#Whatsup Wildcats - Classroom Edition

There is nothing more special than watching a group of students proudly share and discuss something they have created. Providing students the opportunity to create something of their choice should be a key component of every class. When given the chance to plan, think, and execute something on their own, it is amazing to see what their creative minds come up with! I am extremely thankful that Ms. Elizabeth Morgan, a freshmen English teacher at Neuqua, invited me to visit her class this week to participate in a gallery walk that showcased her students' independent reading projects. She explained in her invitation that this assignment gave students ownership of the novel, project, and rubric:"This project is unique in that students chose a novel that they were interested in from a list of books that address Essential Questions of Unit 4: Complicated Relationships. They then met with me [Ms. Morgan] to propose an individualized project based on their personal strengths and cre

This week, I had the opportunity to visit the freshmen English PLC and observe two of our reading specialists introduce a dynamic unit guide for teaching vocabulary during the team's study of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet . Mr. Steve Fleming and Mr. Brian Hurst created a 7 step process that includes a variety of activities for teachers to incorporate into their unit. In order to make it easily accessible for our teachers, the entire process is in a HyperDoc format, and teachers can utilize all resources needed for this unit guide in one place. Such an awesome idea and resource for teachers!  Their goal was to incorporate short, effective activities in order to keep vocabulary practice a fixture in the classroom. As we look towards next year, our school is hoping to place a stronger emphasis on vocabulary and language development in all classrooms. With this, Mr. Fleming and Mr. Hurst's unit plan is a great step forward in helping teachers easily integrate vocabulary instru