changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Monday, October 31, 2005
While I was looking for resources for a lesson on the Grapes of Wrath, I found a National Archive lesson plan that's interesting in this time of War on Terrorism. Teaching With Documents: FDR's First Inaugural Address Declaring "War" on the Great Depression. Ties directly to the details from Bob Probst's talk at IATE as well.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Today, BBC News reports Today's teenagers 'more literate'. The article explains that "Teenagers are more literate than they were 10 years ago, one of the largest studies of exam papers suggests." The problem, of course, is that assessment of literacy in the study is based on those exam papers. The variety of literacies that teen (or any) readers and writers rely on every day cannot all be measured by a written standardized test. Students are very literate. We just don't ever measure all they know.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: Miscellany
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Cleaning out my Bloglines clippings folder (e.g., procrastinating):
- Mentioned on datacloud:
It Figures
This blog defines figures of speech with current events and pop culture examples. Not all will be usable in the classroom, but many could be tapped. The technique might make an interesting writing project for a cross-curricular project or for an exploration of pop culture texts.
- From Kairosnews:
Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents provides suggestions for publishing blogs in less than supportive environments (like that in Pope John XIII Regional High School) as well as ideas for getting picked up by search engines, blogging anonymously, and keeping e-mail private.
- From The New York Times:
- What's Cool Online? Teenagers Render Verdict discusses a marketing focus group exploring the strategies that attract teens. One of the cited resouces is "The Coke Studios Web site was designed to appeal to teenagers as a place to meet online, hold chats and make their own music."
- Got Wit? Make It Visual in Ads Online reviews an interactive exhibit at the Science, Industry and Business Library of the New York Public Library. The exhibit includes "some of the best ads ever made for television, radio, print and the Internet." I'm guessing copyright will keep the collection from being shared online for those of us who can't get to NY. The library has some info online. If you click through to the "Online Exhibit," you'll find some additional descriptions. The resources link there points to additional Web sites that may be useful for classroom studies of advertising and culture.
- Forget Blogs, Print Needs Its Own IPod focuses on how "In an attempt to leave the forest of dead trees and reach the high plains of digital media, every paper in the country is struggling mightily to digitize its content with Web sites, blogs, video and podcasts." I'll readily admit that I don't read a print newspaper. When I was in Texas, I got most of my news from CNN's Headline News, before the show turned into a circus. When I moved to Illinois, I switched to listening to NPR every morning as I get ready for work, and frequently every evening. Now that I've been using Bloglines for a while, I've returned to scanning the headlines of "print" news"papers" via their RSS feeds. Might be interesting to have an assignment where students look at how they get their news and compare that to how an older family member remembers getting news at the same age and/or now.
- Getting Your Point Across describes a forbes.com Special Report: Communicating. The NYT article explains that the "package on communication is a tour de force, taking on its subject from oblique angles using counterintuitive approaches." Could be interesting jumping-off points for student inquiry projects (as well as connections to our own practices in the classroom).
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Great. Everyone else gets cool pictures, and I'm the nerd librarian. Bonus. What a reason to live.
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You are a Revisionist Historian. You are the Clark
Kent of postmodernists. You probably want to
work in a library or in social services. No
one suspects you of being a postmodernist...
until they read your publications!
What kind of postmodernist are you!?
brought to you by Quizilla
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changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Friday, October 28, 2005
I have lovely new soffits, which have appropriate venting that I can actually see. The roofing owner mentioned that this would be one of the features of the new stuff. Now if I had gutters and pressured washed all the cobwebs off the house it might look normal. Though all the trim needs painted. Sigh.
Supposed to be another week or two before I get the gutters replaced. Another exciting odyssey. At least they cleaned up very well today. Even swept the front porch clean of all the garbage that fell when the soffits were ripped down. I can't tell whether the plumber was here today. Nothing has really been moved that I can see. Who knows. I could go out to the garage for the step ladder and see if I can see up in the attic well enough to figure it out, but I'm not sure it's worth the possibility of knocking more insulation down.
I added some images to the NCTE Halloween Party gallery and added captions so people who explore have more of a shot at knowing what they're looking at. Adobe is my friend. Otherwise, I am very dull and boring.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
The unauthorized exposé is here:
NCTE Halloween Party. Yes, I know that you all never believed me when I said this happens. Now you have photographic proof.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Thursday, October 27, 2005
The dumpster was gone when I got home from the office; so I get to park back by the garage again. But who knows what they'll come up with tomorrow, so I'm leaving the car outside so that they know I'll need out. No evidence that the plumber was here. Maybe s/he was very tidy.
Today was a day of much more prom wear. In addition to all the dresses, the office now has bins of makeup and jewelry and other accessories. There was a pre-party meeting this afternoon to coordinate and make sure everyone had what they needed. I've pretty much figured out that nothing is going to get accomplished tomorrow. It's party stuff most of the day.
I found a cute shirt for my niece, the panda lover (Thank you Wonkette). Yes, I was off-task at work today too.
I've been working on a Grapes of Wrath lesson plan. I've gathered a lot of Web sites into a travelogue, with some specific questions, as a prereading activity. After the exploration, they predict some of the themes that the novel will explore before diving in.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Frappr was just posted on the TAWL list. They're using it to map the locations of list members, but it got me to thinking of lesson options. Students mapping their extended families. Mapping literary authors. Mapping important locations for a historical period (e.g., the Dust Bowl).
So I got to thinking about a Flash interactive that allowed us to pass whatever background we need via xml. Students choose locations for the markers and write associated descriptive text. In ways it's just an annotation tool. Perhaps the background could be a graphic of a Shakespearean sonnet, and the markers are features in the text that the student is explaining.
I think the functionality would be relatively simple to develop, because we have tools that do similar things. Dragging the bubbles and creating related text is no different in function than dragging the text tags for the Venn or Plot Diagram. The background could be passed with xml, as we pass in text for the Guided Tour. Or at the worst, we'd have subfolders for each new version (a la the Graphic Map).
I'm hoping to investigate the options on this. Could be a cool tool that wouldn't take long to develop.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
The owner of the roofing company just came to my door. Apparently my soffit is shot, and the facia (?) that it should connect to wasn't properly done in the first place. $600. He showed me places where someone had tried to use drywall screws to hold the soffit in place.
Before this discussion, I had no idea what a soffit was ("the exposed underside of any overhead component of a building"), let alone that I owned one. I still don't know how to spell facia. Thank you, Google. It appears to be fascia (not "a thick band of fiberous tissue" but "a horizontal band or board, often used to conceal the ends of rafters; the front of an object").
He promises that is the last thing. I told him I wasn't letting him in the house because he was gonna find something else. The plumber is supposed to come at the end of the day to work on the dropped pipe/vent. I'm okay with someone working on the roof while I'm not here, but it's creepy to have someone in the house while I'm gone. I'm trying to breathe and avoid anxiety. The plumber is probably going to find 15 more broken things. Why did I move far away from family handyhelpers and buy my own house?
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
I swear there are monkeys involved in this roofing project. You'd think that propping a ladder up against a house required a degree in astrophysics for the noise and nonsense going on outside my window. Hell, I looked out the window. They saw me, of course; but the bigger issue is that they dropped the ladder. How the hell do guys who do this for a living drop a ladder when they try to prop it up against a house? Now I could certainly drop a ladder, because I don't know what I'm doing; but this is a roofing company with their name on a sign out in my front yard...
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
While the roofing today was clearly, um, a different event, the strangest event of the day may have been the prom and bridesmaid dresses strewn all over the office. Several folks, including Lisa, are going to do 80s prom for the Halloween Party Friday. I've never seen so many crinolines, and there was puffy fabric everywhere. There's still fabric everywhere. It looks like everyone was playing dress up, which, let's face it, they were.
