Storyline Online

The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Foundation has teamed up with SAG members for a fun, innovative approach to reading books. Now, your children can have their favorite actors read to them! Storyline Online uses a video-streaming program that shuttles reading stars such as James Earl Jones, Tia and Tamara Mowry, and Amanda Bynes directly into your home.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

Save Money: Invest in Students

More than a year into this recession, it's becoming cliche to hear people utter the phrase, "Well, in this economy. . . ." Because of it, a lot of things have to take a backseat, but educating our young people isn't one of them. Education is an appreciating investment, and here at Maupin House, we encourage teachers to continually step up their game!

That's why, for a limited time, Writing Intervention Kit for High School is $50 off. WOW!

A finalist for the 2009 Association of Educational Publishers' Distinguished Achievement Award, this complete kit:

• Offers intensive, step-by-step daily instruction relevant to all test preparation and academic research writing
• Functions as the curriculum for a writing intervention class or to support a literacy intervention block
• Incorporates time for teacher-directed and small-group work, modeling, guided practice, scaffolding, and support for students’ independent practice
  

Each teacher receives

• A ready-to-go teacher guide with a weekly instructional overview, daily lesson plans, blackline masters, rubrics, and a CD of student models and reproducibles
• Six integrated professional resources: Caught‘ya! Grammar with a Giggle, Discovering Voice, Listen to This, Crafting Expository Papers, Crafting Comparison Papers, and Crafting Opinion and Persuasive Papers

There is no coupon code necessary, but this special offer will end soon. Order your kit before the new school year starts and continue investing -- in students!

WriteGirl

From ForeWord magazine's latest e-newsletter (7/22/09):

So many know the woes of the writer. The struggle, the scraping by, the rejection. But beyond the mass of cigarette smoke and rejection letters exists a new start to a writing career. A clean one. A mentored one. An uplifting one.

It's called WriteGirl.

Based out of Los Angeles, California, WriteGirl is an organization that provides writing workshops that aim to "give girls confidence to try new things, explore their goals, speak in public, meet new people, and express their views," Executive Director Keren Taylor told FTW.

Girls ages 13-18 are chosen from surrounding Los Angeles schools to participate in monthly writing workshops, Taylor said, "covering a different genre each month--from poetry to songwriting to journalism."

Just one day at a workshop offers guest writers, group writing activities, lunch, some sharing of the day's work, and even individual activities. For the individual portion, each girl is paired with her own mentor.

"The mentors are all professional women writers," Taylor said. Ranging from journalists with the Los Angeles Times, to screenwriters from HBO, to novelists, poets, and copywriters. These mentors give girls a wide-ranging and accurate taste of the writing world.

From September through June, girls write and grow from timid to outspoken, self-critical to self-assured. Some join whole-heartedly and ready for change, yet others join apprehensively because a mother or a teacher suggested it. "It is so satisfying to see how their initial ambivalence turns into passionate participation," Taylor said.

The ultimate finale is something even professional writers long for: publication. Each year, WriteGirl publishes an anthology with collections of stories from the teen writers and mentors.

Silhouette: Bold Lines & Voices From WriteGirl (978-0-9741251-8-3), is the group's eighth anthology. It includes pieces from more than sixty teens and professional writers as well as writing advice and activities.

"Teen girls will enjoy our new anthology, Silhouette, as they read the stories and experiences," Taylor said. "The subjects and perspectives are varied and often emotionally intense.women, particularly mothers of teens, will find the book intriguing and surprising."

The June 14th Season-End Celebration for the book demonstrated this intrigue, as over 400 friends, family, and community members gathered at the Writers Guild of America Theater. They listened to guest actors like Peter Facinelli and Pamela Guest, but more importantly, all of the WriteGirl girls performed onstage.

"They didn't hold back" Taylor said, "they really let go and shared some very personal and very powerful writing with all of us."

Will WriteGirl ever empower girls in cities other than Los Angeles? Taylor certainly hopes so. "We just need the funding and resources to do so, ... but we are determined to continue to seek the support we need to thrive and grow."

Until girls from around the country can access the beauty in one-on-one mentoring and a varied writing education, each anthology from WriteGirl offers a small taste of the experience. "All of our anthologies, including Silhouette, contain writing activities--we call them 'experiments' to encourage the feeling of creativity and exploration in writers," Taylor said.

