Category: Uncategorized

They’re breaking teachers

A friend of mine has been crying a lot recently.
After more than a decade and a half in the classroom, my friend has been labeled unsatisfactory.
You may have heard about the schools my friend works for. Oprah loves ’em. Turns out the federal government loves ’em to. I’d be willing to venture neither Oprah nor Sec. Duncan would want to learn there, but they’re fine enough for other people’s children.
About a month into the school year, my friend had her first formal observation the other day.
We talked before. She was nervous.
Seems a rating of unsatisfactory could come as a result of not keeping her lesson within the timing framework of 10 minutes of introduction, 20 minutes of whole group instruction and 15 minutes of practice. This friend who guided and mentored me when I entered the classroom 8 years ago – this master teacher who has shaped thousands of lives – has been reduced to cookie-cutter teaching.
It is breaking her.
As it turned out, the timing of her lesson was not the point of contention. Content was the problem.
Her lesson introduced her learners to a key component of her subject area.
Without a mastery of this element of content, her learners would flounder in their further studies. Truly. In the list of basic things you need to know about the content of her course, this little tidbit sits near, if not at, the top.
My friend’s evaluator didn’t see it that way.
You see, this particular content is only featured in two of the questions on the quarterly benchmark tests her learners will be completing. And, they’re only comprehension-level questions.
The lesson should have been a mini-lesson, my friend was told.
Also, she should have waited for the learner who walked in tardy to the class to present her demerit card rather than moving on with the lesson and dealing with the issue when time permitted.
My friend – this resource, this veteran of the classroom who loves children and learning and igniting children’s curiosity and passion for learning – is being broken.
Something she loves is being molded into a pretty but deeply fractured system of homogeneity.
Other than these words, I’m uncertain what to do to help my friend. As the nation looks admiringly on, I can’t help but imagine others like her around her country who are finding themselves broken by the system.

I don’t teach in the 17th century

I don’t teach in the 17th century.

More pointedly, I don’t teach in a 17th century school. I never have.

About a week ago, this quotation from Don Tapscott got tweeted out from a webinar he was doing with Discovery Education Network:

We have the very best schools that 17th century tech can deliver.

Granted, I’m not aware of the context of the quotation.

But, that’s twitter – providing context-free snippets since 2007.

I’d really appreciate it if Tapscott would not say things like this. If he said more, I’d really appreciate it if other people didn’t push out pieces of thoughts.

It’s not that I don’t see the value in making generalizations about all members of a group. When has that ever gone wrong?

Science Leadership Academy is well beyond 17th-century tech.

Phoenix Academy, my previous school, was well beyond 17th-century tech.

Sarasota Middle School, my very first school, was well beyond 17th-century tech.

The counterargument is simple:

These three schools do not represent the norm.

I can’t agree with that. I’ve seen many schools across the country creating amazing content owned by learners.

Look at the work Karl is doing at Arapahoe High School is doing.

Look at the thinking Bud is doing at St. Vrain Valley School District is doing.

Look at the creating Ben is doing.

Look at the connecting Monika is doing.

Look at the pushing Dan is doing.

Look at the teaching Diana is doing.

So long as we continue to say our schools are failing, we’ll never notice success. The statement of failure is generally wrapped around the metric of standardized test scores. While they provide a snapshot of ability, I think we’re all on board the train of thought that recognizes they don’t provide a complete understanding of learners’ understandings and abilities.

Stop asking what’s wrong. Start asking what’s right.

My follow-up question is this. How much tech does it take to push a school into the post-modern age?

Don’t worry about answering, I’ve done some figuring. The official answer:

Three netbooks, one digital projector and a class set of T1-83s.

Aside from avoiding generalizations, we should, perhaps, start to move our thinking to the globalized approach folks have been hoping their kids would adopt.

It might give some perspective.

Schools without electricity in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa are operating without any tech to speak of because the ups and downs of a generator would likely damage any equipment in which they invested.

