Common Core State Standards Edition Coming Spring 2011!

In response to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English and Language Arts, a new edition of Mirrors & Windows will be available this spring for implementation in the fall of 2011. The Mirrors & Windows Common Core Standards Edition will cover 100% of the English Language Arts learning standards for grades 6-12!

In addition, new literature selections are being added to each grade level to fully meet the range of text types required for grades 6-12 at every grade. This includes a graphic novel selection at every grade!

Mirrors & Windows will also offer the following support for the new CCSS standards throughout the program:
• The Teacher’s Edition will include the full correlation to the CCSS in the front of each book and the standards covered in each selection will be listed at the bottom of the pages throughout the book.
• The E-Lesson Planner will be correlated to CCSS.
• ExamView test banks will be correlatetd to CCSS.
• Formative Assessments based on questions from the Educational Testing Service (ETS) will be correlated to CCSS and aligned with remediation activities.
• Meeting the Standards Study Guide Practice Tests will be correlated to CCSS.

Contact your sales representative for more information about the Mirrors & Windows Common Core State Standards Edition and support materials! Help your students meet the Common Core State Standards with Mirrors & Windows!

A Christmas Carol: Scrooge and Marley

For the holidays, make sure to check out the dramatic audio recording of Israel Horowitz's A Christmas Carol: Scrooge and Marley in the EMC Audio Program, Mirrors & Windows Level II, Unit 7. Horowitz's play, based on A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, has been recorded in its entirety for you and your students' listening enjoyment. The Audio Program for all seven levels of Mirrors & Windows grades 6-12 can be accessed at www.mirrorsandwindows.com. Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

Double Date with Dickens--EMC Access Editions!

Just for fun: Oprah has chosen two classic novels by Charles Dickens as her winter book club selection, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. The good news is that both of these titles are available as EMC Access Editions. These comprehensive study editions include information about the French Revolution and life in Victorian England, historical time lines, questions, writing ideas, projects, a biography of Dickens, and everything you need to explore two great novels by one of England's finest and most relevant novelists.

Preview EMC's complete Access Editions for both novels at
http://www.emcp.com/previews/AccessEditions/. A complete listing of EMC Access Editions titles is available at http://www.emcp.com/product_catalog/index.php?GroupID=74.

For more information about Oprah's book club selections and a reading calendar visit
http://www.oprah.com/book_club.html.

What Teachers Are Saying About Mirrors & Windows

We received the following endorsement of Mirrors & Windows from a teacher in Elma, WA, who is using the program. Our thanks to Deanne Woita for taking the time to send in her comments.

1—Elma High School adopted the Mirrors and Windows program mainly because we had been so happy with the previous EMC program: Literature and the Language Arts. In fact, we banked our funding for the year of our adoption and waited for the new EMC book to be published. The selection of literature is excellent, as are the leveled questions at the end of selections. I appreciate that these questions are directly focused on specific thinking skills and are clearly labeled by these skills. The teacher materials allow so much individualization. I can target reading, writing, vocabulary, grammar, specific reading, and career-building skills in every unit. I can use the Mirrors and Windows audio library to have students listen to professional readers if I want them to hear the text aloud. I can individualize assignments for my special education students, my ESL students and my most gifted students without having to create these lessons myself. There are prepared PowerPoint lessons and other electronic support, including a year-long planner and Exam View test creator. I have never had so many options, nor so much auxiliary material help, as I have now with the Mirrors and Windows program. Plus, we have received excellent, personalized customer service with EMC.

2— 1) The slow release or reading responsibility is a wonderful way to organize genres in Level V. For example, I used a short story to teach the plot elements, then discussed the story with students as a class. Next, I had students read, on their own, the next story and helped them analyze the story for the plot elements. Finally, I had them select a story from all the additional choices in the textbook and analyze it for the plot elements on their own.

2) I used the prepared PowerPoint to help teach the main elements of fiction. Students need visuals to help cement their learning.

3) I have enjoyed using the Exam View program to create various versions of the same test to help eliminate the possibility of cheating.

3—Of all the novel sets I have ever used in my teaching career, the EMC Access Editions are by far the best. They contain author and historical background. They have vocabulary assistance and a glossary for students to use. They have questions in the margins to help students with their comprehension. There are plot summaries at the ends, identifying the key plot points. Often there is supplementary material, including newspaper articles, poems, essays, etc. that tie directly to the historical or thematic elements of the novel. I love these editions!!!

Elma High School
1235 Monte-Elma Road
Elma, WA 98541
Deanne Woita

Visit EMC Booth and Authors at NCTE in Orlando

Make sure to stop by the EMC booth at NCTE in Orlando this weekend! EMC Expository Composition: Discovering Your Voice authors Gary Anderson and Tony Romano will also be presenting Friday on topics pertinent to all language arts teachers. See the information below:

CREATING COMMUNITY THROUGH MENTORING: THE CARE AND TENDING OF NEW ENGLISH TEACHERS: Bright new colleagues enter our profession at the beginning of each school year. Most of them thrive, but some have career-threatening difficulties. We will examine why English/Language Arts teachers struggle within their first few years of teaching and discuss specific strategies that veteran colleagues can use to support them. Session: A.35 - 9:30 am to 10:45 am 11/19/2010; Format: Panel; Room: Coronado/Coronado Ballroom M Topic: Professional Development; Level(s): Middle (6-8), Secondary (9-12), College/University

WRITERS WEEK: HOW TWO SCHOOLS MAKE WRITERS INTO ROCK STARS: Writers Week transforms our schools into writing communities each year as students, faculty, and well-known authors converge to share and inspire writing. Learn how your school can develop such a program from teachers who have successfully hosted hundreds of author visits and created widespread interest in writing on their campuses. Session: D.28 - 2:30 pm to 3:45 pm 11/19/2010 Format: Panell; Room: Yacht & Beach Club/Grand Harbour Ballroom, Salon 1 Topic: Writing; Level(s): Middle (6-8), Secondary (9-12)

For more information on the conference go to http://www.ncte.org/annual

Don't miss it!!

