Read McCrum's article in the Guardian May 9 2010 How English erased its roots to become the global tongue of the 21st century
Friday, May 14, 2010
SPREAD OF GLOBAL ENGLISH
Read McCrum's article in the Guardian May 9 2010 How English erased its roots to become the global tongue of the 21st century
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Reflective Ruminations
"There are two distinct classes of what are called thoughts; those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord."
~ Thomas Paine
Please take a few moments to ruminate about all things Real Spelling (content, implications, workshop, wonderings...) and produce reflective acts of thinking by completing our evaluation. We have appreciated your enthusiasm for words and their place in our classrooms.
Click Here to take survey
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
"Redefining the Dictionary"
Please watch Erin McKean's talk on the dictionary. Entertaining and informative!
Monday, September 7, 2009
Weekend Workshop
Fellow Word Nerds,
Per your requests, we have embedded the powerpoint to help you review terms and processes from the weekend workshop. Hope this helps.
Remember, spelling is like gymnastics because:
Per your requests, we have embedded the powerpoint to help you review terms and processes from the weekend workshop. Hope this helps.
Remember, spelling is like gymnastics because:
- you need linguistic flexibility,
- you have to stretch and bend
- it hurts
- you end up cartwheeling etymologically all over the place!
Real Spelling Powerpoint
View more presentations from shazpeters.
First Forays into Word Study!
Choose a theme that you feel best addresses the current needs of your class. Read the information in the theme carefully and plan the sequence of lessons that are needed to teach the understandings and generalizations involved. Those taking the course for SUNY credit, are required to use the UBD lesson plan template provided.
Plan your instruction in such a way that allows students to hypothesize and gather or test data to prove their theories. Comment on their responses and engagement(remember pictorial or video evidence is needed). Note the students' enthusiasm when delving into a dictionary!!
Briefly summarize the lesson and reflect on its successes and/or difficulties. Use this information to determine your next steps. Send your reflections to Ann and Sharon to be posted on the blog as a resource. You can remain anonymous if you like; just let us know your wishes.
Spend some time perusing the resource links as well. We believe you will find Pete Bowers' website "Word Works Literacy Center" invaluable. We recommend signing up to receive his newsletters. Be sure to check out Melvyn Ramsden's Real Spelling site with its compendious information and many resources.
Judy found a useful site that explains Greek/Latin roots and their meanings. Remember, you may have to reinsert a single silent e at the end of the base element to prevent a letter doubling. For example, (scrib) is more accurately represented as (scribe). Don't panic, we will go over this in our next session on the 24th of October.
Keep checking the blog to either comment or discover new exciting postings and resources.
Plan your instruction in such a way that allows students to hypothesize and gather or test data to prove their theories. Comment on their responses and engagement(remember pictorial or video evidence is needed). Note the students' enthusiasm when delving into a dictionary!!
Briefly summarize the lesson and reflect on its successes and/or difficulties. Use this information to determine your next steps. Send your reflections to Ann and Sharon to be posted on the blog as a resource. You can remain anonymous if you like; just let us know your wishes.
Spend some time perusing the resource links as well. We believe you will find Pete Bowers' website "Word Works Literacy Center" invaluable. We recommend signing up to receive his newsletters. Be sure to check out Melvyn Ramsden's Real Spelling site with its compendious information and many resources.
Judy found a useful site that explains Greek/Latin roots and their meanings. Remember, you may have to reinsert a single silent e at the end of the base element to prevent a letter doubling. For example, (scrib) is more accurately represented as (scribe). Don't panic, we will go over this in our next session on the 24th of October.
Keep checking the blog to either comment or discover new exciting postings and resources.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Outside of a Dog
The title of this blog comes from a quote by Groucho Marx: 'Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. ' I love the use of the antonyms outside - inside and the unexpected humour. Yes, this seems somewhat of a stretch to use in a blog for teachers about words, but the choice comes from the connection to books.
Words are the stuff books are spun from, the raw material to create images, bring characters to life, to turn the plots. In fact the word text comes from the Latin verb texere: to weave.Word study leads to deeper reading, to increased comprehension, to rich word choice in writing. We believe that through analysing words, justifying the orthography, students are engaged at a high cognitive level. We hope books, through the study of words, do then become your students' best-friends -or at the very least second only to dogs!
This site then will focus on word-study :the etymology, morphology and phonology of words. This site extends the knowledge gained from our workshops, provides suggestions for the classroom, links for both you and your students and hopefully an eclectic 'wordy' treasure trove.
For your first exploration into the world of etymology and morphology, investigate the following words:
- How are they connected?
- Arrange from oldest word to newest word
- Identify the root and the language
- Divide the words into morphemes- how many of the words are single morphemes (free base elements), how many two or more?
- Explain the doubling of the letter
in doggedly
We are indebted to the work of Melvyn Ramsden and his Real Spelling material which first set us off on our word quest.
Images from "Tales of Outer Surburbia" by Shaun Tan
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