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Six-Word Memoirs

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I am a member of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and subscribe to their Voices from the Middle middle school level publication. It gives me tons of innovative ideas for my classroom and helps keep me up-to-date on best practices in the world of  middle school Language Arts. Just recently, one of their articles  gave me the idea of implementing the Six-Word Memoir into my classroom. You can get the ReadWriteThink lesson plan the article referenced here . According to legend, Ernest Hemingway started the six-word memoir after he was challenged to write a six-word novel. He came up with, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Inspired by Hemingway,  SMITH magazine launched their six-word memoirs online in 2006 and challenged readers to submit their very own six-word memoirs through contests. (The goal is for students to utilize their words carefully and powerfully because they only have six words to express or describe their life story, current state of m
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Catalytic Questioning in The Classroom

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A few days ago I was reading the  Psychology Today  article, "Use Catalytic Questioning to Solve Significant Problems" when I was suddenly hit by a eureka-serendipity-like moment. I was not searching for any teaching strategies, but instead for enjoyment when I realized that the brainstorming strategy the article provided could be applied in the classroom. Although the article was written with the business world in mind, I could clearly see that this could be an innovative and groundbreaking strategy for students to use in the classroom. If you've ever experienced students having difficulty forming questions, brainstorming, being innovative, being original, creating new ideas, then this could be the strategy for you. The article's author, Hal Gregersen, relates how he has used a "systematic approach" to brainstorming for the business world that has consistently proven to be reliable and to help team members create and innovate solutions to problems. As
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Back-to-School Ready!

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As all teachers can relate, the last few days of my vacation were not spent daydreaming, basking in the sun, or sleeping in. Instead, I was knee-deep in preparing my classroom for opening day. And as many  teacher-nerds can attest, back-to-school prepping is not something I dread, but instead it is something I look forward to at the end of every summer. In this post, I would like to share how I set up my middle school classroom as well as some organizational and decor tips. If I were to describe my philosophy for decorating and organizing my classroom in just three words, I would say it is practical, functional, and affordable. While having a theme is cute and easy on the eye, it is not who I am. If you look at my classroom, you will notice that I do not follow a specific theme, I use all the colors of the rainbow, and there are no motifs: Having a color scheme is awesome, I mean, I use color schemes when decorating my home. However, when it comes to my classroom, I like to t
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