Common Core State Standards FAQs--Academic Vocabulary

I'd like to start a series of FAQs to respond to questions we've received regarding Mirrors and Windows' alignment to the new Common Core State Standards for English/Language Arts. The first one deals with the academic vocabulary standards in the CCSS.

Q. 1. What steps have you taken to align academic vocabulary in your instructional materials with the academic vocabulary used in the common core state standards?

A. The common core state standards break vocabulary acquisition into three tiers of words:
• Tier 1 words (everyday speech used in conversation)
• Tier 2 words (general academic words found across the curriculum)
• Tier 3 words (domain-specific academic words specific to a content area)

Mirrors & Windows offers the following features throughout the program to align with the common core state standards and to support vocabulary acquisition of all three tiers of words:

• Teacher’s Edition includes before each unit a Building Vocabulary list of words from the unit divided into three types: Words in Use (Tier 1: vocabulary defined within the selection in the side margins or at the bottoms of pages); Selection Words (Tier 1: words that may be challenging but are not defined in the selection); and Teaching Words (Tiers 2 & 3: general and domain-specific academic words used in instruction).

• Unit Introductions in the student text define Tier 3 academic words specific to the content instruction in the unit. For example, in the fiction unit words such as plot, exposition, point of view, characterization, setting, and theme are defined and examples are provided. These words are reinforced in before, during, and after reading features.

• Reading Models (in grades 6-10) and How to Read the Genre (in grades 11-12) features provide definitions of Tier 2 academic words that can be applied across the curriculum to aid in reading strategy application, such as context, purpose, analyze, predict, clarify, sequence, and evaluate.

• In the Before Reading pages before each selection, Analyze Literature defines Tier 3 domain-specific academic vocabulary words; Use Reading Skills defines Tier 2 general academic words; and Preview Vocabulary provides a list of Tier 1 vocabulary words defined within the selection in the margins or at the bottoms of pages.

• After Reading questions following the selections define Tier 2 academic words aligned with Bloom’s Taxonomy, such as refer, reason, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, and create, to help students apply critical thinking skills.

• Vocabulary & Spelling workshops in each unit in the textbook and in the Exceeding the Standards: Vocabulary & Spelling supplement develop vocabulary skills such as understanding context clues, denotation and connotation, word origins and word parts, and using a dictionary or thesaurus, so that students can independently apply these skills to learn new words from all three tiers.

What Teachers Are Saying about Mirrors & Windows

I LOVE the Mirrors and Windows books!

Great lay-out
Great pre-reading activities and info
Excellent post-reading questions and ideas for writing

Especially love how Romeo and Juliet is done--terrific front-loading info for reading Shakespeare, the time period etc. I can imagine it would be especially helpful for a teacher who is just beginning and lacks a lot of supplemental information.

Susan Murai
English Lit and Comp Teacher
Southridge High School

EMC Authors present at IATE Conference

On October 22, EMC authors Tony Romano and Gary Anderson are presenting a session at the Illinois Association of Teachers of English conference: "Zapping Apathy: Creating a Sense of Community in the English Classroom." Romano and Anderson are coauthors of EMC's Expository Composition: Discovering Your Voice textbook. Romano was named 2010 Illinois Author of the year. For more information on the conference visit http://www.iateconference.org/.

Take Part in National Day of Writing October 20th

On September 29, 2010, the Senate passed RES.668 "expressing support for the designation of October 20, 2010, as the "National Day on Writing!" To celebrate composition in all its forms, NCTE is inviting participants from all walks of life -- students, teachers, parents, grandparents, business and trade workers, legislators, retirees, and many more -- to submit a piece of writing to the National Gallery of Writing.

Take Part in the National Gallery of Writing

Twin Cities Book Festival October 16

This weekend on Saturday, October 16, 2010, is the tenth annual Twin Cities Book Festival. The festival’s all-day exhibit will be held from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm at the Minneapolis Community & Technical College, located in Downtown Minneapolis.

The Book Fair showcases a wide range of publishers, literary organizations, and booksellers. Readings and talks by renowned authors from near and far will be featured throughout the day. A Children’s Pavilion sponsored by the Metro Public Libraries will offer author readings, performances, games, and crafts.

In honor of the Festival’s tenth anniversary, five sessions will be presented focusing on the “plethora of book activity throughout Minnesota and beyond!” The sessions include Getting Started: Minnesota Debut Fiction, The Changing World of Publishing: Getting Books to Readers, Minnesota Comics, The Great Midwest: Regional Writing, and Views from the Loft.

And don’t miss the Rain Taxi Used Book Sale, with proceeds going to help support the nonprofit Rain Taxi's endeavors, and the chance to try out new literary magazines at cheap introductory prices at the Literary Magazine Fair sponsored by CLMP. Best of all, this celebration of books and reading is free and open to the general public!
Click here for a complete schedule of events!

YALSA!! Books with Beat!

It’s Teen Read Week™ (October 17-23) and the theme this year is Books with Beat @ your library®, encouraging teens to read and listen to poetry, audiobooks, and books about music. Librarians and educators across the country are celebrating this week with a variety of events and programs, many offering free reading materials, to promote teen reading for enjoyment.

