1. 6 News Stories to Connect to Orwell’s 1984
2. Text + Image = Tagxedo: The Next Generation of Word Cloud Fun
3. Teaching Students About Headlines, Titles, and Subject Lines
4. List of Ten: Fun with Crayons
5. Poem 3: Green Eggs and Ham
6. Community Building Classroom Activities: A Round-Up
7. Which Books Would You Ban?
8. Write a Poem a Day for National Poetry Month
9. Top 10 Things to Do with a Banned Text
10. What’s the Trick to Building Community in the Classroom?

I know that normally these yearly posts are a nice reminder of what’s happened during the year and easy posts for the weeks during winter break when there’s less going on in education.

This year, the list turned out to be an eye-opener for me as well. Half of the posts that had the most hits in 2011 showed up on the list in 2010. In fact, only three of the posts listed were even written in 2011 (3, 7, and 8). There is no question that Teaching Students About Headlines, Titles, and Subject Lines made the list because it was promoted by Guy Kawasaki on Google+. There are similar stories behind the other two posts from 2011. Which Books Would You Ban? got an extra push from some librarian colleagues, and Write a Poem a Day for National Poetry Month was cross-posted on several educational sites.

I guess I have a goal for 2012 now. The posts I’m putting on my blog aren’t doing enough to capture anyone’s interest. It’s nice to have posts from 2009 and 2010 that are still popular, but I’d like my current posts to have readers too. Here’s to writing some posts in 2012 that connect with more readers!

[Photo: Lolcat submitted by brad, on ICanHasCheeseburger]

1. Choose an animal you think about during the winter (like penguins, polar bears, or snowshoe rabbit), and explore its habits and life cycle with the Animal Inquiry interactive.
2. Use the Resume Generator to create a resume for a character from a favorite story or song. What would Scrooge list on his resume?
3. Compose Shape Poems with the bus for the last day of school. Students can talk about all the things they hope to do during the winter break—after they ride home on the school bus for the last time in 2011.
4. Have students map significant personal events they remember from previous winter holidays with the Graphic Map.
5. Write a class alphabet book of activities to try during the winter holidays with the Alphabet Organizer.
6. Ask students to think of a favorite event that happens during the winter break, and compose Acrostic Poems about it.
7. Create Character Trading Cards for characters from winter-themed or holiday-themed books or songs. Imagine a trading card for the Baby New Year!
8. Reflect on all that has happened since the start of the school year in a class newspaper, created with the ReadWriteThink Printing Press.
9. Explore school days and winter vacation in a Diamante Poem that unites the two opposing topics.
10. Use the Profile Publisher to mock up social networking profiles, yearbook profiles, or newspaper or magazine profiles for characters from winter-themed or holiday-themed books or songs. What would Frosty the Snowman list on his Facebook profile?

This list also posted in the Reading & Language Arts Group in the Thinkfinity Community.

• Susan Naomi Bernstein (Bits) reflects on libraries and how they often remain utilitarian rather than imaginative in Libraries: Claiming Imaginative Space for Basic Writing.
• Steve Bernhardt (Bits) discusses teaching “The” Research Paper—or do you teach “a research paper” or “a researched paper”?
• Catherine Pierce (Lit Bits) encourages students not to let the idea of writing get in the way of writing in Writing a Poem by Not Writing a Poem.
• Adrian Arancibia (Lit Bits) gives Student Poets Some Advice for Reading Aloud.
• Traci Gardner (Bits) considers how to get more robust feedback on course evaluations in Supplementing Your Online Course Evaluation.
• Barclary Barrios shares five favorite essays from his Emerging textbook in Behind the Textbook: My Faves.

A Few Extra Links

• Head on over to Andrea Lunsford’s new Facebook fan page and “Like” it!
• Happy 15th Anniversary to the Two-Year College English Association (or TYCA). The Tour of TYCA is underway!
• Check out Writer’s Help, a complete online reference that makes it easy for students to find answers to their questions about writing, and Like Writer’s Help at http://www.facebook.com/Writers.Help.

For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to sign up for the Ink’d In newsletter (and other resources), like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

• Traci Gardner (Bits) shares some resources for teaching students about academic research and how to avoid plagiarism in Fighting Plagiarism in High School and College.
• Nancy Sommers (Between the Drafts) asks, "How many of you assign a traditional research paper? Now—how many are questioning its role in FYC?" in her post, Thinking about The Research Paper. 
• In his Behind the Textbook series, Barclay Barrios (Bits) discusses The Question of Questions.
• Liz Wardle (Bits) shares a Call for Proposals for the Inaugural Issue of the Writing about Writing Newsletter.
• Jack Solomon (Bits) Jack Solomon takes a look at the Occupy Wall Street movement and the connections between popular culture and the New Left in The Politics of Popular Culture.
• Andrea Lunsford (Bits) talks about visiting and helping with writing centers in Hey, Let’s Start a Writing Center!
• Michael Kardos (Lit Bits) talks about Association of Writers & Writing Programs’s cancellation of pedagogy forums in Pedagogy Papers: Gone But Not Forgotten.
• Holly Pappas (Bits) wonders about the role of argument in first year composition in Arguing with Myself.
• Ben Bunting (Lit Bits) gets students to think critically and participate on a much deeper level. Learn more in Teaching Literature: Student Contexts and Discussion Openers.