I'm bah humbug and not participating. Where would we find a formal gown to fit me? Especially a formal gown from the 80s. I never went to any dance, so I don't have these dresses in the back of my closet. Everyone seems to assume that everyone else goes to the prom and has ugly bridesmaid's dresses around. That has never been my life. The only dances I ever went to, I went alone. I think I remember 2. Once in junior high, when I really had no idea what I was supposed to be there for. Once in high school, when I collected money and tickets at the door and did various set-up things as a student government member, because I was one of the losers who wasn't already occupied with a real life. I have such a stupid life when you really look at the details.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
The number one link in last week's Inbox was English "Must Reflect Technology"—an article that I found in the BBC and passed along to the newsletter's News section editors. I forgot to mention it here though. Silly me.
The article examines a research report by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, which argues that "English in schools must adapt to reflect the use of text messaging and communication via new technologies." I'd say American schools might want to pay attention too.
Tags: English language arts
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
I know that a school can place limits on what students can write. I have personally asked that students avoid some topics at various points in my career (e.g., please don't write about abortion). I learned eventually that there were better, and easier, ways to avoid those sorts of papers, of course.
That kind of limiting seems completely different from the new censorship move at Pope John XIII Regional High School. As "Principal curbs kids' Internet activity" from Asbury Park Press Online explains, students are being forbidden to blog in school OR AT HOME:
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Effective immediately, and over student complaints, the teens were told to dismantle their Myspace.com accounts or similar sites with personal profiles and blogs. Defy the order and face suspension, students were told.
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That's right. Students' independent, out-of-school activity is being limited by the school they attend. My hope? My making the act of writing illegal the school will turn them all into prolific bloggers. Viva la résistance!
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Roofing people are crawling all over. There is a lot of heavy dropping of things up on the roof. The whole house rumbles. My own mini-earthquake. I'm expecting the windows to all be broken by the end of the day. I think this is all just the truck that's putting all the shingles up there, but I have this fear of people falling through my roof. I'd call it an irrational fear, but well, they've already dropped things through the ceiling.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
The Ideas section for this week's Inbox focuses on Spooky Resources for Halloween and Dias de los Muertos. The piece includes several lesson plans and two journal articles.
Tags: English language arts |
lesson plans |
NCTE Inbox
Labels: Inbox
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Monday, October 24, 2005
 Today, blissfully unaware that my ceiling was falling in, I caught a wooly worm and brought him in the building. I was thinking of catching them when I was little. Probably 6 or 7.
Whenever I see wooly worms, I smile. When I came back with my exciting Chicken BLT Salad from Wendys, there by the building was this wooly worm. So on a whim, I picked him up and carried him inside. I figured I'd share him with Lisa, and then put him back outside.
But instead, Mr. Wooly Worm of Urbana got to take a trip to Philo to visit Lisa's girls. The oldest is studying insects in school, so this wooly worm turned out to be a major prize. Of course, I now must worry that I have tainted the Philo Wooly Worm gene pool with the Urbana Wooly Worm strain. I do hope the resulting moths will not be overly mutated.
Of course, now I have my ceiling to worry about. The mutant Wooly Worm is nothing to freezing in my house because there's a hole up to the attic. Not even a Wooly Worm can make it right.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
When I left this morning, the roofing folks were up on the roof removing the shingles. They couldn't start till today because of rain last week.
When I came home this evening, there was a hole in my ceiling.
Apparently they were working with the various vents, and one had an odd
elbow. They did whatever they did to remove shingles and lay new paper. In the process a huge pipe, bigger than my wrist, apparently dropped to the ceiling and broke through. It bounced. Didn't actually come through and hit the floor. The pipe seems to be original, 1937.
Luckily I keep the back bedroom door closed and have a blanket shoved under it so that I don't have to heat/cool it. That means that most of the plaster hit the blanket and not the hardwood floor. Unfortunately, now that I have a hole up to the attic, I've turned the heat completely off. It's all going to escape up that hole anyway. Logic doesn't keep me from freezing however, and I'm cold.
So now on top of the new roof and gutters, a plumber and a plaster guy have to be involved :( How I'm supposed to afford all this is beyond me. I'm feeling a mix of panicked anxiety, despair, and melancholia.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
From ASCD's SmartBrief:
"Parents curb children's online time"
Many concerned parents are setting limits to ensure their children don't go overboard in using cell phones, instant messaging and other digital media. A study this summer found that although teenagers' computer time has soared over the past five years, more adolescents still prefer to socialize with each other in person than in cyberspace. The New York Times (free registration) (10/23)
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What always ticks me off about these articles is the unchallenged assertion that the only social relationship that matters is a face-to-face relationship. When we look back at research on letter writing in the curriculum, no one suggests that pen pals are antisocial. GRRRR.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Recovered some old notes from a year ago that were originally intended for a TechNote. I never finished it, but thought that the ideas might still be useful to someone.
“ JFK Reloaded Game Causes Controversy” by Jason Tuohey ( PCWorld)
“ Games that teach” by Betty Reid ( Arizona Republic)
“ Computer games help children learn, says study” by Polly Curtis ( Guardian)
“ Computer games ‘can help children learn’” by Lucy Ward ( Guardian)
“ Gamers Make Serious Work of Computer Games” by Renée Montagne (NPR)
“ Problem-solving games on the rise” by Jose Antonio Vargas ( Seattle Times/ Washington Post)
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertainment/2002070534_seriousgames25.html
A number of pieces this week [ a year ago :) ] focus on the positive effects of video games on children. The pieces are full of places begging for discussion. Whether you accept the claims of the articles or not, these questions can lead to great classroom conversation:
- Ward’s article explains that video games can “help children learn concepts such as critical appreciation of narrative structure or character development which they might otherwise study in a novel.” Choose a video game you’re familiar with and sketch out the narrative structure and the ways that the characters develop over the course of the game. Based on your experience with novels, how do the literary elements in the video game compare?
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changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Edited and posted another elementary lesson plan. This one is K-2 and was written by one of NCTE's book authors. It's tied to Chapter One of Joy Moss's Literature, Literacy, and Comprehension Strategies in the Elementary School. The lesson, Comparing Fiction and Nonfiction with Little Red Riding Hood Text Sets, has students explore different versions of tale and facts and fiction about wolves.
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
ReadWriteThink
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Friday, October 21, 2005
Friday is apparently odds and ends day this week:
- I added the Gettysburg lessons to the Gettysburg Address calendar entry.
- Then there was the fun of cleaning up the broken links on the site. A new broken links report comes out on Monday, so I needed to get the old ones taken care of. I was disappointed to find that tooter4kids moved things all around, breaking all the links—mainly because that meant I had to find the new locations and fix them all. It's not exactly my kind of site. There's a little too much wallpaper for my tastes :)
- Got further ahead on Ideas columns by doing the draft for November 1, which will be on Native American Heritage Month.
- I tried to tidy up the office as well. My desk was piled high. It still is in places, but it's a bit less horrible.
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
NCTE Inbox |
ReadWriteThink
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Thursday, October 20, 2005
This morning at work, I finished editing a 3-5 lesson plan that uses an Avi book, Alter Egos and More with Avi’s “Who Was That Masked Man, Anyway?”. The abstract explains, "Today’s elementary students bring many experiences with a variety of texts to the classroom: print, music, online literacies, technical reading and writing, and so on. This lesson plan uses students’ knowledge of these new literacies to introduce them to similar literacies of the past." Basically, the Avi book is told in radio scripts; so students explore the scripts in the book and authentic scripts online. Then they write scripts of their own, similar to thoses written by the protagonist in the novel.