How can you participate in Teen Reading Week in your own classroom? Check out the Mirrors & Windows Audio Program on the Internet Resource center at http://www.mirrorsandwindows.com/ to find audio recordings of poems about music such Billy Collins’ “Man Listening to Disc” and “The Blues” (grade 11 American Tradition), and traditional and contemporary songs such as “John Henry Blues” (grade 8), “Go Down, Moses” and Lucy Kaplansky’s “Land of the Living” (grade 10), and “Bonny Barbara Allen” and Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall” (grade 12 British Tradition).

Teen Read Week is an initiative of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), started in 1998. Visit their site for additional program planning ideas, resources, or planning tools. You can even find a Books with Beat@ your library reading list in Spanish!

Celebrate National Book Month

Help your school celebrate National Book Month by checking out this list of suggestions for book-related activities offered by the National Book Foundation website at http://www.nationalbook.org/nbmteachers.html.

Don’t forget to assign the great novels and plays available as EMC Access Editions. Over 30 classic titles include the complete literary work and a study apparatus within a hard binding. You can preview some of the Access Edition novels at http://www.emcp.com/previews/AccessEditions/.

To view the complete list of titles and order books, visit our catalog page at http://www.emcp.com/product_catalog/index.php?GroupID=74.

Common Core State Standards Correlations Now Available

Correlations to the English/language arts Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for grades 6-12 Mirrors and Windows: Connecting with Literature are now available on EMC's website at the following link:
http://www.emcp.com/product_catalog/resourcelist.php?GroupID=2903


The Common Core Initiative, consisting of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), released this set of state-led education standards in June of this year. The English-language arts and mathematics standards for grades K-12 were developed in collaboration with content experts, states, teachers, school administrators and parents.

To date over 30 states have already adopted CCSS, which the 2010 Common Core Initiative states "provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them." For more information go to
http://www.corestandards.org/

Engage with EMC through Social Media

You are invited to engage with EMC Publishing through social media!

Be the first to receive updates on Twitter, interact with our growing community on Facebook, or find great content and resources at the Mirrors & Windows blog.

Follow EMC Publishing on Twitter - http://twitter.com/EMCPublishing




“Like” EMC Publishing on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Saint-Paul-MN/EMC-Publishing/190195769825

Subscribe here to the EMC Mirrors & Windows Blog - http://emcpublishing-mirrorswindows.blogspot.com/

Stay current and discover news related to the educational publishing industry. Chat with other instructors using EMC products. Ask questions and share ideas. Engage with EMC!

Introducing the new EMC Audio Library Audio Player!

All of your favorite mirrorsandwindows.com audio files are now playing in our new flash-based audio player. The new player is simple to use, and includes two convenient playback features:
• Streaming – You don’t have to wait for the entire file to download before you can start playing it. Simply hit play, and the audio selection will start. The rest of the file will continue to download while you’re listening. No waiting!
• Downloading – Need to save the file locally, or want to load it in your iPod or other mp3 player? Just click the download button and you’ll be prompted to save the file – complete with audio tags – to your computer!

Check out the audio recordings at mirrorsandwindows.com! Choose your grade level, unit, and selection, and select the Audio Program tab under Resources. It's as simple as that.

Request Lexile Readability Scores

Many district teachers use Lexile scores to plan lessons, adapt worksheets according to ability, or to differentiate and group selections based on difficulty and accessibility for a diverse student population. Please contact your sales representative if you would like a copy of the Lexile scores for the Mirrors & Windows selections for planning. Lexile scores are also available for all of the Access Edition novels and plays.

Differentiated Materials to Support RTI

Responsiveness to intervention (RTI) is a multitiered instructional model most frequently viewed as a three-tiered framework. The goal of RTI is to reach struggling students early and match instruction to their needs. According to the National Research Center on Learning Disabilities, (http://www.nrcld.org/), in multitiered models of service delivery, instruction is differentiated to meet learner needs at various levels. Several specific factors or dimensions help distinguish among interventions at the various tier levels. In general, a higher degree of specificity and intensity is associated with a higher tier of intervention.


EMC’s Mirrors & Windows offers a variety of differentiated support materials to meet the needs of students at all three tiers within the RTI learning model of instruction, as shown in the instructional pyramid chart below.
Meet the needs of all your students with Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature program!

Mirrors & Windows Offers Support for Advanced Students

Universities and employers have found that many incoming students and entry-level employees lack the reading and writing skills needed to succeed in their new endeavors. Some blame this problem on a lack of rigor in the language arts programs at the high school level. Studies show that most students want to be challenged to gain the high-level skills that will help them succeed in college and in the workplace. This is especially true for advanced students.

EMC’s Differentiated Instruction for Advanced Students provides multiple opportunities to engage students and to teach them the skills necessary to excel in college-level, literature-based reading, thinking, discussion, and writing tasks. This supplement offfers students opportunities to hone their reading, writing, and research skills as they explore the rich world of literature and beyond. The activities are not busywork, but meaningful exercises of the mind that build skills students will need as they progress through college and careers. The assignments help students become deep thinkers, critical readers, and independent problem-solvers. As they are challenged to meet higher expectations, they will come closer to realizing their ever-expanding potential.

For more differentiated instruction for your students, EMC also offers Differentiated Instruction for Developing Readers and Differentiated Instruction English Language Learners.

Reach every student with Mirrors & Windows:

Connecting with Literature program!

Tony Romano named 2010 Illinois Author of the Year

EMC author Tony Romano has been tagged as the 2010 Illinois Author of the Year, and he'll be one of the featured speakers at Illinois Association of Teachers of English conference in October. Romano joins the ranks of esteemed authors who have previously won the award, such as Edgar Lee Masters (1974), Richard Peck (1977), Gwendolyn Brooks (1978), Carl Sandburg (1984), Sandra Cisneros (2003), Scott Turow (2007), and Li-Young Lee (2009).

