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Christine Trala
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Using Blogs and Wikis in…
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Christine Trala's Discussions
The Sad But True State of the American University
Replied 15 hours ago
What do essential questions look like?
Replied 16 hours ago
Christine Trala's Page
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Oh I do! I just had a tutorial with a final year student, who thank me for introducing her to philosophy. It's just that the rest of it sucks up so much time.
Boy does this hit home! Here in the UK we have a very similar problem at our university. First, there is a huge push to create foundation degrees. These are degrees for those who are in full-time employment and content is meant to improve job skills…
Never mind, I found the way to attach files to threaded discussions! My eyes are bleary from reading freshman essays. Anyway, here are a few things that may help to show the differnces between essential and unit questions.
I have a handout I give to student teachers that you may find useful. It gives examples of essentail questions and unit questions. How do I attach it to a threaded discussion?
This reminds me of a 1997 performance piece by Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Coco Fusco called Couple in a Cage. Would we see tours of 'Kids in Suburbia’? These sorts of misguided tours may be meant to provide cross cultrual exchange, but really isn't th…
Okay, I admit it, I have been lurking. The whole discussion of 'good kids' and 'bad kids' seems to revolve around the 'good' ones meeting the norms of good citizenry. Think about this. 'Bad' behaviour serves to meet some very basic needs for 'bad ki…
I have posted many threaded discussions with students and have assessed only two out of the dozens. I have to come clean and tell you that I teach university students, but I think some of the lessons can transfer to middle school. The most important…
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- University of Hull @ Scarborough, UK
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- flying.monkey
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- Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity
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Comment Wall (13 comments)
- At 2:33pm on November 8, 2009,
Ron Shapiro said… - So far so good. Large classes (30) which makes critiquing writing a marathon adventure virtually every other weekend. Finding the extra 30 or so hours to comment on 100 or so papers clearly is a challenge. Add that to FCPS belief that every student should be in an advanced or Pre-AP English class and, as you can well imagine, the thought and skill level are quite varied from the preferred very abstract thinkers to very literal ones who mainly want a .5 bump in their GPA. So it goes. Regardless, I still am enjoying teaching, helping students to find their voices via the written word. Trying to integrate more technology as we have smartboards, wikis and blog capabilities; however, the learning curve for me has been slow. Good ideas far from implementation. And with all that said, I'm not fully certain that, in and of itself, the 2.0 classroom is the be-all and end-all of teaching. Competent, enthuasiastic teacher are what is needed in the classroom; without that key component, I don't care if laptops are built into every desk in the room. And, with the bureaucracy, frozen salaries, and working conditions in some schools, I'm not sure that I would urge someone to enter the profession at this point in time. But, to emulate Gertrude Stein, "A job is a job is a job." Anyway, enough ramblings. Hope all is well on your side of the pond and, as wlays, thanks for thinking of me, a small voice from your past.
- At 7:39pm on October 30, 2009,
Melanie Hammer said…
- Hi, Christine, and greetings from Jackson Heights. Just realizing that I kind of lost touch with the ning as the school year began. Hope you're having a great teaching year!
- At 8:18am on August 24, 2009,
Ron Shapiro said…
- Thanks for your kind thoughts. Year 34, ready or not, here I come!
- At 8:37am on June 8, 2009,
Ron Shapiro said…
- Sad to say, the discussion of privacy did not engage them as much as I had hoped. The general consensus seemed to be that as long as someone is not looking in my window, whatever else happens is okay. With Facebook and cell phones abundant these days, I guess I was more disappointed than surprised with their responses. In some ways, since many students seem to communication in a one dimensional, maybe even superfluous, manner, what do they have to hide from someone? So it goes.
- At 9:59am on June 2, 2009,
- Ahhh, France. I just spent ten days in Paris over the spring break. It was about my 9th trip to France, and it was still great and new and exciting. I can't wait to go back at my next available opportunity. There was a great piece recently in the New York "Times" travel section on Roman France, all the old ruins in the south and along the Rhone, like in Avignon and Arles.
Meanwhile, you must be seeing everything in the UK. There was a great National Geographic show on the Isle of Mull that made it look amazing and beautiful and (cold) occupied by shaggy bovines and and visited by mink whales...
OK, now I'm jealous.
- At 9:32am on June 2, 2009,
- Hi, Christine! I bet you thought I'd never remember to send you the titles of some of the materials I used when I asked me students to think and write about education. But the semester ended, the fog lifted, and here they are, for what they're worth. Some of these will probably be available on line.
In no particular order, here are some titles that helped me have my students read, think about, and respond to a variety of texts around the general topic of education/school/ambition, and do a range of writing assignments off them, from a memoir to some research.
"Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes
"Persimmons" by Li Young Lee
"The Voice You Hear When you Read Silently," Thomas Lux
"Shame" by Dick Gregory
"I Just Wanna be Average," excerpt from Mike Rose's "Lives on the Boundary"
"Eleven" and "My Name" by Sandra Cisneros
"A Fling on the Track," Bill Cosby
"The School," Donald Barthelme
"Miss Harriet's Room," an excerpt from a children's book by Betsy Byers
"The Library Card" by Richard Wright (an excerpt from one of his novels)
"The Good Times are Killing Me," Lynda Barry (excerpt)
and pretty much anything that came to hand that semester. I used accessible news and magazine articles that talked about school, used interviews of famous people if they happened to mention education, and, one semester, had them interview adults they knew about their school histories, whether school had helped or hurt. They also did some reading about particular questions or issues about education that came up for them. What I did varied by the semester, and it's been awhile now since I used that kind of theme, but it gave my students a chance to engage with texts in the thoughtful way we'd like and linked the work of reading and writing to their own lives/ambitions.