A Few Extra Links

• Head on over to Andrea Lunsford’s new Facebook fan page and “Like” it!
• Mark your calendar for the Tour of TYCA, a taste of each TYCA regional. Online launch: November 25.
• Check out Writer’s Help, a complete online reference that makes it easy for students to find answers to their questions about writing, and Like Writer’s Help at http://www.facebook.com/Writers.Help.

For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to sign up for the Ink’d In newsletter (and other resources), like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Cross-posted as a Note on Bedford/St. Martin’s page on Facebook.

First, I read a New York Times article about a school in Tennessee where the principal is so busy with paperwork and unnecessary observations that he’s lost touch with many of the things happening in the school. The title of the article neatly summarizes their feeling for the way that Race to the Top has led to a redefinition of “teacher quality” at their school: In Tennessee, Following the Rules for Evaluations Off a Cliff.

Then, I read Six Questions for Better Professional Development on the Edutopia Deeper Learning Blog Carnival, and wondered about how different the assumptions about “teacher quality” were compared to those in the Times article. The author talks about quality teaching (and professional development) as collaborative, organic, and reflective. It involves “cultivating a healthy professional community,” and that school in Tennessee seems to be on a track where they are able to do anything BUT support professional growth and “teacher quality.”

Maybe it can be partially attributed to the language that’s used, but the Edutopia blog seems to posit “teacher quality” as something that you nurture and encourage while the the Times article seems to describe a scenario where “teacher quality” is something you have to badger people into developing or revealing.

I understand the desire and need for ways to measure “teacher quality.” I’m just not sure of the right way to go about it. How do you think “teacher quality” should be defined? I’d love to hear some real teachers talking about the issue.
 

• Susan Naomi Bernstein (Bits) describes “The Day She Learned to Occupy Revision,” and what it means for teaching writing.
• Crystal Farrell (HS Bits) addresses the single biggest obstacle to student achievement in her series on Increasing Student Motivation.
• Traci Gardner (Bits) shares a revision activity to help students Find the Best Features of a Text.
• Doug Downs (Bits) asks, “Which is better: teaching about bibliographic citation styles or teaching the styles themselves?” in Transferable Knowledge About Citation.
• Joanne Diaz (Lit Bits) talks about teaching literature with archival texts in Riding the Metro Haiku.
• In his Behind the Textbook series, Barclay Barrios (Bits) discusses The Challenge of Early Semester Testing.
• Jack Solomon (Bits) examines the widespread cultural tendency to engage in evasive and euphemistic language in Pre-Owned or Preposterous?
• Does your workshop give a class reading? Michael Kardos (Lit Bits) asks about Professionalization and the Workshop.
• Andrea Lunsford (Bits) thinks about the coming changes for the composition classroom and wonders, “What Does ‘Academic Writing’ Mean Today?”
• Holly Pappas (Bits) talks about teaching the research process in “Why Settle for Google?”

A Few Extra Links

• Head on over to Andrea Lunsford’s new Facebook fan page and “Like” it!
• Bedford/St. Martin’s bloggers Nedra Reynolds, Tim Hetland, Holly Pappas, Nancy Sommers, and Traci Gardner in @ProfHacker Teaching Carnival for November.
• Nominate your school for the Diana Hacker TYCA Outstanding Program Awards. Deadline: November 10.
• Nominate a colleague for the Nell Ann Pickett Service Award. Deadline: November 15.
• Mark your calendar for the Tour of TYCA, a taste of each TYCA regional. Online launch: November 25.
• Check out Writer’s Help, a complete online reference that makes it easy for students to find answers to their questions about writing, and Like Writer’s Help at http://www.facebook.com/Writers.Help.

For regular updates from Bedford Bits, be sure to sign up for the Ink’d In newsletter (and other resources), like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
 

Throw away the bathing suit you wore in high school… and the memory too. It’s normal to have a mental image of yourself when you last exercised like a fiend. But if that image is from high school, you could be in big trouble. Even if it’s from last year, forget it. Remember as little as possible of what you used to look like. Starting today, make new memories. (from 14 Tips for Starting and Sticking with a Workout Routine)

What I’m wondering is how that tip applies to things other than exercise—like writing. Throw away those writing practices you used in high school (5 paragraph theme anyone?). Find new ways to write! What old things could you throw away to stop dwelling on the past and build new ways of working?

