One of the things that I love most about working at my school is that we have a Principal who is committed to providing incredible, frequent training opportunities to our teachers. Sometimes, I have a difficult time figuring out how to apply the material to my Spanish, Elective classroom, but more often than not, I…
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Student Self-Reflection Form
The middle schools in my district do “Student Led Conferences” instead of “Parent-Teacher Conferences”. Students spend time creating portfolios of their work in each class and reflecting on it. At the conference, they present the portfolios to their parents before the teacher checks in to see if the parent has any questions or concerns (or…
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QAR
Note: I first heard about QAR in a workshop with Carol Gaab during our 2011 AFLA Conference. I began to dig into it and published this post soon thereafter. Imagine my surprise when my principal brought in consultant Susan Van Zant just two weeks after I published it, announcing to the staff that this would…
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Men Make a Difference Day
This has nothing to do with World Languages, but I want to share it with you because it is fantastic!! Today, our school celebrated Men Make A Difference Day. This is a day created by Dr. Michael A. Robinson, CEO of Forest of the Rain Productions. According to Dr. Robinson, the goal of the day…
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Power Writing
In every room of our school, we have “Power Writing” posters. These are posters that give students a formula to write a complete paragraph. Since I support my school’s literacy schools in every way possible, I encourage my students to use this formula to write great paragraphs in Spanish, just as they would in English.…
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Cornell Notes
Developed “far above Cayuga’s waters“, Cornell Notes are an effective note-taking strategy that can be used across grade levels and content areas. I was first introduced to Cornell Notes by my administrator in a 6-8 public school in Anchorage, Alaska. She didn’t have to sell me on it too hard since my grandfather, my parents,…
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Binary CLOZE Reading Comprehension Assessment
My middle school is TItle I (the only one in our district), and with that classification comes some challenges, but overwhelmingly it brings great opportunity–tons of professional development opportunities and resources that would not otherwise be affordable. Clark was torn down after the 2007 school year ended and closed for two years while it was…
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