Does it still pay to go to college?

Check out this article about some "common recent myths" about college education.  http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2013/03/opinion-tribune-schapiro-college-education-value.html?utm_campaign=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=enews

The One Sentence Project from Larry Ferlazzo and Daniel Pink

Larry Ferlazzo, ELL teacher and nationally-known educational blogger, describes his “One Sentence Project” in this entry. 

It’s based on an idea from Dan Pink’s book “Drive.”  If nothing else, you might want to check out the first video (from Pink’s book) on the site.

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2013/03/13/the-best-resources-for-doing-a-one-sentence-project/#.UUGrbj89omY.twitter

On Revising: David Biespiel has a radical idea

Here's a teaser:

Revision, as classically understood, generally relates to the poet’s understanding while composing a poem, via kneading language, via discovering insight. More and more though I find that sort of revision is only part of the problem, if it is a problem.
Yes, a poet revises, and tinkers, and starts over. But: Lately I’ve been thinking about revision in terms of the audience more than the poet, in terms of readers and the public-other far more than, speaking for myself, the relationship between me and what I am writing.
I don’t mean to reject revision in terms of revising to clarify and make clearer — as necessary as that intention is. I mean, rethinking of revision as something you want the reader to have, to experience, to live with. I mean, leading a reader to re-see the world, to experience a re-vision of their living life. For the reader to have the re-vision more so than the writer.

Here's the link to the whole posting: http://therumpus.net/2013/03/david-biespiels-poetry-wire-revising-poetry-just-got-easier/

Rules of Thumb - Grading Scales, Rubrics and Assessment Design

This is from Mike Palmquist's work this year:

Rules of Thumb - Grading Scales, Rubrics and Assessment Design

1.     Keep it simple.  Holistic grading can work well.  Rubrics should be self-evident, even to someone who isn’t in class.

2.    Use a scale with enough room for improvement. Using a 4 point scale may not be discriminating enough to show progress.

a.    Marzano begins with a 4 point scale, but then includes either half points (ie 2.5) or third points (ie 2.33 and 2.67) to signify more marginal progress.

b.    The AP Writing Rubric uses a 9 point scale.

3.    Make it easy to calculate progress.  Use an identifiable scale (See 1 and 2) that produces a number.  Electronic records make this very easy. Don’t use teacher comments to show progress.

4.    Use the same article or prompt for both pre-test and post-test.  If by chance you use a slightly more difficult assessment for the post-test, scores could drop as a false indicator of a lack of progress. 

7 Grammatical - but Crazy Sounding - Sentences

For National Grammar Day, Mental Floss posted this:

 

1. ONE MORNING I SHOT AN ELEPHANT IN MY PAJAMAS. HOW HE GOT INTO MY PAJAMAS I'LL NEVER KNOW.

Take advantage of the fact that the same sentence can have two different structures. This famous joke from Groucho Marx assumes that most people expect the structure of the first part to be

One morning [I shot an elephant] [in my pajamas].

But another possible, and perfectly grammatical, reading is

One morning [I shot] [an elephant in my pajamas].

 

2. THE HORSE RACED PAST THE BARN FELL.

Make a garden path sentence. In this one, we think we've reached the main verb when we get to "raced," but instead we are still inside a reduced relative clause. Reduced relative clauses let us say, "the speech given this morning" instead of "the speech that was given this morning" or, in this case "the horse raced past the barn" instead of "the horse that was raced past the barn."

 

3. THE COMPLEX HOUSES MARRIED AND SINGLE SOLDIERS AND THEIR FAMILIES.

Another garden path sentence, this one depends on the fact that "complex," "houses," and "married" can serve as different parts of speech. Here, "complex" is a noun (a housing complex) instead of an adjective, "houses" is a verb instead of a noun, and "married" is an adjective instead of the past tense of a verb.

