Recommendation from Colleague 1

Sharna and I have collaborated together as colleagues in the Social Studies Department teaching Middle East history to seniors and as colleagues who benefit from sharing materials, discussing curriculum and daily challenges when they arise.  I have found Sharna to be a very thorough, and mindful teacher, whose experience as an instructor of literature and English language carry over to her teaching of social studies.  For example, I have adopted some of her strategies for working with complex texts.  In Middle East history, she encouraged the use of a New York Times magazine article, “Fractured Lands” by Scott Anderson which became the basis of an extended project that was highly successful. Similarly her creative contextualized assessment  in which students role played analysts advising a female CEO on where to establish business headquarters in the Arab World was a fun, challenging and collaborative assignment that gave students another window into understanding the economics and politics of the region, which I have adopted. At the same time, she is ready to learn, adopt and adapt materials from my repertoire into her own. Sharna is ever ready to take on new challenges as she demonstrated by teaching International Relations.  Helpful, supportive with a wealth of talent, Sharna is a great colleague whom I have enjoyed working with both as a Department Chair and as a fellow teacher.  Sharna is also the president of our Teachers’ Association and does an efficient job calling and running meetings, disseminating minutes and being sensitive to the needs of many different stakeholders.

Abby Chill

Link to 5 Years of Observations and Evaluations

I had the opportunity to be observed by a few different administrators at my school. I definitely learned from the observations and and unexpected outcome was developing great collegial relationships with the administrators who visited my classroom. The documents are all in this folder. 

LOTOL: Vocabulary Quiz

Here is an email I sent out to my students today. We spoke in class about how to be successful on vocabulary quizzes. I wanted the student to generate ideas because although I write the tests, I do not take them.


Hi C and D Blocks,


In G Block today, I thought to ask students who were successful on the vocabulary quizzes what their secrets were. Here is what they said:


1. Use a pencil
2. Right before the test, study only the words that you don't know.
3. First, go through the vocabulary quiz and only answer and cross out the words of which you are sure you answered correctly.
4. (This is different from #3) Write the word first under the line and then when you are sure that it is correct, place it above the line. If you're unsure, write the different choices under the line.
5. Use the exercises that are provided on the Macbeth Vocabulary PDF
6. Use Quizlet, but not exclusively.


Good luck!


Ms. Marcus

Generating Speech Topics Part 2

I am building on my activity from last year and spending more time on working with students to generate speech topics. I really want to encourage them to not just Google "speech topics" and do something that is meaningful to them.

They will answer the following questions individually that I wrote and then answer questions posed by their peers.

Then they will submit (if they want to) the answers in class. I will be their recorder. After each question we will discuss how their answers can be turned into a persuasive speech topic.

A side benefit to this thus far has been that their answers are really telling and informative and will help me connect to them as students.

January 4, 2017

1. What do you see yourself doing in ten years?
2. What are the three most challenging aspects of being a teenager?
3. What are the three best parts of being a teenager?
4. What are the three best parts of living in Israel?
5. What are the three worst parts of living in Israel?
6. What three things do you like most about this school?
7. What three things do you like least about this school?
8. If you could pick any five classes to take and not have to worry about requirements or anything else, what would they be?
9. What are the three best parts of social media?
10. What are the three worst parts of social media?
11. If you could change three things in the world, what would they be?
12. What are three things that your parents don’t know about you?
13. What three things make a good parent?
14. What three things make a good teacher?
15. What three things make a bad teacher?
16. What three news items concerned you over the past two weeks?
17. If you had five million dollars to give away, what three charitable groups would you give it to?
18. If you could go three places anywhere in the world, where would you go?
19. If you could advise Mr. Trump on three things, what would they be?
20. Where is your happy place?
21. Who or what three people/things get on your nerves and why?
22. What three things are not fair and why?
23. What three things make a good friend?
24. What three things make a bad friend?
25. What is your ideal job? Student Generated:
26. What are three things that make someone truly happy?
27. If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?
28. If you could be anywhere right now, where would it be, and why?
29. What makes up a good school?
30. If you could change one thing that happened in 2016, what would it be?
31. If you were stranded on a deserted island what is one thing or who is one person that you would bring?
32. What is one of your biggest life regrets?  
33. What are three reasons you like about music?
34. Who are three people that you miss often?

Biggest Compliment As a Teacher

A student today told me that she is going to college because of my class. She wasn't interested in attending college, but now she is. This deserved it's own blog entry!

Peer Feedback on Major Assignment

Peer feedback is controversial, but it's something in which I very much believe.

Today, I had students fill out a BINGO like card when viewing their peers' work. This is for an assignment for International Relations.

The students would spend 10 minutes looking at their peers' papers and for each square, they would award their peers either a green, yellow, or red sticker (green= good, yellow = needs work, red = isn't there).

I was very excited about this activity. However, many students were not at the point in the writing where they could adequately participate. Instead of forcing them to do so, I split the class in half and allowed the students who needed to keep writing to write, and the students who were ready for peer editing, to peer edit.

Normally, I would be more strict, but this is an elective class and it is the week before finals.

The students who did participate received great feedback and are continuing the editing process.

Lesson featured by Pulitzer Center

Very excited that the Pulitzer Center quoted my student and me in this article and published my lesson.

http://pulitzercenter.org/blog/education-programs-connect-thousands-students-fractured-lands

 http://pulitzercenter.org/builder/lesson/19360