The writing and publishing world is known to be a hard, competitive, and challenging place. WriteGirl has changed that for hundreds of girls. "We work hard to create a fun, interactive, multi-media, hands-on, playful educational experience," Taylor said, "and girls respond with their feet by coming back month after month, year after year."

by Samantha Breaux, Editorial Intern

We want to know

Each new school year, teachers have all kinds of tricks up their sleeves! We want to know what yours are:

• What worked really well in your classroom last year that you plan to use again this year?
• What new ideas do you plan to implement?
• What great idea did you see another teacher use that you plan to adopt?
• What original ideas are you working on to engage your students this year?
• What professional resources are on your "Must Use List" and why?

We can't wait to hear what's going on with each of you. Let us know your plans and once you start using them in the new school year, tell us how they are working out!

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt dies

As a book publisher, Maupin House is always saddened to hear when a literary giant leaves us. This week, we are remembering Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt's (August 19, 1930 - July 19, 2009) great contributions not only to the written word, but also to the world.

Someone posted a lovely tribute to the life and work of Frank McCourt on YouTube:

The latest from the Google Teacher Newsletter

From the Summer '09 edition:

Hello Teachers,

Whether we had the chance to meet you last month at the National Education Computing Conference or you've been a longtime subscriber to our newsletter, we hope you're settling nicely into your summer vacation and enjoying some well-deserved time off. We have lots to share with you in this installment of our newsletter, so let's get started!

First off, Google has just announced that we will now be offering free email security – powered by Postini – to all current and new eligible K12 Google Apps Education Edition accounts that opt-in to Postini by July, 2010. Google Message Security lets administrators limit messages based on who they are from, where they are going, or the content they contain. Message rules can be applied to groups of users (like younger students, older students, and teachers), allowing your IT department to customize the messaging rules for their users to meet individual needs. If you are an administrator of Google Apps, this feature is available on your dashboard now. To learn more about free Google Message Security with Google Apps, check out: http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2009/07/todays-day-signups-open-for-free-google.html

If you're just getting interested or started with Google Apps Education Edition, you may have a lot of questions. Like, "How can I use these tools in my classroom, what are other schools/teachers doing, where can I find out the newest news about Google Apps, how have other teachers gotten their administrations to adopt Google Apps in their schools." Well, we've got just the thing for you! To celebrate educators and support Google Apps in the K-12 space, we've launched the Google Apps Education Community site at:
http://edu.googleapps.com/
There you'll be able to watch tip videos, read our blogs and have forum discussions with your fellow educators. We've also collected more than 20 classroom-ready lesson plans across at our Apps Education Resource Center:
www.google.com/apps/eduresources
We plan on collecting many more educational resources from teachers like you, so please be sure to visit both sites to see how you can contribute.

Next up, Google's first name - SEARCH! Web search can be a very helpful tool for students and teachers alike, but we've heard from many of you that you could use more help in learning how to efficiently search and then impart that wisdom to your students. Because of that, the Google Certified Teachers developed Search Education lessons to help you with that. They've developed three modular lessons not specific to any discipline so you can mix and match what best fits your needs. And all of the lessons come with presentations which will help guide your classroom discussions. You'll learn fundamentals of search (which includes judging the validity of sources), search techniques and practices (for more advanced searches), and features and functionality (to learn some neat tips and tricks). Check out all of the lessons here:
http://www.google.com/educators/p_websearch.html

Helium writing contest for education professionals

From Helium's website:

Welcome to the Helium Education Professionals Contest!

We’ve created a contest just for education professionals at Helium. It will tap their unique knowledge and experience.

To participate, you need to have one of these badges at Helium for Teachers, School Administrators, School Counselors, and University Professors

The contest submission period starts Wednesday, July 8, at 16:00 GMT, and ends 28 days later on Tuesday, August 4, at 23:59 GMT. (Figure your local time from GMT here.) Winners are usually announced the following Wednesday (eight days after the contest ends), after sufficient rating has taken place.

When contests shift to the “Awaiting Calculation” status, all titles within that contest will be closed to further submissions and Leapfrogs. This will allow the rating system to fairly evaluate the submitted articles. Once the contest is closed and the results announced, the titles to that contest will reopen for general writing submissions.

If you are a member and an education professional and want to participate in this contest, but don’t yet have one of our education professional badges, email us with a state licensing website link with information needed to verify your credentials online to experts@helium.com. Be sure to include your Helium About Me page URL. Barbara Whitlock and the Helium team will verify your information and you’ll be able to enter the contest quickly.

