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.

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.”

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

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

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.

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.

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 settings 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.

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.

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