In which John Green teaches you about the changes wrought by contact between the Old World and the New. John does this by exploring the totally awesome history book "The Columbian Exchange" by Alfred Cosby, Jr. After Columbus "discovered" the Americas, European conquerors, traders, and settlers brought all manner of changes to the formerly isolated continents. Disease and invasive plant and animal species remade the New World, usually in negative ways. While native people, plants, and animals were being displaced in the Americas, the rest of the world was benefitting from American imports, especially foods like maize, tomatoes, potatoes, pineapple, blueberries, sweet potatoes, and manioc. Was the Columbian Exchange a net positive? It's debatable. So debate.

In which John Green teaches you about the beginning of the so-called Age of Discovery. You've probably heard of Christopher Columbus, who "discovered" America in 1492, but what about Vasco da Gama? How about Zheng He? Columbus gets a bad rap from many modern historians, but it turns out he was pretty important as far as the history of the world goes. That said, he wasn't the only pioneer plying the seas in the 1400s. In Portugal, Vasco da Gama was busy integrating Europe into the Indian Ocean Trade by sailing around Africa. Chinese admiral Zheng He was also traveling far and wide in the largest wooden ships ever built. Columbus, whether portrayed as hero or villain, is usually credited as the great sailor of the 15th century, but he definitely wasn't the only contender. What better way to settle this question than with a knock-down, drag-out, no holds barred, old-fashioned battle royal? We were going to make it a cage match, but welding is EXPENSIVE.

This week we're continuing our discussion of William Shakespeare and looking at his comedies and romances. As well as something called problem plays. Some of his plays, they had problems. We'll also put on pants, escape to forest, and talk about Shakepeare's heroines, lots of whom had quite a bit more agency in these plays than the women in the tragedies had.

Common Framework of Reference
EAL Writing Rubrics and
Student Exemplars: Grades 1-8

CommonLit has a FREE collection of hundreds of short stories, poems, historical documents, and more for students in grades 5-12. The texts selections include fiction and non-fiction. The collection can be searched and filtered by lexile, grade, theme, genre, book pairings, literary device and units (a new feature).

"CommonLit delivers high-quality, free instructional materials to support literacy development for students in grades 3-12. Our resources are:
Flexible;
Research-Based;
Aligned to the Common Core State Standards;
Created by teachers, for teachers.
They believe in the transformative power of a great text, and a great question. That’s why we are committed to keeping CommonLit completely free, forever." (CommonLit site)

This resource contains an abundance of ELA infused, cross-curricular lessons organized by themes for Grades 4, 5 and 6. Non-fiction, poetry and fiction reading lessons are all included. 

"CommonLit delivers high-quality, free instructional materials to support literacy development for students in grades 3-12. Our resources are:
Flexible;
Research-Based;
Created by teachers, for teachers.
They believe in the transformative power of a great text, and a great question. That’s why we are committed to keeping CommonLit completely free, forever." (CommonLit site)

Teachers can search for content by grade, theme, content type, genres, literary devices, and more. Alternative options are offered for students that may require adaptations for reading an easier level.

Parent guides are also provided.

Benchmark and ongoing assessments are available.

360 Curriculum provides full integrated units E.g., Unit 1 Characters Who Change and Grow which includes a baseline assessment, vocabulary activities, reading lessons, writing lessons, quiz, grammar activities, media exploration, discussion, and a culminating task.

Please watch the following video tutorial from Rob Fleisher from CommonLit to guide you through using the post-assessments avaiable in CommonLit. 

*Digital citizenship (balanced usage)
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*Digital Passport & Digital Compass games for students
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*sign up for the weekly newsletter for tips and advice

This document from Yukon education examines Communicating Student Learning Resource and Professional Learning Tool; the expectations for Yukon
schools on assessment, evaluation and communication of student learning.

Access this link by copying it and pasting it into a web browser to download the document and access the appendices http://lss.yukonschools.ca/communicating-student-learning-resource-and-professional-development-tool.html

These are example rubrics for measuring growth in COMMUNICATION. Rubrics are provided for K-5, 6-9 and 10-12.

Sun West Communication High School Grade 10-12 Guidebook- please use the table of contents to navigate the guidebook. Also, we invite you to share resources you think would be suitable for this guidebook with any of the author's of this guidebook.

Sun West Communication Middle Years Grade 6-9 Guidebook- please use the table of contents to navigate the guidebook. Also, we invite you to share resources you think would be suitable for this guidebook with any of the author's of this guidebook.

Sun West Communication Elementary K-5 Guidebook- please use the table of contents to navigate the guidebook. Also, we invite you to share resources you think would be suitable for this guidebook with any of the author's of this guidebook.

This course replaces the former CPT; Computer Production Technology course.
A Kindersley Composite School Student recently won second place in the WorkSafe Saskatchewan 2012 Youth Video Contest. The contest is an initiative by WorkSafe Saskatchewan to raise awareness and knowledge among youth about workplace health and safety issues. Students from across Saskatchewan were invited to submit an original 3-minute video on workplace safety.
A WorkSafe Saskatchewan committee adjudicated nominations based on the students’ creativity and originality in story development, production value, video effects and the video’s overall workplace health and safety message.
Grade 12 student, Vanessa Klassen took second place with her video “Life is Not a Video Game”, that was submitted by teacher Lisa Padberg. As the second place winner she receives $700 and KCS will receive $1000.00. The Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board will present the student and school prizes in June.

Saskatchewan statistics indicate that youth (aged 15-24) are 20 per cent to 30 per cent more likely to have an injury than workers of any other age are. WorkSafe Saskatchewan’s youth strategy is to educate and influence the health and safety beliefs and behaviours of youth to achieve a reduction in injuries.
2013 video contest information will be available in August.

For more information, visit: http://www.worksafesask.ca/

In which John Green teaches you about China's Revolutions. While the rest of the world was off having a couple of World Wars, China was busily uprooting the dynastic system that had ruled there for millennia. Most revolutions have some degree of tumult associated with them, but China's 20th century revolutions were REALLY disruptive. In 1911 and 1912, Chinese nationalists brought 3000 years of dynastic rule to an end. China plunged into chaos as warlords staked out regions of the country for themselves. The nationalists and communists joined forces briefly to bring the nation back together under the Chinese Republic, and then they quickly split and started fighting the Chinese Civil War. The fight between nationalists and communists went on for decades, and was interrupted by an alliance to fight the invading Japanese during World War II. After the World War II ended, the Chinese Civil War was back on. Mao and the communists were ultimately victorious, and Chiang Kai-Shek ended up in Taiwan. And then it got weird. Mao spent years repeatedly trying to purify the Communist Party and build up the new People's Republic of China with Rectifications, Anti Campaigns, Five Year Plans. the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. These had mixed results, to say the least. John will cover all this and more in this week's Crash Course World History.

All humans and everything made by humans have disappeared without a trace from Ireland. The students will need to do decide on where they are going to build 3 communities based on the following:

i. What is daily life like in Ireland?
ii. What are the needs and wants of a community?
iii. What resources are found in Ireland?
iv. How are communities interdependent?
v. How does climate and environmental factors affect where people live?
vi. How does available natural resources affect where people live?
vii. How can wealth be distributed between communities?

Community Action
Article by Andrew Bauld

School Leadership student Lorena Martinez sees community and family engagement as the key to students' success.

Interactions between species are what define ecological communities, and community ecology studies these interactions anywhere they take place. Although interspecies interactions are mostly competitive, competition is pretty dangerous, so a lot of interactions are actually about side-stepping direct competition and instead finding ways to divvy up resources to let species get along. Feel the love?