Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Mission & Vision of NWP ELL Network


Mission
The English Language Learners (ELL) Network supports writing project sites in their efforts to provide professional development for teachers of English language learners. The ELL Network aims to expand sites' knowledge and support their local efforts to advocate for the educational needs of ELL students and to improve learning and the teaching of writing for all students.

Goals
The activities of the network provide sites with opportunities to
• develop and extend leadership among teachers of English language learners at their site
• analyze and improve their professional development offerings, with an emphasis on knowledge and practices that support English language learners
• further knowledge about second language acquisition, the teaching of writing, and the history/cultures of populations they serve
• promote understanding of the social and political issues involved in the teaching of English language learners.

Celebrating 10 Years!
A Decade of Service
The ELL Network was formed in 2000 as an outgrowth of Project Outreach. Initial planning and membership grew out of the NWP's first national conference on teaching English Language Learners held at the Bay Area Writing Project at the University of California, Berkeley. Since then, the ELL Network has expanded membership to include sites around the country and maintains an active program of events, resource development, and minigrant support.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

IDEA Partnership: Rural Articles


Mission Statement
The IDEA Partnership is dedicated to improving outcomes for students and youth with disabilities by joining state agencies and stakeholders through shared work and learning,

About Us
The IDEA Partnership is an investment in the stakeholder expertise. We believe that those that are closest to the work have much to share about what works and can be valuable partners in finding new approaches to challenges. Even more importantly, when groups with different perspectives work together, we begin to understand issues in new ways…ways that help us see the possibilities. The IDEA Partnership facilitates interaction and shared work across professional and family organizations around common interests. Our work allows groups to come together around the issues they care about and create initiatives that will actively engage their members.


Rural Education Articles Listed with Full-Text Access from Web-Based Journals and Other Periodicals

Changes in Mastery Goals in Urban and Rural Middle School Students
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2005).
T. M. Freeman & L. H. Anderman.
Full Text – Click on Volume 20 and see No. 1


Conversation and Control: Emergent Progressive Pedagogy in the Last of Nebraska’s One-Teacher Schools
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2005).
S. A. Swidler.
Full Text – Click on Volume 20 and see No. 4


Driving the Lesson Home: Teaching English Language Learners in Rural and Low-Incidence Regions
The ELL Outlook (2006).
S. Auerbach.
Full Text


Enclosure Then and Now: Rural Schools and Communities in the Wake of Market-Driven Agriculture
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2006).
P. Theobald & R. S. Rochon.
Full Text – Click on Volume 21 and see No. 12

How Do Rural Schools Fare Under a High Stakes Testing Regime?
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2005).
F. D. Beck & G. W. Shoffstall.
Full Text – Click on Volume 20 and see No. 14


Individual Roles and Approaches to Public Engagement in a Community-University Partnership in a Rural California Town
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2006).
E. Prins.
Full Text – Click on Volume 21 and see No. 7


Minority Exclusion in Small Town America
Poverty and Race (2005).
J. H. Johnson, Jr., A. M. Joyner & A. Parnell.
Full Text


Policy Window or Hazy Dream? Policy and Practice Innovations for Creating Effective Learning Environments in Rural Schools
Canadian Journal of Educational Administration & Policy (2007).
D. C. Wallin.
Full Text


Preparing Principals for High-Need Rural Schools: A Central Office Perspective About Collaborative Efforts to Transform School Leadership
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2006).
T. Browne-Ferrigno & L. W. Allen.
Full Text – Click on Volume 21 and see No. 1


Rural School Psychology: Re-Opening the Discussion
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2007).
K. L. Clopton & K. Knesting.
Full Text – Click on Volume 21 and see No. 5

Rural School Success: What Can We Learn?
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2007).
Z. A. Barley & A. D. Beesley.
Full Text – Click on Volume 22 and see No. 1


Rural Schools as Regional Centres of e-Learning and the Management of Digital Knowledge: The Case of Newfoundland and Labrador
International Journal of Education & Development using ICT (2006).
K. Stevens.
Full Text


Swimming Lessons: How a Dedicated Teacher Changed Life for English Language Learners in a Rural Nebraska Town
The ELL Outlook (2006).
S. Auerbach.
Full Text


Technology in Mathematics: Issues in Educating Teacher Candidates for Rural Math Classrooms
Issues in the Undergraduate Mathematics Preparation of School Teachers (2007).
D. P. Franz & P. F. Hopper.
Full Text – See the second title


