new.  I am reserving a day for ten minute virtual face-to-face meetings.  I broke the classes into small groups and the students only need to log on that day for their ten minute slot.  Depending on who else logs in, they may be alone or may have up to five others in their group.  I get each one to show me what they look like and they can decide to keep the camera on for the rest of the ten minutes or not.  We talk about what they like and dislike, sports, clubs, art, and what they plan on doing after high school.  It's a chance for me to make a connection.  

Yes, I do give up a day of instruction for this.  Why?  Because I feel that if I can make connections with some of these kids, they will be more active in my class, in which case they will learn more than what we would have had in one class session.

What are you doing to connect with your virtual students?

Separate Setting Tests - Do This to Minimize Singling Kids Out

 If you teach inclusion classes, you are familiar with the process of taking out a portion of the students who have Separate Setting accommodations on their IEP.  The problem is, some students who really need the smaller class setting for testing, are quite embarrassed by being singled out for removal from the classroom.

Not in my class.  My inclusion teacher (who also happens to be my wife) came up with the strategy years ago and it has worked very well in my class.  The separate setting accommodation is NOT about the different room, it IS about the smaller number of students.  Check with your state about what that number is, but I am betting it is larger than you thought.  Ours is 15.  

On test day, my inclusion teacher either takes all the girls, all the boys, picks randomly, or just asks which students want to go with her.  Once she takes about half the class, both rooms now meet the separate setting guidelines.  No one is called out.  Students who are not labeled often choose to go to the different room to test.  No one is embarrassed.

Let me know if you have any Inclusion class hacks in the comments!

Tech Tuesday - Do You Use Vocabulary.com's Free Service? Read This!

 

There are some changes coming to the vocabulary.com free service.  If you are like me, you've been using their free service because your school wants to spend money...elsewhere.  The free service is FANTASTIC and the only drawback is that you cannot see student performance, but that is easily rectified by having students show you their screen or screenshot.

I noticed a little while ago, I had been given a free trial for premium service.  I did not think much about it until a teacher friend of mine said he was blocked out of his classes and that he had heard vocabulary.com was ditching their free service.  I could still access mine, so I contacted the company.  They responded very quickly on a late Friday afternoon.  That impressed me.  Representative Srob O gave me this reply:

Hello Mark​​,

Thank you for your message. Your friend is right, due to our parent company's vision for us, we've made some changes to the way basic accounts on Vocabulary.com can use the program. The ability to create classes, assign work, and track data for your top three students will no longer be available with a basic account. You'll still be able to play The Challenge, create lists, host Jams and log-in to your account as a user.

One thing I do want to point out is that these changes will not affect the program for your students. They can still log in, find lists connected to your class, and do work on their own. Additionally, you will still be able to create lists and share the URLs with your students externally to have them work independently. To get the URL for Practice, just click on a list then click the "Start Practice" button. The URL will always be the list ID /practice. For example, https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/6116552/practice.

My apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. If you have any additional questions, let us know. We're happy to brainstorm more ways to make use of new more limited free version. I'm confident we can find a way to create continuity in your students word learning. Let me know a time and best number to reach you at and I'd be more than happy to call you to discuss these matters.

So what does this all mean?  Well, I plan on continuing my use of their free service even though I cannot assign a list to a class.  If I can just assign a link, that should work, but I won't know for certain until my premium service runs out.  

Let me know if you are using it the new way, any problems you might have or solutions to them, and if you know of other comparable services in the comment section.