The Tri-Lite

Issue date: 4/16/07 Section: News

Have you ever thought that the lesson plans you stayed up all night doing should go further than just in your professor's hands? Have you ever thought other teachers could benefit from your hard work? Well, they can!

Two graduate students from Holy Family, Candice Wells and Kathleen Smyth, M.Ed., had their lesson plans published, with help and encouragement from Dr. Helen Hoffner, through readwritethink.org, a helpful teacher resource affiliated with the International Reading Association and the National Council of Teachers of English. It was a long, tedious process but these women stuck it out and were thrilled with the end result.

Candice Wells created a lesson plan focused on first and second grade that centered on learning new vocabulary. She knew from her own classroom experience that six and seven-year-old children love to read about Franklin; she chose one of those books to help her write her lesson plan. In order to submit a lesson to readwritethink, you must incorporate technology. Within her lesson the students must go on the internet to use the "Word Wizard" available through readwritethink.org. With this tool, the students will see the words from the story in a word scramble that they have to complete. Wells says she even tried her lesson ideas out on her students to see what would work for the lesson plan. She was excited thinking her work might be published. The website accepted her lesson plan after 21 revisions. The whole process took two to three months to complete, but she is "more than thrilled. In the future, I hope to write many more lessons, articles, and maybe even books."

Wells graduated from Holy Family with a B.A. in Elementary/Early Childhood Education in 2004. Immediately after graduation, she became a first grade teacher in her hometown of Burlington, NJ. Shortly after, she decided to go back to Holy Family for her Masters. She will be graduating next month with a M.A. as a Reading Specialist.

Kathleen Smyth created a seventh grade social studies lesson plan on the Vikings. She incorporated technology by having the students do internet research and by having the students play Viking Quest game on BBC History's website. This lesson's main goal is to have students activate prior knowledge and gain new understanding about the Vikings. This lesson also includes graphic organizers, rubrics, and website resources that will help teachers make this lesson run smoothly. After several weeks and many revisions, the website finally accepted her lesson plan. Smyth hopes that "teachers' lives are made a little easier by having a ready-to-use lesson plan at their disposal."

Smyth received her B.A. from LaSalle University and completed her Masters at Holy Family. She currently teaches an undergraduate course, reading in the content area, at Holy Family. She also works as a Reading Specialist in Upper Dublin School District in Montgomery County. Last fall she was a supervisor for Holy Family's graduate reading program.

To view these lesson plans, go to readwritethink.org and click the menu "Lessons." Candice Wells' lesson is titled "Vocabulary with Franklin: Helping Students Become Word Wizards" and Kathleen Smyth's lesson is titled "Viking Voyagers: Navigating Online Content Area Reading."

Dr. Hoffner would be more than happy to help you if you are interested in publishing one of your lesson plans. She strongly encourages all education majors to try for publication of any original idea that would aid other teachers. Her office is on the fourth floor of the Education and Technology Center.

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