A few words about contest points:

• Points will be awarded for articles rated in the top 55% for each title—the higher your rank at contest end, the more points you earn. But watch out: You’ll get negative points for articles ranked by your peers in the lower 45%.
• New articles are always inserted at the 50th percentile; as a result a new article will not earn or lose points until the community has rated the article against other articles submitted to the same title.
• Ties in ratings can and do occur. These ties are not displayed as a tie on the site. To illustrate, consider the case of a tie in ratings when there are only two articles to a title. It is possible that neither article will earn points because they are tied and each is considered at the 50th percentile even though one is displayed above the other.

Looking for more great prospects for writing and earning? Check out Helium Marketplace, where Helium teams you up with publishers looking for freelancers.

Winners earn:

1		1st Prize at $60
1		2nd Prize at $40
1		3rd Prize at $30

How to earn points:

• 5 points - over 95th percentile
• 4 points - over 85th percentile
• 3 points - over 75th percentile
• 2 points - over 65th percentile
• 1 points - over 55th percentile
• 0 points - over 45th percentile
• -1 points - over 35th percentile
• -2 points - over 25th percentile
• -3 points - over 15th percentile
• -4 points - over 5th percentile
• -5 points - 0- 5th percentile

Be sure to read a copy of Helium’s Writing Standards before you enter the contest.

This week's contest titles:

• A summer vacation survival guide for teachers teaching summer school
• Classroom management strategies for handling students on field trips
• Factors to consider for teachers transitioning to school administrator roles
• Guide to appropriate friendships among college professors and students
• How professors can network with businesses to create student opportunities
• How school administrators can build teamwork among teachers
• How school principals can build closer relationships with students
• Strategies for engaging students in summer school
• Summer school trends: Kindergarteners put in reading summer school
• Teacher tips: How to help homeschoolers transitioning to high school
• Teacher tips: How to organize a successful field trip for high school students
• Teacher tips: How to use your summer vacation to improve your teaching
• The dangers to college students who revere their college professors
• The pros and cons of college teachers moonlighting for online degree programs
• What teachers should consider before choosing to teach summer school

"How can I get my students to read more non-fiction?"

Non-fiction graphic novels, which have been on the rise with young adults for over eight years, can be used in both the English language arts (ELA) classroom and the social studies (SS) classroom. Perhaps even more important, non-fiction graphic novels will align to the standards (or themes) in both content areas.

Read more from Katie Monnin's new Diamond Bookshelf article by clicking here.

Maupin House and social networking

Become a fan of Maupin House on Facebook

Follow Maupin House on Twitter

Read Maupin House's blog

Read the Teaching Graphic Novels blog

Join the Maupin House group on LinkedIn

Check out our videos on YouTube: About the Bag Ladies and the Pony Tail Band Book Project

Search online for Maupin House savings with the Florida Backyard Card

Free resources from Education Reporting

Check out this article from Education Reporting for a list of nearly 30 online resources helping teachers with classroom management, multimedia in the classroom, and pedagogy.

Resource round-up: virtual schools

Articles

• "Learning without limits: How the rise of online instruction is changing the nature of schooling" by Christine Van Dusen (eSchool News)
• Online tutoring resources (eSchool News)
• "Blended learning more effective than face-to-face" (Education Week)
• Technology Counts 2009: Breaking Away from Tradition: E-Education Expands Opportunities for Raising Achievement (Education Week)
  

Organizations

• Sloan Consortium. "A consortium of individuals, institutions, and organizations committed to quality online education."
  
• International Association for K-12 Online Learning. iNACOL's mission is to "ensure all students have access to world-class education and quality online learning opportunities that prepare them for a lifetime of success."

Virtual Schools

• Connections Academy
• Florida Virtual School
  

Collaborating with other teachers online

Looking for free and easy ways to find quality lessons? Going online seems to be your best bet!

SharedSchool is a "knowledge exchange and productivity tool for educators" with which you can manage lesson plans online, correlate your lessons automatically to state standards, and most importantly, help and be helped by fellow teachers by sharing and searching free online lesson content and practice assessments.

MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) is a "searchable collection of peer reviewed and selected higher education, online learning materials, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services. MERLOT's vision is to be a premiere online community where faculty, staff, and students from around the world share their learning materials and pedagogy."

Global SchoolNet

According to their website,

Global SchoolNet's mission is to support 21st century learning. We engage teachers and students in meaningful project learning exchanges with people around the world to develop literacy and communication skills, foster teamwork and collaboration, encourage workforce preparedness and create multi-cultural understanding. We prepare youth for full participation as productive and effective citizens in an increasing global economy.

Teachers can find partners, projects, and competitions worldwide and in all subjects. Take a tour of the site, become a member for free, and start your global collaboration today!