After the excitement of physical therapy, I spent the evening editing another 3-5 lesson. Lisa took the leftovers from my 9-12 lesson, and wrote Engaging Students in a Collaborative Exploration of the Gettysburg Address. Her abstract explains, "Working collaboratively, students learn more about the Civil War through the Gettysburg Address. Teams of students explore multiple resources and actively engage in learning more about this historical document, using words from the Gettysburg Address as their inspiration."
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
ReadWriteThink
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Today has been totally mixed up. It was pouring rain this morning, so no dumpster in the driveway and no work on a new roof that I can't afford in the first place. Will it be tomorrow? Saturday? Monday? Who knows when the work will begin.
The physical therapy was a complete waste of time. Turns out that I should have canceled the appointment. So hours, days, of worrying and crying, and when I tell him I have no pain, he says, "oh, I'm sorry. Did you have to take off work to be here? That's too bad."
Now because I was there, and he needed something to do, I suffered through an "educational session." He went in search of the fake spine so that he could show me what bones and disks look like and tell me how they work. Then we discussed sitting up straight, having a good chair at work, walking a lot, and other back care tips. And when I was released I did my grocery shopping for the week. I didn't need to go back to work, so I figured I might as well accomplish something. I found however that lots of kids and parents are wondering about the grocery store in the after-school, before-dinner hours. Another educational moment.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Several of the ideas on Micro Persuasion: Ten RSS Hacks, which I found via in someone else's blog (and I can't remember whose), seemed interesting. gada.be sounds useful, if I can ever figure out what I need to search for in the first place.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Okay, it's late, and I'm completely agitated. The process of replacing my roof is supposed to begin too early in the morning. After 9 AM, there should be a dumpster in the driveway, which means that I've had to park my car on the street. It's making me crazy to have it out there. I can't see it without flashlighting it, and I'm overly worried about it. Logically this makes no sense. I parked my car in a parking lot the entire time I lived in Austin, but I could always see the car from the apartment. Maybe it's not being able to see it. But the thing is I've parked every car in front of my parents' house, and it never bothered me. If I went to the trouble of trying to look at the window, I might be able to see it at home. But I never bothered. I guess I always feel safe at home, and I never feel completely safe anywhere else. I wish I could. I wish I could relax and be unworried.
If the car thing isn't enough, I have my stupid physical therapy appointment tomorrow afternoon. My stupid back. It doesn't even hurt, and I have to go do this stuff. I want to cancel the appointment. We all know what's wrong with me. I'm fat. Having some person I don't know touch me and force me into mechanical torture devices isn't going to solve the problem. I wish I could disappear and avoid this.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
The Ideas column for this week's Inbox focuses on pieces that tie to speakers who will be at NCTE's Annual Convention in Pittsburgh.
Spent today setting up the new ReadWriteThink calendar entries for FY06. In the past, we've gone month by month, adding new entries each month as seemed appropriate. Now that we have gone through that process twice, we have a solid number of entries for each month. For this fiscal year's grant, we looked over the entire calendar. Some weeks ago, I added all of the entries to a wall calendar so that we could see any overall gaps in the greater scheme of things (e.g., weeks without enough entries).
We also looked for gaps in coverage on the whole site. For instance, what authors or kinds of writing did people expect a language arts site to include that were not yet covered adequately in the lessons and/or calendar. We have 30 entries to add over the course of three phases. The new pieces will include authors such as Alice Walker, Amy Tan, and Walt Whitman (as well as some picture book authors and important events).
To set up these entries, I added them all to the calendar, but not marked live of course. I had to hack some ASP to create running lists of the three phases, which took most of the afternoon. Odd how something that takes 5 seconds to say takes 5 hours to do. I ended up having to do a supremely silly nested if-then that handcoded the dates. There's no field in the database that I can use to indicate they're in one of these phases, and I'm too much of a scaredy pants to add a field to the table. One day, I really need to figure out how to play around with SQL, but I'm so afraid to do anything when the only working database I have access to is the site's database. But back the to point, the new entries are under development and should be 1/3 published by the end of the year, and the rest over the course of several months next year.
I guess that I left out that I took numerous breaks to put up those new Halloween decorations. I should get a picture. It's intriguing because we never managed to get the ladder to take down the snowflakes from last Christmas. That means we have ghosts, pumpkins, bats, spiders... and snowflakes hanging from the ceiling now. I need to dig under the desk and figure out what other pumpkinish things I have to pull out.
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
NCTE Inbox |
ReadWriteThink
Labels: Inbox
changelog @ tengrrl.com: IPods Fast Becoming New Teacher's Pet, from the <i>Washington Post</i>
From the article:
At some schools, the rules are clear: Kids can chill out to downloaded music on portable players, but once they're inside, iPods and other learning distractions must be stowed in backpacks or lockers and kept there.
At Jamestown Elementary School in Arlington, Camilla Gagliolo took another approach. Rather than fighting the fad, she's capitalizing on it by giving students iPods and re-imagining them as a learning tool.
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THIS is what I was hoping to get from that Saturday IATE session. I was hoping for some stories on using iPods and mp3 players with students. Cool multimodal things. The students in Gagliolo's class are highly involved, integrating their own podcast productions with what is going on in class and at the school. In ways, the story reminds me of Hilve Firek's story on Saturday morning of her students asking to play on the computer, and for them play was creating their own class newspaper. Sigh... Maybe next year.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: The Colbert Report
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
I joined my niece online last night to chat and talk during the new Daily Show and the premiere of The Colbert Report. I had even set a reminder in Outlook to make sure that I didn't miss it.
Overall, I was really disappointed. We both were. Our comments ranged from "This is not funny" to "WTF?" We've decided to give him another shot tonight and see whether it was just first show problems.
This afternoon, I read The Colbert Report: Oui, Oui - Wonkette, which has actually clarified things a bit. It's hard to notice satire of a particular show when you don't watch that show. I've never seen the O'Reilly Factor in my life. It's no wonder I was lost. Maybe knowing that will help tonight.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
It's been an exciting day of odds and ends. We've updated the ReadWriteThink Advisory Board, which meant related changes to the Web page. One name is forthcoming, and we will eventually have bio pages for each member.
In preparation for revision and editing of the January calendar, I brought the entries all forward from 2005 to 2006. The goal is to have them live before December 1, so that the "Next Month" link works. Timing my be difficult on this one, given the fact that 4 of the 7 days allowed for editing are Thanksgiving holiday/weekend. I haven't exactly figured out my Thanksgiving plans, but they don't really include the January calendar.
I did a little working ahead on the Ideas section for Inbox. This week's edition hasn't gone out yet. It's being held for stories on the NAEP scores. But I finished my writing yesterday. I decided to look at the resources for next week, and it turned out to be easy to assemble. So next week's Halloween-inspired column is ready and waiting.
On a silly whim, I visited the Factory Card and Party Outlet and bought up more Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations for the office on my way home. Sorry. I didn't buy any costumes so there will be no pictures of me as Cleopatra or a Bar Wench. And no, you're not getting a bee either.
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
NCTE Inbox |
ReadWriteThink
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Monday, October 17, 2005
The middle of the month means it's time for another content report for ReadWriteThink. We submitted the two lessons that I've already mentioned ( one on Night and the other on Gettysburg Address). We also added a couple of reviewed Web Resources:
Story of Movies
The Film Foundation presents rich resources for teaching specific films in the classroom, including To Kill a Mockingbird and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Extensive guides can be printed from the site. [This resource really excited me when I saw the first commercials on TCM in mid-August. Sadly, at that time, they were directing you to a non-existent site, and they never replied to my e-mails. Because they are going to exhibit at the Annual Convention in Pittsburgh this November, they sent a copy of one of the To Kill a Mockingbird to someone in the Conventions Department. It's a rich and wonderful resource.]
