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/

master learner

not just a trendy phrase

but an attitude
an accomplishment
and an aspiration

how I learn and why I'll talk more about it in 2010-11

just had a realization as I read

Medium does matter. And the textbook is generally a medium that inspires neither motivation nor imagination.

Increase Student Engagement by Getting Rid of Textbooks

In this new school year, I decide that I will consistently pursue reference to my learning online as often as possible, coupled with discussion opps for how and what students learn (& wish to learn) online.

Last year I remember thinking quickly, should I talk about my own learning? I usually decided No, since it was "off topic."

But I think learning is always "on topic" so I am going to follow my gut and use my own examples to spark students' interest and action.

why poetry is important

Wallace Stevens:

The poet's role is to help people live their lives.

I'm listening to Nancie Atwell explain why poetry is important



I'm sold.



ok, now back to "reality."
The poems in our literature book...... I love NONE of them. I like a few. I have hardly had any poetry in my classes for years, because I cannot find value in the material I already have, and I never sought other material that I could use legally in multiple copies.

Also I have been I think cowardly about poetry. To me, its value is that it is deep and serious and goes into controversial, highly personal areas. And I have imagined problems with that, which may never arise, but they have helped block me from this vast and powerful resource.

Does it sound like I'm moving towards making the effort to find better stuff? I think so.

lovers of literature, and makers

Manuel Garces, Jr. wrote:

How can we foster dialogue and questioning among students as an essential instructional practice?

I treat my kids as lovers and makers of literature, from day one. We speak in the language of book lovers and poetry lovers. We name the qualities of good literature. We look at issues and questions raised by our readings. Reading and writing and talking fill the air, always.

lovers and makers of literature

I'll be using this as part of my personal jdt*armory.


* joie de teaching-- how I will protect my heart from the corrosive effects of those who see teachers as the UPS people of education

great week

I sent the following in an email to Dar. I want to share it with our blog. It's got some very "inside my head" sections, but we'll live with that.

I have had such a thought-productive week. Last summer I became aware of the English Companion Ning. I must have joined it and then done nothing more with it.

This summer for some reason I bumped into it again, tried to join, discovered I had already.... So then I saw the ECNing is having its first ever Webstitute (via Elluminate) on 13 and 14 July. So I signed up to "attend." It was excellent. Mostly the speakers were about technology and connections using the web with students. I learned and learned and learned.

I created a second Twitter account for educational use. Currently I'm using it to follow some of the education people I was already following; I added some people I met at the webstitute. One of the wonderful characteristics of many outstanding teachers is that they are so generous with their time and wisdom.  In her keynote presentation, Laura Nicosia talked about Diigo and described how she finds it useful. and now I am crazy about it. We are following each other on Twitter. 

Sunday I'm joining a 2-week-long online discussion of a book co-written by Releah Cossett Lent (who wrote that cool book Dar also liked) and Jimmy Santiago Baca called "Adolescents on the Edge."

One of the most valuable aspects of all this online professional feasting is that it removes all the horrible, depressing parts of our job from my immediate concern, and it spurs me to have ideas and questions and joyful anticipation of the coming school year.

I am going to protect that feeling/attitude fiercely when we return to school and have our trainings and information and dictates from the great omniscient bureaucrats. I am going to let that part of the job lightly intersect with my being but not penetrate. I am going to protect my teaching joy fiercely. The feeling is too wonderful to let it be shut down.

So I'm working a bit on "protection strategies."  I think I must sound way over the edge, but I'm not going to go back and edit for clarity. We can talk. That's quicker than re-writing about how I feel.

voice

» The Week in Tweets for 2010-04-19 Bud the Teacher

• @ddraper So long as teachers believe that someone needs to "give them a voice," they/we won't have much of one. @bcrosby in reply to ddraper # 

I have learned so much this week: diigo, more twitter, tweetdeck, slideshare, google docs, more. Will elaborate later.



wow.  love it.

how am I going to set up my classroom for 2010-11?

I'm thinking of making four quadrants/groups of desks.

I'm thinking of putting my teacher desk in the middle of the quadrants. I won't have a desktop computer anymore, so if the new teacher laptop can connect wirelessly to the net (for attendance and grade recording and email), then I can put myself in the middle. HA!!!!

I also want to have a small table near the door where students pick up handouts, tokens, etc. as they enter.

about quadrants.... students could name their quadrant group.  how to choose who is in a quadrant.... I'll figure that out.

