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.

STAAR Results and Desire!

Desire!

Super great day for Haltom Middle! Your 8^th grade math and reading students (& Ms. Courtney’s 7^th grade math students) achieved some amazing results!  91% in Math and 80 % in Reading passed! After crunching the numbers (thank you Mrs. Shaft), we had about an 81% gain in math and a 67% reading. Fantastic work!  Everyone shares this one! If you had these students, you made a contribution.

Some people dream of being Jaime Escalante, a Freedom Writer, or Michelle Pfeiffer from Dangerous Minds.  You get the opportunity to do this every day!  It is hard work, but what a difference you make! 

 

Writing Strategy

 

 How to Get Students Writing Well

(Originally titled “Writing Is Taught, Not Caught”)

            In this Educational Leadership article, Carol Jago (UCLA) remembers as a young English teacher believing in the field-of-dreams approach to writing instruction: Build it, and they will come. “Many years and many red pens later,” she says, “I know better. If we expect students to learn to write, we need to teach them how.” Some pointers:

            • Provide a substantive stimulus. Jago believes in using novels, poetry, nonfiction, artwork, photographs, and data displays to inspire writing. Here’s how she tackled her “Working” unit:

-    Students wrote for a few minutes about how work affects their lives and the lives of those around them.

-    Students turned and talked with a partner about what they wrote.

-    They looked at Vincent van Gogh’s painting, The Potato Eaters, for two solid minutes and then talked in groups about how work affected the people in the scene.

-    She read Seamus Heaney’s poem “Digging” aloud and had students read it silently, choose lines that were particularly striking, and do a quick-write about them.

-    The class discussed the poem’s comparison of Heaney’s work as a poet and his father’s and grandfather’s work.

-    Students heard Heaney reading the poem: www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177017.

-    Students then read Mike Rose’s 2009 article, “Blue Collar Brilliance: Questioning Assumptions About Intelligence, Work, and Social Class” and analyzed how Rose shapes his argument.

“Only after all this reading, thinking, and talking do students begin crafting their own compositions on work,” says Jago. Here’s her prompt: Summarize the key ideas about work found in the readings and analyze and evaluate those claims, explaining why you agree or disagree with them. Use the readings, class discussion, or your own work experiences and/or research to support your analysis.

            • Have students write frequently. “Most students do not write enough to learn to write well,” says Jago – most students don’t do more than two pages of writing a day in all their classes, and most of this is writing to show what they know rather than writing to learn. (She doesn’t consider tweeting, texting, and Facebook the kind of practice students need to build college-ready skills.) “The only way for a school to ensure that students have enough varied opportunities to write is to make writing an expectation in every class across the curriculum,” she says – in social studies, science, art, etc.

• Give students meaningful feedback. The elephant in the room, of course, is the burden of grading all that writing – but the burden is often self-inflicted. “Too many writing teachers currently confuse their role with that of a copy editor,” says Jago, “correcting every error, turning passive voice to active, and revising long passages of garbled prose… Instead, it’s more helpful to focus on a single aspect of the student paper that needs improvement.” Teachers also need to wade in and transform sloppy thinking into clear thinking.

• Teach the features of good writing. We need to help students become critical readers of their own writing, she says – which means being self-critical and knowing what good writing looks like: not some cookbook formula, but organized, well-developed, audience-aware, and free of mechanical and grammatical errors.

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

“Writing Is Taught, Not Caught” by Carol Jago in Educational Leadership, April 2014 (Vol. 71, #7, p. 16-21), http://bit.ly/1iOOLRm; Jago can be reached at jago@gseis.ucla.edu.

The Late Edition

This Week @ HMS

Monday, April 14

4:00 7^th Grade Meet of Champions @ Central Jr.

Tuesday, April 15

Blood Moon

4:00 8^th Grade Meet of Champions @ Central Jr.