Rapidcite
This free tool produces bibliographical citations in three easy steps. The site supports MLA, APA, and Chicago citation styles.
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Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
NCTE Inbox |
ReadWriteThink
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Can I just say that after writing and writing and writing entries the last few days it feels really weird not to have anything to say today? I have been a slug, and the best I could possibly write would be a description of my naps. I don't even remember any dreams. I am a bad blogger. How thoughtless of me not to do anything bloggable today.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Saturday, October 15, 2005
And now the final session. Actually, it was one of the ones I had
really looked forward too! iPods & English!
Again, we have been called to the front of the room, this time because the
speaker is showing a PowerPoint show on his Powerbook for the session. The room is boiling hot and I really wish I were sitting on that table over there in the corner. I've grown weary of the laptop-on-my-lap arrangement.
This room is tucked far in the back corner of the hotel, and there doesn't
seem to be any wireless in here. I'm trying to work in a text editor, and I
can't get it to wrap text, which I might add is driving me crazy. I guess
that I will start hitting return. It's so odd to try to remember that old
typing skill of hitting return. I wonder if students even understand the
idea of a "return"; for them, there is nothing to return.
It took a while for the session to get started. The previous presenter took a long time to clean up and get out, and it's taken a while to get the handouts and the computer setup. He has this habit of trying to make a joke about every interaction with every person. The kind of corny jokes your grandfather might tell. Jokes that don't fit in the presentation, but finally we're underway. He's essentially reading through the slides, which he has given up copies of. Very basic and generic information (that I probably could have gotten from a commercial). Next slide is on his favorite uses for iPods. The first line: shopping with a shuffle.
OMFG. I can't believe what he just said to us.
"My wife and shopping, well, you all know how women are. It's not pleasant,
and it's not cheerful. I just shove on earphones and I listen while she
shops."
How is it that I could let him speak such a thing to me and I haven't
gotten up and left this room. It's the front row thing. I feel like I can't
get up and leave without being rude. But the thing is that comment was rude.
Why is it okay for him to be rude to me, and not for me to get up and be rude in return? I guess it's an issue of respect. We are supposed to show respect for our elders. We are supposed to respect presenters. When do we get to respect ourselves?
It's 1:45. The session is supposed to be over at 2:15. 30 more minutes? We're on slide 7 of a 36 slide PowerPoint. All the information is incredibly basic, and I think I've just mentally checked out. There's so little being said that there's nothing to even type about.
1:57. I've just glanced back and noticed several people have left. I'm so
fortunate. Bruce Ericksson just came in to remove some equipment. That gave me the chance to move back to the third row. As long as I feel that I have to stay, I may as well have the chance to put my feet up on the chair in front of me.
2:03. I wish that instead of a battery timer telling me how much more time in the session, I had a session timer telling me how much longer in this boiling room.
2:07. Walking around the room, showing us a family picture.
2:10. Next PowerPoint slide. "I don't even know what this is, but I'll share it with you. Podcasts which I think are visual sounds."
2:13. "Apollo 13 scared me. The moonshot that went awry and killed all those astronauts. I believe in redundancy. In Apollo 13, they were working on improvisation, but I like all these things because they provide backups." [The Apollo 13 astronauts didn't die. Well, not during that flight anyway.]
2:14. "Just a footnote. How do I have the time to do all this? I retired 5 years ago."
o_O
2:16. The chair/recorder for the session has stopped the pain. Presenter says if we want to stay a few more minutes he can go through the rest of the slides. The recorder says that she will sign the Continuing Ed sheets. People trip over each other to get to her and get out of there.
I've never been so disappointed in a session.
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I admit that I wasn't even sure if I should post this. With even the slightest bit of net know-how, you could figure out what this session was, who the presenter was. But here they are. More than anything, I think that the reason is that as I sat there with a group of young preservice or first-year teachers who needed their forms signed, I felt more than sorry for them. I felt responsible for them. I felt that I really should at the very least apologize for them. They came to find new ways to use iPods in their class. It's definitely not what they got. I wished so much that there was a way to pull them all off to another room and talk to them about multimodal teaching in ways that would matter. Sigh. What a sad conclusion to the conference.
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
First afternoon session is actually a substitute. It was supposed to be a writing workshop session tied to the Writing Project strand, but the speakers were unavailable. Instead Willie Bobbie's friend Susan Spangler [be jealous Willie Bobbie. we want you to be jealous] stepped in to do a session on Music and Writing. I'm convinced that this was worth staying here for. I'm so glad this session suddenly appeared. She's doing a great activity on culture and writing that asks students to rewrite Cole Porter's "You're the Top" for modern culture. She really has everything here to make this into a ReadWriteThink lesson. I just have to convince her :)
So it's a Writing Project session, which means that I've been writing. We tried to complete the activity. Then discuss the things that you can teach with the activity: audience, poetry (meter, rhythm, rhyme), layers of cultures and subcultures, allusions, look at the structure of other songs, research to determine the meanings of the original.
[My spins: do an immersion in a time period, do a book report alternative where students write the lyrics for a character in the book, using the setting from the book.]
Tags: English language arts |
IATE conference
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Okay, so people were hanging around and I stayed to ask my exciting intellectual property issue question. She's saying that the movie is satire so it's protected as fair use. I'm still not convinced, but that's her story.
Then she asked if I was a librarian, because it's usually the librarians who are bothered by this issue. Sigh. That's actually my point, I'm thinking now, as I write these notes. We should ALL be asking these questions and they should be dealt with up front and completely, not as an afterthought.
She went on to say, "George Lucas has seen this and he's not bothered by it." To which I responded, "His saying that it's okay doesn't mean it's not an issue." I asked about the credits and whether there was any notice there, at the end of the movie. She says there is.
I don't know about the whole issue. I'm not satisfied with the answer. And I'm even less happy with the fact that she didn't really deal with the issue at all in the session. Oh well.
And you know. Even if it was satire. Even if George Lucas doesn't care. Even if I am being an uptight person (stereotyped librarian). Even if...." it was done with a 'bootleg copy of Adobe Premiere.'" And she treated that intellectual property theft as if it was laudable.
Tags: English language arts |
IATE Conference
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
It's Saturday, and I chose sleep over the 8 AM sessions; but I'm out of bed for Hilve Firek's session, "Tech in the English Classroom: Winning Hearts and Minds." We folks in the back of the room have been called forward, so I'm off...
And now I'm in the first row...There's actually no one else in the front row, not on my side anyway. On the other side, there's the speaker, the program chair, and the president. Apparently I am an imposter.
Sessions I've noticed seem to start with personal stories of "how I got here." I guess that I knew that, but somehow today's session and yesterday's have made me realize this.
Hilve is talking about how technology makes revision less tedious for students. Those who were resistant to revision when it meant literally "rewriting" it were far more willing to revise when computers simplified the process and removed the tedium. Beyond that, there's the lure of the computer. She tells the story of a group of 9th graders who volunteered to play on the computer—by writing a newspaper. Additionally, computers can be more interesting to boys than writing on paper with pens.
"What improves test scores isn't technology and computers but technology allowing students to have a positive experience in the classroom." She showed a student film: Star Wars Macbeth.
It's a cute film, but it completely and totally violates intellectual property rights. They have stolen clips from the film, and the entire soundtrack for the film is taken from the movie. Great work for high school students really, but I'm very disturbed that there's no attentoin to the intellectual copyright issues. How can we expect students to document their work in research papers when we allow this kind of intellectual theft? Perhaps there will be something in the credits, but with the entire soundtrack for the piece taken, I'm bothered. They've also taken scenes from the movie and spliced themselves in, scattered them in as background. I'm not sure that I could call this satire, so the amount of stolen property here can't be excused that way.