I'm listening to Alan Sitomer talk about Project Based Learning.  oh wow. and he's wearing a beret.

Alan Sitomer about Project Based Learning

I learned the word apodictic this afternoon.

I'm reading Joseph Campbell. I bump into this word: apodictic. I do not recognize the word; I observe the context, and it doesn't lead me to the specific meaning of the word.  I know that dict means word or say or judge/direct. It's the apo part that i don't know. APO.... what word(s) do I know that have that as a prefix?  can't think of any, so I have to go to the dictionary. I used M-W.com . Here's the screen print.

I started thinking about students memorizing and what was worth memorizing. Memorizing should contribute to something more significant than the things memorized. For example, memorizing prefixes should help me know more words than I knew without knowing those prefixes.

I observe that the root dict had no relation to the actual meaning of apodictic. I confess, I am so enamoured of etymologies and roots and prefixes and languages that I sometimes have hypotheses that collapse upon examination. But I have exhilarating mental exercise, no matter what.

Unsurprisingly I conclude that it is worth students' time and effort to learn prefixes. Then how do I assess this learning?  I have been reading and thinking about mastery.  So now I explore that.

Is 80% mastery? and what traditional letter grade should I assign that 80% to? my gut tells me B, with 90% being an A.

But if the material is essential, and I want my students to achieve mastery, then nothing short of that should be "gradeable." C and D will not have a part of this essential* learning.

... which leads me to think about re-testing, re-assessing (with conditions) until mastery. Until my student achieves mastery, I assign no official letter grade. I break the massive quantity of prefixes and roots into 5 sections, roughly one section per grading period. If a student declines to achieve mastery of any one section, the student fails that section and the official letter grade is an F.  At this point, I am thinking of advanced classes. Regular classes have Rev it up, which I am very happy with.

back to Joseph Campbell and things that relate to necessary truth or absolute certainty.


* It's essential because I say it's essential.

Alfie and Doug

I'm reading the available free Kindle sample of Alfie Kohn's Beyond Discipline: From Compliance to Community. I will be buying the book.

First, our blog is officially about our thoughts and experiences with Doug Lemov's Teach like a Champion. Weeks ago on an ed blog (or somewhere on the net) I read Kohn's observation about Champion, that it was about compliance. I won't elaborate now, because that's not my point. I could see Kohn's objection. I am suspicious of anything that leads toward mere compliance-- my own or someone else's.

But I had read enough of Champion to think that isn't what it's about.
Lemov and the teachers he cites are intense about having their students listen, learn, remember, demonstrate learning. Education is a matter of "life or death." In order for this listening, etc. to occur, each student must be giving maximum attention to the class activity.

My sense, what I value in the book, is that it shows me or reinforces ways to increase the probability of my students getting from me what they need, sharing with each other, remembering, being confident... because class activities occur where students are paying attention to the activity. For me that's the value. Last year's classes were ok, but... I'm not pleased to acknowledge that inadequate attention from many students kept the whole class from getting the maximum learning. Frequent (and often useless, stupid) interruptions (bathroom, talking, lead breaking, dress code, lack of materials, someone sneezing.... an endless and unpredictable menu) fragmented momentum and focus.

So what I want and need is to be reinforced that some of what I am doing is on the mark and I want  more options to consider. I'm used to what I do and it's quite effective. But in the flurry of the school year, I seldom have time to cogitate on significant alternate ways of being. I want Doug's and Alfie's help (and Frances's and Dar's and Cynthia's) to get some alternatives well-thought out, and to summon and nurture the inner energy necessary to do differently what I know I already do more than adequately.

sorry if this is vague to a reader. I guess I am writing to get my thinking moving rather than to describe or persuade another.

Back to Lemov and Kohn--

 I am unwilling to accomodate discipline practice that I philosophically disagree with: specifically, discipline practice that is based on the belief that students cannot be trusted, do not care, etc. I don't believe that, and I cannot treat anyone else that way. And I refuse to be be treated that way myself. What Kohn says strengthens my resolve to assert my belief, rather than just give in as I have been doing (with my style used quietly in my class, but not articulated to admin or parents).

still working out my thought on this,
scared to put it out there in case I fail
or give up,
decide it's too much trouble,
the kids won't like it anyway,
on and on ad nauseum,
ad nihil

putting it out there because I really do believe it
that it's worth the effort
that I can do it
that it is what I believe will be best for all directly concerned

and anyone not directly involved doesn't deserve a say.