The Assessment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Rural Primary Care: The Portability of the American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines to the Real World
Pediatrics (2005).
J. Polaha, S. L. Cooper, T. Meadows,
& C. J. Kratochvil.
Full Text


The Small Rural School Principalship: Key Challenges and Cross-School Responses
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2008).
K. Starr & S. White
Full Text – Click on Volume 23 and see No. 5

Funding Resources for Writing Project Sites


ELL Network Minigrants
Become a Member of the Network and Apply for a Minigrant!
The English Language Learners (ELL) Network offers minigrant funds to NWP sites on an annual basis. Funding criteria and awards are determined through a peer-review process; grants are awarded in the spring of each year. This year, grants of $5,000 will be awarded. Although the deadline has passed for the 2011-2012 year, the ELL Network will be accepting new applications in the fall of 2011 for the 2012-2013 year.

Eligibility
To be eligible for a special-focus network minigrant, your site must be a member of the NWP ELL Network. Eligible proposals will go through a review process in February and awards will be announced in March.

NWP English Language Learners Network Resources


A major role of the NWP ELL Network is to provide resources to sites looking for ways to support their English Language learners.

The resources below are just highlights:

Know ELLs
An online community for writing project TCs providing access to collaborative help in teaching English Language Learners.

Supporting Teachers of English Language Learners in Kansas City
April 2010
Katie McKay
To help local teachers address the needs of a growing population of English language learners the Greater Kansas City Writing Project strategically calls on NWP resources, related events, and local experience.

Building Culturally Responsive Units of Study: From Texas to Mexico and Back
December 2009
Katie McKay
By crafting units of study that cast immigration as part of the American historical process, a teacher-consultant at the Heart of Texas Writing Project creates opportunities for her bilingual students to explore immigration in a trusting and productive classroom environment.

ELLs at the Center: Rethinking High Stakes Testing
English Journal, July 2010
Wilma Ortiz, Karen Sumaryono
The authors propose ways to ameliorate the tensions of high stakes testing of ELL students by fostering high expectations for all students while honoring the home languages of English learner.

ELL Library American Indian Reference/Resource “Must-Haves”
June 2009
Michael Thompson, Laurie Smith
With the goals of providing materials that alter teachers' understanding of Native American cultures and building local communities of inquiry devoted to Native American Studies, the compiler provides an annotated bibliography of "must-read" texts on the subject.

Literacy, ELL, and Digital Storytelling: 21st Century Learning in Action
January 2009
Produced by the Pearson Foundation, this short video documents a semester-long digital writing project led by two Bay Area Writing Project teacher-consultants. The video follows students through the creation of digital stories about their family members' immigration experiences.

Book Review: Immigrant Students and Literacy: Reading, Writing, and Remembering
June 2010
Stephanie Paterson
Stephanie Paterson, co-director of the Great Valley Writing Project, which is in the same Central California region where Gerald Campano taught and did his research, finds his book an inspiration in the ways it links inquiry, pedagogy, and social justice issues.

Book Review: English Learners, Academic Literacy, and Thinking: Learning in the Challenge Zone
June 2010
Debra Schneider
Debra Schneider, a teacher-consultant with the Great Valley Writing Project, says this book gives teachers the resources needed to develop a "high-challenge, high-support" classroom for English language learners.


Book Review: The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, by Kao Kalia Yang
June 2009
Lynn Jacobs
Lynn Jacobs, a teacher-consultant with the Northern California Writing Project, finds this account of Hmong history and culture to be special because of the vivid and personal picture it presents of the Hmong people to outsiders. She recommends ways to use the book in the classroom

Using Media Sites to Support Instruction


CNN Student News
CNN Student News is a ten-minute, commercial-free, daily news program for middle and high school students produced by the journalists and educators at CNN. This award-winning show and its companion Web site are available free of charge throughout the school year.You can record the program on HLN from 4:00-4:10 a.m. ET Monday through Friday. You can also see it as a streamed video on our Web site (CNNStudentNews.com), or download it as a free podcast. The program is free and accessible to anyone who wants to watch; there are no subscription charges or contracts to complete.

Click here to connect to CNN Student News website


The New York Times "Learning Network"
This is an online current and special events news site for grades 3-12; updated weekdays during the school year. The Learning Network provides teaching and learning materials and ideas based on New York Times content. Teachers can use or adapt our lessons across subject areas and levels. Students can respond to our Opinion questions, take our News Quizzes, learn the Word of the Day, try our Test Yourself questions, complete a Fill-In or read our Poetry Pairings.

