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Show 0 R E M TIMES Thursday, January 25, 2007 t J I VJ S AND I D L A S (ROM CLASSROOMS AND EDUCATORS Alpine School District adopts online writing program Page 4 Trixie Walker A I wo-vciir pilot H ( ijj aril ot MY A( (ess1, ;in online writing prog i am , has proven so suc-i suc-i f-ss! ill thai 1!) s hools in Ihe Alpine Si hool I Jislrii t are now using it An English leaf her al Mountain Nidge Junior High Si hool in I lighland. Kali.' Ross, v as insli iirrienlal in bringing Ihe piogiam lolhe school 'lisli k I In the school year 20IKUM 1 was ileparl rnent chair, and I v. l ole a pi opi isal h) get ihe MY Access! M Access ' is an "inno v.itive instiuclional writing (jioijiam thai allows students stu-dents to prai.ln.r; ami revise Iheir assiqnerl essays via Ihe Internet," acctjuiintj to Van-t.i'Jf: Van-t.i'Jf: LOamint), flevelopef ot Ihe ir 'jf 1 1 , irn . "We'ie excited at the piospcct ot helping many more students throu()hout Utah to improve their writing skills," said Hairy Barfoot, Vn.e President of Sales and MarhMiiKj foi Vantage Learning Learn-ing "The program grades students' essays instantly and piovides targeted feed hat k, freeing teachers from grading papers by hand and giving them more time to conduct differentiated instruction and curriculum planning." fi4v Jfybwi Courtesy photo Emily Keller fright j and her younger brother Sam pose with the mule deer Entity shot during the fall how hunt. bruin What do you get when you combine a few hundred lxx.1-les, lxx.1-les, si line loud music, a bit of sweat and all in a house called Northampton'1 Mountain View 1 1 igh Schools reference. ( fiall. I'd sav it was a blast. r JL, .jh-jij I 3''". J----' $ ' 7Wr V.M j''' :CZ) ' ; Participating Schools: American Fork Jr. High Alpine Summit Canyon View Jr. High Cascade Elementary Freedom Elementary Grovecrest Elementary Highland Elementary Lakendge Jr. High program here," Ross said. "I then went to Pennsylvania and was trained by MY Access." I he program was first used by about .1500 students at I.akeridge, l.ehi Junior High, Pleasant (irove Junior High and Mountain Ridge Junior High. Test results showed large improvements in English skills, and increased enthusiasm enthu-siasm among participating students, so the program was expanded. "Orem High School (the only high school using the program) has found that the school's L'BSCT test scores went from being near the bottom bot-tom tf second fir third," Ross said. The program is funded by the individual schools with I rust f und moneys. Most of the high schools do not participate, par-ticipate, as they have access to another program provided by the district, Ross said. Since the school year began, be-gan, 31,078 student essays in the school district have been completed using the online program. Jane McGill, an It didn't get tx hot there, and my date was awesome. I think most everyone would agree with me if 1 said it was a really fun time. But enough with that lets talk about this week. Not much happened until Wednesday. We had an assembly, assem-bly, put fin by the Multi-Cultural Club. Overall, it was pretty good. The test thing about this week iswas that ttxlay iswas the last day of school this week. There is no school tomorrow, st) just sleep in, and have some fun. Sf, I'm starting to run out rvii -till 225 S'O.U.THf S.T AT) S.TR E ETf O.REM OPENING! 20.07 Mountain Ridge Jr. High Oak Canyon Jr. H igh Orchard Elementary Orem High School Orem Jr. High Pleasant Grove Jr. High Sharon Elementary Shelley Elementary Suncrest Elementary Timberline Middle School Willow Creek Middle School eighth-grade student at Mountain Moun-tain Ridge, said the program-has program-has helped her learn to write better. "The program scores my writing in six different areas ar-eas and gives me examples of suggested revisions," she said. Essays are scored in the areas of focus and meaning; content and development; organization; language use and style; and mechanics and conventions. These areas correlate cor-relate with the "Six Traits of Writers" taught in the Alpine School District. Essays receive a score from one to six in each of the specific spe-cific areas, and the scores are illustrated with a bar graph. Student Kendra Knudsen, Mountain Ridge, said she likes the "tons of examples." "For example, 1 can look at a specific area and read sample essays that would receive a score of one, two, or four," she said. Ross said the program provides pro-vides several benefits for students, stu-dents, parents, and teachers. "Students can access it from Bruin senior sets her sights high in both academia and sport Michael Rigert N0"1H ( OiJIJIY S T A 1 1 Emily Keller has a 3.8 GPA at Mountain View High School, excels in the sciences and is a talented artist. Her school's representative in the visual arts category at the upcoming Sterling Scholar competition, Keller is the only daughter in a family with three sons. Yet much like a popular TV program in which young people learn they have special spe-cial powers and abilities, something in Keller changes when she's in the wild. Clad in camouflage and scanning through a pair of binoculars, something primeval grips her as she becomes Emily the Bow Hunter. "Talk about an adrenaline rush," the 17-year-old said after she and her brother Sam were nearly