Schools on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya have graveyards of second-hand monitors donated by well-meaning businesses. The monitors don’t work, and the schools can’t afford to have them properly disposed of.

When Tapscott makes this assertion, and again, I don’t have context, and others re-tweet, perhaps a little humility and perspective are in order.

We’re on the way to building amazing temples of ideas across the world. The teachers mentioned above and countless others I’ve met are working to make learning what it can be. More to the point, they’re meeting with tremendous success.

They’re doing it without racing anywhere.

Those schools without electricity in South Africa, they’re about to harness the power of mobile technologies.

Those schools with the monitor graveyard in Kenya, turns out you only need a handful of working computers to connect to the world.

I’m not certain I’m teaching to the full extent of what 21st-century tech can deliver – 2099 is a fair piece away – but I’m doing alright. So are a lot of others – today.

Hi, you’re doing it wrong: Chat/Discussion

As I’ve explained, I started my master’s program a few weeks ago. Through an online program, I’ll have a Master’s of Teaching and Learning in Curriculum and Instruction in 14 months. It’s my first time in an all-online learning environment. They’re doing it wrong.

As I’ve mentioned, my course requires participation in three online chats throughout its 8-week run. I missed the first chat as I was in a tiny town in a small town outside East London in Eastern Cape, South Africa, and the Internet was spotty.

Wednesday, I returned to the States.

Wednesday, our second chat was scheduled.

After two days of travel involving 3 continents, I had my sister pull over on the drive from O’Hare back down to Springfield, IL and I signed on sitting in supremely busy McDonald’s of Pontiac, IL. (If you don’t think there’s a global information divide, compare that last sentence to this situation and get back to me.)

No matter the free Internet juice my MacBook was sucking down, it just couldn’t talk to the chat room.
As had happened during my first go, I’d log in to the WebCT chat room, one person would send a line of dialogue and the infinite pinwheel of death would appear.

This happened across Firefox, Flock and Chrome.

After 30 minutes of trying, I e-mailed “Education Specialist” to say I wouldn’t be making it to the night’s chat.

Here’s what happens if you miss a chat:

After missing the last chat, I opted for the second choice. I’d intended to go with the first option, but the transcript never got posted. I inquired about it on the discussion board. But, as I’ve now learned, “Education Specialist” doesn’t so much use the discussion board.

I in my e-mail explaining my absence from Chat 2, I said I’d keep an eye out for the transcript. Subtle, I know.

Chat 2’s questions for discussion were:

Some potentially beefy material.

Before I read the transcript, I checked back to see what the requirements for participation were…non-existent.

On the other hand, I found this:

While no set requirements for participation exist, we are to write a synopsis of what we’ve learned in the chat and copy and paste it to our “Chat Log” along with our compiled responses to the weekly discussion forum.
I’m a bit worried that option 4 here runs in contrast with option 2 for those who missed the chat. Seems even if I opt for option 2, I’ll still need to include option 4 which is the same as option 1 above.

Here’s where I’d normally make the argument for putting all information in the same place, but I don’t have it in me right now.

Baffled, I’ve turned to the transcript.

Here’s how the discussion began:

The response to that one was kind of ugly.

The answers, by the way, Active Learning and Classroom Management. The first one makes me chuckle every time.

Then “Education Specialist” said:


But not everyone had finished typing the first strands, so it was a mix of strands  in what was an actual request to repeat specific information back to the instructor.

In the middle of it all, someone asked a question about an upcoming assignment and received the reply:

Burn.

It was difficult to read the rest of the transcript. “Education Specialist” would yell each successive pre-announced question and my peers would type their responses back to “Education Specialist.”

Here’s the only feedback I could find:

Warms the cockles, no?

Forty-seven minutes in, and it was over.

Kaput.

In this course, we’ve read (or were assigned to read) multiple chapters about making learning active, moving from a teacher-centered approach, making learning authentic and multiple modalities.