4. THE RAT THE CAT THE DOG CHASED KILLED ATE THE MALT.

Make a sentence with multiple center embeddings. We usually have no problem putting one clause inside another in English. We can take "the rat ate the malt" and stick in more information to make "the rat the cat killed ate the malt."  But the more clauses we add in, the harder it gets to understand the sentence. In this case, the rat ate the malt. After that it was killed by a cat. That cat had been chased by a dog. The grammar of the sentence is fine. The style, not so good.

 

5. ANYONE WHO FEELS THAT IF SO-MANY MORE STUDENTS WHOM WE HAVEN’T ACTUALLY ADMITTED ARE SITTING IN ON THE COURSE THAN ONES WE HAVE THAT THE ROOM HAD TO BE CHANGED, THEN PROBABLY AUDITORS WILL HAVE TO BE EXCLUDED, IS LIKELY TO AGREE THAT THE CURRICULUM NEEDS REVISION.

Another crazy center-embedded sentence. Can you figure it out? Start with "anyone who feels X is likely to agree." Then go to "anyone who feels if X then Y is likely to agree." Then fill out the X and Y. You might need a pencil and paper.

6. BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO.

Buffalo! It's a noun! It's a city! It's a verb (meaning "to intimidate")! We've discussed the notorious buffalo sentence before, but it never stops being fun. It plays on reduced relative clauses, different part-of-speech readings of the same word, and center embedding, all in the same sentence. Stare at it until you get the following meaning: "Bison from Buffalo, New York, who are intimidated by other bison in their community, also happen to intimidate other bison in their community."

 

7. THIS EXCEEDING TRIFLING WITLING, CONSIDERING RANTING CRITICIZING CONCERNING ADOPTING FITTING WORDING BEING EXHIBITING TRANSCENDING LEARNING, WAS DISPLAYING, NOTWITHSTANDING RIDICULING, SURPASSING BOASTING SWELLING REASONING, RESPECTING CORRECTING ERRING WRITING, AND TOUCHING DETECTING DECEIVING ARGUING DURING DEBATING.

This sentence takes advantage of the versatile English –ing. The author of a 19th century grammar guide lamented the fact that one could "run to great excess" in the use of –ing participles "without violating any rule of our common grammars," and constructed this sentence to prove it. It doesn't seem so complicated once you realize it means,

"This very superficial grammatist, supposing empty criticism about the adoption of proper phraseology to be a show of extraordinary erudition, was displaying, in spite of ridicule, a very boastful turgid argument concerning the correction of false syntax, and about the detection of false logic in debate."

Not only is this a great example of the wonderful crazy things you can do within the bounds of proper English, it's the perfect response to pull out the next time someone tries to criticize your grammar.

Sources of sentences: 1. Groucho Marx; 2. Bever (1970); 3. Wikipedia; 4. Chomsky & Miller (1963); 5. Chomsky & Miller (1963); 6. William Rapaport; 7. Goold Brown (1851).

Read the full text here: http://mentalfloss.com/article/49238/7-sentences-sound-crazy-are-still-grammatical#ixzz2MmQIxayT 

 

Course Syllabus by David Foster Wallace (and others!)

Check them out at Atlantic.com: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/02/i-urge-you-to-drop-e67-02-course-syllabi-by-famous-authors/273578/

Dear Poet Project

From Poetry.org, see this project that invites students to write to living poets. See also the lesson plan written especially for students in grades 9 and 10. 

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/619

Teaser:  

This April, during National Poetry Month 2013, the Academy of American Poets is celebrating the role that correspondence has played in poets' development and writing lives.

In the spirit of Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, in which Rilke replies to letters from a young military cadet and aspiring poet asking for his advice, we are inviting students to engage with poetry by handwriting letters to some of the poets who serve on the Academy's Board of Chancellors.

Nude photo of Ernest Hemingway!

Among other very cool photos of American authors at home published by the Atlantic – including Zora Neale Hurston, Mark Twain, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Vladimir Nabokov, and – don’t miss: Truman Capote.

 

Some of these may even be appropriate for classroom use.

