tengrrl’s thoughts & news on teaching writing, literacy, and literature
May 5, 2005
x-posted to kairosnews.org
EDWeek‘s Eighth Annual Report on School Technology:
Technology Counts 2005: Electronic Transfer: Moving Technology Dollars in New Directions
“The report includes in-depth articles on issues surrounding technology spending, state profiles, and the first-ever ranking of state technology leaders.”
Tags: computers |
English language arts |
K12 instruction |
technology
May 5, 2005
Washington Post
Tom Toles: SAT Test: Essay (editorial cartoon)Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Don’t forget the facts: Adjust the new SAT writing section to give accuracy more weight (editorial)
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
SAT |
standardized testing |
writing assessment
May 4, 2005
It’s 1:30 AM. I am not in bed. Perhaps a random picture of a duck dressed as a pig will help.
No. That didn’t fix anything. It’s still 1:30. It’s even later really, and I’m still not in bed. This is a stupid thing to admit. I feel like time is slipping away from me. I don’t know what happened to it all. Suddenly it was later and I can’t really account for what I did during any of it. I wasn’t asleep. I wasn’t checking bloglines. I wasn’t even buying and selling on blogshares. (We won’t talk about this afternoon when I acquired some blogger and bought up more of the Notes from the Walter J. Ong Archives.)
I guess that it doesn’t help that I was working on my technology review lesson plan till 7 and didn’t get home till after 8. That would chew up a good portion of the evening. Maybe I have been numbly lost in thought and confusion. It’s a good story anyway.
I tried to go shopping, but nothing I tried on looked good. I felt like the circus fat lady in everything. I want to believe that it was the lighting in the store, but I’m sure that’s just wishful thinking. So when I finally did get home, I guess I just sat around and did nothing. There’s something to be proud of.
Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know myself anymore, let alone know the people I care about. I seem to make all the wrong decisions these days, and I forget to do the things that matter. Like going to bed… why aren’t I going to bed? Everything feels like it’s spinning and chaotic and beyond my control right now. :(
Writing about it isn’t helping though, so I guess I shall try to sleep.
Tags: duck |
Duck for President |
rambling
May 4, 2005
The report: Good Writing Instruction, Not Testing, Is the Best Preparation for College
NYT, May 3
SAT Essay Test Rewards Length and Ignores ErrorsWashington Post, May 3
Teachers Give New SAT Essay Low MarksBloomberg.com, May 3
SAT Essay Has Schools Buffing Rusted Writing SkillsChronicle of Higher Ed, May 4
New Writing Section on SAT Draws Sharp Criticism From Association of English TeachersInside Higher Ed, May 4
Failing Grade
Tags: English language arts |
K12 instruction |
SAT |
standardized testing |
writing assessment
May 3, 2005
TIME.com: Children, Eat Your Trash! — May. 09, 2005
“In Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter (Riverhead Books; 238 pages), the social critic and technologist (Mind Wide Open) makes a thought-provoking argument that today’s allegedly vacuous media are, well, thought provoking.”—who woulda thought???
Tags: media literacy |
popular culture |
social criticism |
technology
May 2, 2005
Despite the fact that today is Lisa’s birthday and there was much celebration including 3 bouquets of flowers, I managed to get my draft ready for this week’s Ideas Section of the Inbox, which will be published tomorrow’s afternoon. This week’s focus is authentic writing instruction. Plus I turned in the May 1 Content Report for ReadWriteThink. In the last 15 days, we added 5 lesson plans, published the June calendar, and revised a lesson to include an interactive (82% of NCTE’s lessons now include an interactive—woohoo!).
With all that work work done, I figured it was time for play work. I fiddled around on BlogShares. I still don’t fully understand, but I managed to buy some of Sordid Blog just the same. Nothing like owning a piece of the Rhetboi.
Once I spent most of my money, I decided it was time to set up a blogroll, even though I hate the word blog. I started using the list that BlogLines sets up, but I wasn’t happy with the layout and I wanted a little more control over the names and such. I ended up starting with their list and then copying it over into an include file. Yeah, I have to do upkeep by hand, but I’m happier with it.
I think I’ve given up on the Technology Profile lesson plan. Perhaps it can be a complex tech writing assignment where students write a technical description. Maybe not. For now, which is really only defined as the next 8 or 9 hours, I’m not going to try to figure it out. I have a lesson I’d like to create about naming. Tons of texts available, and I think I have a cool idea for it. I need to work on a revision of a lesson on Because of Winn-Dixie too, but the book is at the office, so I can get out of that to-do for now.
Tags: BlogShares |
NCTE Inbox |
ReadWriteThink |
writing assessment
May 2, 2005
x-posted to kairosnews.org
Teachers look to computers to critique student essays presents another example of folks ignoring what we know about writing and authentic assessment. For the other side of this argument, see “Automated Scoring Technologies and the Rising Influence of Error” by Julie Cheville, from the March 2004 English Journal.
Tags: automated scoring |
English language arts |
K12 instruction |
writing assessment
May 1, 2005
Darn you, Ellen. You made me cry. I don’t even know how you managed it, but this evening as I was reading the last 30 or so pages of Hard Love (yes, I’m that far behind on reading YA Lit), little tears kept weeping out. There was no reason for me to cry over that book, young lady. Hell, I don’t cry when I read novels and such. Maybe the emotions on the page were a little too raw, or maybe it was the situation. Whatever it was, you got to me, darn you. I expect a full apology. :)
April 30, 2005
“It’s the people you are close to, the ones who love you, the ones who have seen your heart, who have touched your soul—to them, it is obvious that something is wrong or missing. Your heart and soul are missing. They feel it. It hurts them. It kills them.”
Tags: depression |
movies
