Resources

1/5/11

MakeBeliefsComix.com Adds 100-Plus Free PRINTABLES  to Help ESL, Literacy Students Write, Read and Tell Stories

Dear colleague,

As an author of interactive books to help young people find their writers’ voices, I often am asked by educators and parents for help in reaching reluctant writers. 

With this goal in mind, I have added more than 100 free PRINTABLES on my online comic strip site, MakeBeliefsComix.com. Now you can print out, at no cost, interactive pages from my comic books to use for writing, reading, drawing and telling stories.

This enhanced MakeBeliefs PRINTABLES feature is the latest addition to the four year-old online educational comics site where educators and students from 180 countries come to build their own comic strips and practice language, writing and reading skills. The new printable pages are taken from my popular Make Beliefs books and drawn by cartoonist Tom Bloom, who illustrated the best-selling Children’s Letters to God.

Now, a teacher using the web site will be able to distribute graphic handouts to students in English-as-a-Second Language or literacy programs that ask for written or drawn responses to such imaginative questions as:

• Make believe you possessed a magic flying carpet. Where would your travels take you?
• Make believe you had a net to catch a favorite moment in your life. Which would it be?
• Imagine you could talk to your favorite book character. Who would that be? What would you say?
• Make believe that with the snap of your fingers you could change yourself. How or what would you become?
• Make believe you could create your own set of holidays. What would they celebrate?

For copies of these printables and more go to http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Printables. The feature also offers comix templates using characters from the web site along with blank talk and thought balloons that students can fill with text to create their own comic strips.

Google and UNESCO selected MakeBeliefsComix.com as one of the world’s most innovative web sites fostering literacy and reading — http://www.google.com/literacy/projects.html

Users of MakeBeliefsComix.com make comics strips by selecting from 20 fun characters with different moods — happy, sad, angry, worried — and write words for blank talk and thought balloons to make characters talk and think. This site is used by educators to teach language, reading and writing skills, and also for students in ESL programs to facilitate self-expression and storytelling, as well as computer literacy. Some educational therapists use the online comics with deaf and autistic people to help them understand concepts and communicate. Parents and children can create stories together, print them to create comic books or email them to friends.

Please share MakeBeliefsComix.com with your colleagues, students, friends or readers of your publications and favorite listserv groups. We need your help — it takes a community to build and nature a rich educational resource.

Sincerely,

Bill Zimmerman

Creator, MakeBeliefsComix, and author, ‘’Your Life in Comics’’

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4/5/10

Great Resource for Teachers of Adults

The Change Agent is a social justice newspaper published twice a year in March and September. The Change Agentprovides cutting edge resources for teaching social issues, powerful student writing that inspires discussion, and many ready-to-use lesson plans – all oriented toward a multi-level audience.

Click here to subscribe. If you are a current E-subscriber, you can click on any issue throughout the site and you will be prompted for a password to log in.

Check out the latest issue here: http://www.nelrc.org/changeagent.

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3/10/10

Inspirational Quotations for Teachers

1. The job of an educator is to teach students to see the vitality in themselves. Joseph Campbell
2. I am not a teacher, but an awakener. Robert Frost
3. Where there is an open mind there will always be a frontier. Charles F. Kettering
4. Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself. Chinese Proverb
5. Life is amazing: and the teacher had better prepare himself to be a medium for that amazement. Edward Blishen
6. It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. Albert Einstein
7. I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. Socrates
8. The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. Mark Van Doren
9. Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. Henry Ford
10. The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. William Arthur Ward
11. What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. Soren Kierkegaard
12. Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers. Josef Albers
13. Whatever you teach, be brief; what is quickly said the mind readily receives and faithfully retains, while everything superfluous runs over as from a full container. Who knows much says least. Author Unknown
14. Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be. Thomas A. Kempis
15. Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. John C. Dana
16. Teachers who inspire know that teaching is like cultivating a garden, and those who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers. Author Unknown
17. Teachers who inspire realize there will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how we use them. Author Unknown
18. One must learn by doing the thing; for though you think you know it, you have no certainty, until you try. Sophocles
19. The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think–rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men. Bill Beattie
20. He who asks a question may be a fool for five minutes. But he who never asks a question remains a fool forever. Tom J. Connelly

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2/26/10

Top 10 Icebreakers for Adults

Ice breakers are the best way to help your students get to know each other, to break the ice on the awkward first day of school. If your students are adults, it’s even more important to choose an ice breaker that won’t backfire on you. Most adults don’t want to play silly games. Choose one of the top ten and you’ll be a hit on the first day of school. Remember that ice breakers are also a great way to energize your classroom when the doldrums set in, or to introduce a new topic. Be creative!

1. People Bingo

People Bingo is one of the most popular ice breakers because it’s so easy to customize for your particular group and situation, and everyone knows how to play it. Make your own bingo cards, or use one of the fabulous online card makers.

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2. Marooned

This icebreaker is a great introduction when people don’t know each other, and it fosters team building in groups that already work together. I have always found people’s answers to be very revealing about who they are as a person. Who would you want with you on a deserted island?

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3. Table Topics

I picked up my first box of Table Topics^TM on a whim while shopping in one of those funky little shops you see in the artsy parts of any city. A four-inch clear acrylic cube holds 135 cards, each with a provocative question that is sure to inspire lively conversation. 

• Which piece of land would you wish to have preserved forever?
• What’s your favorite quotation?
• What song evokes the strongest memories for you?

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4. The Power of Story

Adults bring to your class or meeting room an abundance of life experience and wisdom. Tapping into their stories can deepen the significance of whatever you’ve gathered to discuss. Let the power of story enhance your teaching of adults.

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5. Expectations

Expectations are powerful, especially when you’re teaching adults. Understanding your students’ expectations of the course you’re teaching is key to your success. Make sure you know what your students expect with this expectations ice breaker.

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6. 2-Minute Mixer

You may have heard of 8-minute dating, where 100 people meet for an evening full of 8-minute dates. They talk to one person for 8 minutes and then move on to the next. Eight minutes is a long time in the classroom, so we’ll call this ice breaker a 2-minute mixer. Ready? Go!

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7. Photo Scavenger Hunt

A picture is worth a thousand words. Almost everyone has a photo or two in their wallet, especially when you’ve got a room full of adults, or even better, baby boomers with grandchildren. The photo hunt is on!

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8. Where in the World?

Technology and transportation in the modern world have given us the opportunity to learn so much more, often first hand, about the rest of the world. If you haven’t had the privilege of global traveling, you may have experienced the thrill of conversing with foreigners online or working side-by-side with them in your industry. The world becomes a smaller place the more we get to know each other.When you have a gathering of people from various countries, this icebreaker is a breeze, but it’s also fun when participants are all from the same place and know each other well. Everyone is capable of dreams that cross borders.

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9. If You Had a Magic Wand

If you had a magic wand, what would you choose to change? Pass a magic wand around your classroom and generate some energy!

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10. If You Could Take a Different Path

Almost everyone has wished at some point that they had taken a different path in life. We get started in one direction, and before long, there’s no turning back. Sometimes this isn’t that big of a deal, but what a tragedy it is when a life so full of promise gets off track and derails. It can seem like there’s no way to change direction. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if simply stating the desire for a new path could inspire it to action? Can’t hurt to try. Find out if your students are in your classroom to find a new direction.

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