Then, in one of the 3 times we’re all in the same “room,” it’s straight-forward teacher-centered call and response. Desperate for any actual evidence of, you know, chat, I took a tally.

In the discussion that took place before “Education Specialist” left the room, peers responded directly to one another a total of 5 times. Those responses were generally along the lines of “I have used that tool and find it very helpful as well in the math classroom.”

Hardly the free, open and democratic exchange of ideas I work to facilitate in my classroom.

Chat can and should be a much more powerful tool for facilitating learning from varied geographic areas.

Election Night 2008, I sat in Chris’ living room with my laptop, logged in to a moodle chat room open to all SLA learners for discussion of the history that was being made. People were throwing out commentary, questions, answers, tips for the channel with the best coverage. When it got down to the wire, a rich conversation started about how some news outlets were calling the election whilst others were not.

No pre-fab discussion questions were needed. Something interesting to talk about and learn from was happening and so we got together to explore it.

This week, seasoned educators from around the country were asked “What techniques do you utilize to manage classroom behavior?” and 3 people responded with 10 lines of text.

Every second of the 47 minutes that chat was being facilitated could and should have been dedicated to just that question. Teachers from multiple disciplines talking about what they do to set and maintain the climate of their classrooms, and we spent maybe 5 minutes.

This isn’t active learning. This isn’t inquiry. This isn’t constructivist. This isn’t, well, it just isn’t.
“HOW DO YOU INCORPORATE THE THEORIES OF VYGOTSKI, PIAGET, DEWEY, ERIKSON AND OTHE THEORISTS INTO YOUR CLASSROOM[?]”

Better than this.

Hi, you’re doing it wrong.

Finally, no one cares what I think

The Gist:

  • Presentations of classwork usually end up with me being talked at and 30 disinterested teenagers trying to hang on.
  • Giving the students “evaluations” to fill out generally smells of busywork.
  • By putting approval power in the hands of my students, I’ve seen a complete turnaround in how work is being presented in class.

The Whole Story:

When we talk about authentic learning in the classroom, we usually mean almost-authentic learning in the classroom. When we talk about giving our students authentic audiences for their work, we usually mean finding places for their work to live should the right audience happen by. I’ve done this before and likely will do this again. Sometimes, it’s all I can manage.

With the CtW project this year, I’m trying something new. Though I’m calling this Phase II, it’s really Phase III or IV. First, students individually researched problems/issues in which they were interested. Then, I broke them into affinity groups based on similarities of their respective issues. Then, I told them to compare what they understood as the causes of their problems and find one element common to all of their issues where they could apply singular pressure as a cooperative unit to affect change across issues.

We’re in it now.

Friday, the groups started pitching their ideas to their classmates. That sentence makes it sound like traditional group presentations – the kind I worked for about 30 seconds to stay focused on as a student.

I hated those moments.

Instead, each group’s progression to their next phase depends on garnering unanimous approval from their classmates. When I ask if they’ve gotten to a point at which we as a community are ready to set them loose as representatives of our class and our school, every hand must go up.

Thus far, two groups have presented. Neither has made it through the gauntlet. The work they’ve presented thus far has been some of the highest quality, most inclusive of any group presentations I’ve seen. They know what they’re talking about, they care about what they’re proposing and they know their audience matters. Still, I’ve agreed with both votes. It’s not quite where it could be. I agree with what they’re saying.

While they’re presenting, no one talks to me. Even better, the audience is talking back.

During Q&A after the presentations, I have to wait to be called upon. That never happens.

The groups know my vote doesn’t matter. In fact, I don’t get a vote.

The audience knows they have a say in what they’re seeing and they’re reading the presentations as texts to be questioned and challenged.

When a group presents a 2-minute PSA about the dangers and effects of inhumane acts, the class doesn’t give them a bye because their video was good but their plan for implementation of their ideas was shoddy. They know the bells and whistles and they don’t care.

