After Twenty Years

While my first hour seventh grade class is reading A Christmas Carol, my second hour is reading "After Twenty Years" by O. Henry.  

This year, we've all been studying the ELA standards.  Red Lake County Central teachers have been searching for ways to look at the common core and take the ELA standards to develop high order thinking according to Bloom's Taxonomy.  We've been concentrating on the first ten standards across the curriculum. 

We've been digging and searching and digging some more on how to get our kids to make the jump from objective ABCD answers on tests to digging deeper and writing meaningful answers.  

Change is hard, but the standards are important. 

When the students and I started reading "After Twenty Years", I asked them to think about their friends and how they thought their friends would change.  I put up a picture of my graduating class, and to pick which Purple Person was me. Surprisingly, they found me right away.