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/03/of-course-hemingway-read-the-paper-in-the-nude-photos-of-authors-at-home/273609/#slide6

 

What would Carol Jago have us do with this one?

 

 

Top 5 Ideas from Carol Jago's Seminar on the Common Core

www.caroljago.com

Here are the Top 5* Ideas that English Department members took from Carol Jago's seminars on Wednesday's "Cross Pollination" and Thursday's sessions on how the Common Core should influence instruction in reading and writing.

1.  Don't Beat the Novel to Death! Instead, Carol said, pick out 5-7 essential passages that kids should know -- and maybe spend a lot of time on each of those.  One teacher said:

In my own experience, I think I lingered too long on books in the past, thinking I had to teach everything in those books. That might’ve benefited a few kids in the class, but for too many, this might’ve sucked the life out of the book. I think I’ve grown as a teacher understanding how far I should go with a book to keep kids’ attention—while still challenging them with what we address—but then being able to move on without risking losing them because they feel we’re beating a dead horse (or dead Kurtz, or dead Gatsby).    

Another teacher said: 

I have a problem with over-teaching literature. I love her reminder that not all of the book has to be nit-picked. Looking at my upcoming calendar for Jekyll and Hyde, I am already thinking about each day how I can lessen the emphasis on decoding EACH and EVERY detail in order to spend more time on a few passages.

2. The Spark Notes quiz! Carol suggested that teachers spend too much time creating quizzes.  The sparknotes quiz (put Sparknotes summary up on the overhead, ask kids to tell you "what else happened" is one solution.  One teacher said:  

I have always given reading quizzes to hold my students accountable for reading passages as their homework assignment, but I think I will try “here’s the sparknotes version, not tell me 3 things you remember happening” idea for a quiz.

3. We are in a very good position with our current curriculum and with our friends in Social Studies.  Carol said that most schools she visits do not ask kids to write ANY research-based essays.  She says that most schools don't ask kids to read textbooks or outside books in social studies.  One teacher said:

 I don’t think we need to reinvent the wheel here, especially when they have nothing [specific about what the tests will look like] to show us.  I also think that if there needs to be an increase in non-fiction, she should make it very clear that the English department, which is responsible for the fiction that is supposed to be 30% of their entire reading, should not feel that they need to throw away the choices we’ve made and replace them with non-fiction. That 70% certainly comes from the reading they do in science and social studies and business classes.

4. Coordinating/Supporting fiction with non-fiction and visual texts.  Carol gave many examples of how to increase the amount of "argument analysis" we do with students in small, simple (and in high-interest) ways.  On the very easy end, it involves looking at photos and artwork and asking kids to talk about what they see and what it means (providing evidence from the text.  On the other end, it means adding NF texts, like those from the Atlantic or adding NF titles to "lit circles" (which are concluded with discussion and short writing, but not over-assessed.)  One teacher said:

I plan on making our SSR requirement a non-fiction for next year. I 100% agree with her that students need to be reading more of this type of print to better navigate through the world. I will be asking the library for some pointers in this area. I love how she talked about her husband’s selection of books on his nightstand and made the point that future husbands are in our classroom. We need to pick things they will naturally gravitate towards wanting to read.

5. Young Adult Literature.  This was one of the topics that Carol asked the audience to refrain from throwing tomatoes at her.  I received feedback on both sides of the issue:  that "texts should be in the kids' ZPD," or that "YA is a valuable teaching tool to increase the love of reading.  One teacher said:

I liked that she was not a fan of adolescent literature that is written in a dumbed down fashion so as not to be off-putting to readers. I liked her insistence that we shouldn’t be “teaching” with books that students can read and interpret on their own satisfactorily.

Another teacher commented that Carol is:

Ignoring the research showing that student-selected texts which are age appropriate should be a part (certainly not all or even a majority) of the classroom for students to see it as valued and important. Dismissing it to outside reading doesn’t work. These are the texts that are engendering a love of reading for many beyond the nerdy girl.