~ I untied the string ~
Robert Graves "Warning to Children "
Read the complete poem. 

about the comic website

I think it would be cool to have students make summaries, extend or invent stories, conflicts, etc.



I think this could be fun.

http://pixton.com/

comic website

KWL for teachers

for thought:
a-kwl-interlude

“K.W.L.”
by Ms. W, Ms. V, Ms. FB, Mr. K

I know.
I want to know.
I learned.

I know teaching’s hard,
I know the kids are far behind,
I know the challenges I face,
I know it pays to be kind.

I want to change their world,
I want to open their eyes,
I want them to learn how to learn,
to keep their eyes on the prize.

I learned how far I could be pushed,
I learned to hold back tears,
I learned to keep my cool,
I learned to face my fears.

I know I am a champion.
I want to be a champion.
I learned to be a champion.

Alfie Kohn interview

I'm listening for the second time to an interview with Alfie  Kohn.

"Kids don't learn to make decisions by following directions. Kids learn to make decisions by     [wait for it...]   making decisions."

Yup. even bad ones (kids, decisions, either).


more to come as I continue re-listening.
Alfie Kohn interview


You can download the interview as a podcast and listen to it at your convenience in iTunes.

don't read this yet. Please. KWL

http://abcde.teachfor.us/

blog entry about research

I think the whole entry is worthwhile, but this quote is what I want to keep in my face:

School research at the school and classroom level has as many variables as it has students; and our outliers are not research distractions to be dismissed, they are children who must be helped.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/place_at_the_table

Prezi-- about team talk with Vicki

I think we have an embedded Prezi.  Let's see....
a few minutes later....
I checked it. It sort of works.  Click on the Play arrow on the white Prezi window. Then it's best if you move your cursor to the lower right of the white Prezi window, and choose full screen and choose autoplay. (Sometimes the autoplay seems non-automatic. I'm not sure why. When that happens, I just keep clicking on it until it becomes automatic. You can also use the mouse or arrow keys to move through the Prezi.  I've watched it about 10 times now, made some changes (improvements) and I can see how I will do the next one differently.

This is the first one I made, and I really like the possibilities. I am aware the movement on this one tends to induce dizziness.

Please let me know what you think of the whole Prezi thing, not just this particular one.

Retention and tests

Say It With Me Now: Retention!

So, for me, the role of the summative assessment is actually to give me a larger picture of a standard I don’t explicitly grade: Retention.  I give a summative midterm and final in all of my classes, and it’s because I want the kids to know how well they do or don’t retain information. The larger SBG structure is designed to help them prepare, reassess, and otherwise learn to be actual people who think about what they don’t know. These pin-prick summatives are the bit of me that knows I have to get them ready for the testing aspect of college in a meanignful way.
My approach has always been to add the summative scores in as a separately weighted category ancillary to my behemoth category called “Standards.” Most often final grades are composed of 85% Standards, 7.5 % midterm, and 7.5% final.
Why the fractional precentages? I just don’t think it should be possible to get an A without being able to retain more than half of the material in some way. However, knowing the inherently flawed nature of a single-shot assessment, I have left the A- wide open for that kid that wants to work their butt off to get their standard’s scores through the roof.

Am I rewarding responsibility with a grade? Hell Yeah. Am I doing it by grading homework and “participation.” Hell No.

retention entry

so many layers to this job-profession-calling

This has my mind today:

If we lack the language, and therefore the awareness, to right the imbalance between the vocational and the civic, if education in America—despite the heroic efforts of individual teachers—is no longer in the business of producing the kinds of citizens necessary to the survival of a democratic society, it’s in large part because the time-honored civic function of our educational system has been ground up by the ideological mills of both the right and the left into a radioactive paste called values education and declared off-limits. Consider the irony. Worried about indoctrination, we’ve short-circuited argument. Fearful of propaganda, we’ve taken away the only tools that could detect and counter it. “Values” are now the province of the home. And the church. How convenient for the man.

How does one “do” the humanities value-free? How does one teach history, say, without grappling with what that long parade of genius and folly suggests to us? How does one teach literature other than as an invitation, a challenge, a gauntlet—a force fully capable of altering not only what we believe but how we see? The answer is, of course, that one doesn’t. One teaches some toothless, formalized version of these things, careful not to upset anyone, despite the fact that upsetting people is arguably the very purpose of the arts and perhaps of the humanities in general.

