Why is Writing Important?
Everyone needs to write, regardless of age, field, and culture. Writing is an essential skill that our instructors must cultivate in our learners. In this short video, people from the business world share the vital role that writing plays in their lives. Try sharing this with your learners as a writing prompt for the beginning of the school year - Why is writing important in Science (art, as a historian, veterinarian...)?
Text Dependent Analysis
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Text dependent analysis is important to Agora stakeholders for several reasons. Not only is this strategy how Agora faculty plans to track student growth in literacy, but it truly does challenge our students in a more meaningful way. TDA requires students to dig deeper and synthesize the text they are reading, rather than just looking for an answer in the text. Text dependent analysis will create learners who are prepared to analyze complex text, and who can support their opinions with evidence-based facts.
Each of the three tabs below will link you to another page to explore how to write powerful TDA prompts, instructing students in composing strong TDA's, and how to accurately assess and support your learners responses in a way that encourages growth. Learn more by visiting the PDE site; Understanding TDA's. |
Teaching Students to Avoid Plagiarism
Agora teachers have long bemoaned plagiarism as an area of concern for our learners, who appear to be resorting to copying and pasting sources, not paraphrasing and citing the work of authors. Rather than taking a reactive approach to plagiarism, it is our hope to take a proactive approach, educating learners about assessing and integrating sources from the onset to avoid harsh punishments that dwindle excitement for learning. Let's start with a hypothetical... what would you do? Click on the image above to explore Norman Eng's reactions and reflections to the all too familiar realization that a student plagiarized work, then click here to share your thoughts and tell us: what would YOU do?
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This begs the question; "How well do student's REALLY understand Plagiarism? The article to the left explores this notion and provides a great piece of reflection before moving forward with our discussions.
Next, we encourage you to reflect on your course policy and publications and take time to review and revise as a team throughout this process. Our goal, as a district, will be to replace punishment based retains for naive student misuse of evidence with instructional based ones. We enjoyed getting the wheels turning with Jennifer Gonzalez's article: Teaching Students to Avoid Plagiarism and think you will enjoy it too. |