After each vote, the class heads to a Google Form where they rate the groups’ effectiveness at meeting expectations for the presentations across SLA’s benchmark rubric categories.

At the end, the students must answer the question, “What suggestions do you have for improving the pitch? What questions are still lingering in your mind?”

Most of the time we talk about authentic learning and giving our kids an audience, we’re ignoring the authenticity and audience within our own classrooms. We’re so interested in giving them new places to be listened to, we don’t ask them to listen to each other – we don’t give them reasons to. That’s important.

After typing up my comments, I send them via e-mail to each group along with the link to the sheet of a Google Spreadsheet with all of their peers’ feedback.

They’ll be using the feedback to improve their presentations and gear up for round two.

Admittedly, I’m watching the unanimity idea closely. I’m fairly certain the class will recognize when a presentation has proven it’s muster, but I’m paying attention just in case.

To my mind, this process stands somewhere between the peer editing I’ve seen in Writers’ Workshops and peer review in the submission of scholarly work.

Most importantly, I’m far from the most important person in the room when the kids are talking and holding one another accountable.

via Hoffman

Tom Hoffman posts this from Caroline Grannan:

Well, I have a proposal. Those 93 teachers, support staff and administrators should get together, pull the necessary strings (which are in their reach right now while the story is hot), and request a meeting with the president – all 93 of them. If Obama could have a beer with Henry Louis Gates and that cop whose name I’ve now forgotten, surely he’s willing to spend a little time hearing the viewpoint of 93 people whom he has essentially attacked sight unseen. While it would be hospitable for him to invite them to the White House, it would be a lot classier for him to have a soothing spot of tea catered in at Central Falls High School. (And he desperately needs to show a little class right now; his supply is perilously low.) I’m sure the cafeteria has enough room to seat the Central Falls 93, Obama and his entourage.

Technically, in this comparison, isn’t President Obama the cop? Maybe the UN should have them over.

Cardboard Boxes for Everyone!

The Gist:

  • Thought and Idea are different things.
  • We encourage both in the classroom.
  • I’m not sure which I privilege more.
  • I’m not sure which I should.

The Whole Story:

Disclaimer: My line of thinking here is protean. Ideally, I’d play with it as a comment somewhere first. As I haven’t run into such a post yet, I’m diving in.

I spent much more time than I thought I would in the last post trying to parse out what I meant or needed from differentiating thought and idea. I think I got there. The final point was where I was headed. And, hey, who doesn’t like finishing writing and finding they’ve called their colleagues hypocrites?

Let me first turn to my own hypocrisy before I start talking practice. I wasn’t playing for a while there. It’s a shame really, because Mrs. Cavitt made a point in kindergarten of stating I play well with others . Right now, my play is commenting. I figure if the minds I admire are bringing their toys to the table, I might as well play. Down the road, we’ll see what ideas spring from it. For now, I’m making time to play.

As for my classroom:

I’d be hard pressed to find a day when I don’t directly ask my students to think. I’d be hard pressed to find a day when I don’t directly ask my students to come up with ideas. I do these things as a matter of habit. I’d imagine any teacher does.

But, do I mean it?

When I ask a student to think, I think I do mean it. I want them looking for patterns, connections, variables, ideas. I want them thinking. The world needs them thinking. When they watch television, I want them thinking. When they’re at the movies, walking down the street, riding the trolley – I want them thinking. I want them to think as often as possible. When I ask it, I mean it.

My aims with ideas are squishier. I ask for ideas. “What ideas do you have?” I’ll ask. Some days, ideas are in season and falling from the sky. Some days, not.

When the ideas don’t come, what do I do? Usually, I talk. Sometimes, it’s a statement. Sometimes, it’s a question. Rarely, is it anything that looks like asking them to play with their thoughts until ideas happen.

What message is this sending? Honestly.

If I’m asking for ideas and they don’t come, shouldn’t I be asking them to play?