Romano, who is one of the authors of EMC's Expository Composition book, has a website highlighting his published works, video, photos, etc. He includes a section on writing prompts that you can use in the classroom. http://www.tonyromanoauthor.com/Home_Page.html. Check out Tony's Facebook for updates.
On October 22, Romano and coauthor Gary Anderson will be presenting a session at the Illinois Association of Teachers of English conference: "Zapping Apathy: Creating a Sense of Community in the English Classroom."

National Poetry Slam 2010 in St. Paul, MN

The National Poetry Slam is taking place this week (August 3-August 7) in our very own St. Paul, Minnesota. The 21st annual National Poetry Slam will bring together 76 teams from across North America. Hundreds of the world’s best poets will converge on St. Paul for a five day festival of non-stop performances, workshops and heated performance poetry competitions.
These events will be held in numerous venues throughout downtown St. Paul - All leading up to team finals on Saturday August 7th, at the Legendary Roy Wilkins Auditorium.

A colleague and I went down to POP in downtown St. Paul to hear one of the preliminary rounds Wednesday evening and were asked to be audience judges. It was an amazing experience. Those poets really pour out their hearts and souls! Don’t miss it! The schedule is available at http://www.nps2010.com/.

What is Slam Poetry? To see an example, make sure to check out the link on the National Poetry Slam website to Taylor Mali on what teachers make at youtube.com.

State Adoptions of Common Standards Steam Ahead

According to a July 9 article in Education Week, nearly half the states have adopted the new set of common academic standards, just a month after their final release on June 2. The common standards developed by the NGA and the CCSSO initiative have been accepted in most of these states with little opposition. So far, 23 states have voted to replace their mathematics and English/language arts standards with the common set. By the end of the year, 41 states are expected to have adopted the standards, according to the Council of Chief State School Officers. The article states that although many challenges remain in crafting curricula and tests that embody the aims of the new standards, the mounting adoption numbers represent a major landscape change in a short time.
Read the complete Education Week article online at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/07/09/36standards.h29.html?tkn=MUNFptZyqujxIQndfOlCS7yFNan02zD1jWjU&cmp=clp-edweek

How Reading Changed My Life

It’s the birthday of contemporary columnist and fiction writer Anna Quindlen. I have always found Quindlen to be one of the most intelligent and thoughtful writers of our time. She was born in 1953 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Barnard College in 1974, she became a reporter for the New York Post. Later, she joined the New York Times, where she worked until 1995, writing popular columns such as “About New York” and “Life in the 30s.” In 1992, Quindlen won a Pulitzer Prize for her nationally syndicated column, “Public and Private.” She has also written four novels, numerous nonfiction books, and two children’s books. Her novel One True Thing was adapted for the screen in 1998. Until recently, Quindlen wrote a regular column for Newsweek. In her essay, “How Reading Changed My Life,” she writes

Like so many of the other books I read, it never seemed to me like a book, but like a place I had lived in, had visited and would visit again, just as all the people in them, every blessed one—Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jay Gatsby, Elizabeth Bennet, Scarlett O’Hara, Dill and Scout, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot—were more real than the real people I knew. My home was in that pleasant place outside Philadelphia, but I really lived somewhere else. I lived within the covers of books and those books were more real to me than any other thing in my life. One poem committed to memory in grade school survives in my mind. It is by Emily Dickinson: “There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away / Nor any coursers like a Page / Of prancing Poetry.” ...

Reading has always been my home, my sustenance, my great invincible companion. “Book love,” Trollope called it. “It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.” Yet of all the many things in which we recognize some universal comfort—God, sex, food, family, friends—reading seems to be the one in which the comfort is most undersung, at least publicly, although it was really all I thought of, or felt, when I was eating up book after book, running away from home while sitting in that chair, traveling around the world and yet never leaving the room. I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. I read because I loved it more than any other activity on earth.

The complete text to Quindlen’s essay, “How Reading Changed My Life” appears in Mirrors & Windows, Level V.

Word Study Resources for Summer School

Do you have students in your summer school classes who need to work on their vocabulary skills? The EMC Word Study Resource is designed to offer teachers meaningful ways to incorporate word study into the language arts classroom. This resource includes Teaching Tips that can help you encourage curiosity about words, model word attack and spelling strategies, and make vocabulary study effective. Each resource for grades 6-12 contains thirty lessons, designed to be used weekly, that cover a broad range of topics from etymology to context clues to spelling patterns. By using these lessons in conjunction with The EMC Mirrors & Windows program or other language arts materials, you will help your students become better readers, writers, speakers, and spellers.

Here's a list of features that you will find in the Word Study Resource:

• Each lesson begins with a Word of the Week, a term that students may find particularly meaningful, interesting, or enjoyable to pronounce.
• As new concepts are introduced, students are given the chance to practice what they are learning in Try It Yourself activities.
• Just For Fun activities get students to play with words, reminding them that language can be fun and interesting.
• Tip boxes in the margins of each lesson clarify definitions, offer additional information, and provide helpful suggestions.
• A metacognitive What Did You Learn? activity closes each lesson, giving students the chance to monitor their understanding.
• At intervals throughout the program, Time Out for Test Practice sections ask students to use what they’ve learned to answer sample standardized test questions.
• An appendix with Word Parts Charts that list common prefixes, word roots, and suffixes, along with their meanings and examples of their use is included, as well as a chart of common combining forms.

Use of the strategies and lessons in this resource will help you actively engage students in working with words. As their curiosity about word exploration grows, your students will become increasingly confident in their ability to attack, learn, and experiment with new words.

Give your students the vocabulary skills they need

to be successful readers, writers, and speakers!

