This last few months have been busy with a whole new site -- www.literature-enrichment.com, which features lesson plans for the epic tale of the universal themes of human life -- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Veteran teacher and creator of the Ancient Mariner Unit, Peter Stocker, describes his creation, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a very dry and difficult to understand. I wanted to make it understandable to my students." The Unit integrates all aspects of Language Arts, including exercises for representing, reading, writing, poetry, speaking, exploring structure, and viewing.

"Literature, or any story that deals with the great themes or universal themes of human life speak to students at a very deep level, and their comprehension increases dramatically," Peter continues, "All of the themes in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner are explored very deeply."

Approaching a subject from many different angles, such as written, orally, and representationally, as well as exploring themes in depth, incorporates Gardner's 1983 theory on Multiple Intelligence. The Intelligences Gardner recognizes include: verbal-linguistic, math-logic, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intra personal and naturalist.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Unit, as well as accompanying Dore Graphics package, are available at a reduced introductory price to newsletter subscribers
www.literature-enrichment.com

We welcome your questions, suggestions and feedback on our new resources. Please email feedback@pedagog.org.

Textmapping is a graphic organizer technique that can be used to teach reading comprehension and writing skills, study skills, and course content. It is practiced on scrolls, which are an alternative environment to books. Textmapping and scrolls can be used strategically, but they are not strategies. They are enabling technologies - simple, basic tools which can be used for reading and classroom instruction. The same strategies that can be taught in books can be taught more clearly and explicitly by using scrolls and mapping.

• Implementation costs are very low.
• It is easy to learn and easy to implement in the classroom.
• It has been used with mainstream, ESL, and special needs classes at all levels, from elementary through college.
• Textmapping enables teachers to clearly and explicitly model reading comprehension, writing and study skills in the course of regular classroom instruction.
• Textmapping shines a light on the pre-reading process. It focuses more attention on, and spends more time with, the text itself - lingering on the page, delaying abstraction, forcing readers to engage in a more careful in-context comprehension of both the big picture and the details, and enabling teachers to explicitly and systematically model comprehension processes.
• It is low-tech, easy to learn, easy to teach, requires no special equipment, and can be adapted easily and inexpensively for use in the classroom. All you need is access to a copier, tape or glue-stick, and colored pencils, markers, or crayons.

People commonly confuse Textmapping with Semantic Mapping, Concept Mapping, Story Mapping, and other so-called mapping techniques - all of which are actually diagramming techniques.

Perhaps the best way to understand Textmapping is to make a scroll and map it yourself.

The Textmapping Project seeks to contribute to the improvement of reading comprehension skills instruction.

Read more about The Project >>

• Exploring versus Telling
• Why are fractions difficult?
• Ideas for teaching fractions
• Teaching activities
  
  

According to a recent study, "The practices of demonstrating how to do math problems and of setting students to work on worksheets and textbook exercises were still much more common—and nearly universal—in the United States than they were in other countries."

Fractions are something that students should explore and discover by themselves, rather than 'be told' or 'have explained.'  At Math Lessons we provide teachers with tools to engage students in learning about fractions and discovering the underlying concepts for themselves.

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Petty, a certified recreational therapist has experience with providing recreation activities for children who have been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused. He provides a well-balanced set of activities to improve their quality of life, including: social interaction, creative/expressive arts, physical fitness, team building, relaxation skills, and self-esteem building at a residential school/ treatment facility.

His new publication, How to Lead Group Activities was released in February, 2005, by Wishing Well Publishing. This booklet covers the importance of groups, how to lead groups, things to consider when preparing a group, how to conduct an icebreaker, how to introduce the activity, group discussion topics, and activity ideas. It is excellent resources for teachers, school counselors, therapists, or anyone working with children or adolescents.

To Obtain a copy: Send $11.00 check or money order per booklet, note for Activity Booklet & shipping address to: Wishing Well Publishing, P.O. Box 2355, Huntington, West Virginia 25724-2355.

Let us know how we are doing!

Comments, questions, rants, raves all go to: feedback@pedagog.org.

Math Lessons
Lesson Plans, manipulatives, and resources
for teaching fractions and equivalent fractions. Literature Enrichment
Rime of the Ancient Mariner Unit and well known fairy tales in Play format.
Characterization
Lesson Plans on Character, including Characterization in Harry Potter, building character and more...