Head on over to YouTube for our Literary Word of the Week. We take a vocabulary word from literature and let you know the meaning and an example of it being used in a well-known book. Then it’s your turn– make a video response and we’ll give the best one a free eNotes subscription and an iTunes gift certificate.
Summer school teachers, this includes your students! Have fun with it!
One good way to learn the essential elements of a genre is to write a parody. The Onion offers one based on the classic To Kill a Mockingbird:
I Would Say To Kill A Mockingbird Captured The Most Interesting Part Of Our Lives
By Atticus Finch
As I get older and reflect on my life, my mind always drifts back to the time I defended handyman Tom Robinson against those trumped-up, racially motivated charges of rape. What a time it was. So much happened in that year and a half. Lessons were learned, innocence was lost, and a child put her fear of people different from herself behind her. There’s no denying it was a narratively gripping time.
We were fortunate that an important American novelist about to make her debut was around to take it all down as my daughter, Scout, told it. At the time, it never occurred to us that those events would make for a compelling look at race and class in the United States—perhaps even a fable for our times, playing out in an insignificant Southern town but with wide-ranging thematic implications for the deeper issues of prejudice and civil rights during a period of intense social upheaval, and all that.
Honestly, if this book had been written at almost any other time, it would have been pretty damn boring.
After old Bob Ewell closed that chapter in our lives by falling on his knife, the kids settled into their schoolwork and joined glee club. Jem played baseball for a while, but he didn’t really like it. Sometimes they’d drop in at the Radley place to pay their regards to Arthur. They even stopped calling him Boo. After a couple years he died of pneumonia. Or was it diabetes? I suppose I was saddened that he didn’t live to see another adventure—but then again, how many chances does one reclusive idiot man-child usually get to stand up for justice in the face of small-minded ignorance, and change the course of a community forever?
Scout’s gone through some changes of her own. All fairly standard. Back when I was arguing that case, she was so young and spirited. Always fighting for what she thought was right, bless her heart. I thought she’d go to college and get a degree in journalism, like she talked about, but she dropped out of Tulane after a year and moved back to Maycomb and became a waitress.
I have to admire a piece that can skewer a novel, book reviews, study guide summaries, and memoirs, all at the same time.
That was my gut response a year ago when eNotes approached me about blogging for them. Maybe I could dress up old tales from the classroom to make them interesting to a new audience. Maybe I could talk about the changes technology has brought to education. I might be able to handle, say, a month, outside. But after that? I kept asking myself, what would I say after that? Out loud I said, “I’d love to.”
One year old! I want to thank Alex for his vote of confidence and Scott for his support. I also want to thank Nancy, Marilynn, Dawn, Art, Jamie, and everyone else who has left a comment or forwarded an article or joke. It’s a true for us as it is for our students: knowing we are writing for a real audience keeps us on our toes. The little guy in the baseball shirt is serving cake. Have some!
“But what will I say?”
And now it’s a year later. Topics seem to take care of themselves. I’ve blogged about Shakespeare , solar cells, and semicolons, about poets , politics , and podcasts. The year has gone quickly.
Randy Glasbergen is a gifted cartoonist who “gets” the clash of old and new technologies (and their users). Bookmark his website and use it to take a break now and then. His cartoons cover a variety of contemporary topics, including education.
Sometimes a good laugh can save the day.
From Art Wolinksy of 3D Writing comes the announcement about the Megan Pledge, reproduced here with his blessing. (I added a link to information about Megan Meier.)
As we all know, the suicide of Megan Meier that took place after a cyberbullying incident, brought national attention to the problem with we on this list are very familiar. A Tweenangel chapter in Ridgewood, NJ has done something about it and we would like to turn it into a national campaign.
The tweens have initiated the Megan Pledge, a three part campaign to help stop cyberbullying. There are three parts of The Megan Pledge, a signed individual pledge, a group banner and a black and white polka-dot ribbons to wear and share. The pledge itself contains both statements and a set of promises. It is signed and witnessed and given to WiredSafety’s Megan Pledge volunteer team and sent back to WiredSafety where the pledges will be recorded and entered in a data base with the objective of getting one million signatures by the end of the year.
At the Wired Kids Summit, Tina Meier, Megan’s mother and Deputy Director of the Megan Pledge campaign, presented the program along with tweens from the Ridgewood chapter.
A dedicated web site is being created and when it is announced, it will be with the endorsement and help of Facebook, Xanga, and Tagged, with others to follow as arrangements are completed. The site will have all the necessary information and resources to get a program started in your school. Watch for that in the coming weeks. However, there is no need to wait. If you would like to get a Megan Pledge campaign started in your school, just email me at awolinsky@3dwriting.com and I’ll email you a starter kit.
