As the new school year gets under way, you may be looking to ease your students back into English language arts. Here are a few ways that Curriculum Pathways can help. Check out Crio! Ready to give shape to some new ideas about novels or writing types you will be
Even for the most vigilant, experienced writers, clarity can be an elusive goal. Again and again, no matter how hard we try to eliminate any trace of ambiguity, an infuriating gap often separates what we think we are saying from what we actually say. Consider this simple exercise. Insert the
Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood is one of those rare books people describe as “impossible to put down” that really is (figuratively) impossible to put down. As an English teacher, I found a marked increase in student participation when I substituted Capote’s “nonfiction novel” for one of the canonical works in
Although most often used as a tool to refine an entire essay, Writing Reviser also offers innovative opportunities to isolate and overcome some of the most durable stumbling blocks to forceful writing. Let’s consider one perennial obstacle: recognizing—and choosing skillfully between—active and passive verbs. In the traditional approach, students look
Available as a web and iOS app, and Chromebook app, Reading Records is the perfect complement to conducting running records of reading. The ability to record students as they read aloud, and the built-in tools for assigning, evaluating, and analyzing performance, add much needed efficiency to the running records process. Reading
Two of our most powerful interactive tools—Writing Reviser and Punctuation Rules!—become even more powerful when used in tandem. Indeed they are designed to be used that way. Both products use natural language processing, so they respond to each student’s own work, not generic examples in which the student has no investment.
One of the most frustrating problems writing teachers face in the digital age is the ease with which students are able to cheat by copying online text and passing it off as their own. We all know the story. A student needs some help with an essay about, say,
Curriculum Pathways supports English Language Learner (ELL) instruction, which we consider to be one of today’s most important educational challenges. Imagine walking into a classroom where you are not only the new kid but the new kid who can’t understand what others are saying. Imagine being the teacher trying to
Running records of students’ reading are considered a valuable source of data for reading instruction, but also a significant time sink and generally tricky to administer. Reading Records is an anytime, anywhere solution that promises to yield the same valuable data without compromising precious class time (while providing several enhancements to the old paper-and-pencil method).
If you've been following the news lately, you may have heard a lot of debate about the academic profiles of college athletes. In a recent report published by CNN, Mary Willingham, a learning specialist at UNC, argued that from 2004 to 2012 a large number of athletes were reading far
In the beginning was the word, along with the pencil and paper, and the word was with students. Eons later, teachers looked at student writing and saw that it was (to invert the Old Testament lingo) not good: a Tower of Babel. So our priority was to create a set
Increasingly, third graders who aren't reading proficient are more likely to become high school dropouts [1]. Our education system has drawn a clear line: third graders must read at grade level. Why? K-2 education devotes more time and greater emphasis to reading. Reading skills required to learn across subject areas become critical
“Writing is easy,” said Gene Fowler. “All you do is sit staring at a blank piece of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.” Other than replacing blank pages with blank computer screens, technology has done mercilessly little to reduce the agony of student writers or improve
