Mister McIntosh Says

  “Some people will lie, cheat, steal and back-stab to get ahead… and to think, all they have to do is READ.”

~ Fortune

Learner-in-Chief: Philip McIntosh

 

Email: philip.mcintosh@asd20.org

 

Blog: Mister McIntosh Says

 

Curriculum: Various

 

Introduction: Welcome to Reading. Learners on this team will spend half of the year with me and the other half with Ms Kreidel. I welcome visitors in the classroom so parents are encouraged to come see what we are doing at any time. My door is almost always open.

 

I have always been a big reader and enjoy science fiction, thrillers, history, and books about science, technology and computers. I read 20 books over the Summer alone. You are welcome to check out my Shelfari page to see what I have been reading.  My thinking on reading has been influenced a lot lately by Kelly Gallagher and especially by his book Readicide. I plan to spend about half the class time on academic reading and half on recreational reading.

 

Academic Novels: We will read two or three novels and approach them from an academic viewpoint. I have not chosen the novels yet. Assignments will include discussions and written work on a few of the major points to be made about and information to be gleaned from a careful deep reading of the works.

 

Academic Non-fiction will consist of a single book-length non-fiction work. The title remains to be chosen but I will be working closely with our librarian on this as well as the novel choices.

 

Article of the Week will consist of short to medium length articles handed out at the beginning of the week. They will be chosen from a variety of magazines and websites and will usually have a science, math or current events theme. At the end of the week we spend a few minutes discussing it and a short one-page summary/overview sheet will be turned in.

 

Monthly Recreational Novels will be chosen by the students to read both in class and at home. A short summary/overview and certification sheet will be turned in once a month, but other than that there will be no additional requirements. It’s just to get the kids into a reading habit, and if it accomplishes that, it will probably of more life-long importance than any graded reading assignment they ever do.

 

Blogging is a fun and useful long term project that I have done in the past to good reviews and I plan to do it again this year. Each learner will will learn how to set it up and manage their own personal blog at edublogs.com. There will be a few required elements and posts, including a published interview with a community member, but otherwise the learners will be free to write about whatever appropriate topics they choose. Sports, hobbies, and other personal interests are usually popular topics. Some that are still up and running include Turbo Tanski, Random Works!, Sports Nation, and Brainsplatter!

 

Special Projects occur every so often and include my reading of “Paul Bunyon Versus Conveyor Belt,” after which we see who can construct the largest Mobius strip, and the Six Word Story Project.

 

Words of the Week (WOW) have done in the past and I expect they will continue this year. These are a grade-level wide set of 4-5 vocabulary words that everyone studies and learns.

 

SSR (sustained silent reading) has taken place on Fridays during homeroom throughout the school, but that is not enough time. One day a week (or two half days) will be devoted to silent reading of either an academic or recreational novel. This is a reading class!

 

Reading Flood is a new idea I got from Kelly Gallagher. A reading flood is nothing more that a good sized collection of interesting and appropriate books available in class for anyone to take and read at any time. Sure the library has a a lot of books, but Reading Flood books don’t have to be checked out. They can be borrowed and returned at will. Ideally, there will some that kids want to read to fulfill the monthly novel requirement. I probably have a dozen or so to get it started, but that is not enough. T0 get a good reading flood started, I invite all kids and parents to bring in books to donate to the cause.

 

Personal Electronic Devices: There are nine netbook computers available in the classroom. They work reasonably well but are rather small and have poor video processing power. It can also take a long time for a learner to log into them (3-10 minutes). They do get used a lot though. You are welcome to use your own computing devices in class and that will actually be much more efficient for you. Personal devices can connect to the Internet through our personal devices network which is subject to the same filtering as our internal network.

Laptops, tablets (such as iPad and similar), and even smart phones can be used in class for taking quizzes, looking up information and doing other academic tasks. Placing and receiving phone calls or texting is prohibited and will result in confiscation of the device.

 

Grades:  The standard Challenger grading scale is used. The final grade each quarter is earned based on the following weighting of the class components:

 

 Bellwork: 5%

Academic Reading: 40%

   Recreational Reading: 40%

 Blog: 10 %

     WOW Tests: 5 %