The video is 5 to 6 years old, but she positions it as a "great work." The movie is available online with outtakes, trailers, and so forth. It was filmed at school during the two weeks of holiday break in December.
Turning to the audience, Hilve asks folks to brainstorm what the project helped students learn. She talked about popular culture being a way to get students excited and involved in classroom activities. Her big question here is "Why bother?"—both why we as teachers should "bother" to do these sorts of projects in the classroom, and why students "bother" to participate in these projects. Why do students buy in.
Great. She just also divulged that it was done with a "bootleg copy of Adobe Premiere." I don't understand why this intellectual property issue doesn't matter...
Next, using The Boy Who Drew Cats. This presentation does include a legal disclaimer. The project integrates sound and is nonlinear. Basically, it's a "read your own adventure story" taking advantage of the hotspots in PowerPoint. This sort of project asks students to pay attention to audience, as they have to think about the choices that the viewer will make. She does mention that "they are paraphrasing a folktale. We talked about how they can't just take the text, they had to put it in their own words." [so why does intellectual property rights matter with this, but not Star Wars?] The project does show typical student issues with overuse of the bells and whistles that the PowerPoint. The issue I see is that it's not really a "choose your own adventure story." It's a story that asks students what happens next, and tells them that they are wrong if they make the wrong choice. The artwork is all clipart [which I assume was free?]
Again, she asks the audience in the presentation to identify the learning that took place. Claire Lamonica asked her to talk more about how the project worked. Hilve talked about the importance of planning. She makes the students sketch out their story on paper first, before she lets them go to the computer. [Not sure that I agree with this premise. Multimodal composing is different in many ways, but she has forced it into a traditional paper-writing process structure.]
Q&A:
questions on where to find sound files, where to find clip art, overview of her book,
[and I so want to ask about the intellectual property issue, but we are out of time...]
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Tags: English language arts |
IATE Conference
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Friday, October 14, 2005
Last session for today. Bob Broad's session on writing for Illinois English Bulletin
He's asked us to share name, affiliation, & something you want to see in the journal, something you want to learn about teaching in the bulletin. I said, "my name" [I'm literal] and then talked about possible partnerships with ReadWriteThink.
His goals for the session: for us to leave more inclined to do research and write for the IEB. Spring issue is short write-ups of fall conference. Summer issue is fewer longer pieces.
We do writing territories (Nancie Atwell, In the Middle)—a bulleted list, broken into categories that you have written in/about, want to write in/about, are writing in/about. Atwell's categories are topics, genres, audiences. Bob adds purposes/exigencies and forums. An activity done at the beginning of the term to encourage students and spark ideas.
Topics
- designing writing assignments
- multimodal literacies
- technology and popular culture
- student-centered literature
- specific techniques but more than cookbook recipes
- reviews of tech kids lit
Genres (sort of)
- lesson plans
- website
- short framing texts
- print journals
- book
- memoir, description
- proposals, resolutions, etc. governance material
Audiences
- english teachers: beginning teachers, teachers looking for new ideas and techniques
- not for cranky teachers who aren't interested in change
- students: handouts, resource materials, feedback
- family in e-mails, etc.
- friends/general public in blog
Hmm. I got an idea for the beginning of a piece for Spring:
I'll admit it. I didn't present at IATE. But hey, I was present. I was here, or there, I guess now. Maybe I'm disqualified. Perhaps being there wasn't enough. But there are ways that I did present. Many ways that we all present. Ways that may not be indicated in a conference program.
Well, maybe it's not all that smart. I had this great idea, but as I review it now, I'm completely unsure. Oh well.
Tags: English language arts |
IATE Conference
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
My first afternoon session is on popular culture. The info in the program mentions using CSI/forensics, so it may be a useful idea for a lesson.
Lisa and I came to the session together. Before the session starts, the eight young women in front of us (I suspect all pre-service teachers) are comparing engagement rings and the stories of when he popped the question. I feel so sick. Lisa showed me her engagement ring, so I didn't feel so left out. I've missed that entire rite of passage. But self-pity has yielded as I have decided that I am glad not to have ever looked so silly in pursuit of my MRS degree. They were all young. and cute. And shiny. And sickening. And the one directly in front of me has long curly dark hair. Very pretty really. But if that young co-ed flips her hair over this laptop screen about one more time, she's getting a haircut (or worse).
Unfortunately, I think we just got off to a wrong start. I just don't like the demeanor of the presenter. She's treating us too much like a class of high school students, beginning the session by loudly telling us that she "always begins and ends on time." Good for you chickie. And why does she have a black ribbon tied around her wrist with a big bow?
Next the usual standards suck routine. She tells us that she like to refer to the state standards as "the ss" because they are so problematic. I'm not amused. I'm troubled. The comparison she's making isn't acceptable. Maybe she wasn't at Bob Probst's session.
Back to the session. The presenter is talking about the difficulty of finding resources for popular culture. So many of the resources are so recent that it's challenging to find and use them. She's pointing to Amazon, which allows you to search texts online and provides many other tools for teachers. :-/ She's provided us a list of discographies from Amazon (citations and annotations) to help us find lyrics and song info.
She tells us, "You can't really use the reviews on Amazon for models for students because anyone can write a review. Because you can vote on whether they are useful, you can use the system to identify reviews that have mattered to readers." She's using these Amazon examples to talk through the characteristics of book reviews, and how to use the resources on the site (search the book, toc, etc.) to identify and evaluate materials for the classroom. Additionally materials are online and available to "everyone." [Because everyone has a computer and Internet access after all.]
She shared these tips for use with any program that will make it easier:
- Use Crtl+F on various Web sites to find material on a page!
- Also F7 is spellcheck and thesaurus!
- F8 allows block select! [she didn't name it, just says it's for convenient copying when you want to take an entire review from Amazon and prepare for class] Combine with arrows!!! "(Works on Word, but not everything)"
- Print Screen is invaluable! She doesn't like having to look at the directory of a disk, so she has students pull up A:\ drive and take a screen shot for an inventory of what's on the disk!!!!!! Though it's really "copy screen" not print screen.
o_O
Various lesson ideas and what not she mentions:
One of the new issues for students to deal with is filtering information. The problem is no longer finding enough information, but separating the nuggets of truth from the trash. [I really disagree with this assertion. There was always a lot of information out there. Teachers, librarians, and libraries provided filters for them. As research becomes more student-centered on the Internet, they must learn to create their own filters.]
- Assignment: Give each student a bag, and ask students to fill it with case info found in a room where the character has been. Can begin with making a list of things that would be in the file. Putting together the file is better than just writing the list, though she doesn't say why. Jackdaw company puts together simulation kits that she uses such as primary source replications of the Holocaust for Night. Examples included requistion for cannisters for gas for the gas chambers. A hard copy of something that is real and more "concrete", more "in the moment" than just a list.
- Night. You are an inspector in the prison camps. Your job is to investigate for inhumane conditions and submit a report in memo format to the Geneva Convention. Use quotations from the book as examples. Then can move to formal lit if desired. They will already have the quotations from the book located.
- Exploring search engines. Do an search for search engines. Do same search in small groups with different engines. Then ask students to compare the results and how they differ to evaluate the +/- of the engines.
- Organization. Yellow foods. How many foods are yellow? Name them. Get list on the board. Groups look at the sheet, and divide foods into 3 categories. Every food must fit in one, but can't fit in two. To teach classification and creativity. Yellow foods that can be kicked 10 feet. Yellow foods that would hurt if you stepped on them in the dark. Yellow foods that squish through your fingers. Alternately, brainstorm a list of TV shows and do same project.
