When I came across the Do You Speak American? quiz, I accepted the challenge with a smile. I’ve been fortunate to live and travel in different parts of the United States, and I thought I would do well with it.

There’s an “o” sound, for example, that I start hearing in northern Indiana, and it becomes more noticeable as I continue through Wisconsin into Minnesota. I thought I would recognize a New England “a.” And Southern drawls are easily recognizable, right?

I was thoroughly humbled by this quiz. Can you beat 3? (Yes, I’ll bet you can!)

Bill Poser approaches the Second Amendment in his blog, Language and the Law from a linguistic perspective. He focuses on whether the phrase “to bear arms” was intended to mean military use of weapons solely, or whether the Founders intended the phrase to include personal ownership of firearms.

Poser writes:

Among the numerous amicus briefs submitted is the so-called “Linguists’ Brief”, written by Dennis E. Baron, Richard W. Bailey, and Jeffrey P. Kaplan. This brief argues that the Second Amendment protects only a public right on two grounds: the afore-mentioned interpretation of the leading clause, and the argument that the expression “bear arms” refers only to the organized military use of arms, not to individual use. They claim that the term “bear arms” is “an idiomatic expression that means ‘to serve as a soldier, do military service’”.

To assess the merits of the “Linguists’ Brief,” Poser turns to the texts of the time to see what the phrase meant at the time the Bill of Rights was written. He concludes:

… while the Linguists’ Brief may well reflect the view of the meaning of “bear arms” in 1791 formed on the basis of its authors experience reading material from that period, there appear to be clear and convincing examples of the use of this term in an individual, non-military, sense. The characterization of such examples in the Brief as anomalous is not supported by any sort of scientific linguistic analysis.

Among my high school students in this part of the country, the Second Amendment is cherished. Writing research papers … not so much. I’m planning to bookmark this blog as an example of why we research and why we write. Maybe this blog post will demonstrate the value of the process in a way the textbook examples (with due respect to the writers of textbooks) just don’t.

Breaking news: Supreme Court rules against DC gun ban (@ CNN) (@ Fox)

Apostrophe with that?
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Daniel Dyer
Cleveland’s Plain Dealer

Normally I’m not abnormal. I don’t grind my teeth, celebrate Lizzie Borden’s birthday (July 19, 1860), murder an old man in his sleep because his filmy eye annoys me. I leave well enough alone. Let sleeping dogs lie. Etc.

But a recent contretemps with Starbucks nearly set my teeth-agrinding and got me reading Edgar Allen Poe again. I was at the drive-thru, waiting at the window for delivery of my grande decaf (”no room, please”). And then I saw it. A hand-written sign inside: “Skinny Latte’s.”

Apostrophe S.

When the little glass door slid open, I smiled, thanked the partner, and said (gently, calmly, amiably, sanely): “You know, there shouldn’t be an apostrophe on ‘lattes.’ It’s just a plural.”

She looked at me as if I’d told her I’d found a booger in my brew. But I pressed on: “Why don’t you just, you know, erase the apostrophe?” I smiled.

A horn honked behind me, and I pulled away, satisfied that I had, in my little way, improved the environment.

A few days later. Back at that same window. I looked at the sign: “Skinny Latte’s,” it insisted. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as if someone had darkened the apostrophe. Made it bigger.

Read the rest of the article.

Special thanks for Mark for this one!

Sunday morning’s e-mail included a teaser, “Curtain falls for Charlton Heston,” but no article. I decided to go to his Wikipedia page, reasoning that they would list a death date (if that were the case) near the very top of the article, and I wouldn’t have to navigate through my usual information sources.

I was surprised to find a warning label at the top of page, along with the sad confirmation of his death.

The label appears to be standard and suggests that news of a death attracts comment, some of it perhaps unkind:

Clicking on the “History” tab at the top revealed so many edits since midnight that only today’s edits could be listed. Clicking on the “Discussion” tab yielded a “behind the scenes” view of how the Wikipedia editors go about determining how best to present the most accurate information. Discourse was lively at times but always civil. One interesting discussion involved the authority of resources to determine his age — since actors of that generation routinely lied about their age, is Heston’s autobiography a reliable source for the year of his birth? Other topics ranged from Heston’s involvement in the Civil Rights movement to the use of alright vs. all right.