Click here to read 11 ways in which to use the Learning Network for your classroom needs


PBS Frontline Teacher Center
New classroom activities with streaming video, downloadable lesson plans and web-exclusive resources to accompany FRONTLINE programs in the classroom. Since 1983, FRONTLINE has served as American public television's flagship public affairs series. Hailed upon its debut on PBS as "the last best hope for broadcast documentaries," FRONTLINE's stature over 28 seasons is reaffirmed each week through incisive documentaries covering the scope and complexity of the human experience.

Click here for direct link to Frontline Teacher Center


NBC Learn is the education arm of NBC News. We are making the global resources of NBC News and the historic film and video archive available to teachers, students, schools and universities. NBC News Archives on Demand (K-12 and Higher Ed) unleashes the power of the NBC News archives and makes thousands of video clips available to teachers, students, schools, colleges and universities. What’s Your iCue? is the video trivia challenge that blends learning and gaming.
Original video content from NBC Learn is engaging, innovative, and makes learning fun!

Click here for direct link to NBC Learn


LIFE Photographic Timelines
Choose stunning photos from our vast archive (more than 9 million images!), order them how you like, write your own headlines and captions. Our galleries present photos related to a specific topic — but a LIFE.com Timeline puts those pictures in a chronological order, to tell a story from beginning to end. Building a Timeline allows you to tell a story your way — you have the power to pick the details and images that are most meaningful to you. With Timelines, you can share your knowledge and passion about a particular topic, whether it's World War II or Elvis Presley.

Click here for more information on how to get started building your own timelines


The Under-Told Stories Project
This site works to expand, sustain and improve coverage of the world outside America in broadcast, print and emerging new media outlets. Our challenge is to direct American eyes to the daily concerns of far away people who increasingly affect our lives. We hope to reawaken the generous curiosity of Americans --our students in particular-- about a world we can no longer ignore.

Click to link to website at http://undertoldstories.org/

The Week In Rap
The Week in Rap is a weekly summary of news headlines in the form of a short rap video. The site was created by Flocabulary, and the songs and videos are written by Flocabulary artists.

New York Times: Supporting English Language Learners

10 Ways to Support English Language Learning With The New York Times
By HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO
June 7, 2010, 3:14 PM


Many people don’t realize that The New York Times can be quite accessible for English Language Learners. Due to its focus on current events and news, using The Times to learn vocabulary and practice reading can be much more inviting and rewarding than a textbook. And NYTimes.com has some extra tools and features that are particularly useful for language learning.

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/10-ways-to-support-english-language-learning-with-the-new-york-times/

The Education Alliance at Brown University


"Teaching Diverse Learners" was developed as part of the National Leadership Area for the 2000-2005 Northeast and Islands Regional Educational Laboratory (LAB), a program of The Education Alliance at Brown University. The goal of this site is to help teachers work effectively and equitably with English language learners (ELLs) by providing access to research-based information, strategies, and resources for addressing the concerns of ELLs in the classroom and beyond.

ELLs -- also referred to as bilingual, culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD), language minority, and Limited English Proficient (LEP) students -- are speakers of languages and dialects other than English and members of ethno-linguistic minority cultures and communities. Many thousands of ELLs continue to be denied opportunities for an excellent and equitable education.

This Web site addresses educators of culturally and linguistically diverse learners, invites the perspectives of teachers and language minority learners, and provides research-based practices at both the classroom and systemic level that promote high achievement for linguistically diverse students.

Practices, strategies, and resources will be highlighted for the areas of:

Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT)
General Education Classrooms
Bilingual/ESL Classrooms
Special Education
Assessment
In addition, we provide access to publications, educational materials, and the work of national partners and experts in the field.

English Language Learners & Writing
English language learners in U.S. middle and high schools face significant challenges from state writing assessments, and data suggest that they do not fare well. This report looks at writing standards for the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands, and identifies six major topics and themes in the standards. It also reviews research and practice literature focused on adolescents and second language learning and writing; examines key issues in writing instruction for adolescent ELLs; connects the existing knowledge base to the standards; and recommends further research to improve the ability of ELLs to meet writing standards.

http://www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/writ_instrct/apprchwrtng.pdf

Classroom Instruction That Works for ELLs


Study Guide for Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners (Hill & Flynn, 2006)
By the Nebraska ELLLI Design Team
Distributed by the Nebraska Department of Education 2009

This study guide aims to enhance your understanding of concepts in the book Classroom Instruction That Works with English Language Learners, published in 2006 by ASCD. In the book, authors Jane Hill and Kathleen Flynn expand upon the knowledge base first presented in Classroom Instruction That Works (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001) and describe ways to use the best practice strategies that emerged from the earlier research with English language learners.