- Analysis. Pull out case file students have assembled or the Jackdaw simulation. What can you deduce from the information included in it? What info is there? What does it look like? and so forth. Focus on detailing.
- Synthesis. Make a comment on a character in a play. Is character evil? forced to do what was done? motivated by selfishness? Ask students to figure it out and prove it to the jury. Must open with statement of intent: ladies and gentlemen of the jury, i will prove to you that.... provide details in the argument... end with conclusion: you have seen [whatever was argued] and then the provide a summary of the evidence that has been presented.
- Groups in the classroom. Always put no more than 4 in a group. Roles: presenter, recorder, encourager, manager (who keeps the group on task). Form groups with 4 roles, and evaluate each person on scale of 1 to 5. Can't give everyone a 5. "They know the system and can use math to be sure they get an A. Unless you have someone who is sluffing off." [Why is this a good thing? Why is it okay to manipulate the system? Why is it okay for assessment to rely on tricks?]
We have to count off and form groups. I am a one. I hate this woman. I don't want to do this. Topic is to go through the materials and formulate one activity you are trying to obtain in your English classroom. (Using the Star Wars books).
She uses Performance Learning Techniques management, and some of the assignments came from there. She interrupts our disscussion to demo this model.
o_O
The class, er, I mean conference attendees share examples. I am apparently a very bad student. One of our group members tells me so. I so hate this kind of stuff. I just wanted to gather ideas, not to have to move around into groups and share and blah blah blah.
She ends, with "you should find something that you are passionate about and teach what you love. Whatever it is. Use it as a springboard to whatever you want to accomplish. You should never teach a book you hate." [Umm. No. What matters is students' interests if we're going to foreground something. And what often has to be foregrounded is neither. There are tests, expectations, requirements that mean we sometimes teach things that we aren't thrilled with. This is life. And why should we ever deny students a text because we don't like it anyway?]
Good grief. She ended the session by saying we can come up and look at the books and stuff she has spread all over the room and then said, "And now I'm that I'm done with it, I'm selling all this on ebay." What a way to undercut the whole thing. Oh well...There were good ideas here. They just need drawn out a bit.
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Tags: English language arts |
IATE Conference
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
After Bob Probst's talk, Lisa and I dumped some heavier stuff off in the room. My room is amazingly located. In some ways, I know it's a true disadvantage to have a room that backs up to the big banquet hall; but it's been convenient because it's so close to most of the sessions. I can come back between every session. It's an unusual room with two doors: one to the hallway, the kind you normally expect in a hotel; and the other to the banquet hall which is a big open space.
None of the sessions during this time were screaming my name, so I took a mini-tour of the books exhibit. Mini-tour is about the best you could do. It was very small, but nice for a conference of this size. I picked up a number of free things—some scope and sequence books, free poster, etc. And of course, I gave in to the lure of books for sale. I bought a handful of young adult books that looked interesting:
- The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, which may be officially an adult book, but it looked interesting.
- You Remind Me of You by Eireann Corrigan, a verse novel
- Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix, done in journal entries.
It was nice to browse a rack of YA books and know so many of them, to have read so many of them. I don't think I could have said the same last fall.
I also bought some pedagogical books from a Heinneman reseller:
- Writing a Life: Teaching Memoir to Sharpen Insight, Shape Meaning—and Triumph Over Tests by Katherine Bomer, which I was interested in because I was thinking my bloggish things are frequently memoirs in a way. I didn't even notice the testing bit in the title until I was typing it in. It may be too "young" for what I was thinking, but it's probably still a good book.
- Subjects Matter: Every Teacher's Guide to Content-Area Reading by Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman, because I have the other two Daniels and Zemelman books so I needed the third, right?
- The new 3rd Edition of Daniels, Zemelman, and Hyde's Best Practices, which I really resisted buying because I have the 2nd edition. But I decided that since I'm quoting from it in my assignments book manuscript I needed to quote from the newer edition. I can keep the old ed in the office and the new one at home (where I'm working on the book).
Lunch was the next session, and it was nicely located right outside my door. I learned that in Decatur grilled cheese sandwiches are called "cheese toasties," and Claire Lamonica shared a nice quote, "There are no bad papers. Only unfinished ones." I didn't catch the source.
Tags: English language arts |
IATE Conference
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
So here I am in the MLK Ballroom of the Decatur Holiday Inn blogging. I feel so hip and cool. I could be a political pundit what with this ability to blog during important events. I guess that to prove that claim, however, I really need to talk a bit less about me and a bit more about the conference.
NOTE: I've tried to indicate the phrases that Probst spoke with quotation marks. That said, this is not a transcript of the presentation, but a rough paraphrase, typed as he talked.
Bob Probst is speaking now, after an amazing tag team introduction by two past presidents who made reference to dear old Bob's problems with the FBI. Bob says that the rumors are unfounded. He's moved smoothly into a discussion of reading and how we read, with an amazingly smooth and lovely reading voice I might add.
His presentation is focusing on an extended comparison to diving. Before he moved to the Florida Keys, his expereience was very grounded in specific, detailed rules. As a diving instructor, he insisted upon drills and skills and absolute adherence to rules. After his move, he found that all that deteriorated. That there was "a disconnect between what he thought, what he knew, and what he was actually doing."
He then went onto take a class on diesel mechanics. And again, the reading in the text, the instructions, fell short of what he actually found himself doing.
To connect to the teaching of English, he emphasizes that though there is perhaps a disconnect between what we teach and what we learn in the classroom, it has to do with how the situation of the classroom transfers (or doesn't) to the "real world." "We teach kids to deal with things like metaphor" he says. "It's an utter waste of time," Probst says. "We want students to go out into the world and see an image or hear a song and have it 'work'; not to spend all their time trying to decide whether a particular image is a metaphor or a simile."
Another example of a soldier returning from Iraq comparing his work to being in the superbowl. And yet, there are "very sharp distinctions between football and blowing up cities." "Bombing over Baghdad people died." "The soldier's metaphor, as wonderful as it was in some ways, failed in other. There are differences, subtleties, that are missing."
More examples of "disconnects." Letting metaphor go unexamined, unconsidered. "We need to ask more questions and explore things more closely, and it is our job as English teachers to help students develop the intellectual predisposition to look at what the metaphor reveals and what it hides." We must teach students to read closely.
War has a variety of definitions. War as a conflict between states. War as a social agenda. Although there are similarities, there are very important differences. These differences are what we need students to realize. If students confuse these two terms "we really screw things up." If we conduct a war on poverty by bombing East St. Louis, we really make a lot of people unhappy." When we talk about a war on terrorism, we are making a mistake.
Another example: "mission accomplished"—"there are a number of questions that even a competent 6th graders should be able to raise about such a statement. A well-trained student, we must hope, wouldn't let such a phrase just hang there." When s/he does, become "a victim. Become people who have been victimized by language."
Exploration of connections to Rosenblatt's work. "If we don't teach kids to read texts responSIVEly [his emphasis], if we let them forget about metaphors and what they do, if we don't explore language and raise questions, democracy is in jeopardy."
The real job of an English teacher over the next years is to teach kids to understand how language works, not how a specific poem works. We must teach students to ask questions, to not let language go by unexplored and unchallenged. The critical thing we need to be working for is to develop the habits of mind.
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Sharon mentioned yesterday that Probst was doing work on the rhetoric of war. The topic came up because we were talking about Night, which I taught in a FYC class that focused on the special topic "Rhetoric of War." It seemed interesting yesterday when Sharon mentioned it; but now I see how the topic is connecting to his thinking. His discussion drew many of the various threads together for me. He might say that he took those "disconnects" in my thinking and connected them in meaningful ways.
