Teacher Resources

home
Web Resources:
    Search Engines:
        Google
        Altavista
        Search.com
    Other Web Sites:
        McDougal Littell Online
    If you are using a McDougal Littell textbook and do not know about this site, I strongly suggest that you view it soon.  This site provides a wealth of information for each unit, all easily accessible from your computer.  There are numerous links provided for each unit in the textbooks that will help both you and your students prepare for the literature you are reading.

Print Resources:
    "You Gotta Be the Book" - Jeffrey D. Wilhelm
    This book provides great insight into teaching literarture in the classroom.  It provides the reader with many great ideas on creating activities that are both fun and engaging for the students.  Wilhelm's anecdotes alone are worth buying this book.  His constant journal keeping allows the reader to see into his mind as struggles with his students and has epiphanies that enlighten both him and his students.
    Explorations: Introductory Activities for Literature and Composition, 7-12 - Peter Smagorinsky, Tom McCaan, Stephen Kern
    This short booklet, published by they ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills and the National Council of Teachers of English in 1987 is still as pertinent today as it was when it came out 15 years ago.  This booklet provides the teacher with invaluable instruction on forming and performing meaningful prereading activities in the secondary language arts classroom.
    Expressions: Multiple Intelligences in teh English Class - Peter Smagorinsky
    This booklet, published by the same as the above booklet in 1991, is just as helpful.  In it, Smagorinsky takes the teacher through the process of creating activities that address all of the ways in which students learn.
    In the Middle - Nancie Atwell
    Nancie Atwell's book on implementing the writing and reading workshop models in the classroom is inspirational.  Of course, we cannot all go off and start our own school as she has, but her stories and ideas could provide a basis for any teacher wanting to implement workshops into her/his classroom.
    A Community of Writers - Steven Zemmelman and Harvey Daniels
    This text is focused on creating a real writing atmosphere in the secondary classroom.  Zemmelman and Daniels remind teachers of what we often forget: students should want to write for the same reasons that we should want to write, not because somebody else tells us to.
    Hyperlearning: Where Projects, Inquiry, and Technology Meet - Jeffrey D. Wilhelm and Paul D. Friedemann, with Julie Erickson
    This text provides the reader with a great illustration of how to actually integrate technology into the classroom in ways that enhance the students' learning.  The primary method of instruction described here is with either HyperStudio or HyperCard, but I believe that these ideas could easily be just as effectively used with MS Powerpoint as well.

Human Resources:
    If you have any questions for me regarding any activities presented here on this website or, if you just want to banter about English Education, I would love to hear from you.  My email address is andersom@student.gvsu.edu

home