[Photo: Bathing Beauty in vintage Vogue by uppityrib, on Flickr

Teachers on the Thinkfinity Community have been busy collecting answers. Theresa Gibbon suggests trying ReadWriteThink’s interactive Word Mover for “I Have a Dream” and Word Mover for Holes and asking students to rearrange the words on the whiteboard as a class experience. Find dozens of additional ideas on the Thinkfinity Community discussion board.

This post is the introduction from “August 10 to 16 on ReadWriteThink.” Read the rest of the post in the Thinkfinity Community site.

It’s important, then, to teach students how to write strong headlines, titles, and subject lines—and I have a great technique you can use, based on an observation Guy Kawasaki shared on Google+.

Kawasaki posted a screenshot from his blog indexing site, Alltop.com, and observed, “You can see who the good headline creators are when you see them side by side.” Indeed, you can.

Try the technique yourself by clicking on the screenshot above. It shows headlines from four blogs on the Writing page on Alltop. Even with the limited number of titles in the screenshot, you can see that some headlines are better at catching your attention than others. I want to go read The Other N-Words, for instance.

The blogs at the top of an Alltop page tend to be stronger, so there’s not an obvious dud in the image. If you visit the Writing page on Alltop though, you’re likely to find some headlines that don’t work. On the current page, for example, I’m uninterested in Exercise 9, 10, 11, or 12 from Aldys Fiction. Aldys Fiction may be a great site, but based on those headlines alone, there’s nothing to convince me to go read anything.

To show students how to write strong headlines, titles and subject lines, just customize this activity a bit. Here’s a basic outline of what to do:

1. Choose a page on Alltop that focuses on a topic that students are familiar with. Alltop has pages for hundreds of topics, ranging from American Idol to Zombies, and from Anthropology to Zoology. Nearly any topic students are exploring can be found on Alltop. (That makes the site great for research too, but I’ll save that for a later post.) Be sure to review the page you choose to ensure the blog titles are all appropriate for the classroom.
2. Print the Alltop page. You can work on the live website, but when you mouse over a blog title, more information from the post will pop up. Since you want students to focus on the titles alone, the live site isn’t the best option. Further, Alltop is updated hourly, so an inappropriate blog title may appear. Printing the pages avoids both of these problems. If you want a paper-free option, print to PDFs and work from the files rather than the live site.
3. Pass out the Alltop page, and ask students to mark 10–15 blog posts that they want to read. Encourage students to move quickly through the options. The point is to make fast decisions. Give them two or three minutes.
4. Next ask students to identify 5 blog posts that they would not read. Again, ask them to work quickly, as if they were scrolling down the list on a computer screen.
5. In small groups, have students share their selections and note posts chosen by more than one person. Have them create a group list of approximately 15 blogs the group would read.
6. Ask group members to compare the 15 blog titles and identify what makes the titles compelling. Encourage students to look for similarities. You might work through an example title to demonstrate features that typically make a headline stand out.
7. Have students use the similarities to create guidelines for strong titles. Students can consider the 5 posts they each said they would not read to see how they violate their guidelines as well.
8. Compile all the group guidelines into a class list. Groups can share their lists with the class. As a group shares its guidelines, note new ideas on the board. Work to group related ideas as the groups present their lists. Once all groups have shared, review the class list together and make any revisions.
9. Talk about how to apply the headline guidelines to paper titles and subject lines. Add suggestions on how to adjust the information for different rhetorical situations.
10. For homework, ask students to strengthen the titles on their texts by using the guidelines that the class has created. If desired, students can submit a before and after version of their titles that you review during the next class session.

As you go through the activity, you may find the opportunity to review the rules for using capital letters in titles. You can point to the guidelines in your class text. For a thorough review, point students to the details on Capitalizing Titles from Grammar Girl. For a bit of fun, you can try out the SongCase – the song title capitalizer.

So there you have it. It’s fairly simple, but it should influence the headlines, titles, and subject lines that you see after the class completes it. Do you have any tricks for teaching students about headlines, titles, and subject lines? Leave me a comment!

Bulwer-Lytton wrote other memorable lines. He penned “the pen is mightier than the sword” too, but chances are that if you know his name, it’s because of “It was a dark and stormy night.” Part of that sentence’s familiarity is thanks to Snoopy, who works so hard on that first sentence of his novels. If you’ve never quite understood the problem with that sentence, it’s likely that you’ve never read the full thing:

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Quite the sentence, isn’t it? Since 1983, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest has honored that epic sentence with a competition to write an equally spectacular sentence. This year’s winner, Sue Fondrie, teaches at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. The Guardian has more details, including the award-winning sentence which compares memories to wind turbines and sparrows and a groaner of a winner from the Fantasy category.

This post is the introduction from the Bits Flashback for July 31. Read the rest of the post on Facebook.

[Photo: Stormy night by Andrew J. Sutherland, on Flickr]