Help stop cyberbullying. Be one in a million.
What do you think — can a campaign like this one resonate with YOUR students?
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Trivia question for today: what author has more titles on Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club list than any other?
Answer: Toni Morrison, first African-American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (The Bluest Eye, Paradise, Song of Solomon, and Sula) |
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When Oprah launched her Book Club in 1996 (61 books ago), she tapped into a national trend. People everywhere were reading books and gathering to talk about them. They were remembering how much fun it is to read a good book and share it with others. And in a fast-paced world, taking time to read and discuss had become almost a mark of status. |
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Oprah spotlights both classic and contemporary books, novels, nonfiction, and, once, fiction masquerading as nonfiction. When she adds a book to her list and book club resources to her site, the book invariably shoots to the top of the bestseller lists.
There is a trickle-down effect, as well. Students have often told me, “I’m reading this book because it was on Oprah’s show.” Several recent studies suggest that Americans are reading fewer books and reading less in general than they used to. But books are not disappearing without a fight. Projects like book clubs help us reclaim the delight we find in the well-crafted sentence, in a complex character, or a a recurring theme. It’s also fun to share our reactions, either with a group of friends locally or on a larger scale, using Web tools like discussion boards or online classes. Teachers do everything they can to make reading fun and interesting, but it took Oprah to make it cool. |
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He was given an introduction to literacy by Mrs. Auld, his slaveholding mistress, joining in the lessons she was giving her own son. When Mr. Auld found out, he demanded that the lessons stop. They did, but Douglass was determined to be literate, and he found a way.
In 1877 Douglass purchased Cedar Hill, his final home, in Washington, D.C. Today it is the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. The National Park Service has created a virtual tour of this home, including photos of many artifacts that humanize this National Treasure. (My personal favorite is a pair of sunglasses.) When the Equal Rights Party met in convention in 1872, they nominated Victoria Woodhull for President of the United States and Frederick Douglass for Vice President. The nominations were more symbolic than anything else, but as I listen to news of the campaigns of current presidential hopefuls, I can’t help thinking they would both be pleased.
Frederick Douglass was born in February. He was never quite sure of the year or the date, so eventually he chose to celebrate on the 14th, remembering that his mother had called him “my little valentine.” He thought the year was 1817, though more recent scholarship suggests it might have been 1818.
When Douglass was 19 or 20, he escaped slavery. He began to write and speak eloquently as an abolitionist. During the Civil War he served as an adviser to President Lincoln. When the war was over, he held a variety of positions, including journalist, bank president, and ambassador to Haiti.
I was presenting at a workshop, and the teacher was having trouble with her mouse. “Do a Control A,” I said, getting ready to show her how to copy and paste without her mouse. She stared at me as if I’d suddenly started speaking gibberish. I tried again, “Hold down the Control key and then type A.” She did and was astonished to see her entire page highlighted.
“I didn’t know you could do that!” she said.
Keyboard shortcuts are a surprisingly little-known feature. I use them because they’re faster and less distracting than stopping my typing, reaching for a mouse, pulling down a menu, and clicking. Here are some I use often:
Control + A - selects all text in a document
Control + C - copies highlighted text
Control + X - cuts highlighted text
Control + V - pastes copied or cut text wherever the cursor isControl + B - boldfaces highlighted text
Control + I - italicizes highlighted text
Control + U - underlines highlighted textControl + F - opens a search box. Type in a word and click “next” — the cursor moves to that word on the page. Works in PDFs, Web pages, and word processing. Very useful when you are searching for something specific.
Shift + arrow key - highlights text as the arrow moves
Alt + Tab - moves between open windows
(For my friends with Macs, I think the same commands work with Apple instead of Control. Let me know.)
Probably the shortcut I have been most grateful for is the Undo shortcut, Control + Z. Whatever you accidentally just deleted, Control + Z will undelete. If you realized your sentence was better before you changed it, Control + Z will restore the original version. It will even go back a few versions if necessary.
Control + Z is the “do over!” cry from our childhood days. If only we had it for some of the other mistakes we made along the way …
A butterfly at Brister’s Hill I blogged about this workshop last summer when I attended, (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday) and I’m happy to recommend it for others this year. Participants are encouraged to implement a project-based learning experience in their home schools as a result of their experience. This isn’t hard, because we left Walden very enthusiastic about the possibilities! My project is not quite 100% yet. I keep thinking of things I’d like to add. Applications are now being accepted. Good luck!
Does this sound like a good summer workshop?
If this sounds like a good fit for you, I have the workshop: Approaching Walden.
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:
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.
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