“Teaching them to think,” pops up more likely than I’d like in my reading online. Aside from being asininely presumptuous, it sounds dangerous. They know how to think. Sure, maybe some of my students don’t think as deeply or complexly as I’d hope for them, but they’re thinking. I don’t need to teach them to think, I need to give them space to think. I need them to have space to play with thoughts, put them together and make ideas.

I don’t know that I let that happen as much as I’d like. The feeling that they could do that much more if I made sure they had this tool or experience with this line of thinking leads me down the path of profering too much.

I end up the parent whose child has 1 million toys but is sitting playing with the cardboard box in which the last toy arrived.

The project my G11 students are working on now has taken a turn toward play. I’m working on making the necessary adjustments for my G12 kids.

I should be privileging ideas as much as I’m privileging thinking.

A Humbling Moment

The Whole Story:

This semester has afforded me the opportunity to teach a class I’ve always wanted to teach – Storytelling. Thus far, we’re still fumbling with the ideas of what makes a story and what stories tell us about who we are. We’re playing directly and academically with those ideas every day we meet.

Except one.

Each Tuesday is story slam day. A blend of the stylings of The Moth and Philadelphia’s own First Person Arts’ story slams, the slams in class have some simple rules:

Five storytellers are randomly selected for each slam.

Their stories must be inspired by the week’s theme.

The stories must be true.

No memorization / scripts.

After each story, three randomly selected audience judges score the storyteller on content and presentation on a scale of 1-10. All the SLAms are here and here.

The room is re-arranged and coffee and tea are served.

In general, it’s a light-hearted, informal experience.

This Tuesday, though, proved one of the most profound and humbling experiences I’ve had in a classroom from my first days in Kindergarten.

The theme was “Giving Up,” and Lewam took the stage.

(audio not available in feed readers)

I’ve been working to process the story from the moment she told it.

Here’s where my mind stands. I’m at once incredibly sad and incredibly proud.

No matter how much I’ve tried or organized or listened or worked, a student in my charge felt pain within my room and within my walls.

In talking to Chris about it, he gave me the words I think I needed. Pieces of what we do will always be invisible. Pieces of our students’ lives will always be invisible. Unless we want to suit up with full-on, both-end-of-candle-burning messiah complexes, we will never see all of the invisible pieces of each child’s life. I’m not so dense as to be ignorant of this fact.

When the fact stands at a microphone in front of 30 of its peers and pronounces itself, though, the effect is markedly different. It is strikingly visible.

She stood in front of the room and said that, to her, the care and culture and collaboration had, for much of her time, failed her.

So, what do stories tell us about ourselves?

What does this moment mean?

It is complex.

When her name was called, she did not hesitate to take the mic. She did not attempt to negotiate to tell her story later or go last. She spoke truth to the power of community because the community told her it was ok.

What do we do with that?

That is, of course, rhetorical. We must honor it. To maintain integrity, we honor it.

Ego is pushed aside, and the community must reflect.

She found her voice, but felt we did not honor it. I am saddened by this and feel I did the best I could by her. It would be easy to go to “My best wasn’t good enough.” Instead, I’m drawn to the idea that my best should have been different. I’m not the only player here. Her classmates, the faculty, Lewam – they’ve all played their parts. My part is to be responsible for what I do and what I can influence. For sure, I’ll be asking Lewam for advice for the future. I’ve already told her her words impacted me more than most anything I’ve experienced in the classroom.

The Gist:

Lewam likely couldn’t have told this story last year or the year before.

She told it though.

And the room listened.

The applause you hear were the longest and most sincere of any slam we’ve put on. Even the kids who tune out or make cute jibes were silent. They saw her, they connected.

Not altogether surprisingly, she received straight 10s from each judge.

Something sits and works at my brain. What do I do with the fact that her story points to the community’s failure, but her telling of the story leads me to believe the community had something to do with helping her find her voice?