Dehumanized

In Teach Like a Champion, the schools cited are said to be places where education is a matter of "life and death."

At our meeting Tues., I said I could understand that stance in some schools, but at our site, that essential aspect eludes me.  However, as I read this article, I think I may find-- authentically-- some of that sine qua non. I'll add some quotes after I read and re-read the article.

poetry, email and responses

something to contemplate doing......

I model– no– I conduct, real-time– our search, over the digital projector: Googling the author’s name, searching the poet’s biographies, looking up websites. We find an email address, pull up my school account, write the email together, and send it, having conversations....

Read the whole blog entry for the full picture.

theline.edublogs.org

how much beauty

This is something I wanted to share with those I admire.

My point is this:

It matters how much beauty you create in the world. Because it sticks. Your actions have consequences. Your products, your services, your companies, your customer service techniques, these things literally raise or lower the aggregate level of happiness in the world with every act and omission.

And it will be remembered.

The code you write today may still be running in 20 or 30 years. How much happiness will it have created? How much frustration?

I beseech you: engineer beauty. Peddle pleasure. Sell happiness. We agree on happiness. We all want happiness.

Why Is Project-Based Learning Important?

Why Is Project-Based Learning Important?


haven't read yet, but I don't want to risk forgetting this. I'll delete it or quote from it later today or tomorrow.

thought for the day

...life is short. Cavort with people you admire.



sunni brown blog

using your mind in the service of others

from another blog Joy is reading:

http://mikerosebooks.blogspot.com/2010/06/to-new-teachers-graduation-speech-you.html

a couple quotes from the blog

Don’t expect things to be reciprocal. Kids will not always respond, will even shun you. But stick with it. Show them that you’re serious and available even when they’re not.

She takes in a room full of kids at a glance to see who needs help, thinks on her feet, knows how to respond to a wrong answer and provides the apt example or comparison to guide a child toward clearer thinking. 

more from the math teacher

from this blog entry    http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=6581

...it's incumbent on human beings to live lives of fascination and to share that fascination with others.

I used to indulge that impulse to share my fascinations pretty frequently-- origami, rubber stamps, photography, etc.  But since the obsession with bell-to-bell instruction and so-called accountability, and fear of seeming not to be teaching my students, I have stopped a lot of that kind of sharing. 

One thing I like about what Mr Meyer writes is that it is so much what my heart and gut tell me, and what we do not hear from any official channels.

There's a lot more I should elaborate on if I want you to understand my thoughts on this topic, but it's Saturday morning and I want to go do something else now.

math and us

I found a new blog to absorb.  It's by a math teacher. I watched his talk on TED

and went to his blog and have been there on and off for about 4 hours.

Here's the post (of many I could choose) that I think is for me now

http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=5781

and an excerpt; for algebra, substitute reading, grammar, literature, composition, spelling, etc.

3. This kind of algebra makes our students dumb, unimaginative, and scared of real problems. At the end of the model lesson, the coach put up our homework, which was a carbon copy of the original problem, new numbers swapped in for the old. ¶ I can't describe my contempt for this arrangement. ¶ This is how we make kids stupid and impatient with irresolution, eager for contrived problems that look just like the last contrived problem, completely lost if we so much as switch around the order of a few words. "We don't teach them problem solving skills anymore," my department head said to me. "We teach them problem types."

Algebra teachers sell students a cheap distortion of the real world while insisting at the same time that it really is the real world. The cognitive dissonance is obvious and terrible. Students know the difference. It cheapens my relationship to them and their relationship to mathematics when you ask me to lie to them.

It's like offering someone lust or manipulation while insisting that it's love. Not only are the short-term consequences devastating but it makes that person distrustful or wary of the real thing. Make no mistake. We are making an alien of algebra. We are doing real damage here.

This kind of thinking will change what I do and how I do it even more.

