As I did last summer, I spent twelve days this month with my sister on a road trip from Virginia to Utah, with a stay in Salt Lake City for the Stampin’ Up convention in the middle. I learned a…
Category: classroom activities
A Definition Assignment from a Super Bowl Commercial
I wasn’t blown away by the Super Bowl commercials this year. There were a couple that seemed cute to me. The GoDaddy commercials, as usual, annoyed me. WWE fan that I am, I enjoyed The Rock’s Milk commercial, and like…
Easy Ways for Kids and Teens to Make Greeting Cards
No matter what holiday you are celebrating this month, nothing is quite as precious as a handmade card—especially when it comes from a family member or friend. We’ve collected some easy ways that you can help the students you teach…
Bits November Blog Flashback
Bedford/St. Martin’s Bits bloggers posted on topics ranging from our work as writing program administrators to how we teach digital natives. Be sure that you check out all the great ideas for talking about politics and how writing fits into…
Ten Winter Activities with ReadWriteThink Interactives
The last days of 2011 are counting down, and it’s likely that your days in the classroom for 2011 are even fewer! As you’re planning for the last days of the calendar year, consider using ReadWriteThink interactives for one of…
Which Books Would You Ban?
What do Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and Ann Coulter have in common? How do they differ from Adolf Hitler, Ayn Rand, Michael Moore, Andrew Breitbart, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Michael Savage? A Rebel Pundit survey last month asked, “Which…
Software, Teamwork, & Collaboration
This week in Inside Higher Ed, Joshua Kim asserts, “The world is divided into two types of people: those who prefer Track Changes in Word and those who prefer to write collaboratively in Google Docs.” Kim’s explanation of the two…
Reading, Writing, Eating
Alyssa Rosenberg wrote about Food in Fiction and How Cooking Brings You Closer to Characters this week in The Atlantic. The article asks readers to think about how cooking and eating the same foods as fictional characters strengthens the connection…
Another Trauma Narrative: Bits Flashback for May 8
On Saturday, Black College Wire posted an article on a composition assignment that had consequences the teacher never expected. The teacher, Lisa Carl, asked students to write “either a first-person autobiographical account of a significant event in their lives or…
Challenge students to take part in Script Frenzy!
Script Frenzy is a free event that challenges writers to compose an entire script during the month of April. There are many more official details on the site’s About Page. All kinds of scripts are welcome: screenplays, stage plays, TV…