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What Happened to Ebonics?

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Turmoil in 1980s Oakland Leads to Continued Definitive Conclusions about Language’s Impact on Education in the 2020s by Matthew Bamberg Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash The Ebonics debate has often been misunderstood. It refers to the dialect of AAVE (African American Vernacular English). This type of language is prevalent in the Black community and has also spread into popular culture through lyrics in rap music and similar genres. I be workin’ Yes, I be workin’ on this article. This can be defined as: I’ve been working on this article for a while, although not necessarily at this very moment. I begin here because using AAVE helps readers understand the importance of training teachers to use it in our classrooms. Before getting into the meat and potatoes of the point, AAVE is an important dialect and, therefore, should be treated with the utmost respect, especially when dealing with it as a teacher. Slavery was Brutal The history of AAVE in the United States began in the 17th and 18t...
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Understanding specific Common Core Standards

As I was teaching this morning (online) I found that many teachers, parents and students might be confused by common core standards such as the World History standards below. History/Social Studies CCR 2 : Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text. ELD Standards Grade 9-10 Part I A. Collaborative 1 . Exchanging information and ideas with others through oral collaborative discussions on a range of social and academic topic. CSS History 10.1 Students relate the moral and ethical principals in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, in Judaism, and in Christianity to the development of the Western political thought. These standards are misleading in that the time frame in which they should be taught is ambiguous. These standards are good; however, the public reading them might interpret them as generalities that are too broad in subject m...
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The Power of the ING Verb--Common Core Gold

The ING verb is mighty powerful. From the words creating to debating , these suffix-dependent words spell another word-- MARKETING . Rarely does a suffix make its face known in the marketing community so often as the ING verb. As I develop the idea for my newest book, I take note at how effective ING verbs are as the first word in each listing of a table of contents in how-to books. Look for yourself. Every how-to book publisher uses these suffixes in their books' table of contents. While this might not seem significant to most people, It should and does to educators. Why are ING verbs so effective and why should their use be taught to students of all grade levels as a real life application to marketing? Simply because it's the perfect put-the-reader-in-the-picture verb. Reading an ING verb in a table of contents or chapter beginning drops you right into the how-to scenario. Consider the ubiquitous ING verb creating as in Creating a Diagram. The forceful nature of ...
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Professor Matthew Bamberg's Writing Process Quick Guide

To be honest, writing wasn't always easy for me, but I have developed a few techniques that help. When I write a sentence, I think about it in terms of a set of phrases that are put together so that they include a subject and verb. Of course in complex and compound sentences there are often more than one subject and/or one verb. I also write using the traditional steps--brainstorm, outline (for longer pieces), rough draft written using as the outline as a guide, revision, editing to produce a final draft. 1. The first is to go over that webpage I have written (http://www.commoncorestandardslinks.com/2013/09/three-common-grammar-errors.html) about the three errors. I grade a lot of papers, and most students make the same errors. 2. I proofread twice, once when I'm finished with a sentence and once when I'm finished the draft. This usually catches most errors. If the work is for an editor or other professional purposes, I sit on it overnight and edit it once more the next da...
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Three Common Grammar Errors

Since common core requires testing written work, I'll go over the three most common errors in grammar, mechanics or style that I have found in students' essays: 1.  One of the most common errors I note in students' composition papers is that students confuse a plural (which refers to more than one) with a possessive (which means ownership). For example: consider the errors in this sentence: The course's that I have taken at Ashford have been challenging, yet rewarding. Note that the word courses indicates more than one class so you don't need the apostrophe. The sentence should be: The courses I have taken at Ashford have been challenging, yet rewarding. Now if you wanted to write about a characteristic of a class (something the course takes ownership of), you could write a sentence like this: The course's textbooks are brilliantly written. Course's here can be rewritten as textbook of the course . If this sentence were written with the apostrophe ...
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PowerPoint Blog Presentation for National University Poster Presentation for Blog Research at National University
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Book Review Recipes

