NCTE’s SAT/ACT Report in the News

The report: Good Writing Instruction, Not Testing, Is the Best Preparation for College

NYT, May 3
SAT Essay Test Rewards Length and Ignores Errors

Washington Post, May 3
Teachers Give New SAT Essay Low Marks

Bloomberg.com, May 3
SAT Essay Has Schools Buffing Rusted Writing Skills

Chronicle of Higher Ed, May 4
New Writing Section on SAT Draws Sharp Criticism From Association of English Teachers

Inside Higher Ed, May 4
Failing Grade


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Everything Bad Is Good for You reviewed in Time

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???


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Taking Stock

one of Lisa's Birthday FlowersDespite 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.


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STLtoday.com – Teachers look to computers to critique student essays

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.


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To Ellen Wittlinger, where ever she is

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. :)


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one more

“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.”


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