Wednesday, April 16

Middle School Band UIL @ Richland High School

Athletic Physicals @ HHS

Silva Baby Shower @ 4:00

Thursday, April 17

Middle School Band UIL @ Richland High School

ASPIRE Family Night in Cafeteria 4:45-7:00

NJHS Ceremony in Auditorium 6:30

Saturday, March 19

ASPIRE Soccer Tournament All Day

Duty Schedule

Outside

S1-Ku

S2-Rachels

S3-Feig

S4-Saucedo

S5-L. Courtney

S6-Keany

Morning Hall Duty

A Hall-M. Anderson

B-C. Spillman

C-Hall Pena

Tiger Thumbs Up

Ms. Bryant and Courtney-Congrats on your engagement!

Mrs. Davis-Great work with UIL!   Thanks for your hard work!

Student-Led Conferences and Passage Presentations

 

(Originally titled “When Students Lead Their Learning”)

            In this helpful article in Educational Leadership, Expeditionary Learning honcho Ron Berger describes two practices that shift assessments from evaluating and ranking students to motivating and equipping them to learn:

            • Student-led report card conferences – “For most students in the United States, parent conferences are a mysterious event,” says Berger. “The student is a passive recipient of information from the teacher, passed through the parent.” This dynamic changes completely when students lead report card conferences. Here are excerpts from a Kansas kindergarten student presenting her goals and samples of her work to her parents, watched by the teacher (see the link below for video footage of this and other student presentations):

-    She explained her strategies for adding. “I can find the sum of two numbers,” she said.

-    “I can stretch out words to hear all the sounds.”

-    Showing several drafts of a drawing of a butterfly, she said, “What I like about this is the colors because they look beautiful. But I need to fix the symmetry, because this wing is smaller than that wing.”

Students get increasingly sophisticated as they move through the grades. Berger describes a conference in which a seventh grader explains to her father how she’s using context clues, evaluating algebraic expressions, spotting a sequence error in a science quiz, and focusing on two goals in science, her weakest subject.

            “When students must report to their families what they’re learning – what skills and understandings they have, what areas still challenge them, and where they hope to get to – they must understand their own learning and progress,” says Berger. “They take pride in what they can do and take responsibility for what they need to work on. Education stops being something done to them and begins being something that they are leading.”

            For teachers, student-led conferences catalyze high-quality instruction. Students must be able to explain what they are learning, which means teachers must monitor each student’s progress and push for conceptual understanding. And the conferences involve parents much more deeply in their children’s learning. Berger says that most Expeditionary Learning schools get 100 percent family attendance.

The following guidelines are critical to the success of these conferences:

-    There are clear expectations for what students will say and share and how they will involve parents;

-    Teachers or advisors prepare students, focusing on speaking skills, courtesy, and reflection on how work is meeting learning targets.

-    Portfolios of high-quality work anchor the conferences and show progress in academic work, character traits, and other school activities.

-    Schoolwide guidelines deal with logistics, scheduling, and outreach.

Implementing student-led conferences inevitably draws attention to the rigor and quality of curriculum and learning, and that’s a good thing, says Berger.

            • Passage presentations – At key transitions (for example, 8^th, 10^th, and 12^th grade), students present their entire academic portfolio to a panel of experts – which might include the superintendent, school board and community members, and visiting educators (with family members in the audience). Berger describes a presentation by a Massachusetts sixth grader in which he explains that he transferred to the school at the beginning of the year and had to catch up in math and writing; describes an in-depth, multi-week problem that he worked on with three classmates; presents his winning entry to a math contest; demonstrates his reading, writing, and research skills in a series of projects on the architecture of ancient civilizations; and explains two service projects: designing a playground for younger students and building a dollhouse for a homeless shelter. When students complete one of these presentations, says Berger, “there are often tears or shouts or family celebrations. The passage process elevates student learning to a new level.” Teachers plan more carefully to make sure students are successful and can explain their learning. The community is coming to watch, so the kids had better be ready!

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

 

“When Students Lead Their Learning” by Ron Berger in Educational Leadership, March 2014 (Vol. 71, #6, online only), http://bit.ly/1mjn4GG; Berger is at rberger@elschools.org.

