Happy Father's Day...Great story.

Last Full Week to Make a Difference!

This Week @ HMS

Sunday, May 18

Happy Birthday April Bryant!

Monday, May 19

8^th Grade Technology Testing (Bryant in C2)

Band Concert 7:00 pm

Tuesday, May 20

8^th Grade Technology Testing (Bryant in C2)

Wednesday, May 21

Happy Birthday Nancy Dougherty!

8th Grade Technology Testing (Antwine in C2)

Thursday, May 22

8^th Grade Technology Testing (Antwine in C2)

Friday, May 23

8^th Grade Day!

-Awards and Haltom High

-Lunch @ the Park

-Haltom’s Got Talent in the Auditorium

COPLAND The Tender Land: Party Scene and Finale, The Promise of Living -...

Motivating Middle-School Students

 

            In this article in AMLE Magazine, Missouri ELA teacher Cryslynn Billingsley describes how she gets her middle-school students to take responsibility for their own learning, work harder, and achieve:

            • At the beginning of the year, she shows three video clips: Michael Jordan talking about how his many failures made him try even harder; scenes from The Karate Kid showing the boy becoming a skilled fighter despite multiple distractions; and a Nike commercial showing athletes falling down, being defeated, and rising up stronger than before.

            • Right after the clips, Billingsley has students write a letter to themselves describing what they will do to have a successful school year, a successful academic career, and a successful life. “Their letters turn out pretty great,” she says. “At the same time, I’ve motivated  them, gotten a writing sample, and have found out a little bit more about their currencies – the things in their lives that are important to them.”

• When motivation sags in the middle of the year, she has students get the letters out and think about whether they are meeting the goals they set for themselves for the school year – and what they need to do.

• Billingsley also has students keep a graph of their progress on the specific learning targets of the course. That graph, plus her monitoring of students’ ongoing percent totals, keeps students focused on how they’re doing and spurs them on if they see the numbers dip. “At the end of the school year, students are always amazed at what they have accomplished and they know specifically how they were able to make progress,” she says.

© Copyright 2014 Marshall Memo LLC

  

 

“Mentor Me” by Cryslynn Billingsley in AMLE Magazine, April 2014 (Vol. 1, #8, p. 40), www.amle.org; Billingsley can be reached at cbillingsley@pkwy.k12.mo.us.

The Mother of All Weeks!

Please take a moment to complete the following survey.  We are beginning to plan for next year's staff development.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/G3ZFTMK

Sunday May 11

Happy Mother’s Day!

Monday May 12

6^th Grade Band NRH2O Trip

Tuesday May 13

Happy Birthday Courtney Dunwoody!

8^th Grade STAAR Math Retest

7^th and 8^th Grade Band Trip

Peer Mediation Meeting @ 4:00 Auditorium Julie Allen

Wednesday May 14

Happy Birthday Cindy Nyvall!

8^th Grade STAAR Reading Retest

AVID Field Trip to SMU

Thursday May 15-Adivsory (progress reports)

Vaccination Clinic for 6^th Graders

Friday May 16-Advisory (progress reports)

Theater 6^th grade performance-2:45 and 6:30

Saturday May 17

Duty Calls

Outside Duty                          Morning Hall Duty

S1-M. Benavides                    A Hall-M. Brown

S2-K. Richards                       B Hall-J. Antwine

S4-L. Czarnecki                      C Hall A. Martin

S6-A. Lopez

Cool Writing Video and Article!

(Originally titled “Teaching the Writer’s Craft”)

            “Writing is a core skill for living, not just for school,” says New Hampshire teacher/author Penny Kittle in this exceptionally helpful Educational Leadership article. “Writing sharpens our vision, tunes us in to what matters, and helps us think through what we must live through. We write to express what we know and see and believe, and we have the power to determine exactly how readers will hear our work: where sentences will glide and where they’ll stop… We want students to know this and to write with clarity, voice, and authority.”

