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Forrest Helvie
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- Bristol, CT
- United States
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Forrest Helvie's Groups
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Using Discussion in the…
334 members
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Using Blogs and Wikis in…
557 members
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College Freshman Composi…
66 members
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Students with Special Ne…
75 members
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Graphic Novels and Comics
163 members
Forrest Helvie's Page
Latest Activity
I'm going to spending most of January teaching Persepolis with my seniors and can't wait. Before we dig into the book itself, however, my students will be putting together short, 5-minute presentations on various historical and social aspects of Ira…
Kansas University has a relatively good learning strategies program through the University Learning Center that offers a variety of different educational strategies. You might look into their Self-Advocacy / Possible Selves strategies. I originally…
Sheila,
Thanks so much for the information and the link to the program; I look forward to spending some time going over them during my winter break! I teach secondary full-time, college freshman part-time, and implement graphic novels at both level…
I teach an Intro to Literature class to freshman and sophomores and covered a module on comic books as literature.
The best comic book maker I have found is a free Web 2 tool called toondoo. Check out www.toondoo.com. The students created a comic b…
From Dec 1 - 17, my school offers our students a "Winterim" program where they are able to sign up for a 2 1/2 week elective course in place of regular classes. This takes place right between our Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks as an alternative t…
I was perusing through this part of the Ning and stumbled upon the idea of the Socratic Seminar. In addition to teaching high school (juniors and seniors) full-time, I also teach college freshmen as an adjunct. This semester's crop is especially dif…
I've used portfolios--with comments on each succeeding draft but comments that focused on one or two specific things (to help avoid students from getting overwhelmed by all my comments)--and I use rubrics so they can see exactly what I'm looking for…
I teach Developmental English and Freshman Comp I at a community college. In the developmental class, while I think the rubric is a great tool, I find my students need more feedback than what a rubric would offer. I usually hava a face-to-face meeti…
Thanks for pointing me in that direction--wow! Lot of stuff going on there, so I'll be sure to continue running through it all.
This was the subject of a month-long ECN book club about Maja Wilson's book Rethinking Rubrics. You can read all the responses--it was a great, rich discussion--by clicking here.
The community college where I teach Introduction to College Reading & Writing part-time is moving towards an abilities-based program (think of my class as the precursor to Freshman Comp for those students whose scores were JUST shy of the mark). To…
Hi Sam! I'm a newer teacher so please take my advice with the needed grain of salt! ;-) However, my wife is serving an SLP in both a high school and elementary school so I can probably provide a little advice / perspective.
1. You REALLY need to tr…
A couple of good suggestions already made (and one or two not yet suggested) are:
Maus
Persepolis
Pride of Baghdad
Watchmen
V for Vendetta
I debated about Marvel Comics' "Civil War" mini series as it makes a great launching point to discuss many c…
I'm very fortunate in that I have a librarian who is very open to graphic novels. It was pretty exciting too because I was able to raise over $500+ worth of trade paper backs and graphic novels (both traditional superhero and non-traditional books),…
I hear you! My school is really supportive in that they provide me with a certain amount of financial support for professional development, but I think this would be a little too much.
I was quite tempted to respond to a similar call for Wizard Wor…
Um... I don't think so? This was an actual event--the lions escaping from the zoo and the Soldiers shooting them (though the lions DID lunge at the guys for what it's worth). I think Vaughan mentioned that he wanted to explore the plight of the Iraq…
Profile Information
- Where do you work?
- The Forman School / Tunxis Community College
- Choose all that apply to your job
- College Professor, Graduate Student, High School English Teacher, Author
- What are you reading?
- Men of Tomorrow
- How do you define your role/work?
- My goal is to help students become better critical readers and writers all the while building a firm foundation in both world & western literature.
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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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