Thoughts to keep in mind for school year 2007-08 (based on my summer reading):

1. Discussion –

a. Flanders Interaction Analysis – (from Reflective Teaching, Reflective Learning, ch. 7)

-- discussions of more than 10 min, 80% of students should participate

--discussions of more than 30 min, all should participate

--teacher-talk -- 30%, student-talk -- 70%.

-- every 10 seconds, observer notes the type of discussion (see p. 100 for checklist)

b. Question-answer relationships (QAR) (Reflective, p. 104) –show students the different types of questions

-- use the “uptake” method (p. 106)

c. Reading Level Response (RLR) (Reflective p. 148)

-- give this list to kids, refer to it often during discussions throughout the year.

--possibly use RLR guidelines (151) for SRJs??

-- perhaps I could assign different levels for different reading assignments?? (This Chapter 10 (reflect) is a good one.)

d. criteria for discussion – (from Adolescent Literacy, 57. Give to students??

2. Thinking, being good students

a. difference between declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge

-- I should be teaching mainly procedural knowledge (how to do things) (Reflective, 190)

b. metacognition – thinking about a) what you know, b) what you are currently doing, c) what your current cognitive or affective state is.

-- see metacog list in Adolescent, 36.

c. what is a good student? and scenarios for discussions about what makes a good student (Reflective, 194)

d. the essence of understanding (Adolescent, ch. 4)

--see list of “dimensions of understanding” (35), and perhaps give these to students

e. “thinking maps”, Adolescent, 251-)

3. Communication between teacher and student

a. letters between me and the students???(Adolescent, ch 9)

4. collaboration

a. Burke – (Adolescent, ch. 10) A VERY GOOD CHAPTER

-- Daniel Pink on “symphony”, the importance of synthesizing (154)

5. writing

a. characteristics of effective writing – AN INTERESTING LIST, (Adolescent, 196)

b. writing/revision groups: (Adolescent, 223, GREAT GUIDELINES

C. writing on demand –

--prompt analysis questions – (from Writing on Demand), 67 –EXCELLENT FOR TEXTBOOK