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Sr Speaker Materials

  Guidelines for Writing a Commencement Address The draft you write for consideration does not need to be a final version, but should give the panelists a clear idea of what you plan to say in your speech. The traditional commencement address has had content which reflects back on the class's experiences and also gives advice or guidance for the future. The tone should be one which inspires and motivates the listeners. Although the Commencement Address is directed at the graduating class, the message needs to be meaningful and appropriate for the adult audience present as well. Content, language, or style which parents or grandparents might find offensive is not suitable for a Commencement Address. Humor can be an effective minor element of a Commencement Address. The predominant message, and consequently the predominant writing style, should be serious, thoughtful and inspirational.   Format: This a general map of graduation speeches.  It is not required. Feel ...
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AVReading Newsletter October: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

  Early in my teaching career, I was given the opportunity to move into the honors and accelerated English classes.  It was an awesome experience, and I learned quite a bit about good and bad teaching through my experience with those very motivated and ambitious students.  After a number of years however, I knew it was time for a change, and I transitioned into the role of a reading specialist and began to work with students who really struggled both with reading and with school.  It was a dramatic shift.  In my honors classes, students would want to argue over a point they missed on their essays, papers, and tests.  In my reading intervention classes, students weren’t interested about how or why they lost a point here or there, they were more interested in why they had to do the assignment or activity in the first place.  I learned real quickly that before I could do anything to help them develop their academic literacies, I had to g...
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AVReading Newsletter May: Obstacles

           Expecting students to be motivated or engaged is a big ask.  When it comes to students who have struggled in school throughout their lives, it is especially difficult. And as those students progress through the system, it becomes more and more difficult to help them overcome self perceptions and beliefs that have been reinforced and ingrained in them for a significant portion of their  academic lives. For these students, the question is what can I possibly offer this student that will be different from what has already been tried with them in the past?  To address that question, we have to think more deeply about these obstacles to motivation.             As indicated above, the most common obstacle is past experience.  As students have met with repeated set-backs and disappointments with reading and school, they begin to accept a couple of beliefs: school...
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