Paperless ELA Curriculum
Brad Velcoff
Instructional Technology Specialist
New York City Department of Education
Office of
Instructional Technology
Week
1: Introduction
to CyberEnglish
Course requirements
Student webpage templates: first
handout and teacher template
Ted Nellen's HTML stylesheet
Other html stylesheets
Week 2: Writing
in html.
Biographical sketch
unit:
Sample biographical
sketches:
Authors on the
Web: http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jbh/author.html
Black Pioneers: http://www.endoftheoregontrail.org/blakbios.html
Lots of sample biographies
Famous African Americans: http://www.ability.org.uk/kids_and_teens_biography_african.htm
Homework
center biography links: http://www.multcolib.org/homework/biohc.html
Biographies for Middle School: http://www.sldirectory.com/studf/bio.html
Week
3: Revision
Elements
of
fiction
Short story unit: God Sees
the Truth but Waits by Leo Tolstoy
Vocabulary
and discussion questions for the story
Week 4:
Short Story unit:
http://www.short-stories.co.uk/
http://www.classicreader.com/toc.php/sid.6/
http://www.classicshorts.com/
Students write short stories after discussing several and reviewing
elements of fiction.
Short story: Indian
Camp by Ernest Hemingway
Week 5: Grammar
review
Poetry Unit: On the Pulse of Morning
by Maya Angelou
Interdisciplinary discussion: literature of history
Elements of
poetry
Online
test
Week 6: Introduction to Blogs
and Wikis
Students create ELA blogs.
Look
at the 20 photographs of houses.
· The
teacher will assign houses to each student.
· Day in the
Life essays
Week 7: Girl
by Jamaica Kincaid
Advice unit
In your blogs
comment on each other's advice essays.
Week 8:
Reviews and Critiques
·
Book
· Movie
· Music
· Restaurant
· Game
Week 9:
Essay unit: Bashing
Youth by Mike Males
Bashing
Youth questions
Vocabulary
Online test
Week 10-12: Public Opinion Survey Research Project
http://www.beaconschool.org/~bvelcoff/Bradlessonplan.html
Week 13: Speeches
Presentation
of
Survey Projects
Rhetoric
Reading and understanding speech
transcripts
Week 14: The House on
Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Figurative
language:
Four
styles
Descriptive
writing
Essay
Week 15: Elements
of the Novel
Conflict in
literature
Literary
response/conflict essay
Students
select novels from 9th grade list:
Fiction
Achebe, Things Fall Apart
Baldwin, The
Fire Next Time
Brown, Manchild
in the Promised Land
Carroll, Alice
in Wonderland
Clark, The
Ox-Bow Incident
Delaney, Having
Our Say
Ellison, Invisible
Man;
Golding, Lord of the Flies
Hawthorne, The
Scarlet Letter
Hemingway, For
Whom the Bell Tolls
Hentoff, The
Day They Came to Arrest the Book
Hilton,
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Kingsolver, Pigs
in Heaven
Kinsella, Shoeless
Joe
Knowles, A
Separate Peace
Lee, To
Kill a Mockingbird
McCullers, The
Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
Mohr, In
Nueva York; El Bronx Remembered; Nilda
Morrison, The
Bluest Eye
Orwell, 1984
Portis, True
Grit
Potok, Davita's
Eyes
Stoker, Dracula
Tan, Joy
Luck Club; The Kitchen God's Wife
Thomas, Down
These Mean Streets
Wartski, A
Boat to Nowhere
Welty, The
Golden Apples
Week 16: Poetic
techniques
The United States of Poetry
Poetry
response
essay
Week 17: Persuasive
Writing
Research papers
Web quests
Week 18-19: Elements of Drama
Shakespeare: King
Lear
Week 20: The
Most Dangerous Game
The Lottery
The Black Cat
Week 22: Autobiographies
Abraham Lincoln's autobiography
Frederick Douglass' autobiography
Week 23: Online
writing
portfolio
Selecting and
editing items for portfolio
Self-reflection
papers
Other Teacher Websites:
Michael Moloney's Social Studies class
M. Li's Technology class
Natalie Hyde's English class
Paul Pelech's Math class
Ted Nellen's Cyber
English class
Cyber Library
Useful educational links:
refdesk.com
Arts & Letters Daily
Science & Technology Daily
Dictionary search
Common Dreams
E-mail: bvelcoff@schools.nyc.gov
