writing

When I first started teaching at CSide High, I felt confident about teaching writing. I had an incredibly great expository writing class during my last year as an undergrad. Mr. Kay, the teacher, gave me insight and confidence in my own writing and in teaching it. That feeling lasted for several years. I remember one of my adv 8th grade classes voted to read Macbeth aloud and I assigned them an essay about it. and it wasn't a disaster. It was cool.

Years passed. The state writing test appeared. Fortunately it was administered in 8th grade and by then I was teaching 7th grade. So after slogging through the district-provided instruction for a year or two, I abandoned teaching the state's formula. The instruction and examples provided were not even up to mediocre standards. It has been a long time since I have set out to teach writing-- not teach to the writing test. Did I make it clear I just avoided both? not with a good conscience, but I did.


But I am about to re-enter the arena. Reading real teachers who write and who write about writing, thinking, real things that really matter, has made me want to give to my students that gift of finding and exercising one's unique voice through good writing.

So I joined the Digital Writing Discussion on ECNing, bought the book, plan to do things.

point of view and multiple choice questions

I know writers of multiple choice questions cover themselves by including verbiage such as: which choice best identifies...

Even so, I wonder how aligned that kind of question is to the spirit of a lot of good literature.

I just finished reading Mockingjay. It's intense, ambiguous in some ways, very rich material for discussing what one would do in one of the many difficult, no-win situations in the story.

So I started thinking about Suzanne Collins's point of view and purpose-- how she might express these if she were talking about her work, and how a multiple choice question writer for a major high-stakes standardized test would write a question... and how the multiple choice question writer would decide to write the correct answer, the one that best identifies the author's purpose (in one question) and point of view (in another).

And why it is considered valuable for a student to "correctly" choose the question-writer's best answer and not be allowed to compose a response that states and explains what the student sees as the author's positions.  Of course that kind of stuff can't be graded by a machine and it allows for too much difference of opinion.

I'm kind of rambling here, but the thought that started this is:

I think lots of good fiction writers write to tell a great story and also to get their readers to think about ways of being and thinking vicariously. A reader's readiness ( on innumerable levels) will affect a reader's responses.

Our education system, our assessment "system" is obsessed with what isn't worth measuring (or isn't measurable), but is immeasurably worth pondering and discussing.

I wonder what Suzanne Collins would say about this, about why she wrote these three powerful books.
a) to make readers distrust absolute authority
b) to make readers shun violence as a solution
c) to make lots of money and increase her fame
d) to make readers value the lives they have and live them as fully as possible

Why our students don't learn what we think we teach

one of the most important videos I've ever seen.

why our students don't learn what we think we teach

entry table

Joy, in reading older posts you write of placing table by door for hand-outs and such. Thank you for recording that seemingly inconsequential item. Tomorrow I shall sit in my room and stare at the entry to determine how I might best develop it for procedures that work and for saving the precious commodity of time. I know a wall juts into the room, but I need to find a way. I liked having a table for them to sign out, write passes and such, but never thought of the entry routine.

I need to earn a Smart board.

First week with students

I am wondering what we will do and if we will try to do some of the same lessons. Last year Francis did the mandala and they were really nice. I've done the paragraph about coming back, a bag o'm thing with speech, and last year jumped in to a novel. What to try this year? In addition, I am fortunate to have 5 advanced classes. I need to turn up the heat the challenge from day 1.

Since I have only 1 ave. I can give away some of my Rev it Up books to Tricia. I need vocab for the adv.

web sites and quotes for moodling

This entry is simply a repository of sites, ideas and or quotes for convenient reference.

wordle
prezi
glogster
diigo
survey monkey  ms lowell campbellls' annees
open office

testing scribefire

I learned about this on Twitter from following David Warlick.
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/