Not the End of My Tale

 The second stop on our Around the World Virtual Tour was Hawaii. My students read and watched information from a native Hawaiian. They were especially fascinated to read about her favorite snack- dried plums and her favorite food-poi. Besides picking coconuts and using them, the students liked hearing about pineapple plantations. Food seemed to be the biggest interest in Hawaii, although some students wanted to swim or hike, too. The students were able to make a short video about their visit using adobe spark. This was done while online with me. I shared the page with the film and asked what picture they chose. Then they typed their text in the chat box, an I pasted it into the film. The students I still get to meet in person will make the audio recording for the whole film.  This week we are continuing our trip to New Zealand with a new host who shares quite a bit about the Maori people.

 To help my older students start writing fiction, I used a prompt generator at  diyMFA . I also added a word of the day from NextStepEnglish:  https://nextstepenglish.com/word-of-the-day-conflagration/ .  Our word was conflagration, a very large fire that destroys buildings or large pieces of land. As we shuffled the prompt generator, we picked...  "shopping mall Santa, lost something important, has bullets but no gun and a picture of a modern building". We discussed these elements together and wrote both together and individually. Each of the students wrote their own version of this story while I wrote one, too.  I do believe that an English teacher should be able to write anything they ask their students to write and to proudly demonstrate their craft. I realize that there is the risk of the teacher's work being judged harshly, but how can we expect the students to be brave enough to write and share with others if we are not willing to write and share wit...

 Since most of my classes will be online for the next 6 weeks, I registered for an educator account at getepic.com . It is free and full of thousands of digital books (most in English, but there are a few other languages there). Students just use the classcode (no personal info needed) and can choose books to read online. Some books even include audio. As a teacher, I can keep track of how many books each student has read (if they click on their initials when they start) and how they did on the end-of-book quiz. I even tried one of the short quizzes with one of my students, and she liked it. The quiz was short enough to not be bothersome while providing just enough positive feedback to let her feel like her accomplishment was seen. The only drawback is that the students can only read for free during school hours local time, Monday- Friday 7 am - 4 pm. You can even make reading lists for your students. I made one with books about Hawaii or based in Hawaii since that is where we curr...

The excitement of getting ready to head off on a trip...   For our virtual Arund the World trip, my students have started to pack their bags, using a sheet where they write their packing list after our class brainstorming. At the same time, they have been writing questions to send to our "virtual host" in California. Here are the questions that they have written, plus one or two added by me. None of the students seem to know anything about California and are very curious. For some reason, they seem most interested in candy, beaches and deadly creatures. I am looking forward to info, tips and opinions that our "virtual host" will be sharing in their film, which will be our "official arrival" at that destination. Here are our first questions: 1. What’s your favorite candy? Is there any special candy in California? Have you been to the m&m store? Is there a candy factory near you? 2. Where is your favorite beach? What do people do there? How often do you ...