Charter Vision

Welcome to Charter Vision Teacher Resources! Charter Vision is a statewide newspaper written by students of charter schools for charter schools and the surrounding community. Charter Vision began in 2003 at ARTech Charter School in Northfield, Minnesota. The school received a private foundation grant to spread information in their community about charter schools. The newspaper grew out of that idea, and an advisory group was formed to discuss how to turn this ARTech project into a statewide initiative. During the first year of Charter Vision, the Minnesota Association of Charter Schools (MACS) provided funds for printing and distribution to charter schools around the state and other “friends” of the charter school movement. Since then, advertising has been sold to fund these activities. This curriculum has been developed as part of collaborative grant from the State of Minnesota.

While this curriculum was being developed, we took into consideration the diversity of charter schools and their students. We have designed lessons that can be adapted to the ages and abilities of the students in your classroom. The lessons have been connected the Minnesota State Academic Standards and are listed for your convenience. It is our hope that you can use these lessons in your classroom and that they will benefit your students.

There are many benefits to using the Charter Vision Teacher Resources. One of the benefits is to allow Charter Vision to be part of your classroom and part of the charter school movement. Students can read this paper for enjoyment and teachers can use the articles as examples of student writing. Another benefit is that the lesson ideas generate student writing that can be submitted for the on-line version of the Charter Vision newspaper.

Our goals for this Charter Vision curriculum are that the newspaper will become a teaching tool in charter schools throughout Minnesota. Students will develop communication skills by writing and sharing their ideas with their peers in the community. By having their work published in the newspaper, students will develop a joy of writing that will improve their confidence and abilities. Teachers will be able to use this resource easily in addition to their current curriculum.

We understand that schools and teachers assess their students in different ways. Some use letter grades or assign a numerical value to the student’s work. Others use rubrics or self-evaluations to assess student learning. We encourage you to create your own assessment to meet the needs of your school and students.

Thank you for using the Charter Vision Teacher Resources. We look forward to reading student work in upcoming Charter Vision issues!

Sincerely,
Leslie Wedel
Language Arts Teacher, 9-12
Liberty High

Rachel Hortsch
Grade Five Teacher
Sojourner Truth Academy

You can view the document in your browser (some formatting will be off) or download the full version in PDF format (recommended — especially for printing; you may need Adobe Reader to view the file).