A Midsummer’s Day

Midsummer's Day, the middle of summer, falls on June 24, shortly after the longest day, the Summer Solstice (June 21 in the northern hemisphere). Funny that the Summer Solstice is considered the first day of summer, yet it falls just days before Midsummer’s Day. Summer is a short season, but not that short!

Undeniably the most famous literary work celebrating midsummer, is William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In this play, one of his finest and most imaginative comedies, Shakespeare explores the madness of love. The story is set in a wood outside Athens, where two young couples in romantic confusion encounter a band of mischievous fairies who can alter human affections (and shapes!) with potions and magic. The chaos, misunderstandings, and arguments that stem from this chance encounter reveal love’s comic side.

EMC Publishing offers William Shakespeare’s classic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream in its complete form as an Access Edition. This study edition includes background on Shakespeare’s life and Renaissance theater, questions, wiring ideas, and projects—everything you need to join in the “midsummer madness.” For more information on EMC’s complete list of over 30 Access Editions novels and plays, go to http://www.emcp.com/product_catalog/index.php?GroupID=74.

All Summer in a Day

Today, June 21, 2010, is the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. This is the day of the year with the longest period of daylight. The summer solstice occurs exactly when the Earth's axial tilt is most inclined towards the sun, and is celebrated in this region as the first day of summer. The seasonal significance of the summer solstice is in the reversal of the gradual shortening of nights and lengthening of days.

In his science fiction short story "All Summer in a Day" which takes place on Venus where the sun only appears for one hour every seven years, Ray Bradbury describes the power of the sun:

"The sun came out.
It was the color of flaming bronze, and it was very large. And the sky around it was a blazing blue tile color. And the jungle burned with sunlight as the children, released from their spell, rushed out, yelling into the summertime."

"All Summer in a Day" appears in Mirrors and Windows, Level I.

Celebrate the Journey

Today is the birthday of the prolific contemporary writer Joyce Carol Oates, born June 16, 1938, whose works include novels, short-story collections, plays, children’s books, criticism, essays, and poetry collections. Of her work Oates states, “Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so richly rewarding that I don’t think of them as work in the usual sense of the word.”

In her short story, “Journey,” which appears in Mirrors & Windows, Level IV, Oates talks directly to the reader about the paths we take in life and the choices we make on our way to individuality. She shows that rarely do we follow a straight path to our future goals. Instead, life offers us many opportunities to take detours and make changes. The choices we make along the way are part of life's journey.

"If you had that day to begin again,

on that highway which was so wide and clear,

you would not have varied your journey in any way:

in this is your triumph."

--Joyce Carol Oates

Common State Academic Standards Launched

On June 2, 2010, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released a set of state-led education standards, the Common Core State Standards, at Peachtree Ridge High School in Suwanee, GA. The English-language arts and mathematics standards for grades K-12 were developed in collaboration with content experts, states, teachers, school administrators and parents. The standards seek to establish clear and consistent goals for learning that will prepare America’s children for success in college and work.

According to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, these standards define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school fully prepared for college and careers. The standards are:
• Aligned with college and work expectations;
• Clear, understandable and consistent;
• Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills;
• Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards;
• Informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and
• Evidence- and research-based.

The mission statement of the Common Core Standards Initiative is as follows: The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

You can watch a video of the release of the common standards and download the complete set of standards at http://www.corestandards.org/.

Support for Summer Reading Classes

Looking for effective materials to use in your summer reading classes to help struggling readers and English language learners learn reading strategies and prepare for standardized tests? Take a look at the EMC Write-In Reader!
•Portable anthology of literary works! Selections, both classic and contemporary, offer a rich reading experience; margin spaces allow students to actively record their thoughts and notes.
•Embedded reading strategies! For each reading selection, learners receive explicit instruction on how to apply a specific reading strategy to each stage of the reading process and then practice applying the strategy.
•Multiple strategies to compound success! Students learn eight active reading strategies and how to combine and apply them to any reading task for greater understanding of the text.
•Standardized test practice! Students learn how to demonstrate essential reading skills and gain confidence in testing situations.
•Vocabulary builders! Student vocabulary is increased through Word Workshops and strategy instruction in deciphering difficult words.

The EMC Write-In Reader Teacher’s Resource includes:
•Reading Levels Guide and Readability Guide chart that provides the reading level for each selection.
•Teaching Tips that define eight reading strategies your students will learn and identify teaching techniques you can use to teach these reading strategies.
•Professional Resources that support the strategies and teaching techniques used in The EMC Write-In Reader.
•Lesson Plans and Answer Key that follow the organization of the ten instructional units in The EMC Write-In Reader, providing specific teaching strategies and activity answers for each unit.
•Appendix: Authentic Writing Prompts that provides additional leveled writing prompts for each selection to help students practice their writing skills. Prompt 1 is easy, prompt 2 is moderate, and prompt 3 is challenging.

The EMC Write-In Reader can be used as a stand-alone textbook or in conjunction with Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature or the Literature and the Language Arts Masterpiece Series textbook programs for grades 6-12. Priced right, it's a small investment for a big return!

Give your students the tools they need to succeed

with The EMC Write-In Reader!

Succeed in the AP English Literature and Composition Exam

Extensive research studies have shown that students who develop the content knowledge to pass an AP Exam (a grade of 3 or higher) have much higher rates of college completion and have higher grades in college. The 2005 National Center for Educational Accountability (NCEA) study shows that students who take AP have much higher college graduation rates than students with the same academic abilities who do not have that valuable AP experience in high school.