The discussion reassured me, though, that whatever was published would be reliable enough that I could use it in the classroom. The people who work on this page care about the subject and have some skill at research and collaboration. The writing on the “Discussion” page might gently have been called “sloppy copy,” but an editor was waiting to review whatever was published as the Article itself. Wikipedia has established a means for resolving disagreements, and even a way to deal with the “dark side” that sometimes manifests itself here, as it does everywhere.

Watching Wikipedia at work helped me better understand the process that produces this resource. Understanding its strengths and limitations reinforces my initial position: it’s a good starting point for student research.

Here’s another terrific resource: Loud Lit.

The site features audio files of children’s lit, short stories, poems, novels, even a little nonfiction. All texts are in the public domain; here are some samples:

• “Rapunzel”
• “The Raven”
• “To Build a Fire”
• The Gettysburg Address
• Heart of Darkness

Listening to audio files can help all students appreciate literature. Sometimes listening to a clip of just a few minutes can help with comprehension or with understanding an author’s tone. This can serve as scaffolding or as enrichment, as pre-reading or post-reading.

And your students could produce them, too. What a terrific experience that would be for them!

Thanks — again! — to Kevin Jarrett of ncs-tech.com!

“But I don’t know who to write about!”

Finding a topic can be tough. When you’re doing a biography unit, deciding on a person to write about can also be a challenge. Wouldn’t it be great if a Web site made it possible to read just a little about someone, enough to know whether they would be interesting?

Enter OmniBiography. This terrific site not only categorizes people by country — good encouragement for an international perspective in American classrooms — but it also provides biographical information in multiple languages where appropriate.

• Looking for something on Pablo Picasso? Will that be English, Spanish, or German?
• Researching Marco Polo? Choose from English, Italian, or Spanish.
• Nelson Mandela? English, Spanish, or French.

The site suffers from dead links, always a risk online; but one a good manager should deal with. Fortunately, multiple links are available for most entries. If one link is dead, chances are good another will be available.

Students can browse by country or by name, accessing information quickly and moving on until they find someone they want to research further. This is a good site for starters.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on this date, January 15, in 1929. His birthday was made a national holiday in 1986, and we will celebrate it next Monday, January 21.

Many teachers like to incorporate study of Dr. King’s work at this time of year, and American Rhetoric has archived some of his speeches:

• “I Have a Dream” (1963), with video, runs about 17 1/2 minutes.
• “Keep Moving from this Mountain,” 1965 address to Temple Israel in Hollywood
• “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” (1967)
• “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” (last speech, 1968)

American Rhetoric includes the text and an audiofile of each speech. Some have video.

The site links to other collections of Dr. King’s work: his 1964 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech; “A Witness to the Truth,” his eulogy for James Reeb, another civil rights activist; and the Voice of King collection at Stanford University.

If it’s too late to include these resources in your planning for this year, just bookmark the site. You’ll be all set for next year.

I first became acquainted with the My Hero Project at NECC in San Diego in 2006. Kids research someone they respect and admire, write about him/her, and publish their work at this site. It was a wonderful program then, and it has grown to something even better now.

Let’s consider the literacy skills alone:

• reading for comprehension
• understanding cause and effect
• organizing and classifying information
• using tables of contents and indexes to locate information
• restate facts, summarize main ideas
• connect prior knowledge to new information in a text
• distinguish between fact and opinion in informational text
• prepare a document using technology
• gather evidence in support of a thesis
• use Standard Written English
• demonstrate understanding of correct spelling, punctuation, and other writing conventions
• apply appropriate manuscript conventions
• support assertions using examples, facts, and relevant details
• edit and proofread using an editing checklist
• integrate quotations into a text
• synthesize information from multiple sources

Let’s also consider what happens when students write about why they respect someone. From the youngest child to the most cynical adolescent, each writer chooses a vision of goodness that will stay with them. Not perfection, perhaps, but something to measure their own actions by, a means to develop character. In the long run this project make better choices in tough situations.

Browse the entries at the My Hero Project (www.myhero.com) and join them as they “celebrate the best of humanity.”