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Welcome to Best Practices

 The one thing that I have come to value most as a teacher is my willingness and need to collaborate. I am the teacher I am today because my peers have taken a vested interest in my success and have been willing to share their knowledge with me. My peers have modeled various strategies for teaching that continue to shape my own teaching and that allow my students to reach their highest potentials. To promote continued collaboration among colleagues and success among students, the eleventh grade English teachers have embarked on a journey to present a unit of literature that exemplifies some of their best teaching strategies.

 Description:  Essentially, each of us will present the unit that we feel demonstrates our best practices as teachers. The goal of this academy is to encourage collaboration and improve teaching strategies. Each presentation will last roughly 45-60 minutes, including time for colleagues to ask questions to the presenter.

The presenter will receive 2 hours time for preparing unit materials for peer share, including making electronic copies available. I ask each presenter to consider putting “courtesy of (name of teacher)” in the footer of each document, so the presenter can continue to get credit for the great items they have created.

For the presentation, please consider including the following items on your wiki page or during your presentation:
 * Essential questions for the students to answer during the unit of study
 * Skills that the students will hone
 * Standards that the unit addresses
 * An calendar overview of activities
 * Key activities for the unit
 * Supplemental readings/materials
 * Things to consider when teaching, e.g., varying levels of study and/or differentiated methods
 * Unit assessment(s)

Participating teachers: J. Durishin, K. Inserra, R. Livesey, A. McQuillan, L. Peters, R. Ruisch, T. Schwarz, J. Smith