So, how does this school really work?

After yesterday’s discussion about the Caste system in school, I whipped up a little handout to help the kids get their ideas flowing and in order about how the actual Caste systems that work in our schools.
Click the image below to download the handout, or click here to see the big picture.
See, the [...]

The Summer Session begins

You’ll notice a new header at the top of the page;something to reflect the new direction I’ll take with the summer school classes I’ll teach this summer. Don’t know how I got suckered into teaching the summer session at school, but I’m glad I did — I’ll be working with three other teachers in [...]

Just a reminder…

Please take some time to explore the collaboration between my students and Dana Huff’s students all the way across the country. The main focus of the project was to create living histories in remembrance of the Holocaust, and to explore the similar roots all cultures share.
Visit us over at Never Forget

Never Forget

My students spent quite a bit of this semester learning about the Holocaust, and their research took them to real stories of real Holocaust survivors. In addition to watching video, exploring websites, reading plays and other documents of these events, the students delved into some pretty thorough research in an effort to make sense [...]

Time to start thinking about the future

Even though there’s still a month left in school, I feel myself getting giddy about what’s going to happen next year; I hear it from other teachers, as well — the excitement comes out in their voices when they talk about what they’ll do next year. Guess that’s one of the greatest things about [...]

When the Punishment is Better than the Original Plan

Just before spring break I told one of my classes to throw all of their work in the garbage — everything we’ve been doing in service to a website and cross-country project with Dana Huff.
This is the first time I’ve linked to the site, and I think it’s the right time because the site is [...]

The Imaginary Classroom: Part Two

My responses to all the comments and questions on the original post The Imaginary Classroom got a litle long, and ended up as this post. My initial post was a little too vague, and needed some more specific examples of what I’d like to see in this imaginary classroom.
I think the overall scope of [...]

Frustration Level: Maximum

The other day I saw a post by mrc (at his blog, understanding) entitled: “Trivial Annoyances Add Up”, and I had to leave a comment because I’ve been having the same feelings lately. It’s a short post, and I suggest you check it out, but I will share this snippet that had me nodding [...]

Last Year vs. This Year — how and why to do research

Part of keeping this blog is so that I can revisit some of the work I’ve asked my prior students to write their research paper in the narrative form. I wanted to read what they’d learned in a story version where they led from introductory materials toward the climax of their story. I [...]

A Turtle Would Die Drinking Alcohol

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the The Machinery of MLA — how we teach it, how best to teach it, and arguably the most difficult part to get across to the students: how to explain why we teach it.
The other day in class I asked a student (a very bright young girl) to [...]