As I review my notes and get more feedback from teachers, I'll create another posting.

*Top 5 in terms of some popularity among responses.

Mark Bauerlein responds to Dartmouth's decision to diss AP Pscyh

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Mark Bauerlein - an employee of the College Board -- defends AP against the recent hype started by Dartmouth's recent decision:  /http://chronicle.com/article/Give-AP-Credit-Where-Credit-Is/137543/

Teacher satisfaction down "precipitously"

Metlife survey results have bad news for principals and teachers.  Here's the worst of it for teachers, though:


Principal and teacher job satisfaction is declining. Principals’ satisfaction with their jobs in the public 
schools has decreased nine percentage points since it was last measured in 2008. In that same period, 
teacher satisfaction has dropped precipitously by 23 percentage points, including a five-point decrease 
in the last year, to the lowest level it has been in the survey in 25 years. A majority of teachers report 
that they feel under great stress at least several days a week, a significant increase from 1985 when this 
was last measured. 

Principals and teachers with low job satisfaction report higher levels of stress than do other educators 
and are more likely to work in high-needs schools. Less satisfied principals are more likely to find it 
challenging to maintain an academically rigorous environment and an adequate supply of effective 
teachers in their schools, while less satisfied teachers are more likely to be working in schools where 
budgets and time for professional development and collaboration have decreased in the last 12 months.

https://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/foundation/MetLife-Teacher-Survey-2012.pdf

Carol Jago: How Can Teachers Improve Their Craft?

From "Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo":

Response From Carol JagoCarol Jago has taught middle and high school in Santa Monica, California for 32 years. She is past president of the National Council of Teachers of English and author of With Rigor for All: Helping Students Meet Common Core Standards for Reading Literature (Heinemann 2011).
Advice from Someone Who Learned the Hard Way
1. Stop telling students that reading is fun, though not because it can't be. "Reading is fun!" puts books in competition with World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto. If students groan, "I can't do it. This is too hard!" as you distribute copies of a novel, agree with them that reading this book may be hard in places, but assure them that with effort and your help they will be able to read the book. Experience has taught teenagers that if they complain loudly for long enough, the teacher will often abandon a difficult text for something shorter, simpler, and funnier. Don't fall for it.
2. Address, don't avoid challenging vocabulary. Instead of looking for books without difficult vocabulary or figurative language, teach students how to meet these challenges. Rather than pre-teaching all the hard words in a chapter, select a few to teach that are critical to understanding the passage. Also, while assigning and assessing lists of relatively random words is common teaching practice, that isn't how you developed a robust vocabulary. You did it by reading.
3. Teach student how to negotiate complex syntax. Reading long, complicated sentences is a challenge for all everyone but particularly for today's students in the habit of skimming and scanning Twitter updates. Teachers need to help students slow the pace of their reading for literature and develop the habit of rereading when a sentence doesn't seem to make sense. Though rereading doesn't have a cool acronym or fancy graphic organizer, it is the technique experienced readers employ most often. When was the last time you reached for a KWL chart when struggling through a challenging text? Don't seek out rewritten texts. Teach the real thing by helping students parse of each complex phrase.
4. Assign homework reading. In too many schools, teachers have stopped assigning homework reading altogether, principally because students have stopped doing it. This is the path to perdition for literature study. If a teacher reads aloud Lord of the Flies to a class of tenth graders, the only person in the room becoming a better reader is the teacher. I sometimes hear the excuse that there aren't enough copies of the books to send home with students. In many one-to-one laptop or e-reader programs the machines must remain at school. This is educational malpractice. Students need to develop the self-discipline and stamina necessary to read for extended periods of time on their own. How else will they be ready for college? The amount of reading required in college can be up to eight times greater than what students are reading in high school.

See responses by Carol Jago and Penny Kittle to Larry Ferlazzo's prompt here:

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/classroom_qa_with_larry_ferlazzo/2013/02/many_ways_english_teachers_can_improve_their_craft.html