More Planning Brain Waves

I know that I have taught both English and Social 9 before, but I feel like this year is going to present an unlimited number of opportunities to really engage students in authentic learning.  After our staff retreat today, I truly feel like I am in the right place and am going to have a great (but also greatly challenging) year! 

Here are some more ideas that I have rolling around in my brain...

Dragon's Den Performance Task
-I did this project with my 9s last year, to culminate our unit on consumerism and marketing.  I am so excited that my teaching partners are interested in doing this once more, and cannot wait to see how we can jazz it up!  Some thoughts we have had include: trying to get a real dragon (or some other expert) to come in and assist in judging the student's pitches; having multiple people on the panel evaluting pitches; giving students free reign to decide what they are going to bring into the den, and how they are going to try and get the dragons to invest.  I think that in order to tie this somehow to the CBL "Making Sustainable Food Choices" project, I would like to challenge the students by declaring this a 'eco-friendly' edition of Dragon's Den - I cannot wait to see what they think could improve our world.

The Alice Project
-I stumbled across this project while exploring various edu-blogs, and would LOVE to adapt it to use with my 9s.  I am thinking about using Nancy Farmer's "House of the Scorpion" for a full class novel study, and think that it shows definite potential for this kind of 'higher level' novel exploration.  Check it out, and thank you to the creator!

Lessons That Change Writers
-This book by Nancy Atwell (one of my favourite ELA teacher researchers), she explores a variety of lessons designed to (obviously) change how our students are writing.  I am really looking forward to continuing the focus that CSS is carrying over from last year on student writing, and think that this book is an awesome starting point to engage students in meaningful writing.  Stay posted for more on this wavelength!