Copyright 2009 McREL
Permission is granted for noncommercial use of this study guide in connection with the book Classroom Instruction that Works with English Language Learners. To request permission for any other uses, contact McREL by telephone at 303-337-0990 or by e-mail at info@mcrel.org.

* Use of this study guide requires no previous knowledge of instruction for English language learners.

IDEA Partnership: Rural Articles


Mission Statement
The IDEA Partnership is dedicated to improving outcomes for students and youth with disabilities by joining state agencies and stakeholders through shared work and learning,

About Us
The IDEA Partnership is an investment in the stakeholder expertise. We believe that those that are closest to the work have much to share about what works and can be valuable partners in finding new approaches to challenges. Even more importantly, when groups with different perspectives work together, we begin to understand issues in new ways…ways that help us see the possibilities. The IDEA Partnership facilitates interaction and shared work across professional and family organizations around common interests. Our work allows groups to come together around the issues they care about and create initiatives that will actively engage their members.


Rural Education Articles Listed with Full-Text Access from Web-Based Journals and Other Periodicals

Changes in Mastery Goals in Urban and Rural Middle School Students
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2005).
T. M. Freeman & L. H. Anderman.
Full Text – Click on Volume 20 and see No. 1


Conversation and Control: Emergent Progressive Pedagogy in the Last of Nebraska’s One-Teacher Schools
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2005).
S. A. Swidler.
Full Text – Click on Volume 20 and see No. 4


Driving the Lesson Home: Teaching English Language Learners in Rural and Low-Incidence Regions
The ELL Outlook (2006).
S. Auerbach.
Full Text


Enclosure Then and Now: Rural Schools and Communities in the Wake of Market-Driven Agriculture
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2006).
P. Theobald & R. S. Rochon.
Full Text – Click on Volume 21 and see No. 12

How Do Rural Schools Fare Under a High Stakes Testing Regime?
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2005).
F. D. Beck & G. W. Shoffstall.
Full Text – Click on Volume 20 and see No. 14


Individual Roles and Approaches to Public Engagement in a Community-University Partnership in a Rural California Town
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2006).
E. Prins.
Full Text – Click on Volume 21 and see No. 7


Minority Exclusion in Small Town America
Poverty and Race (2005).
J. H. Johnson, Jr., A. M. Joyner & A. Parnell.
Full Text


Policy Window or Hazy Dream? Policy and Practice Innovations for Creating Effective Learning Environments in Rural Schools
Canadian Journal of Educational Administration & Policy (2007).
D. C. Wallin.
Full Text


Preparing Principals for High-Need Rural Schools: A Central Office Perspective About Collaborative Efforts to Transform School Leadership
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2006).
T. Browne-Ferrigno & L. W. Allen.
Full Text – Click on Volume 21 and see No. 1


Rural School Psychology: Re-Opening the Discussion
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2007).
K. L. Clopton & K. Knesting.
Full Text – Click on Volume 21 and see No. 5

Rural School Success: What Can We Learn?
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2007).
Z. A. Barley & A. D. Beesley.
Full Text – Click on Volume 22 and see No. 1


Rural Schools as Regional Centres of e-Learning and the Management of Digital Knowledge: The Case of Newfoundland and Labrador
International Journal of Education & Development using ICT (2006).
K. Stevens.
Full Text


Swimming Lessons: How a Dedicated Teacher Changed Life for English Language Learners in a Rural Nebraska Town
The ELL Outlook (2006).
S. Auerbach.
Full Text


Technology in Mathematics: Issues in Educating Teacher Candidates for Rural Math Classrooms
Issues in the Undergraduate Mathematics Preparation of School Teachers (2007).
D. P. Franz & P. F. Hopper.
Full Text – See the second title


The Assessment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Rural Primary Care: The Portability of the American Academy of Pediatrics Guidelines to the Real World
Pediatrics (2005).
J. Polaha, S. L. Cooper, T. Meadows,
& C. J. Kratochvil.
Full Text


The Small Rural School Principalship: Key Challenges and Cross-School Responses
Journal of Research in Rural Education (2008).
K. Starr & S. White
Full Text – Click on Volume 23 and see No. 5