Greetings,

If you're viewing this page, you might be a parent, guardian, 8th-grade Dunkirk Middle School student, or college student enrolled in my Fredonia State course. You might be a coworker, or teacher from another district to whom I presented a workshop. You might be an aspiring or practicing teacher who heard about The Interdisciplinary Educator blog and wants to simplify or refine your practice. I sincerely welcome you all to my classroom, or more appropriately, my digital classroom. Here, you'll find every resource I provide, every policy I enforce, and every lesson and material I teach during the year. I encourage you to read deeply, click curiously, and explore the farthest reaches of this site. It represents my life's work, and as such it evolves as rapidly as my learning in the field of education.

I bid you my sincerest welcome.

Mr. Karpie

Enjoy the images of my classroom above. It's a great place to hang out and learn. If those images pique your interest, click the image below to take an in-depth, digital field trip of my classroom complete with explanations describing the reasoning behind its spartan aesthetic.

These week's news: 8th Grade ELA

New Icon Next to our Materials

You'll see a new icon on our website! Students, parents, and coworkers would visit mrkarpie.com and, despite all the materials being present, weren't sure which materials were used physically in class, and which were available through Google Classroom. Now, any materials assigned through Google Classroom will have this icon next to them on our unit pages. I hope this will be useful for all site visitors.

Creative Writing Weeks!

Our first creative writing mini-unit will center around traditional, short stories. Students will use a plot structure chart, and some mrkarpie.com exclusive, original tools to create an amazing 3-5 page story. This first week is dedicated entirely to developing the skills necessary to produce a well-written story. We'll look at conflict, "showing" vs. "telling," characterization, setting, and imagery while simultaneously refining our story ideas through daily, individualized teacher feedback.

This Week's Lesson Plans and Materials

Obviously, creative "writing" is a bit of a misnomer. We'll be creative "typing."

Our four, "big" units in 8th grade ELA:

What universal experiences do all refugees share?

September - Halloween

In this, our first serious unit, students read the book ​Inside Out and Back Again​ as the central text for learning about how all refugees experience the tragedy of life twisting inside out, and how only the "Lucky Few" ever enjoy life coming back again.

​We link this novel with a series of news articles, Ted Talks, and documentaries to learn about refugees' experiences across countries and decades.

How does unconscious bias still affect America? 

November - Christmas

Our unconscious bias unit traces inequality from the 1860's through today. Specifically, the unit focuses on unconscious bias, and how much of the inequality that lingers in our country isn't the blatant, purposeful racism of the 1960's, but is in fact more subtle, and in some ways, more insidious than that. We'll even engage in a Harvard Study to measure our own unconscious bias, and to help advance the field of inequality research.

Which food chain should feed the future of America?

In our "Food Chains" unit we learn about the four food chains that feed America, and we attempt to weigh the pros and cons for each. This unit culminates in students creating a website which will share information, and attempt to guide the eating choices of their fellow Americans. While we use some supplemental texts, this unit is based on the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. Instead of using the cover art from the book itself, the cover art to the right was created by Amisaday Cedeno as part of an assignment for class. We agreed it was better than the cover of the actual book.

Inquiry-Based Research

In our inquiry-based research unit, students ask their own questions, find and evaluate their own sources, organize and complete their own close reads, and basically drive their own learning, at their own pace.

​This is our capstone, where everything that's been learned all year comes together to allow students to take their learning beyond the confines of the classroom.

The Interdisciplinary Educator Blog

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I maintain an education-based blog to chronicle my learning in the field of education. Right now, I am primarily publishing online a book I prepared, but never bothered to publish about classroom management. I'm not a paper-based educator, so a paper-based platform was always too permanent to chronicle my learning in the field of education...

All the writing in the field of education is done by educational researchers at universities, who don't teach real students, or textbook and education-software corporations, who don't teach real students.

I believe that teaching real students is important when claiming to understand how to teach real students.

If you agree, click the link or button above to read my blog.