Here's the case where the comment for a link is better than the link itself, which was a blog post for the Common Core standards . Note the cleverness of this comment, added to a blog post by a teacher: These sound like fun activities that kids can connect to their daily lives. I love teaching writing, and my students also have enjoyed writing book review "recipes" as an adjective/parts of speech writing exercise. Take " George's Marvelous Medicine " for example: 2 c. Magic 1 c. Wicked 1/2 c. Humor 2 tbs. Suspense 1 tbs. Revenge 1 tsp. Greediness   Directions: Pour the magic, wicked, & humor into a large bowl and mix well! Slowly sprinkle in the tablespoons of suspense, revenge, and greediness one at a time. Stir them all together for one delicious story!
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Ten Vowel Sound Lesson Plan Links for First Grade

Nowhere can you see Common Core in actions than in a basic vowel lesson. The Core doesn't have first grade teachers teaching long vowels and short vowels as isolated subjects, but instead addresses them together: English Language Arts Standards>Reading>Foundational Skills>Grade 1>Phonological Awareness                         Distinguish long from short vowel sounds in spoken single-syllable words.   Here are some lessons that involve this standard with the topic of this standard covered: 1. short a           https://www.commonsense.org/education/lesson-plans/short-vowel-aa 2. short vowels   http://www.commoncoreelalessons.com/2013/01/its-short-vowel-time.html 3. long vowels   http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/long-vowels-lesson-plan 4. short vowels  http...
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STEM Wildfire Education Necessity

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  California Wildfires Are Getting Worse. Why Schools Must Teach Fire Survival Now From science to social-emotional learning, a comprehensive approach is needed to safeguard communities from natural and man-made hazards Wildfire in the Inland Empire of Southern California as seen from the desert. Photo by Matthew Bamberg Communities in California and elsewhere have shown remarkable resilience in uniting to cope and heal after a wildfire. Yet wildfires will remain a critical challenge, especially during droughts. The future doesn’t have to mirror the past. To ensure a safer tomorrow, California’s education system must prioritize wildfire preparedness and mitigation as a core part of its curriculum. A New Interdisciplinary Wildfire Curriculum The current model of isolating academic disciplines is inadequate for preparing students to face the uncertain world shaped by climate change. A significant curriculum overhaul is urgently needed to equip students with the skills and knowledge t...
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Social Emotional Skills and Holistic Education

Holistic education focuses on students identity in order for them to become good  community members by teachers instituting appropriate  moral, social, emotional, psychological and academic goals for functioning as a productive member of society.  As a teacher, you have to consider what's going on in students' lives order to teach the students coping skills to deal with challenging situations. Holistic education can really help students who are falling behind. Creating engaging lessons that reach all students is the primary focus of planning for instruction in most schools.  You can combine this inclusion with extensive education in all areas. "All students will learn the skills they need to succeed across all domains, including social, cognitive and academic" (Schwartz as cited in Volk, 2013, para. 5). Students perform better academically when teachers address the social emotional needs of students Socio-emotional skills are for school, work and life. They inc...
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Writing a Personal Essay

Writing a personal essay doesn't have to be hard. One would think that the most important part of a personal essay would be writing a draft. This isn't so. While it is important, there are other parts of the writing process that are just as important for writing a focused "A" paper. One of the first tasks you do before you write the rough draft is to have a topic that is appropriate for a personal essay. As you may recall, a personal essay should be written in first person, usually about an account of an event, a story about a person, a travelogue of a place or  an illustration of an object (in words) that is or was special to you. Well, does that mean you should write about your mom, your childbirth (if you're a woman) or your vacation? Any of these topics are a good choice for a personal essay. Recall that the writing process: 1. Brainstorming--Create your topic. Narrow it down. 2. Outlining--Yes, this is necessary! 3. Drafting--Writing your draft f...
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