Kings Knight Chess Club Inc.

This past Saturday I volunteered at the Hudson County Elementary Chess Championship 2008 here in Jersey City. The founder and Executive Director of Kings Knight Chess Club Inc., Robert Stewart developed the chess championship. Kings Knight Chess Club is a non-profit organization that teaches inner city youths how to play chess. Their goal is to educate and motivate youths through the game of chess. The club is dedicated to help youths to become independent thinkers.

A few teachers from local schools registered some of their students for the championship game. Some students practice after school everyday to prepare for this annual event. It was good to see over eighty students gave up their Saturday morning to compete in a non-athletic sport. I was fascinated how the teachers managed to get so many of their students to come out and play. These students were very good chess players. Students walked away with trophies and medals for all their hard work and dedication. The teachers were proud of their students and students were proud of themselves. It was a win/win situation for everyone.

Messaging Shakespeare

Ms. Brown has been a ninth grade English teacher for nine years. Recently, she had to teach eleventh grade English. Her eleventh grade students appeared to be unmotivated. That was until she incorporated cell phones in the learning activities. Ms. Brown was beginning her lesson on Shakespeare’s play Richard III. She noticed that many students used text messaging to communicate, and considered how she might use cell phones in summarizing and analyzing text to help her students better understand Richard III.

She created a weblog with the help of a colleague. The weblog consisted of entries that were selected passages from the text of Richard III and her six narrative-framing questions. Ms. Brown’s questions deliberately focused students' attention on key passages. If the students could understand these passages well enough to summarize them, she knew that their comprehension of the play would increase. And it worked. Ms. Brown saw that she could use a technique students had already mastered (text messaging) to teach literature.

I was really impressed by this article. Ms. Brown finding a common ground between her and her students. She made learning Shakespeare fun and exciting, which is not an easy thing to do. Ms. Brown showed that cell phones can be effective educational tools.

To find out more about her Richard III learning project go to this link below: http://www.netc.org/focus/examples/messag.php

My Access

As we discussed in class on Tuesday, teaching writing is difficult because students have different writing styles and methods. I think the My Access writing program is a good way to provide students with skills that can improve their writing performance. What appeals to me the most is the fact that the program grades students' essays and provides immediate feedback. When I begin teaching Language Arts I would like to use this program with my students.

For those of you who do not know what My Access is here is a brief synopsis:
“My Access is an instructional writing and tutoring program designed for use in schools and educational institutions. The program provides comprehensive instructional support for educators, unmatched accuracy in scoring writing assignments, and unlimited opportunities for students to write, revise and learn.” (This definition is from the Go MyAccess website.)

Here is the My Access website:
http://www.gomyaccess.com/myaccess/do/log

10 Tips On How to Deal With Difficult Parents

I was browsing the Internet for lesson plan ideas and I came across this article about how to deal with difficult parents. Barbara & Sue Gruber offer good advice on the topic.

Here is the link:
http://teachers.net/gazette/MAR08/gruber/