Balancing Children’s Virtual World with Face-to-Face Interactions

 

            In this Kappan article, Angela Walmsley (Northeastern University/Seattle) worries that her elementary-aged children would rather watch television or play with an iPad than run around outside, and she sees older children holed up in their bedrooms engrossed in computer games, texting, and Facebook. “Have they become enthralled with the virtual world we live in, or is something wrong?” asks Walmsley. “While they may be learning how to communicate virtually, they lack the confidence and knowledge of reacting verbally and with appropriate body language when engaged in a face-to-face conversation.” She suggests a number of ways for schools to help correct this imbalance:

            • Structure classroom activities in which students must speak in front of others, coaching them on eye contact, nonverbal cues, and articulation.

            • Get students working in groups and talking with each other as they solve problems and complete projects.

            • When students complete a group project, have them communicate about what worked well – who talked too little, how nonverbal cues were used, and how interactions can improve.

            • Model in-person teamwork by team-teaching with another teacher.

            • Use a “Technology Corner” in the school newsletter to (a) Encourage parents to have rules at home about when students can watch TV, use a tablet, or text. (One idea is having everyone’s phone “sleep” in the same room at night); (b) Encourage parents to have conversations at the dinner table with no electronics; and (c) Encourage parents to balance in-person with electronic interactions and get their children engaging in unstructured play outside.

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

 

 

“Unplug the Kids” by Angela Walmsley in Phi Delta Kappan, March 2014 (Vol. 95, #6, p.

Zone Defense! Please Be Present at Your Doors!

This Week @ HMS

April 7-Monday

7^th and 8^th Grade Track Meet @ Birdville Stadium

April 8-Tuesday

One Act Play Marathon

April 9-Wedensday

Department Chair Meeting @ 4:00 in Conference Room

April 10-Thursday

AP ILT Bailey-AM, Meza-PM

April 11-Friday

Happy Birthday Sarah Whitaker!

April 12-Saturday

District Professional Development-Make Up Day

UIL One Act Play

Tiger Duty

AM Duty

A Hall-Ms. Richards

B Hall-Ms. Merrill

C Hall-Ms. Czarnecki

PM Duty

S1-Mrs. Allen

S2-Mrs. Spillman

S3-Mrs. Quezada

S4-Ms. Miller

S5-Ms. Elrod

S6-Ms. Bryant

Tiger Thumbs Up

7^th and 8^th Grade Teachers-Great job with testing last week!  It went much smoother than last year and the plus/Delta will help us get better

Mrs. William and Mr. Ku (History and Science Department)-Thanks for the STAAR Boot camp Plan….Looks like a winner!

Ms. Meza, Mrs. Shaft and Glinsky-Great work on the STAAR organization.

Should Students Be Allowed to Re-Take Tests?

 

            In this thoughtful article in AMLE Magazine, Pooja Patel (New York City teacher), Darlene Pope (California teacher), and Patricia George (AMLE Magazine editor) debate whether students should be allowed to take a quiz or test again if they’re not satisfied with their grade. George lists the reasons some educators are opposed to the idea:

-    It reduces students’ incentive to prepare well for the initial test.

-    It allows students to treat the first go-round as a pre-test, giving them a heads-up on content and rigor.

-    If full credit is given for re-takes, that’s unfair to students who took the test only once.

-    Allowing re-takes doesn’t prepare students for the real world, where doing your best the first time around is important.

-    It’s a waste of teachers’ time and effort to prepare and grade two sets of tests.

George says some schools have countered these concerns by allowing only one re-take per grading period, requiring students to do re-takes after school, and giving only partial credit for re-takes.

            Patel argues that allowing students to retake tests is an effective way of differentiating instruction, helping students learn from mistakes, motivating students to work harder, and thereby improving achievement. “All students will not reach mastery at the same time,” she says. “If we provide students with only one opportunity to show their understanding, we do not allow all of them to understand to their true capacity… Students thrive in an environment where learning is emphasized, stress is minimal, effort is intrinsic, and students’ needs are met.”