In line with its commitment to academic rigor, EMC Publishing offers a new series of guides for teaching Advanced Placement® (AP®) English literature. EMC’s Guide to AP Literature series provides teachers multiple opportunities to teach students the skills necessary to succeed not only on the AP English Literature and Composition Exam but also in college-level reading, thinking, discussing, and writing about literature. The ten titles in the series include those often cited on the exam and studied in high school programs.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Awakening
Beloved
Crime and Punishment
Great Expectations
Invisible Man
Macbeth
Romeo and Juliet
The Sound and the Fury
Wuthering Heights

EMC’s Guide to AP Literature series provides teacher and student editions for each literary work. The Teacher Edition, designed for both novice and experienced instructors, is organized into these sections:
-An introduction that addresses how to teach the literary selection within the context of a high school English program (vertical alignment) and offers classroom reading and activity schedules
-Background information about the author and the work, including coverage of relevant social, political, and historical issues
-Strategies for teaching the literary work, complete with prereading, classroom reading, and postreading activities
-Comprehensive explanations and activities for conducting a literary analysis of the work, along with an introduction to theories of literary criticism
-An overview of the AP English Literature and Composition Exam and guidelines for how best to prepare students for taking it

Each accompanying Student Edition is a workbook that provides sample multiple-choice questions and both types of free-response questions (analysis essay questions and open-response prompts), simulating the actual questions students will encounter on the AP examination. The practice questions are designed to give students exposure, practice, and confidence prior to taking the exam.

Give your students the tools they need to succeed on the AP English Literature and Composition Exam!

Great Expectations! Great Results!!

Acclaimed authors hosting free appearances in Twin Cities

Award-winning authors Garrison Keillor and Tim O’Brien will appear at the Schwan Center in Blaine, Minnesota, this spring. Selections by Keillor and O'Brien, who were both raised in Minnesota, are featured in EMC's Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature textbook program.

O’Brien is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his Vietnam novel, The Things They Carried, and will appear at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 22. Keillor will appear at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 15. He is best known for Lake Wobegon Days and Good Poems for Hard Times, as well as for creating and hosting the public radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion.”

The events will be free and open to the public and books will be on sale. The appearance is part of the Club Book Program, which is funded by Minnesota’s Legacy Amendment Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. The program will bring acclaimed authors to libraries across the Twin Cities metropolitan area. It is planned to run at public libraries in the seven-county area from April 2010 to June 2011, and possibly beyond, according to the program’s website: http://www.clubbook.org/. For more information call 952-847-8107.

It's definitely time for a field trip!!

Customizing Reading Assessment Tip

Would you like to be able to copy and paste the reading assessment questions, located in the 9-12 Mirrors & Windows textbook after the selections, into a Word document? You can do this by locating the Annotated Teacher Edition in the Teacher Resource CD, highlighting the questions, then copying them into a Word document. You will need to adjust the format, then add the questions to tests you are creating, or even copy and paste into ExamView and save in your test bank file.

The Teacher Who Changed My Life

Today, May 4th, is National Teacher Appreciation Day. National Teacher Appreciation Week is being celebrated all week, May 3-7, to honor teachers and to recognize the lasting contributions they make to our lives. Most of us can think of at least one or more teachers who inspired us to reach for our dreams.

In his memoir "The Teacher Who Changed My Life," Nicholas Gage explains how teacher Marjorie Hurd changed his life. He describes coming to New York in 1949 as a nine-year-old immigrant and tells of the challenges of learning in a new school in a new language.

“The person who set the course of my life in the new land I entered as a young war refugee—who, in fact, nearly dragged me onto the path that would bring all the blessings I’ve received in America—was a salty-tongued, no-nonsense schoolteacher named Marjorie Hurd.”

Gage credits Hurd with helping him understand English and with becoming his mentor and muse. Hurd encouraged Gage to write about what happenend too his family in Greece. His experience in her newpaper club set him on the course of a writing career. You can read Gage’s complete memoir in Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature, Level IV.

Take the time this week to find a way to say thank you to the teachers who make such a difference in all of our lives.

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." --William A. Ward

"One Man's Shakespeare..."

Just for fun: Examiner.com published an article last week of the fifty best author vs. author put-downs of all time. If your students are feeling discouraged with their writing skills, they might find comfort in knowing that even some of the greatest writers were not always appreciated by their peers. "One man's Shakespeare is another man's trash fiction." The 50 best author vs. author put-downs of all time.

Read a Nature Poem on Earth Day

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day, which was held on April 22, 1970 and spurred the modern environmental movement. Founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin, the goal of Earth Day was to bring environmental issues onto the national agenda. The Earth Day held in April 1970 helped lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency later that year, as well as to the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts. http://www.earthday.org/

In her poem, “Gifts,” Chinese poet Shu Ting celebrates her deep connection with the earth:

“My dream is the dream of a pond
Not just to mirror the sky
But to let the willows and ferns
Suck me dry.
I’ll climb from the roots to the veins,
And when leaves wither and fade
I will refuse to mourn
Because I was dying to live.
…
Because all that I am
Has been a gift from earth.”

Shu Ting (b. 1952) was considered the leading poet in China in the 1980s and belongs to a group of Chinese writers known as the Misty Poets. The Misty Poets focused on three main themes: individualism, human’s relationship with the natural world, and the struggle against oppression. The complete texts for Shu Ting’s “Gifts,” along with her poem “To the Oak,” appear in EMC’s Mirrors & Windows, Level IV.

To celebrate Earth Day, read a nature poem today. Go to www.poets.org, click on Advanced Search and choose the theme “Nature.” Please comment and share your favorite nature poem!

IRA in Chicago April 25-28

The International Reading Association is holding its annual convention this weekend in Chicago (April 25-28). If you can’t make it to the convention, you can visit the IRA Virtual Exhibit Hall at http://www.iraconvention.org/virtual-exhibit-hall.php.

