It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. I’ve had a lot on my plate this week, things which I can’t really talk about here (nothing bad, I promise!). What I can say that is I’ve been swamped with work– teaching work, consulting work and tech work. I don’t have much to say and yet, I have so much to say which will end up on my personal blog (sorry!). I’ll be AWOL for awhile, so go read some of the other fabulous blogs out there like:
Mildy Melancholy
Ogretmen
The Reflective Teacher
Have fun and don’t be offended if I didn’t put your blog on the list… It’s just the three that post most regularly, and therefore that I read most regularly.
For all my middle school teacher-friends out there:
For Teachers, Middle School is a Test of Wills
Despite being a total technophile, nifty classroom electronics like interactive "clickers" still make me incredulous (Where was this stuff when I was a kid!?). My co-teacher purchased clickers from a company called Interwrite PRS. It allows us to create interactive content or activities. Students input their answers on the clickers, a computer records all the responses and tallies up the score or grade. Above, you see a little review quiz we made for Anthem, by Ayn Rand. We had just finished reading the book and we were testing their memory and comprehension. Each question is timed, and when time runs out, a little chart pops up that shows the correct answer, as well as what percentage of students inputted what response, before moving on to the next question. We’re in the early stages of using this technology and my hope is that we will find deeper, more significant uses for this interactivity.
There’s a teacher-blogger meet up tonight, Saturday, at 6pm. Come to Common Ground before 7pm to take advantage of fabulous happy hour specials. You don’t have to be a blogger to join us and feel free to bring your teacher friends!
Click below for more information about the bar and for directions:
Common Ground on Yelp
I came home today to packages from Amazon.com. Behold:
Remember the Professional Writer’s Retreat that I’m participating in with NYCWP? I’m working on a piece about teaching AP English with inner-city students. One of the observations I’ve made is that my students lack cultural knowledge or literacy, which begs the questions: What exactly is cultural knowledge?, and how do I measure it? I didn’t really know where to begin so I googled the phrase “cultural knowledge” and somehow was lead to E.D. Hirsch. On the back blurb of Cultural Literacy, it says, “They lack cultural literacy: a grasp of background information that writers and speakers assume their audience already has.” Really, I could not have said it better. For whatever reason, I couldn’t articulate this, figure out exactly how to explain why cultural literacy is so crucial, especially in an AP English course. I feel like I’ve won half the battle in my struggle with this piece. Now, I’m hoping I’ll actually have something written the next time I meet with the retreat participants, which is next month, when we go away for the weekend to New Jersey.
Our School, by Joanne Jacobs has been released in paperbook. You can buy it on Amazon.com, or at your local bookstore, most likely. I read this book when it first came out and I enjoyed it, though it requires a healthy appreciation for the fact that the people chronicled in this book are very special and motivated people. After all, making dreams come true is HARD work. Don’t we know it?
I am really enjoying the exchange between Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch. I have three of Ravitch’s books on my shelf (Left Back, The Great School Wars and The Language Police) but I’ve yet to read Meier’s The Power of Their Ideas, though I have it on my mental list of education books to read.
The conversation happening on this blog is a great model for my students, I think and I hope to share it with them.
Link: Bridging Differences.
