Thursday, May 28, 2009

Monday, May 25, 2009

Summer Reading

Short Tribune article about a true summer reading list here. The idea is that it's from Memorial Day to Labor Day. I love the part about doing summer reading for school "to get the full use of tuition"!

Should the law be "just" or "just legal"

Stanley Fish blog asks that question here as Obama is mulling his choice for a new Supreme Court justice.

Monday, May 11, 2009

OK basketball coach demands an essay per game...

from her athletes. Check it out: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/04/04/ST2009040403264.html?hpid=topnews

Pocket Mod Poetry

I've been wanting to put some poetry on a pocket mod to keep in my pocket to memorize. Then my old friend Doc Wingler sent me this inspiring NYT Book Review essay on memorizing called "Got Poetry: The Case for Memorizing Poetry," by Jim Holt. He claims that he's got about 2000 lines of poetry so far.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Learning Argument Practices Through On-Line Role Play

by Richard Beach and Cadance Doerr-Stevens
in Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy
March 2009

The article knits together several ideas about engaging kids in writing and argumentative literacy. It borrows ideas from Harris (How to do things with texts), Flower (Community literacy and the rhetoric of public engagement), and Graff (They say/I say). The example, of an on-line collaborative argument/problem solving, addresses engagement, authenticity, role-playing, building argumentative skills. The article addresses teachers' role in helping kids negotiate the recent media movement to the "echo chamber" of particular value groups.

I'm going to try to use some of this in my fourth-quarter writing assignment for English 1.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

New Literacies are Everywhere!

Including the March 2009 issue of Educational Leadership. I've read the lead article: "Orchestrating the Media Collage," in which author Jason Ohler says, "New media demand new literacies," and gives the following 8 guidelines for teachers:

1. Shift from text centrism to media collage
2. Value writing and reading now more than ever
3. Adopt ART as the next R
4. Blend traditional and emerging literacies
5. Harness report and story ("creative nonfiction" "blend research and storytelling")
6. Practice private and participatory social literacy
7. Develop literacy with digital tools and about digital tools
8. Pursue fluency (not just basic literacy)

If you're interested in "new literacies" -- visual literacy, media studies, film study -- come check the issue out.