In the beginning there was a word and that word was:

Community

This is the first word posted on the Word Wall in Room 315.

This week I will welcome 133 new students into our school and the classroom community I try to build every year in my classroom. If I accept the precept that all learning is social then I must make every effort to model and build a dynamic learning community in my classroom.

I want to share few activities that I plan on using to begin building community in my classroom:

• This summer at Philadelphia Writing Project, we used Where I’m From by George Ella Lyons poems to build community and I want to use it in my classroom this year using this strategy.
• My first unit is on short stories and I plan using highly engaging stories like “The Most Dangerous Game” and “Lamb to the Slaughter” to engage my students. After reading the stories, my students will create a collage based on the text as a group.  This will be their first challenge in cooperative learning.  I found this great strategy from Anna J. Small Roseboro.

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I first want to thank Crystal for giving me a chance to share my reflection on learning and teaching through this venue.  I originally wanted to write about tech integration in high school English classroom (a future post) as my first post on Schoology blog. However, something amazing has happened over the past few weeks and I would like to share this with the readers of this blog.

I have been using Twitter for the past year to connect with inspiring teachers around the world. Through my presence and connections on Twitter, I have also sought out and attended free and paid conferences in my local area of Philadelphia. One of those events that I attended was New Teacher Camp which took place this past July 24th at Boys Latin Academy in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  It was a great day filled with thought-provoking sessions and time to connect face-to-face with many of my friends.  Over the day, we came to the realization that there are many subject area weekly chats on twitter, but none for English teachers.  I started thinking that maybe I could start one, but began to doubt myself.

Do I have the twitter…

I am passionate about connecting my students to the word and the world around them. Using web 2.0 tools in the classroom in a deliberate and thoughtful way has allowed my students to use reading and writing skills to complete projects such as: creating public service announcements for local nonprofits, share digital stories and help create their own with a fourth grade class and take part in Temple University’s media studies program.  My students may be familiar with few tools and websites on the web but on the whole, they require guidance and support to understand, evaluate, and utilize torrent of information that is available to them.  I believe that it is imperative that my students learn to critically analyze and evaluate information as they begin their high school experience in my classroom.  By modeling use of web 2.0 tools for my own personal and professional growth, I have hopefully piqued their interest to explore more on their own.

One tool that constantly helps me connect with other teachers and their great ideas is Twitter. I understand teachers’ skepticism when it comes to Twitter but the only way to really learn it’s value is to start using it and…