Georgia’s CRCT Revisited
Georgia has decided to invalidate the scores on the social studies portion of the CRCT that more than 70% of the state’s students failed. However, the scores of the 40% of 8th graders who failed the math portion will stand.
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Georgia’s CRCT
When 40% of an individual teacher’s students fail a standardized test, I imagine the teacher would be scrutinized, and rightly so. Whatever I think of standardized tests, 40% of a teacher’s students shouldn’t fail one, or something’s wrong with the teacher’s instruction. If 40% of a school’s students failed a standardized test, the school might…
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Reflecting on Backward Design
The end of the year is drawing closer, and today I was thinking about backward design. This year was the first year I implemented backward design planning. I have been really impressed with how much students have learned. My 9th grade students in particular really seemed to connect to this type of learning; furthermore, unless…
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Doing School
Denise Clark Pope explores some interesting ideas in Doing School. Pope shadowed five different students who were chosen by school officials. All were considered high achievers, but the group was diverse. Pope’s goal was to determine how students viewed school. It turns out most of them saw school as a means to an end —…
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The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison’s first novel The Bluest Eye is frequently challenged due to situations involving rape and incest. When I first read it several years ago, I found it shocking, but I think it teaches us interesting things about how we define beauty in our society, what acceptance and love are, and how we harm not…
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A Writing Teacher’s Pet Peeves
In my ten years of composition instruction, I have developed a set of pet peeves associated with the body of student writing I have read. Any of my students reading this should keep in mind that I do not direct this at any particular student — this list is a synthesis of common writing errors…
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UbD Wiki: Summaries
Miguel Guhlin has joined the UbD Educators wiki and wants your help. He is posting UbD chapter summaries and wants input from other wiki members. I want to ask wiki members a question: Miguel suggested that we unlock those summary pages to allow nonmembers to participate. What do you think? My idea was that allowing…
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Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet
I just finished writing UbD units for Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet at the UbD Educators wiki. As I finished writing the unit for Hamlet and saved the page, I lost half the work I had done, and I am still not sure how it happened, so I had to re-do it. Word to the…
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Happy New Year
This year, I had the opportunity to teach British literature for the first time — the course that made me want to teach English — and I had a wonderful time. I will be handing the course over to a colleague, and I hope she will enjoy it, too. I also had the opportunity to…
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The Faculty Room
Meg Fitzpatrick, editor of of the UbD e-journal Big Ideas, invited me to contribute to both the e-journal and a new blog they are announcing today: The Faculty Room. Please come on over and join in our conversations (my first post on the blog should appear some time tomorrow). You will find other “familiar faces”…