I'm reading some really good stuff about teaching & thinking a lot.
I wonder if we could meet a few times over the summer-- maybe at Panera's in Tarpon ?
Whoever's in town could come-- no pressure-- just collaboration.
We could talk and spur each other to go farther, go deeper than any one of us might do alone.
I don't want to let our fire die over the summer.
Thoughts?

strategies & the use thereof

I keep thinking of new things I want to write about
things I have been pondering for years.

so here is another entry from me--

Often I think teachers use strategies (are told to use them with lots of ese kiddos), especially behavior strategies to avoid having to deal with an actual individual human being (aka student). E.g., I don't have to look in a student's eyes or try to reach that student where she is right now. I can pull a research-based strategy from my vast repertoire of strategies and use that on her, as if she were an animal I am to train instead of a human being to interact with, to teach and to learn from.

over-simplified, but important in my mind, based on my experience and what I have observed.

I'm not dismissing strategies, just the use of them to avoid the unpredictable and sometimes difficult interaction with another person.

thinking and not thinking

This weekend I have been trying not to think of school


but I can't stop thinking about learning and education.

the job of schools

from an old piece on Bill Ayers's blog

It’s worth asking ourselves what makes education in a democracy distinct.  Of course we want children to study hard, to be responsible, to stay away from drugs, and to be prepared for work.  But those are goals we share with totalitarian regimes, monarchies, dictators and kings.  So what is uniquely characteristic of democratic education?

The founders of American education spoke of forging a common culture and preparing youth for lives of citizenship.  The democratic aspiration was that young people would grow into reflective, critical citizens, capable of work and also self-governance, full participation and free thinking.  The aim of production in a democracy is not the production of things but the production of free human beings, the goal, in W.E.B. DuBois’ phrase, not so much to make carpenters of men, but to make full human beings of carpenters. 

A basic tenet of democracy is that the ultimate authority on any individual’s hurt or desire is that individual himself or herself.  Education in a democracy demands equity, access, and an acknowledgment of the humanity of each person.  The job of schools is to stimulate latent interests, desires, and dreams that cause people to question, to challenge, to criticize, and to act.  Obedience and conformity are the enemies of democracy; initiative and courage are its hallmarks

http://billayers.wordpress.com/2008/02/01/the-education-president/


Good thing the school year is almost over. The sentence in the larger print resonates with me.  I need a lot of serious time for thinking and reflection.

complex

research        heart & gut

We need them both.

about "To Teach"

I've been wandering the web a lot today.

On
http://laughingsquid.com/to-teach-the-journey-in-comics/
I saw a piece about a comic book version of Bill Ayers's book To Teach, the journey. I wondered if that was THE Bill Ayers, the person spoken of as a domestic terrorist. Yes, it was and is.

I had no idea of his views on education; I knew he was a professor but hadn't remembered he was a prof of ed.


I was curious about what he had to say about teaching. I was hooked almost immediately. I ordered the book.
I made a screen shot of one of the pictures from the YouTube video on laughing squid.

I had to have the complete book. This picture is going up on the wall in 7-203. This picture communicates why I am suspicious of education matters that are only research based, things that see only numbers but no human faces.

mastering a skill

continuing the thought from franrod68-- I tried to post a comment, but the blog on which I am an author kept rejecting my comment.   Such audacity and How ironic!

When I was first teaching middle school at Meadowlawn, I assumed the people who made the texts knew what students needed and were capable of. I let that erroneous assumption drive my teaching pace for too long.

Early in my career I started looking into students' eye to see if the kid got it, was about to get it, might get it, or was tuned out. As often as I feel right about it, I use kids' eyes to help me pace.

One of the things I love about our profession is the fresh start we get each year, preceded by several weeks of downtime and re-charging.

s w e e t !!!

Mastering a skill

While reading "Teach Like a Champion", I was reminded that I need to spend more time working a skills and going over material until I'm sure everyone has mastered it. I find myself rushing through material, because I have a time frame in my lesson plans, and not slowing down to see if my students truly understand the material. I know that quite a few do learn in my sometimes frenzied pace, but now I'm feeling guilty about those handful of students who are left in the dust!

I have started to rethink ways of making sure I repeat skills I've taught and am in the process of teaching. I actually have been putting it to action with bellwork that reintroduces concepts we learned early on in the year.

I like the metaphor the book uses of a student going to bat and practicing until they hit the ball. That really resonated with me.

I/we/you

I use this all the time. But I have probably never explained it to students. It's so obviously beneficial to me that I cannot imagine it's not equally obvious to them. But experience indicates they are clueless about how I teach using this structure.