Without a doubt, I knew that there were important questions about the ways that we talk about "war," and I think that realization is clear in my List of Ten on the Rhetoric of War. I've tried to ask students to explore language and how it works in several lists actually. But I don't think that I had mentally woven the connections between that kind of thinking and general teaching strategies for how we teach students to read the world.
I'm not completely sure that I can explain the connections completely right now. But I felt like I understood an important connection. I still do. I just don't have the words for it yet.
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
IATE Conference
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Woohoo! I'm caught up! This epic evening of blog postings has been brought to you from my hotel room in Decatur. It was only a week of notes to write up, but it felt like a month. I'm in Decatur for the Illinois Association of Teachers of English conference, which begins bright and early in the morning (first sessions at 8, which are a challenge for a non-morning girl like me).
I'm at the conference as a treat to myself. I'm not going to do
anything—I don't have to present, chair, record, nothing. I decided that the conference was really pretty cheap comparatively speaking to my other professional development options, and I could treat myself to a couple days off. I have no idea if I'll know anyone here. Lisa will actually be here tomorrow to do some recruiting for ReadWriteThink, so I will have her during part of the day tomorrow. I joined in on the informal dinner this evening. It was primarily people who were headed to the IATE executive committee meeting after eating. I spoke to a few people about ReadWriteThink who were interested in using the site themselves, especially with preservice teachers. I have a pile of handouts to put in the Idea Exchange, so I'm hoping we'll find some more people who are interested in the site.
I'm hoping the conference will be a fertile place for writing. The hotel has wireless, so I'm hopeful that I can carry a laptop around to the sessions and blog and write. If I'm going to make that first session though, I need to get to bed.
changelog @ tengrrl.com: BBC NEWS | UK | Education | English 'must reflect technology'
BBC NEWS | UK | Education | English 'must reflect technology'
According to this BBC article, "English in schools must adapt to reflect the use of text messaging and communication via new technologies, a report says." Additionally, the report notes, "English needed to take account of the higher profile of the oral language in society. Speaking and listening skills are vital at work and should no longer be given second place."
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
After much chatting with Lisa, I finally decided to do what needed to be done. I went with my gut instinct and turned the evil lesson into a 9-12 lesson plan. It feels so much better. More appropriate. I'm still very, very, very tired of Abraham, but I'm satisfied with the lesson. It is Myth and Truth: The Gettysburg Address—you know the he didn't really write it on the back of an envelope on a train, right???
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
ReadWriteThink
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Busy day. Gettysburg has been put in the incubator. I just had to work on something else. So I finished redoing and marking up Using Student-Centered Comprehension Strategies with Elie Wiesel’s Night, a 9-12 lesson plan that uses reciprocal teaching.
The Ideas section for this week's Inbox focuses on nonfiction, in celebration of Teen Read Week. Even though the topic was inspired by the teen event, it was one of the nice focuses that worked nicely for all teaching levels.
The highlight of the day, though, was probably a very nice response to last week's Ideas section from the President of NCTE's Gay Straight Education Association. The supportive letters are so much better.
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
NCTE Inbox |
ReadWriteThink
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Monday, October 10, 2005
You know the only thing I really remember about the Gettysburg Address is that we had to memorize it. That experience has not helped me in any way at any point in my life. It's funny what I actually remember about my K-12 education. In 5th grade, we had to memorize those 200-some words. I didn't have a clue how people were supposed to do that. I still don't know what memorizing something like that is supposed to do for your educationally.
Of course, this means that I'm still working on this Gettysburg lesson plan. I found a demo from a software company, which I think is useful for vocabulary. Makes finding the definitions very easy.
Other than that, it may not have been my best day. I seemed to crash or mess up every computer I touched. I got locked out of Outlook and the office network because my old laptop wouldn't let me login. I eventually figured out that the problem was the keyboard on the machine. It sometimes just stops working properly, and you have to press down on it with your flat, full hand. I know. That sounds crazy. As I said, not my best day.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Sunday, October 09, 2005
I hate Abe Lincoln. I realize that making that statement in Illinois means that I will be deported, but at the moment this is how I feel. I have multiple problems, and they all stem from the Gettysburg lesson. First, I think the resources that I have gathered may be far over the heads of your typical 3-5 audience. Second, I don't know how much basic explantation I need to do. Would a teacher typically have discussion questions and definitions on hand in textbooks? Who knows? The whole thing feels foreign and wrong.
At least there is still left over soup, and I have pancetti to crumble on top.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Saturday, October 08, 2005
The Gettysburg punishment continues. I have found a nice resource to use if you want students to look at the different drafts of the document that are available. Obviously it's not the stuff of bibliographic research, but it's fine for a high school classroom. The differences among the texts are highlighted, making it easy for students to see that these really are different versions. Would be a good resource for a lesson plan on revision too, I suppose. But I have to get through this first lesson before we can talk about anything else. I've really had enough of Abraham for the time being.
The highlight of the weekend is my bubbling pot of soup. This week, we had our monthly lunch gathering to share projects and whatnot from various departments. Sharon made the most divine soup, and it was perfectly safe for the acid reflux temperament of my stomach. I must share.
 Sharon's Broccoli Soup
1 bunch broccoli, separated into florets
1 small onion, chopped
6-8 chicken bouillon cubes (I used 8)
2 cups water
1/4 lb of butter (1 stick)
1/3 cup flour
2 cups milk
one block cream cheese, cubed
1 can sliced or cubed potatoes (drained)
In a soup pot or large saucepan, combine the broccoli, onion, bouillon, and water. Allow ingredients to boil for a few minutes.
While broccoli mixture cooks, in a frying pan or saucepan, melt butter. When butter has melted, whisk in flour. Whisk in the milk until combined and smooth. Add cream cheese, whisking until the cream cheese has melted.
Add 1 can of sliced or cubed potatoes (drained) to the broccoli mixture. Stir. Add the cheese mixture to the broccoli mixture, and
stir to combine. Allow to simmer 3 to 5 minutes. Serve.
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I made it with fatfree cream cheese and skim milk, and it was fine. Sharon's version used the full-flavored varieties. I think that just depends upon your perspective about fat-free things. Do what makes you happy, and have enough for leftovers. It's even more amazing the next day. It's tasty sprinkled with cheese and bacon bits too :)
Labels: recipe
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Friday, October 07, 2005
 So I spent all day today finally getting my new laptop set up in the office. Here's the less cranky background. Every three years, NCTE replaces the computers in the buildings. Obviously this rotates among employees. It's not like we go out and dump all the machines at once and bring in all new. So my very nice, but overtaxed laptop has been replaced with a much nicer, faster one. I've had access to it for a month, but with other deadlines and such, I haven't had a chance to get it setup and move my files onto it until today.
It's a lot like my home laptop in terms of the feel of the keyboard and the size and screen, so this should be an easy transition—as soon as I get all the special settinga and preferences and plug-ins and whatnot installed and running properly. Fortunately, I get to hold on to the old one for a while, so I can look back for whatever I missed.
In the meantime, there is the never-ending Gettysburg lesson plan to work on. I discovered that C-SPAN has some great video clips that explain answers to some of the questions that I have students exploring. The thing is that I have a boatload of resources, and I'm not sure that they are on target for my audience, 3-5 graders. I'm beginning to wonder if this is a 9-12 lesson plan. I've asked Sharon and Lisa for guidance, but I keep writing (and writing and writing).
