Weekly Participation - English Companion Ning

I mentioned the English Companion Ning in my gospel insight presentation. This is a social networking site I have already found to be useful in getting ideas for teaching. There are currently 12,438 members from all over the country (and probably the world, too!) There are several groups, which are basically more focused dicsussion forums. Some example are "Teaching Texts," "Adolescent Literature," and "New Teachers." Another neat feature of this site are the monthly book clubs. Each month the ning features a particular professional book and the author hosts discussions. A popular book in English Teaching classes lately is Kelly Gallagher's Readicide. This book was featured in May and members can look back through the archives. I enjoyed reading this book and looking through the discussion was a great way to go deeper into the ideas I had read about.

Competition Proposal

My teammates, Rachel and Becky, did a great job introducing our idea on their blogs. The description of the literacy challenge posted on the competition website says:

You are a 5th grade teacher preparing students to take a state-administered writing test. Your students will be required to plan and write a persuasive essay in response to a prompt provided to them. They will be required to compose their essay on the computer. Prepare a teaching sequence to help your students, focused on the genre of persuasive writing and the use of accurate mechanics.

We have decided to scale the assignment up just a little bit to seventh grade. We have considered using two technologies--Diigo and MindMeister--to help students interactively examine models of persuasive writing and practice drafting their own essays.

Class Website

Here is a link to my class website!

Weekly Participation - EBAY!

So, my husband cracked up this week when I told him, "I just discovered the greatest thing--ebay!" Of course, I already knew about ebay. But, what I didn't know was that you can get amazing deals on books if you buy them in bulk. If you are looking for one specific book it's not so great because you pretty much have to pay at least $3 shipping on everything. However, if you are just trying to accumulate a lot of books in a hurry (like me) you can find some great deals. For example, I got a set of 80 Newbery books for $40 + $16.42 shipping. $56.42 seems like a lot up front, but I think 70 cents for a Newbery book is a pretty sweet deal. I also got another lot of 100 miscellaneous middle grade books for $40.36 total (40 cents each). The only problem now is where I am going to find a place to store all of these lovely books until I get my own classroom! Also, there is the problem of getting a little too carried away in the excitement of bidding for awesome collections. I think it's now time for a little ebay detox... but it was sure fun while it lasted. :)

Weekly Participation - The end of paperbacks?

As usual, Apple's latest gadget (in this case, the "ipad") is getting lots of press coverage and hype. We have discussed it a little bit in this class as well. Personally, I'm not so sure how I feel about books moving digital. Sure, it was love at first sight with my ipod (I have included photographic proof) -- but I have always enjoyed flipping through the concrete, physical pages of a book. At the same time, I can see some intriguing possibilities with this and other similar devices, such as the Kindle. It would definitely save me some back problems to just have one sleek screen to carry in my backpack instead of 60 pounds of textbooks. I think at this point I am still in wait and see mode...