            Pope recalls author/consultant Rick DuFour asking what happens when someone fails a driving test. They take it again, as many times as necessary. And which one counts? The one in which they demonstrated mastery. “This simple analogy spurred me to rethink my position on testing and revise my practice so that my focus was on mastery, not deadlines,” says Pope. “I think we need to remember that when students fail, it is not always just their fault.” When students in her classes don’t do well on assignments or tests, she helps them during the lunch period (or verifies that another adult has worked with them) and allows them to try again. Since she made this shift ten years ago, her students’ achievement on state tests has improved significantly, and she believes their understanding is deeper.

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

“Perspectives: Opportunity for a Do-Over” by Pooja Patel, Darlene Pope, and Patricia George AMLE Magazine, March 2014 (Vol. 1, #7, p. 6-7), www.amle.org; Patel and Pope can be reached at pooja979@gmail.com and pope_d@sgusd.k12.ca.us.

Map Showing US Expansion-Nice viewpoint for our 8th graders

a. Map showing the step-by-step expansion of the United States – Check out this link for a nifty sequence of the formation of the country:

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

 http://gif-explode.com/?explode=http://i.imgur.com/yPov2.gif

Getting Middle-School Students Moving During Class – Without Chaos

 

            “As a 20-year veteran middle-school teacher, I learned very early in my career that if you don’t physically move middle-school students sometime during your lesson or class time, they will move you in ways you wish you could forget,” says Minnesota teacher Kim Campbell in this thought-provoking AMLE Magazine article. Campbell believes students can actively listen to a teacher for about as many minutes as they are old, meaning that most middle-school students are good for less than 15 minutes of seat time before their attention flags. Her colleague Mark McLeod puts it this way: “When the butt goes numb, the brain goes dumb.” Here are Campbell’s guidelines for managing movement for the greatest instructional gain:

-    Plan carefully when and how movement will happen, how long it will last, and how it will end.

-    Anticipate potential problems: Is there enough space for this activity? Can you see all students as they move? Who needs to be watched especially closely?

-    Plan how to get students focused back on you and the lesson when the activity is over.

-    Have a back-up plan if the activity doesn’t work out as planned.

And here are Campbell’s favorite movement activities:

            • Board games with exercise – Get students working on laminated, curriculum-linked board games with instructions printed on the back, and ask them to do 10 pushups or 10 jumping jacks at specific intervals.

            • Flip it – Begin the class with a 15-minute lecture on the topic of the day with students taking notes. Then have them work with a partner writing a 20-word summary of what they learned. Finally, have students make a video of their summary using an iPad, cell phone, or flip camera, strictly limited to 20 words.

            • Come and give it, come and get it – Campbell has her students walk up to her when they hand in papers (she asks them if they have a compliment) and positions assignments and materials around the room so students have to walk around to get them.

            • Brain breaks – As a change of pace, students thumb wrestle or take another fun break – for ideas, see www.watchknowlearn.org/Category.aspx?CategoryID=17404.

            • Varied responses – During question-and-answer times, students respond in different ways, for example: If you agree with this statement, point to the ceiling. If you disagree with this statement, pound your desk. If you agree with this statement, stand up and switch seats with someone.

            • Let’s talk – Divide the class into two groups and have students stand face to face with another student, introduce themselves, shake hands, and take turns answering questions posed by the teacher – for example, “If you had a chance to fly a plane, fly a helicopter, or pilot a submarine, which would you do and why?” When both students have answered a question, they switch partners and repeat the process.

            • Movie time – Pause an instructional film every 20 minutes and have students walk seven steps away from their desks and back. According to brain expert Eric Jensen, this short walk is enough to get the brain ready for new learning.

            • Pacing – “Kids today want material presented to them in four ways,” says author David Walsh: “Fast, fun, easy, and more.” Campbell takes this as one more reason to create fast-paced lessons mixing up brief lectures, partner share, independent work, and short video clips.

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

 

“Get Your Students Moving” by Kim Campbell in AMLE Magazine, March 2014 (Vol. 1, #7, p. 12-14), www.amle.org; Campbell can be reached at kim.mtm@gmail.com.