Hope this proves useful and that you are now embarked on a free summer to think yourself.
- At 11:30am on May 15, 2009,
Ron Shapiro said…
- I happened to come across your Discussion in which you addressed concerns over these undergraduates' writings. It would be my thinking that students like to write about themselves rather than in response to some literary text. It doesn't have to be a formal paper; rather it could be a series of quick writes, even journal entries. Young writers care most about themselves so why not offer them invitations to focus on their own life experiences? If you need to develop a research paper from them, try the I-Search. THE CURIOUS RESEARCHER by Bruce Ballenger is s first-rate text that brings this type of writing to life on the blank page. I don't know the level of writing proficiency of your students and/or whether is is your job to prepare them for academic types of writing. At any rate, if they don't enjoy writing, your first objective, I believe, is to help them experience and understand how writing empowers them to make meaning of their experiences. And as I always tell my students, "If you haven't written about it, you really haven't thought about it."
- At 11:17am on May 15, 2009,
Ron Shapiro said…
- Your memory serves you well. Many thanks for your wishes and, in the small world connected by fiber optics and the like, it's good to reconnect.
- At 5:16am on May 3, 2009,
Ron Shapiro said…
- Yes, I think to the under 20 age group, how they view privacy is quite the contrast from our own perceptions. And to think one aspect of the Sixties was to celebrate the individual in terms of creativity, self-expression, and social-consciousness. Don't be like your parents was a rallying cry; however, now with cell phones, of course, kids are always, and I mean always, connected to their parental units. Has the umbilical cord really been severed? Sometimes these teenagers see me as a relic of a time gone by. But it really doesn't bother me. They still need to hear it even if my syllables lay dormant in their subconscious.
The brainjacking is clearly frightening. Hey, but, to generalize here, what profound thoughts are most college students thinking these days anyway? With no privacy, with this social networking, are they really hiding anything that other people should not know? Anyway, instead of researching the brain in order to read it, how's about working to cure the dis/ease with the environment people already suffer from?
- At 5:48am on May 2, 2009,
Ron Shapiro said…
- very funny! I'll use this when i teach 1984 in the last few weeks of class. and it's so understandable how most americans did not care about the real meaning of the partiot act. so much for privacy in the so-called twittersphere. more concern over swine flu and the dire possibility of the aporkalypse! Yikes!
About
Latest Activity
Thank you so much everyone! I definitely have a better feel for how essential questions work. I've been able to brainstorm a few and included a few here. Feel free to tell me if I am way off base.
What does it mean to be an “Outsider”?
What makes…
Judith--
One opportunity is Teen Ink (http://www.teenink.com). This is a publication for teens only, ages 13-19, to submit and publish their work. The one draw back I found is that once accepted, Teen Ink keeps all rights to the work. This means ki…
Bill,
You have it wrong. I didn't say the theory has not had wide influence. I never said anything like that. I agree that it has had wide influence. What I said was I've never heard of teachers labeling themselves as constructivists or nonconstruct…
The Ugly Truth is that my number one goal for my students right now has to be to raise their 2010 standardized test scores.
I find it disturbing, off-base, heart-wrenching, and almost something shameful to admit. However, NCLB has my entire school'…
I am in search of a novel set during the Great Depression/Dust Bowl era. It will be used in a 10th grade history class; most of the students are struggling readers. The teacher would like to stay away from the "big name classics." He wants something…
Yay Doug! He was one of my teachers in pre-teaching grad school (itp.nyu.edu), and I'm a huge fan of his work. Thanks for posting this, Frank. I'm really excited to see what these guys have come up with this time.
I am looking for opportunities for high school students to publish their writing. I am in VT. We are part of the NWP and can certainly offer that to our students. I know about the Mountain Review, but I would really appreciate other venues where stu…
Oh, a marvelous poem, Carol -- by one of my favorite poets. In graduate school far back in the 60's, I took a creative writing class from Bly at the University of Kansas, and have never forgotten it. Thanks for the connection.
I actually do have a plan (I also have a yearly book filled with objectives). I just can't say I have a detailed plan. I found it easier to plan for 90 minute block lessons than the 45 minutes we have at this school which makes me feel like I am in…
Oh I do! I just had a tutorial with a final year student, who thank me for introducing her to philosophy. It's just that the rest of it sucks up so much time.
Andy,
The fact that you have not heard of it doesn't mean the theory has not had a wide influence. Nearly every school of education in America now promotes "constructivist" ideas, and it is why many of our student teachers are not receiving some of…
How about this for a poetic connection to your posting, Hamilton?
Gratitude to Old Teachers by Robert Bly
When we stride or stroll across the frozen lake,
We place our feet where they have never been.
We walk upon the unwalked. But we are uneasy.…
I really think that PDFs kick SOOO much butt compared to .mobi Kindle Books or any other text with DRMs.
... and xboxes can make lovely computers if you know how to hack them. But that's also illegal. ;)
My husband has a bebook, which will read PDFs and some other formats... I don't know if it does text files or not.
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