One of the major strands of the sessions at the convention this year is Promoting Reading Engagement. In our teacher focus groups that EMC conducted during the development of the Mirrors & Windows literature program, we asked teachers what was their most difficult challenge in teaching language arts. The most frequent answer to that question was “engaging and motivating students.” We know that one of the often cited problems for many struggling readers is not that they can’t read, but that they don’t want to read. They don’t see any point in reading--they would rather be surfing the net, or on Facebook or texting their friends.

When we developed our program, we tried to meet that challenge head on. The goal of Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature is to help students connect with what they read and to examine their own ideas and experiences. Great literature provides mirrors that help us reflect on our own world and windows that lead us into new worlds. This metaphor for the reading experience expresses the power of words to engage and transform.

Mirrors & Windows provides multiple opportunities for students to make important connections, including text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.
Text-to-Self Connections: Reader’s Context questions before reading and Mirrors & Windows questions after reading ask essential questions that encourage students to make connections to their own lives and the world around them.
Text-to-Text Connections: Connections to a variety of primary sources and informational readings give relevance to literature by helping students to see relationships between literature and other content areas and texts. The Comparing Literature feature pairs two selections that are connected by common literary elements to develop analytical comparison skills.
Text -to-World Connections: Cross-curricular connections are embedded within selections and provide relevant background informational on other subject areas.

Mirrors and Windows provides the tools you need to engage your students in reading!

Mirrors & Windows Support for English Language Learners

Today's classrooms need to offer differentiated instruction for English language learners who often struggle with reading and comprehension skills. The Mirrors & Windows literature program provides a multitude of support features designed to help all students succeed in your classroom.

• Differentiated Instruction for English Language Learners includes twenty original (not adapted) selections that offer additional vocabulary instruction and cultural notes.
• Differentiated Instruction for Developing Readers provides guided readings questions and additional reading strategies and skills practice for twenty selections per grade.
• Exceeding the Standards: Vocabulary & Spelling offers additional instruction and practice with vocabulary (in English).
• Exceeding the Standards: Grammar & Style offers a comprehensive grammar program (in English).
• The Differentiated Instruction boxes in the Annotated Teacher's Edition provide ELL activities and introduce students to any vocabulary or idioms that may be new or difficult for ELL students.
• Meeting the Standards unit resource books support the gradual release framework and provide vocabulary support and fact- and comprehension-based tests for every selection.
• Most selections are offered as audio recordings.
• The Assessment Guide provides oral fluency assessments to monitor your students fluency progress.

Mirrors & Windows provides the tools you need to help your students succeed!

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, which began the event in 1996. Today, April 7, is the birthday of the great British poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth (1770–1850) was born in the Lake District of England. Though he was formally educated and graduated from Cambridge University, his grades were only average. His interest lay more in poetry and the natural world, inspiring him to write, “Come forth into the light of things, / Let Nature be your teacher.”

In honor of National Poetry Month and spring, here is one of Wordsworth’s most famous poems, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.”

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” appears in EMC's Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature, Level IV. Wordsworth is also featured in an Author Focus in Mirrors & Windows, The British Tradition, which includes his poems “The World Is Too Much with Us,” “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge,” “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” and an excerpt from his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads.”
Don’t forget to stop and smell the daffodils!

Oral Reading Fluency Assessments

EMC’s Mirrors & Windows Assessment Guide provides Oral Reading Fluency Assessments in response to the increasing demand for this type of evaluation tool, especially at the high school level. The relationship between reading fluency and comprehension has been well documented.

In the Assessment Guide, two passages are provided for each unit in all grade levels of the Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature program. Each passage contains material from the corresponding unit in the Student Edition, whether it is from a literary selection or instructional material. Each passage is considered moderate in difficulty and is about two hundred words long.

Step-by-step guidelines explain how to administer the assessments as well as evaluate and score the student’s performance. The Detailed Reading Fluency Rubric describes each of the categories that are used to measure students’ skill in reading the passages.

The goal of reading fluency assessment is to encourage and chart student progress. A master Reading Fluency Progress Graph is provided to help you accomplish that goal. A copy of the graph can be used to chart an individual student’s scores for multiple readings of the assessment passages. Following each assessment, you can also document the types of errors a student made in a Reading Fluency Error Chart. The student can then review the results and practice to remedy the identified errors. A master Reading Fluency Error Chart is supplied for this purpose.

Additional oral fluency activities can be found at http://www.mirrorsandwindows.com/. Mirrors & Windows supplies all the tools you need to assess and monitor your students’ oral reading fluency!

Customize Instruction with Formative Assessments

Use Formative Assessment to customize EMC’s Mirrors & Windows for your students—quickly and easily!
Identify Skill Levels
The Formative Surveys provided in the Assessment Guide for each level measure students’ basic reading and writing skills. Administer Formative Survey 1 at the start of the course to determine each student’s level of competency in language arts skills.
Customize Instruction
Use a student’s score on Formative Survey 1 to identify selections and supplementary materials that will best help each student meet and exceed state and national language arts standards. Each selection in the textbook is rated Easy, Moderate, or Challenging, as well as many of the lessons in the Meeting the Standards Unit Resource books.
Measure Progress
To realign instruction. Administer Formative Survey 2 and use the results to revise your plan for each student as necessary.
To obtain a summative measure. Administer Formative Survey 2 and compare the results on both surveys to quantify each student’s progress.

STAAR to replace TAKS

The Texas Education Association recently announced that a new generation of student tests called the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) will replace the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS), a criterion-based test which been in use since 2003.

According to TEA, the new tests will be significantly more rigorous than previous tests and will measure a child’s performance, as well as academic growth. By law, the grade 3-8 STAAR tests in reading and mathematics must be linked from grade to grade to performance expectations for the English III and Algebra II end-of-course assessments.