What do stories tell us about who we are?

More Tenacious than the Gentleman from Indiana

The Gist:

  • Something happened in class today that surprised me.
  • Students chose to work together.
  • They had an out I probably would have availed myself of, but they didn’t take it.

The Whole Story:

By all accounts, they shouldn’t have done it.

Just the same, 8 students sat in a group in my first period class today and worked on a seemingly insolvable problem.

For the last six weeks or so of class, my students have been researching problems or issues in the world that they thought deserved attention. Nothing was off the board. In fact, the whole thing started by putting every problem they could think of on the board in my classroom with no filter for ideas that might otherwise have gotten at least a jeer or two.

For six weeks they’ve been working largely independently to understand these problems. They’ve been asking questions, mining information and putting it here and here on their class blogs.

The whole thing’s led to some difficult conversations about what happens when you begin to lose interest in something you care about, what to do when you feel like you’ve been scratching at the surface so long  you’re out of fingernails and other such problems.

It’s been an interesting stretch of learning how to write in a new medium and research in mediums old and new.

Last week, we moved to Phase II. Each student was required to prepare a fact sheet on his or her individual problem. I almost told them what a fact sheet was and how it could be formatted, then I remembered the Interwebs exists and let them figure it out on their own.

Following the fact sheets, they were given a solution organizer asking them to track causes, effects, solutions, main players, etc.

Their research fed the fact sheets which fed the solution organizers.

Today, things got a little more interesting, they got their solution groups.

After polling everyone on their topics, I went through and assigned groups based on perceived commonalities. In today’s class, this meant:

  • Inhumane Acts
  • Health
  • Violence
  • Climate
  • Social Issues

After they’d seen their groups, I told the students I realized my impression may not be the correct one and I was open to rearrangements. In particular, I sat waiting for the Social Issues group. With eight members, it’s the largest group in the class and contains the topics:

  • animal abuse
  • abortion
  • stem cells
  • natural disaster response
  • poverty
  • overpopulation
  • education

As the name implies, the Solution Groups are charged with looking at the commonalities of their problems and identifying where strategic additional pressure would lead to a shared improvement in the identified area of need. Solve many problems with one action, rather than asking people to do many things to solve many problems.

Ten minutes in, Social Issues was still talking things out. I went over to check in, “You know, if you think this group needs to divide into smaller groups with more commonalities, I’m cool with that.”

“No,” said they, “We’re working on it.”

And they were. It was weird.

Look back up at that list, I certainly have. I cannot conceive an application of pressure that would catalyze solutions to all of those issues.

Still, I’ve a group of students who will be coming back tomorrow to give it another go.

Tonight, they’re looking at this article and each member is drafting three possible group goals that match the criteria.

It’s as though no one told them they couldn’t do it.

You won’t hear it from me.

We might not be friends

The Gist:

  • 1,867 people accounts are connected to me through Buzz, ‘Book, chat and Twitter.
  • I don’t know 1,867 people.
  • Even accounting for 40 percent overlap, I don’t know 1,120.2 people.
  • We might not be friends.

The Whole Story:

Between the killing of time at the Denver International Airport and turning on my phone upon landing safely in Philadelphia last night, I inadvertently direct messaged a few hundred people the promise I could help them “get bigger and have sex longer.”

In the three hours I was in the air, 4 people direct messaged and 15 people replied to me on twitter to alert me to the promises I’d made and suggested perhaps I’d been hacked.

I changed my password and tweeted out a clarification.

Then, I went to my sent direct messages to see who I’d accidentally spammed. After 7 pages, I stopped deleting the messages.
That little episode and a conversation I had with Ben got me thinking.

I did the math. All told, I’m connected to 1,867 accounts through buzz, twitter, Facebook, twitter and chat. Allowing for 40 percent overlap, I’m still connected to 1,120.2 people. I don’t know that many people.

I don’t think I would want to know that many people.

