I'm Back!

Wow! The last few months of the school year have been tremendously busy and productive.  I apologize to those I met over the summer who were looking forward to a tour of my class upon returning to the new school year, and who were awaiting some of the tools and procedures I use in my classroom.  

In the past few months, I have been nominated for two teaching awards, one in which I am part of the top five in the nation;

created a graphic organizer that will be used throughout the ELAR department and for any writing that takes place in other subjects; 

and wrote, presented and earned a grant to take 50 National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) students to see Wicked! 

Those are just some of the highlights, add to that a revamping of the current curriculum and tweaking the Advanced Placement (AP) curriculum to be more challenging and you can see, great things are happening to better the lives of students!

That said, I will be certain to keep you posted on the outcome of the nominations, and to include an explanation of the graphic organizer in a later post.  It has been a terrific year so far, and as we all return to school after this wonderful Thanksgiving break, may I leave you with words of encouragement for those of you in the teaching field: 3 more weeks, and it's Christmas break!!

We can endure endure ANYTHING for 3 weeks, right?!?  

On a more serious note, I will share that the next three weeks will be used to target student learning and create a system of intervention as I prepare these kiddos for the STAAR, in addition to keeping up with the TEKS the district has selected as focal points in 8th grade ELAR.  

Utilizing interactive and purposeful lessons that incorporate technology, these kids will be on a pathway to success.  Using the results of the data I gather in the next 3 weeks, my students will be purposefully grouped into meaningful learning tribes, and when we come back in January... 

STAAR Bootcamp will commence!