Got another very angry response to this week's Inbox Ideas section. Today's shows that special failure to see reality. First the traditional crap about promoting lifestyles. blah blah blah. Then a little sprinkle of the oxymoronic, which I shall paraphrase: Oh, please evil writers, do not judge me. Really I respect the gays as people. I just don't respect their [evil, sinful] lifestyle. (Then you don't respect them, do you?) Then we took a turn toward the silly. General stuff about values and whatnot was followed with an admonition that sexuality should never be discussed in the classroom. There is no place for such lurid topics. (Hmm. What do you do when it becomes time to cover Romeo and Juliet?)
I have such a hard time understanding this kind of hatred. I knew to expect negative messages, but it's much harder when they actually show up. I guess it feels personal. But to hell with it. I'd do it again. I will do it again.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Today pretty much made up my mind about my work computer. I realize that makes no sense. Here's the thing. I have a new laptop. It's sitting on the far corner of my desk. It has been for almost a month. I just haven't had time to set it up. So it sits there.
Well, today, the second day of trying to make some slightly bulky PDFs, I've learned my lesson. The PDFs are contents and summary pages for all of NCTE's Kits. They're just pages of basic text, but they have a border stationery that is a very large graphic. I tried again and again on the machine at work, but I couldn't make them save properly. Brought them home, and here, I had no problems. Lovely PDFs in minutes. That work machine is just too full and too slow. I have no space on the C:\ drive, and I think it just couldn't swap things back and forth. Okay, there's some room. I think it was 80MB.
I must get that new machine set up.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Got the November calendar edited and live on the site. There are a few changes to make in the next few days, but it's 99% complete. We have a forthcoming lesson plan on Elie Wiesel's Night that will replace a 9-12 EDSITEment lesson on the Kristallnacht entry. And there's the never-ending albatross, my Gettysburg lesson plan, which will probably replace the Exploring Free Speech and Persuasion with Nothing But The Truth lesson on the Gettysburg Address entry.
Today's high point is the unveiling of my kit in the online store! That's right! You can now go purchase the resources I picked and the framing text that I wrote in a convenient package (with a beautiful purple cover :)
On the very sad side, we've gotten angry mail about yesterday's Inbox Ideas section. I know. It was about LGBT issues. I expected it. Really I did. But that doesn't make it any easier. It would be one thing if someone said I was a bad writer. It's different to be told that I'm writing about bad things and that the reader is completely offended by my words. How do you respond to a message that tells you not to write about such things again or the person will cancel his/her membership? Sigh... :(
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
NCTE Inbox |
ReadWriteThink
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
The Ideas section for this week's Inbox focuses on "Coming Out in the Classroom." Next Tuesday (October 11) is National Coming Out Day. This year's theme, "Talk About It," focuses on the importance of discussing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues openly and honestly. The resources in the section explain how language arts and composition teachers can "Talk About It" in the classroom.
I got some work done on the Gettysburg Address lesson plan, though nothing concrete in the sense of writing down bits of the lesson. Instead, I shared the new focus with Sharon and Lisa, and I spent some time looking for online resources on the myths related to the Address. I found an All Things Considered piece. Unfortunately it's from 1995, so it's not in their archive. I went through a stupid tool, HighBeam Research, with a temporary login to get a copy of the transcript (full of typos). Then I quickly cancelled my membership. I found a treasure trove of CSPAN videos as well, and I figured out how to link to the individual real audio files (rather than going through that listing page). The most interesting fact I learned today was that prior to the Gettysburg Address, when people talked about America, they said "The United States are" and after they said "The United States is." I question the absolute moment of this national shift, but it's still an interesting thing to note, especially since it gives you a chance to talk about grammar in context and in a very meaningful way.
I'm not sure that there's much more to report. I got through the whole day of work and managed to get to the grocery store, though I overdid it and was all ouchy and hurty about 1/2 through Schnuck's. Once I unloaded the car, I took medicine. That was the first time today that I took any though, so I'm doing better. Now if I could only stop ALL the burping and nonsense.
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
lesson plans |
NCTE Inbox |
ReadWriteThink
Labels: Inbox
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Monday, October 03, 2005
So today I was at work for most of the day. We're counting this as an accomplishment. I didn't manage to do much more than that though. I really need to get to the grocery store and do some other errands; but I'm so wiped out from the drugs that it's all I can do not to fall asleep at work. I did get my car filled up, but only because it was way over on the E and the "You must stop for gas chicken" was up in the front cupholder squawking about the need for gas.
I've finally managed to figure out the Gettysburg Address lesson. I dropped all the PowerPoint stuff and decided to do it as another one in the Myth and Truth lessons (the others are on Independence Day and Thanksgiving).
There are a number of misconceptions about the Gettysburg Address. The most famous is likely that Lincoln wrote the speech on the back of an envelope during his train ride to Pennsylvania. Since I can copy the backbone of the lesson from those original two, this should be easy to whip together now that I've finally figured out what I'm doing. At least I hope so.
I wish that I had managed to go through my notes and drafts for my book. I haven't picked it up in weeks; but there's a discussion on WPA about devising writing assignments. I'm sure that I have material that's pertinent, but I haven't been able to dig it out. Beyond that, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to share info from a working draft with someone else who's writing a book and needs the information for a similar reason. My colleagiality voice tells me to share with everyone. My business-savvy voice says don't be a fool and give your info to someone else. Keep it for yourself. I guess since I haven't had time and the thread seems to be dying, maybe I can just not worry about it. The thread does emphasize the need for the book I'm writing. There's nothing out there that pulls things together. So at least I'm writing on a good idea.
Time to dose up on another pile of pills and get to bed.
changelog @ tengrrl.com:
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Hmm. Accomplishments for Saturday, the first day of October? Well, I got out of bed and watched the Virginia Tech football game. Eventually, the drugs made me dizzy/sleepy so there were two different naps.
Then I fiddled about with the Gettysburg lesson plan. I think I've nearly convinced myself that the original idea I had was a bad one. The thing is I have a lot of raw material, so I really need to do something with this text. It would be a shame to scrap it when I've gathered lots of good stuff. Mostly they are great Web sites that include drafts and other historical information. There's also an iMovie site that has a student-produced movie of Civil War photos with the class reading the Gettysburg Address as the narration. Perhaps the oddest resource is from ourdocuments.gov. For some unknown reason, they have included a Flash version of the a draft of the Address. The resource allows you to move the piece of paper around so that you can see different parts of it on screen. It's beyond me why they've done this. It's more frustrating than it is useful. If you really want to see the original drafts and use them in class, I strongly urge you to use the Library of Congress pages, which show the entire page of the draft on screen. Much easier to use.
Beyond that, my only other accomplishment was adding a little calendar to my blog template. There's some woman trying to sell something to add calendars. I wasn't impressed with her work. First her page loads strangely with Google Ads flashing about. Second that blog page of hers is more then a year old. That's dead for us Blogshares players, so I'm skeptical of the tool. Instead, I found a free javascript that does the job. I tweaked it slightly because I wanted the calendar on ever page, but I'm no longer sure that that was a good idea. Maybe it should only show up on archives. I'm figuring that I'll look at it this way for a while, and then change it if I decide it functions too strangely. The problem on the homepage is that it builds a calendar for the entries on the page, starting from the bottom up. So today, for instance, I'm posting an October entry, but the little calendar in the right navigation bar will be for September—and not all of September, just from the entries on this page. The script works perfectly for archive pages, which is what it was designed to do. I just wanted one on the homepage, but I'm realizing the folly of that desire.
Posted Friday, 24-Aug-2007 17:08:51 PDT
Copyright © 1998-2011 Traci Gardner, P. O. Box 11836, Blacksburg, VA 24060-1836.
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