trampled to death by the deer she later bagged of ideas to write about in my column. I've already written about all my previous ideas, so I'll now resort to the help of my readers. It's similar to Mike Rowe, the host of Dirty Jobs. He has people send in their "dirty jobs," and if he thinks it's dirty enough, he'll come out and try it. So, for all my readers read-ers out there, (if there are any) I'm asking you, what do you want me to write about? You can send your ideas to my e-mail, which would be: saxophone.geekfpyahfx3.com. m.mmw. Dallin Vance, an eighth-grade student at Mountain Ridge Junior online with the program, MY Access!. home," she said. "Parents can see their students' writing with feedback. You don't have to be an English teacher to help your kids to write a good paper anymore." The program is also a good method for tracking long-term long-term progress, and builds an electronic portfolio for each student, Ross said. However, during this fall's bow hunt. On that same trip on the Book Cliffs near Vernal, she also had a too-close-for-comfort encounter with a mother black bear and her cub who decided to share her watering hole. "Hunting provided me with some of the funniest and scariest scari-est experiences of my life," she said. The daughter of Brent and Linda Keller, Keller reveled in hunting and spending time in the outdoors with her father fa-ther and three brothers from a very young age. If they weren't camping or hiking, they were rabbit hunting or preparing for an approaching deer or elk hunt. Though she'd been rifle hunting before, when she got her first compound bow three years ago, Keller says she was hooked on the sport that emphasizes em-phasizes stealth and accuracy over simply lining up a distant target in the cross hairs of a notes Lakeridge Jr. High School I Final Day of Spirit Week The final day of Spirit Week is Thursday, Jan. 25 and the theme is School Colors. Col-ors. I No School Friday, Jan. 26 School will not be held Friday Fri-day due to the UPASSteacher professional development day. 74Q North 300 jostQrem 801-224-0921 w' i she emphasized that it does not replace teachers. Although the program scores each student's essay, she still grades them. "The computer is an impartial impar-tial partner to help me with grading," she said. "It's nice for the students to have instant feedback, and I individualize classroom instruction according accord-ing to the feedback. For ex scope. "Bow hunting is really a different experience," she said. "It takes a ton more skill, you have to be lot closer, and there's a lot more precision and practice." When not working as a lifeguard life-guard in the summer, Keller spends hours and hours in her back yard honing her skills with bow target practice. Nearly all the Kellers her mom Linda is the single holdout hold-out can think of nothing better than gearing up and heading off into the hills for a weekend bow hunt or up to a week during the deer and elk hunts in the fall. "I'm the only girl with a bunch of guys," Keller said. "I'm kind of used to being the only girl." While Keller has always had a knack for art, her mother said she her interests are diversified di-versified and also include interior inte-rior design and the sciences. Suncrest Elementary School I No School Friday, Jan. 26 There is no school Friday due to a professional teacher development day'. I Little Caesar's pizza kits arrive Little Caesar's frozen fro-zen pizza kits ordered by customers during the school fundraiser for new outside benches will arrive Feb. 1-2. I PTA Board Meeting Suncrest Sun-crest Elementary's PTA Board will meet Friday, Feb. 2 at 3:45 p.m. Vineyard Elementary TRIXIE WALKERNorth County High, is scoring his essay ample, I can work on capitalization capital-ization if I see several students need it. I have more time for one on one instruction." Summing up her experience using MY Access! with her English students, Ross said, "My students finally understand under-stand what it means to revise. I am now receiving final drafts from my students." "She's an awesome kid and got a great work ethic," Linda Keller said. "I'd like to say her art ability is from me but it's not." If a hunt disrupts her school schedule, Keller said she is sure to makeup all her assignments assign-ments to keep from getting behind in her studies. Keller got that first deer, a nearly 21-inch buck when measured by the antlers, this fall, after a lot of patience, misses and near misses. "I got 30 shots off, hit a few, and managed to kill one," she said. While her other goals, including in-cluding attending Utah Valley State College in the fall and eventually becoming a geologist geolo-gist may at times require to put down her artist's palette and bow, they will never be far away. "It's my favorite thing to do," she says of bow hunting with her family. I Science Fair Fifth-grade students will hold their science sci-ence fair on Friday, Feb. 2. Parent Teacher Conferences Confer-ences Parent teacher conferences con-ferences at Vineyard Elementary Elemen-tary School will be Feb. 7-8 from 4 to 7:30 p.m. Westmore Elementary I Braille Fair Westmore Elementary will be hosting a Braille Fair, Thursday, Jan. 25, both in the afternoon and evening. Students can participate partici-pate in Braille machine demonstrations dem-onstrations and displays. |