The popularity contest of it all is a little ridiculous as well. What do I think is going to happen if I hit 1,000 followers on twitter? I’m not completely certain, but I know it’ll mean I no longer will be shackled by mortal foibles.

I could be wrong.

Chris has 3,970 followers. I mean, he’s a happy guy, but I don’t think he’s reached Nirvana. The White House is followed by 1,709,139 and that job’s not exactly looking like a walk in the park.

The thing is, I talk on a regular basis with 2 people with whom I attended high school and 3 people with whom I attended college. Maybe 20 people make up the cadre to which I turn for professional and personal support. Throw in the accounts of about 5 neophyte family members. That leads me to 30 accounts. Who are the other 1,827 people accounts?

More to the point, am I a better person / teacher for being connected to them?

As reciprocity’s been big in my mind as of late, are they better for being connected to me?

Or, are we just connected because it’s easy?

New Old Reading (and it’s working)

The Gist:

  • I’ve been frustrated for years with trying to force books on kids.
  • This Fall I got an indirect nod to try something new.
  • My kids are reading whatever they like.
  • It has changed reading in my classroom.

The Whole Story:

I taught Cam when he was in 9th grade.

Cam is a story you’ve heard before. He’s crazy bright, enlivens class discussions and does a lot of nothing on the assignments front. This made Cam incredibly frustrating as a student.

Cam is back in my class as a G11 student this year. I watched him trudge piece meal through

The Things They Carried and The Taming of the Shrew. In the end, I’m not sure how much he actually read of those texts.

Six weeks since we’ve been back in school, Cam is reading his second book of the year, Our Boys Speak after burning through A Long Way Gone.

Coming back from Winter Break, I changed the way we do things in my classroom. I’ve always moved from activity to activity to mix things up and keep things interesting.

Now, though, at least three times a week, my students are reading whatever they like for 20

minutes. I intend no hyperbole when I say it’s amazing to watch.

I’ve wanted to try this since I started teaching. The seed got planted earlier this Fall when this New York Times article reminded me of the reading workshop popularized by Nancie Atwell.

At the time, I found the reaction to the article quite humorous. It’s not a new idea.

I’m not running things according to Atwell’s program. Well, not on purpose.

In trying to describe what’s going on to people, the most frequent question is “How do you hold them accountable for what they’re reading?”

At once, this question seems logical and sad.

The answer is two-fold.

Students are required to write a review of any book they read and post it two places. If the book they’ve read is available in our school library catalog, they are to post their review online via Koha. Without exception, they must also post their reviews somewhere public like bn.com, amazon.com, borders.com, etc. and then send me the link to their published review.

This has led to some great discussions of writing for a specific audience. To gear up for the task, we spent time reading reviews from the NYTimes and read this post from UK freelance journalist Johnathan Deamer on the secrets to writing good reviews.

The general consensus was that the NYTimes writers use too many words.

The second bit of accountability is just coming online now. Through a partnership with UPenn’s Reading, Writing and Literacy Master’s program, I’m fortunate enough to have Hannah interning in G11 classes this semester.

Using information she gathered through a Google Form we pushed out to the kids, Hannah is breaking the class into genre groups and sitting down with them to discuss what they’re finding in their books, what they like and dislike and what they’ll be looking for in their next text.

Though Hannah won’t be with me forever, I’m planning on picking up where she leaves off when her time with us is done.

Some things I’ve noticed:

  • They’re going to the library.
  • They’re seeing our library in a new light.
  • We’ve had to review Daniel Pennac’s “Reader’s Bill of Rights” – specifically #2.
  • When I next ask them to read a common text, I’m going to have to totally rethink my approach.

Cam’s mom helped out with EduCon this year. We struck up one of those informal parent-teacher conferences as she was helping to clean up after Saturday’s dinner.

“Is Cam supposed to be reading every night for class?” she asked.

“Not as a requirement,” I said.

“Well, he is. Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.”

I hope so.