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The PBL Education Foundation is
pleased to announce that the first Opportunity for Change Grant
fpr tje 2009-10 school year has been awarded to Nancy Streitmatter, senior English
teacher at PBL High School. Streitmatter has been awarded $500
to build a classic and contemporary world literature library for
her classroom. The collection of books serves two purposes. A
portion of the selections includes semi-autobiographical works
specifically matched for narrative projects. The remainder of
the selections includes classical works from such authors as
Tolstoy, Dickens, Austen, Eliot, Wilde, Dostoyevsky, Dumas,
Hugo, Tolkien, and Lewis. Contemporary author selections
includes Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro,
Kiran Desai, Anchee Min, Hermann Hesse, Lisa See, and Dai Sijie.
In her application for the grant, Streitmatter wrote, “This year
will be the first year for world literature as the focus of
Senior English. I want students to see that their lives are
connected to the world around them. To do so, they have to
relate to different cultures and understand how those cultures
were developed. They need to understand what influences an
individual and his or her world. Literature from various ages
and backgrounds will provide a window for that understanding.
To receive a full view, students need to be exposed to literary
canons as well as contemporary masterpieces.”
Streitmatter was able to purchase 68 books with the funds that
she was awarded. She said, “This organization has been
instrumental for me to achieve my curriculum goals. I
appreciate all that you've done.”
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E-readers have come to PBL High
School! Through an Opportunity for Change Grant awarded by
the PBL Education Foundation, Dave Harber, librarian at PBL High
School has been able to purchase 2 Sony E-readers for use by
faculty and students. An e-reader allows users to download
digital books and periodicals into a slim, paperback-sized
device. E-ink technology displays contents to readers,
even in bright sunlight. One e-reader can store 300
hundred books or more, depending on length.
In his grant application,
Harber noted that e-readers are "fast becoming the preferred
medium for the delivery of reading material." The rising
cost of newspapers, magazines, and novels is largely responsible
for creating interest in a non-traditional and more economical
reading format. By purchasing two of these readers for the
high schools, Harber is hoping that students and teachers will
become "familiar with the means to access e-books and . . .
develop a proficiency with this alternative to printed text.
Harber said that one of his
main goals in purchasing the devices was "to get people
talking." Teachers and students can explore uses of the
readers in and out of the classroom. He predicts that as
prices continue to fall, e-readers may someday replace the
traditional textbook. It might well become much more
economical to issue each student one electronic device loaded
with five or six full textbooks than to purchase those same
textbooks in the traditional format.
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The PBL Education Foundation is pleased to announce that
an Opportunity for Change Grant has been awarded to Lisa Niewold, fifth grade
teacher at Eastlawn School. Niewold, representing all of the fifth grade
classrooms, was awarded $500 so that teachers could create a writing center
environment in their classrooms. Reading comprehension and critical thinking
games and word magnets for sentence building were purchased with the money. In
addition, teachers were able to purchase motivational supplies such as stickers
and various kinds of glitter pens and gel pens.
The
fifth-grade teachers have developed 5-day weekly writing plans, with Friday
being the culminating day of each plan. On Fridays, students are able to use
supplies that are reserved only for the writing centers. By limiting access to
these motivational supplies, teachers are able to make writing time something
special, a time that students are more likely to look forward to. According to
Niewold, “The students can’t wait to use the fun pens and stickers to write
their stories and to use the word magnets as a group to make funny sentences or
poems.” |
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