To
truly DIFFERENTIATE
your language arts program you must
FIRST
begin by
discovering the
academic strengths and weaknesses and personal
interests of the delightfully fascinating students
in your class. Invest time in listening to their
hearts, discovering their goals, energy levels, fears,
dreams, and styles of learning. Knowing what
motivates and de-motivates them will help you uncover
hundreds of exciting ways
to implement PUSD's Language Arts and Technology Standards,
utilizing technology as one of your most valuable tools.
One
fun way to stay connected to the hearts of your students
throughout the year, is to give them the opportunity to
write
letters to you in their JOURNALS
two
to three mornings a week. They can ask you
questions, talk to you about projects and concepts they
are learning, fun events with their families, or just
anything they are anxious to share with you. Then,
during DEAR reading
YOU
can read their journals and answer them. It is
pretty rewarding for them to realize that they are the
authors for
YOUR
DEAR reading. When you stay in touch with their
worlds in this way, you'll discover that choosing the
perfect projects to challenge, motivate, and stretch
them will be easy and natural.
Another quick method to assess the interests and needs
of your students is to have them fill out
Getting-to-know-You or Goal Surveys. Click on the
little boy above to print out a sample
Getting-to-know-You Survey or click on the line of
children below for a Goals and Interests survey. To
open
these files you will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader
version 4.0. You may download it for free by
clicking on the Adobe icon at the right.
Now
that you've discovered the academic, social, and
behavioral needs and interests of your students, let's
explore some projects that use technology to teach the
language arts standards. Have fun brainstorming,
adapting, and discovering new ways to use technology in
your curriculum.
To
truly DIFFERENTIATE
your language arts program you must
FIRST
begin by
discovering the
academic strengths and weaknesses and personal
interests of the delightfully fascinating students
in your class. Invest time in listening to their
hearts, discovering their goals, energy levels, fears,
dreams, and styles of learning. Knowing what
motivates and de-motivates them will help you uncover
hundreds of exciting ways
to implement PUSD's Language Arts and Technology Standards,
utilizing technology as one of your most valuable tools. 
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