So a near-term experiment is to be explicit about what I am doing and what students should do and get when I use this structure.


down-side-- this structure requires students to give attention to me. So often this year, and increasingly as the year gets closer to its end, I sense many students simply putting in time, thinking they are doing me a huge favor by just sitting and not causing problems. Sensing this is toxic to the spirit of my interaction; I never know how or if I'll be able to get through the cloud to connect with the other hearts and minds in the room.  also I just looked yesterday at the overall results of the three FAIR tests. I am devastated by how many students went down over the course of their year with me. If I am effective, I don't seem to be effective in what FAIR measures. so now what???

quote-- complexities of learning and teaching

from Making Connections, p. 11  Renatta Caine, Geoffrey Caine, 1991

"Unfortunately many teachers who are aware of the complexities of learning and teaching have been intimidated into ignoring what they know. They have had to fight both a factory model that places a premium on low-quality output and a research model that implies that their observations of what actually happens are invalid. It takes a strong personality and enormous conviction to ignore such pressures."

Jing

http://www.screencast.com/users/joylowell/folders/Jing/media/f734fa01-bbed-4fc1-8131-2ec4b07064ea

online video -- unfortunately our school system does not allow access to Jing.

but I wanted to get it on record on our blog.

Champion

My favorite line from today's reading is on p.54. "There's a special pleasure in exploding expectations." In addition our authors says, "Kids respond to challenges"
My new quest is to challenge myself to say in each class period one alternative to apologizing, which I feel I don't do now, but I love his lines. "When you're in college, (or reading class next year or in high school) you can show off how much you know about.....
I also found my opening line for Monday mornings parent conference.....way to go Doug

planning sequence

Reading Champions about planning p. 58
"plan a unit"
Use the SSS
How do I get a unit from those?
I realize the answer to that question has eluded me since I became aware of it.
Today did lots of good mid- range stuff
But did not get to long-range stuff.

failure and JK Rowling

JK Rowling 's commencement speech at Harvard-- should be required listening.

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

what about intelligence?

Alert: highly idiosyncratic stream of consciousness post


I webbed to a reference to

The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong by David Shenk

http://tinyurl.com/2bkytgy

I'm thinking about this quote from the author interview on Amazon:

"Find the thing you love to do, and work and work and work at it. Don't be discouraged by failure; realize that high achievers thrive on failure as a motivating mechanism and an instruction guide on how to get better."

.... the alleged interest in the County that we teachers engage our own passion.... how to incorporate students' passions in the curriculum


What if my intellectual passion (professionally speaking) does not align to the SSS or the GLE?


Where was this concept when I was trapped in the PCS system?  My perception: you don't get it the way we give it? You fail.     Next!






TBE

Find a way to record all "stories" read
TBE

Dialog about grades

What does an A mean in your class?

It no longer means excellence. Several years ago, the county removed that designation from letter grades. I don't recall any announcement, much less discussion about that.

I think it is a significant act, and I think it signaled a change in administrative attitude about grades, but I don't think anyone told the teachers or parents or students or any "stakeholders." And more importantly, I don't think the meaning of grades, except as passing or failing, is clear or remotely consistent from teacher to teacher.

Your thoughts?

idea for end of year project

rough draft thinking

Pick a character from any piece you have encountered this school year.You need another character from a different piece, either by working with one other person or simply by picking another character and doing the assignment by yourself.

The characters meet and communicate.

required elements:
reference to setting, other characters, events in the literature
main conflicts of each character
venn or similar diagram for the two character which includes details from their literature and appropriate imaginary features

presentation:
video
skit
web site
powerpoint
what else can students think of?

the thought or the correct English?

I'm sitting here in FAIR testing grading 3 Rev 6 sentences (per student) from students' quizzes on "A Mason Dixon Memory."

Some sentences are good. Some are very good. Some are depressingly bad.
bad = no capitals, no periods, illiterate grammar and/or usage

The criteria were:
1) use the word with its correct meaning
2) connect the word to "A Mason Dixon Memory"

Here's why I'm writing this-- next year with some goals of having student's habitually write (and compose) literate sentences
  Start the three sentence thing early in the year (next year I'll be starting Rev in Aug, not in Jan as I did this year)   and track  * meaning     *mechanics     *usage     *elaboration


TBE

Posting from my mobile device

champs are we

This is a post just to get a post. I'll return and edit so it says what I mean.


The technique I have been most aware of is Stand Square.

It has been different making myself stand still every time I want students to attend to my words. But I am pretty confident I detect some increased focus from them.