Crecia C. Swaim
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1
Although I don't recall when or where I first learned about this model, I found a great resource for it at the following website: http://reading.ecb.org/downloads/itb_GradualRelease.pdf.
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2
A note on pronunciation: Some language teachers do not stress the importance of pronunciation. I do. I believe that learning and practicing proper pronunciation helps students to recognize word components and to infer and apply linguistic words and codes as they progress in their language development. I also believe that a good part of the fun in language learning is in the particular sounds of that language. And hearing proper pronunciation reinforced allows the student to self-correct, which contributes to deeper language learning. So pronunciation is not stressed here for perfectionist reasons, but for the language learning benefits it holds.
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3
In my sixth grade class (the one in which half the class were in their second year, half in their first) the pairings were indeed obvious and acknowledged, because I wanted students to know that sometimes we were working as two year-two students while others we were working as one year-one and one year-two. It was obvious anyway, so I decided it better to acknowledge and explain the reasoning. Students respected it and honored each role.
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4
A note on my translations: When a word can be translated as a cognate, I use that so students can immediately connect to it. I then explain how that word association can be a "bridge" to the other, less-similar but related meaning, as detailed in the previous section. This serves as a vocabulary-building exercise in both English and French, and the strategy helps my students decode words for state high-stakes test in reading comprehension and degrees of reading power.
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5
All information about Jean Tardieu found in Caws, as well as the following two websites: http://web.whittier.edu/mmchirol/JT-EssayUS.html, http://www.answers.com/topic/jean-tardieu. Beauclair's quote in the next paragraph comes from the Whittier site.
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6
This quote, as well as the information on the Theater of the Absurd, found at: (http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761585154/Theater_of_the_Absurd.html)
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7
My school has a technology lab. I recognize that every school does not. This lesson may be modified to allow for individual students using computers while the rest of the class does another activity.
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8
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanson_d'automne, http://www.slideshare.net/cjacomino/chanson-dautomne-de-p-verlaine-presentation
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9
All information on Verlaine found in the following websites: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761575984/Paul_Verlaine.html, http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/255, http://www.answers.com/topic/paul-verlaine.
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10
Be advised that this friendship was actually much more than a friendship, a fact we will not be discussing in my middle school classroom unless a student brings it up.
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11
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761555417/Symbolist_Movement.html
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12
http://www.answers.com/topic/symbolist-movement