The new tests will be used beginning in the 2011-2012 school year. A new state accountability rating system will debut in 2013.

EMC’s Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature responds to this call for educational rigor by offering full-length formative surveys, developed and validated by the Educational Testing Service, that measure student performance against other students nationwide.

For more information on the new STAAR tests, visit TEA’s website at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=7874

Texas gets an "A" for Standards

A leading national education journal has given the state of Texas an "A" for its standards and accountability system. The ratings were published in Business Week’s 2010 Quality Counts report, which this year focuses on the national standards debate and examines the quality of work states have done independently preparing their own standards. Texas received a grade of "B" for a related category, "transitions and alignment." The results were announced in a news release last month from the Texas Education Agency.
Full Quality Counts information is available at: http://www.edweek.org/ew/toc/2010/01/14/index.html .

UbD Curriculum Design in Mirrors & Windows

We recently received the following question from a school district reviewing Mirrors & Windows: Do the materials offer multiple measures to assess student mastery consistent with UbD curriculum design?
Answer: The Mirrors & Windows program applies the Understanding by Design curriculum design through the following features:
Desired Results:
· Set Purpose questions in the Before Reading section for every selection help students set goals
· Student rubrics are provided to establish goals and guidelines for Writing Workshops and Speaking & Listening Workshops
· Learning Objectives for each lesson are provided in the Teacher’s edition
· Reader’s Context and Mirrors & Windows questions address the “big ideas” or essential questions and specific understandings that are desired
Assessment Evidence:
· After Reading critical thinking questions assess understanding of the lesson and extension activities offer opportunities for application of learning
· Student Checklists and self-and peer-evaluations are included in the Writing Workshops
· Selection Quizzes are provided for each selection in Meeting the Standards
· Selection Tests and Unit Tests are provided in the Assessment Guide and ExamView Assessment Suite®
Learning Plan:
· The Assessment Guide and ExamView® Assessment Suite offer Formative Surveys and oral reading fluency assessments that indicate a student’s ability level.
· Students can then be assigned selections at the appropriate reading level, with corresponding leveled activities in the Meeting the Standards unit resources and appropriate lessons from the Differentiated Instruction supplements.
· Additional Differentiated Instruction is provided in the Differentiated Instruction supplements and the Teacher’s Edition

Why no Grave Accents in Shakespeare Plays?

We recently encountered a question from some Shakespeare-savvy English teachers asking why the plays don’t include the grave accents. The grave accent in English indicates a pronounced “e” where one normally finds a silent “e,” such as in the word “blessèd.”
In his “Introduction to Hamlet” Richard Leed states that “The past tense ending –ed is usually pronounced as in modern English but sometimes Shakespeare takes the advantage of an old-fashioned pronunciation by allowing it to be pronounced as a separate syllable.” Shakespeare did this to attain his most favored pattern—iambic pentameter. (Iambic pentameter is defined as a ten-syllable line with the accent on every other syllable, beginning with the second one.) Our research has shown that most modern editions, however, including the definitive Riverside Shakespeare published in 1974, have dropped using the grave accent to indicate such occurrences (about fifty of them in Hamlet according to Leed).
EMC’s Mirrors & Windows program has referred to Riverside as the main source for Shakespeare’s works and accordingly does not include the grave accents. “There are a number of instances where printed editions of the plays do not consistently reflect the correct number of syllables to be pronounced,” says Leed. “Such cases include the past tense ending ­­–ed, standard contractions, and certain words.”
Out of curiosity, I checked the text of Hamlet that can be downloaded from http://www.gutenberg.org/, but alas, this version did not include the grave accents either. I thought that if I went back as far as some of the earliest American editions I might find them, but when I checked the text of Hamlet in The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare (on Amazon, believe it or not), published by Hilliard, Gray, and Company in Boston in 1836, I could find no grave accents! It appears one might have to go back to earlier editions published in England--does anyone out there know of an edition currently in print that includes grave accents?

Interactive Graphic Organizers

Many teachers in our presentations have asked if we have graphic organizers online. We absolutely do! Visit www.mirrorsandwindows.com to view over 30 interactive graphic organizers posted under Course Resources. These graphic organizers for reading strategies can be displayed and completed on your interactive boards, completed online independently by the student, or printed and distributed as a PDF to your entire class. Among the models included are an author’s purpose chart, K-W-L chart, pro and con chart, Venn diagram, prediction chart, character chart, sensory details chart, time line, plot diagram, main idea map, and word map. The complete set of graphic organizers is also available on the Visual Teaching Package CD. Notice that they can also be edited and saved in your personal computer file for future use. Teachers love this feature when I demonstrate it in presentations. Try it out and let me know what you think.

EMC's "Fresh, Modern, Diverse" Selections

A teacher in Denton, Texas commented that many of her colleagues expressed that they were pleased with EMC's "fresh, modern, diverse" selections.

Are you tired of teaching the same old literature selections? Engage your students with works by these contemporary authors found only in EMC’s Mirrors & Windows:

Donald Barthelme, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Christy Brown, Octavia Butler, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Mark Doty, Phil George, Allen Ginsberg, Donald Hall, William Least Heat-Moon, Hergé, Ha Jin, Bill Holm, Khaled Hosseini, Jane Kenyon, Jack Kerouac, Ted Kooser, Anne Lamott, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Audre Lorde, Robert Lowell, Wing Tek Lum, Kathleen Norris, Gordon Parks, Graham Salisbury, Eric Schlosser, Gary Snyder, Twyla Tharp

Give your students something to read

that will get their attention and hold their interest!

Literature that is current...relevant...compelling...thought-provoking.

EMC's Mirrors & Windows