instructional materials
Kelly is pleased to share with you a variety of handouts and instructional aids that he developed to support his strategies for teaching reading, writing, speaking and listening. Click on the file name to download the pdf of each document. And check back periodically, as Kelly plans to add more.
coronavirus unit
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic-related school closures and the challenge of teaching students remotely, I, along with several of my colleagues, have created an extended lesson plan designed to encourage students to capture this moment in history. However, before I share the plan, some thoughts:
Years from now, our students’ children and grandchildren will ask them about this moment in time, and I want them to have a record of it. Their history.
The last thing I want to do with my home-bound students is to load them down with brain-numbing packet work. So this lesson plan was designed to honor student choice, student agency, student voice. This is not the time to give students chapter quizzes on their at-home reading of 1984.
We are not suggesting this is THE lesson plan everyone should adopt. We know our kids. We do not know yours. It is where our thinking resides today. Tomorrow, we may shift our thinking as events continue to unfold.
You are invited to use any or all of our thinking. We do not, however, grant permission for this thinking to be sold anywhere. No one should profit from this crisis. Adapt as you see fit. Make our thinking better. Share with others.
We also have a sinking suspicion that this crisis may worsen, and that our students may actually end up being out of school much longer than two weeks. We will be creating digital communities where our readers and writers can maintain a sense of community.
And although I am teaching seniors, many of my colleagues who have shared their thinking in the creation of these lesson plans are planning to use them in other grade levels. They are easily adaptable.
With that said, you can access our plans for our stay-at-home students here:
Special thanks to Penny Kittle and several members of the Magnolia High School ELA faculty for helping to create this plan.