LA_blackhistory

I would have each student read a biography about a prominent Black person in history. Then I would have each student prepare a power point to present his/her findings to the class. The power point should include pertinent pictures and what the person is famous for. This assignment could also be assigned to students working together in small groups or pairs. Students could also do some extra research about the person chosen using the internet if needed. Paulet Owens Crescent MS
 * Purdue Online Writing Lab**
 * Language Arts (grades 7 and 8) / Black History**

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ The Purdue OWL is the premier website for finding all kinds of advice about writing.

I thought this site was a little much for middle school students. It was somewhat difficult to navigate. I did like how it lays out the writing process in a clear manner. I think this would be more useful to me as a teacher than it would be to my students. I probably won't spend too much time on this site in the future. Not the best writing site I've seen but not the worst either. (Shaila Luttrell--Pawnee) http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=36 This site, developed by NCTE has a variety of plans for a variety of reading/writing assignments targeted at a variety of grade levels.
 * Read Write Think**

I really enjoyed going through this site! I probably could have spent my entire 6 hours here!! This site has excellent ideas for writing in various genres, and all activities seemed easily adaptable. While I looked at numerous activites, not simply focusing on the grade levels I currently teach, I found two that were particularly interesting. I loved the idea for "A Poem of Possibilities: Thinking About the Future". It targets 9-12, but I think it will work for 8th grade as well. I always try to get my students to consider their futures, in particular where they will be after high school, and how the decisions they make now will at least in part determine where they end up later. The poem used for this activity is perfect! I also loved the "Fairy Tale Autobiographies" activity. It would be a great project to use in helping students understand the elements of a short story. (Shaila Luttrell--Pawnee)

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ The grammar and punctuation on this site are a little higher level, but easily adaptable. The quizzes are good with explanations.
 * Grammar Site**

This site had good quizzes and tutorials on grammar. I did have some problems with the Grammar Poll. (Shaila Luttrell--Pawnee)

http://www.cite.auckland.ac.nz/ This site gives examples for citation styles. This website is pretty good. I am a firm believer in having students learn how to correctly cite sources and not have the computer do it automatically for them. This website shows you how to format a book, journal, etc. without doing it for you. It gives examples that the students can look at, but will give the student the opportunity to do it themselves. I am not fond of the websites where the students just plug information in, but never learn how to actually cite sources. This website is also great for plagiarism. It gives some excellent information on what plagiarims is and how to keep yourself from doing it, even on accident. It also has a great article on the new website that checks student papers for you. I have heard of this website before, but did not know how it actually worked. Basically, we are coming to the age where all students will submit their papers online and by the time it is delivered to me, the paper will have already been scanned for any plagiarism. This is an excellent resource site for teachers and students alike. When the students write biographies or anything that needs sources cited, this would be a great website to have them spend the day on, either me showing them specific areas or letting them loose to explore. (Nikole Kelty)
 * Citation Sources**

This site has great tutorials on citing sources. I went through several of the presentations on why, when and how to reference sources and found quite a bit of useful information in them. I think it would be great to use with my middle school students before having them write even short essays that require citations. I particularly enjoyed the Plagiarism Court, which has a quiz at the end to help access student understanding. I think that the Quick Cite component to the site is good, since it gives students examples of correct documentation for a variety of sources as opposed to simply doing it for them. (Shaila Luttrell--Pawnee)

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/soc_sciences/write.shtml******
 * Writing in the Social Sciences

Engineering Writing** http://www.writing.engr.psu.edu/ http://writing.umn.edu/tww/assignments/disciplines/engineering_assignments.htm http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~writing/handbook.html Various sites that deal with engineering writing.

Who It's For: **Grades 2-8** What It Costs: **Free** Description:** Improve students' proofing skills and knowledge of grammar with this fun and easy-to-use site. After a short animated video introduces Power Proofreading, students click the folder for their grade level and select a passage to proof. Each passage's errors focus on a specific skill, so why not preview the passages before class, and pick out the ones you want your class to practice based on your current grammar unit? Then, students simply click to delete, add, or edit as needed to correct grammatical and spelling mistakes. Unlike sites that have students correct grammar in a sentence or by question and answer format, this is one of the few at which students work within a paragraph, a valuable skill for success in standardized testing. Kids need more practice? Try some of Education World's [|Every-Day Edits].
 * Name:** [|Power Proofreading]
 * URL:** http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hme/k_5/proofread**

This website is absolutely awesome. It has everything! You can have your students take grammar quizzes on many different levels. The fact that it scores them as they go is nice because I don't think they would hurry through quite as much as they would when they don't know how they are doing. The quizz levels are great with easy to understand instructions. This site has a graphic organizer areas. There are a lot of graphic organizers that would be extremely useful for all types of writing. Several of the organizers are not just standard, but fun, like an ice cream cone organizer. I saw several that I already use, but more I would like to use. This part was really great. There was also a section on authors and illustrators. This section could give the student a bit of history on a certain author or illustrator. The information seemed to be okay, but I read A LOT and there were very few authors I recognized as ones that my kids actually read their stuff. The author information was very short, too. However, I think it would make a great start and I could send several students there for a certain project that I have them do. This site also had goals for writing. It tells the student to have their rough draft right there with them and to answer the questions honestly to see if they have everything they need to make a great paper. I am torn by this part of the website. I can see the benefits from it if the students took it seriously, but I don't see most of mine doing that. I can see them just clicking yes to everything quickly and saying their done and their paper is great! I think it would be useful for the students that really are serious and try hard. It would not be useful for the students that just don't care or don't care enough. The last thing thing that I really enjoyed on this website is the story ideas area. It had some great ideas that I think would get the students thinking and I would get some great stories and essays. That seems to be the hardest part of a student is to think up material to write about and this website really would help. (Nikole Kelty)

This may be one of my new favorite sites! It has great grammar quizzes. I also like the Benchmark Papers section, and I think it will help my students quite a bit. In addition to having problems starting their papers, I have noticed that a lot of my students are apprehensive when it comes to writing because they don't want to make a mistake. Try as I may, I don't think I ever completely convince them that making mistakes is an important part of learning. I think having student examples to show them, along with the writing rubric, not only helps them better understand what worked in the example papers and what didn't, but also why. I thought the site also had excellent prewriting ideas that were easily adaptable. I also liked the every-day edits. We have daily language exercises with our literature textbooks, but I think the every-day edits will be nice to work in with the daily language for a change of pace. (Shaila Luttrell--Pawnee)

Research background information on Langston Hughes & The Harlem Renaissance. Read Hughes’ short story “Thank You, M’am” & his poem “Mother to Son” Write a comparison/contrast essay discussing similarities and differences in the female character/speaker in these two works. Choose one of the following options: 1) Write a poem imitating Hughes’ style using the plot of the short story “Thank You, M’am.”   2)  Write a short story using the content of Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son”. Make sure you include exposition (characters, setting, conflict), rising action (complications/events), climax, falling action, and resolution. 3) Write and illustrate a children’s book using either Hughes’ poem or short story mentioned above.  Design a digital poster highlighting Langston Hughes in the context of the Harlem Renaissance.
 * Black History (Jana Shelton) **