But too many teachers “act like scolds,” says Kittle, “red pens in hand, stamping out sin and punishing errors.” Too many students come to regard writing like a trip to the dentist, rush through their writing, and ignore the corrections and comments their teachers spend so much time making. “It’s time to stop scolding and start teaching,” she says. “At the center of teaching writing craft is what is at the center of all good instruction: the student. We don’t teach semi-colons; we teach students how to use them well. This is a subtle, but essential difference.” Here are her suggestions:

   • Independent reading – “Students become better writers when they read voraciously, deeply, and often,” says Kittle. “It is Leo Tolstoy and Sherman Alexie and Billy Collins and shelves of young adult literature consumed like the last deep breath you take before a dive. When books reach students, students reach for books.” She pushes her high-school students to read at least 25 books a year, constantly conferring, matching them with the right book, and asking them to find especially well-written passages to add to the “book graffiti board” on one wall of the classroom. She believes wide reading should be a whole-school effort.

• Providing topic choice – “Students who choose what they write about bring passion and focus to the task of writing,” says Kittle. “Ask them to argue for changes they believe in. Give them audiences throughout the school and the world.”

• Daily revision – Kittle has her students reread and listen to their writing each day, “sharpening ideas and images while shaping our sentences to be clear and smooth… All writers need a gathering place for thinking that allows for the mess of the first draft… Mistakes have to be OK as we struggle to get ideas on the page.” This takes place in a low-stakes environment and helps students pay attention to details as well as style and content. “Yet the mastery of mechanics is an illusion,” she says; “errors increase when we are unsure of what we are trying to say.”

• Sentence study – Kittle has her students imitate interesting sentences, “noticing how punctuation works in a sentence and then practice using it as they craft their own sentences.” One student called her over and asked, “Mrs. Kittle, I need punctuation that is bigger than a comma. What are my options?” Doing this kind of problem-solving in class helps students “see punctuation as a tool they can use, not just something they can name,” she says. “They become the independent writers we desire.”

• Combining sentences – Having students take three or four simple sentences and create a single complex sentence is excellent practice, says Kittle.

• Modeling the writer’s craft – “I write in front of my students, demonstrating the decisions I make to clarify and tune sentences,” she says. “I model the composition of essays, letters, and stories that matter to me, that I am deeply invested in crafting… I allow my students to watch me struggle. Passion is contagious.”



 © Copyright 2014 Marshall Memo LLC.
222 Clark Road, Brookline, MA 02445.

Gratitude

 

Gratitude

Thanks for your hard work and dedication to our students.  Please enjoy a meal each day as a small token and celebration of gratitude for your sacrifice this year for the benefit of our children.

 

I don't have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness - it's right in front of me if I'm paying attention and practicing gratitude……..Brene Brown

 

Thank You Teachers/Staff  and Nurses!

May 6, 2014

Alegebra EOC

Social Committee Luncheon

May 7

Breakfast –Sponsored  by the Social Committee

Faculty Meeting

May 8

Hamburger Luncheon –Sponsored By PTA

May 9

Social Committee Luncheon

 

Dave Brubeck "Besame Mucho" (+playlist)

This Week @ Tigerland

 

This Week @ HMS

Sunday-April 20

Happy Birthday Luke Russell!

Monday-April 21

Brief Meeting in the Library-8^th grade Pre-Ap and On-Level Reading Math Teachers

(This should not take more than 20 minutes)

Tuesday-April 22

STAAR Testing

6^th and 7^th Grade Math

8^th Grade Social Studies

Wednesday-April 23

STAAR Testing

6^th and 7^th Grade Reading

8^th Grade Science

Thursday-April 24

8^th Graders to Haltom High School 9:00-10:45

Report Cards distributed through 7^th period

Friday-April 25

Report Cards Turned in through 7^th Period

6^th and 7^th Band Rehearsal 4:00


Happy Birthday Coach Van Dine!
 Saturday-April 26

Band March-a-Thon-11-2 @ the FAAC

Contribute a Verse

 

 

O Me! O Life!

O Me! O Life!

By Walt Whitman 1819–1892 Walt Whitman

Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

                                       Answer.

That you are here—that life exists and identity,

That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.