Poet Laureates

Last week saw the end of Ms. Susan Stewart's student teaching experience at Saranac Lake Middle School.

She did a great job, and her last unit of instruction focused on poets, specifically Poet Laureates.

Mrs. Kenyon told us that she had the opportunity to meet a Poet Laureate in person, Billy Collins.

More Books and the Teachers Who Read Them

To follow up on a previous post, the titles of books that SLMS teachers have read continue to pour in. Here are more recommendations:



Mrs. Beideck: The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

Mrs. Salamy: His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Traina by Danielle Steel and Crunch Time by Mariah Fredericks

Mrs. Kenyon: Private by James Patterson, Big Bad Wolf by James Patterson

Ms. Ordonez: Short Carries by Elizabeth Folwell, A Portrait of Healing by Victoria Rhinehart

Mrs. Grant: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Mrs. Fransen: Coming Home by Rosamunde Piltcher, The Geometry of Sisters byLuanne Rice


Mr. Frenette: The River of Doubt by Candace Millard

What SLMS Teachers Read

I asked some teachers at SLMS to tell me which books they've read since school this school year started. Here's a list of titles:



Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson



The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein



This is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn by Aidan Chambers



Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson



Framed by Frank Boyce



The Hunchback Assignments by Arthur Slade

There are many more titles to list, and I will in a later post. Please don't hesitate to ask our teachers for book recommendations; chances are they will be able to suggest something great!

Make the Connection

I've been using Scholastic's Book Wizard to asist students in locating "just right books."

Mrs. Johns, who has been filling in for Mrs. Kennedy in the library, suggested that while Book Wizard does a nice job of suggesting books based on students' interests and reading levels, the MS library might not always have a copy of the book on the shelves.

So... Mrs. Johns advised the following:

1). Use Book Wizard to search.
2).Open a tab with the library's catalog
3). Search for the title suggested by Book Wizard in the library's database

In The News

The students have begun to work on the Achieve 3000 reading program and over the last several weeks they have been reading non-fiction articles about topics ranging from pizza to ugly rubber sandals (no offense Crocs lovers).



Here are links to some of the AP articles we've read:



Did you know that Pizza Hut turned 50 recently? Funny, it doesn't look a day over 29. (The students didn't laugh when I told that joke in class, either).



I admit it. I own a pair of bright yellow Crocs boat shoes. It seems like Crocs were everywhere at one time, but some have suggested that this fad is over.



Obviously these articles do not contain information that is of Earth shattering importance. It has been good to include some non-fiction in the students' "reading diets," however.

Story Time

We didn't sit on the carpet and it wasn't just before nap time, but we did read a picture book story in class today.

The book was "Night In The Country" by Cynthia Rylant, and it's filled good examples of sensory details.

We talked about how one of the qualities of good personal narratives is that they include true, exact details from the "movies" that we all have in our minds.

Flying Cars

When I was in junior high school, I'm pretty sure that someone told me that there would be flying cars by the time I was an adult.

To some degree, technology has let me down. However, in the area of technological support of education and learning, I continue to be really amazed.

SLCS has recently partnered with a company called Achieve 3000. Achieve's literacy intervention products have been widely adopted and proven effective at helping students improve their reading ability.

Our grade 7 ELA classes on Team Whiteface have begun to implement the Achieve 3000 program, and are using it to support a reading and writing workshop model of instruction.

We'll be providing more information for parents and guardians soon, including individual user names and passwords to aid in the monitoring of students' progress.

I'd still rather have a flying car, but in the meantime Achieve 3000 is pretty cool.