May 2011
31 posts
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Awesome
Few things make me happier than a student telling me they LOVED a book I recommended to them. Thanks for taking the time to send me a note, Ann! :)
Also, I finished “Catching Fire” last night, and am halfway through “Mockingjay” now (both from the “Hunger Games” trilogy). The only upside to being sick is I have an excuse to sit around and read all day. For...
12 tags
Summer! Time to read and write! YES!
I know reading and writing may be the last thing on most students’ minds this summer, but it’s really what I’m looking forward to. Actually, I’ve already finished one book and it’s the best book I’ve read in a LONG time. I may have even liked it more than “Hunger Games.” Actually, I did like it more than “Hunger Games.” But I’ll get...
reanimateyoursoul asked: Can you send me scans/links for the common usage errors we copied in class? It was very useful, but we didn't you never gave it back after we turned it in. I was wondering if I could have a copy of it to use as a future reference? Thanks.
stopyourworryan asked: Thanks for subbing for our class the past few weeks! It was a lot of fun. :)
Have a nice summer!
Have a nice summer!
School's out!
Of all the weeks I subbed at EVHS, today was the worst and hardest. And there weren’t any kids there! Grading and calculating grades and dealing with adults are the worst parts of teaching. Worst. The kids are so much better than dealing with that stuff. Can we go back to talking about Animal Farm now?
That said, there are a couple questions lingering here for me regarding school stuff, and...
Yo mamma's so fat...
world-shaker:
…her Patronus is a cake.
Saturday Show at The X Bar / Homestead Lanes →
curiousquail:
It’s kind of insane how many comments / reblogs this got. awwnuh:
hiimadinosaur:
jrsdphotography:
curiousquail:
Finding Homestead Lanes / The X Bar can be tricky if you don’t know where to look. It is at Homestead Rd and N Stelling Road. If you get off 280 at De Anza, head east, turn left on Homestead and then make a left on Stelling.
It will be on your left.
See you all...
Huge List of YA Books, Recommended by Actual... →
world-shaker:
My favorite part of this, though, was the introduction:
Take four seventh grade girls, plop them in the middle of the teen section at the local library, and just listen. You’re in for, at the least, a very interesting morning. Of course, if you were sitting with my students, you might just laugh yourself silly and then be absolutely amazed…all in the space of about ten...
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Plagiarism is bad, mmkay?
Apparently I should have explained how good I am at catching plagiarism BEFORE students turned in their papers last week. Caught 2 so far. In one class.
Blatantly copying a website and not citing it in the paper is plagiarism, which is cheating, which will get you an F on the assignment, AT LEAST. In college, you will fail the entire course, and will go in front of a panel of scary intellectuals...
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Hey San Jose folks,
jrsdphotography:
Curious Quail will be on air with KSJS from 8-10 tonight.
90.5 on your radio, or http://www.ksjs.org/ksjs_live.html to listen live online.
TUNE IN.
Sidenote: Mr. Guthrie is the drummer for this fantastic band, and they’re playing an all-ages show this SATURDAY. Where else would you rather be when the rapture comes?!
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Let's try an experiment together.
world-shaker:
Here’s an open Google Doc that anyone with the link below can edit. I’ll leave it up for a day. Create whatever you want.
Make something.
Two things
1. I need a clever name for my blog. Unfortunately, I’m not great at naming things. Help?
2. Pandora and fancy grilled cheese sandwiches make grading papers much more enjoyable.
And for the students: paper grading is going WELL. I am IMPRESSED! :)
I guess that was like two and a half things.
“Access to books should be Luda-versal.”
– Ludacris
Really. I just saw it on Palladia.
Writing workshop + Meeting an author = Saturday...
I went to a teacher writing workshop this morning at San Jose State, put on by the San Jose Area Writing Project. It was definitely worth not being able to sleep in this morning.
The main speaker was young adult lit author Chris Crutcher, who is a most wonderful smart ass. He had us cracking up at one moment, then tearing up the next. His books are like that. I read one of his books, Whale Talk,...
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Authors discuss why teens love dystopian stories
The more time I spend in the classroom, the more I realize that teens today are fun, yet sophisticated. Fortunately for them, the current young adult authors know that, and write books accordingly. One of my favorite YA authors is Scott Westerfeld, and he recently wrote a bit about why he thinks teens love a good dystopian story. He joined a few other authors in the discussion, and the New York...
Annotated Bibliography Sample
English 2A-ers!
As requested, here’s a direct link to an annotated bibliography sample. Below is what it looks like. Remember, you don’t need three paragraphs. Just two at the most: a summary and an assessment. In the assessment, you want to explain whether the source was helpful or not, or which parts were really helpful and what the source was lacking.
I hope the research is going...
MLA citation notes for research papers
What you need to know for citing websites in your research reports!
From the Purdue Online Writing Lab:
Citing Non-Print or Sources from the Internet
With more and more scholarly work being posted on the Internet, you may have to cite research you have completed in virtual environments. While many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference the OWL’s...
10 Sites & Apps for SAT Vocabulary Review →
Creative Exercises for Fiction Writers: Characters →
world-shaker:
writingadvice:
There are two types of characters: well rounded and flat.
1. Create character sketches. This is a good exercise to perform on a regular basis in your journal. Sometimes you can just create characters as they occur to you, at other times it is good to create characters of people you see or meet.
You know what? Stuff like this makes Tumblr awesome.
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Free Comic Book Day location locator! Thanks,... →
I got this from Neil Gaiman on Twitter. He’s rad.
“Books are humanity in print.”
– Barbara Tuchman 