The New Curriculum

Teaching To Kill A Mockingbird: MLK

2012-01-23T15:40:00.001-05:00

I don't remember reading much of Martin Luther King's work as a high school student. Certainly we read the I Have A Dream speech - and I remember the movement to have his birthday declared a national holiday - and the movement to resist it.

I wasn't made aware of his move towards a broader call for social justice and civil rights for poor people until college. It fascinated me though and engaged me. As a high school teacher I used "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam," and students were always surprised that Dr. King talked about the Vietnam War. It seemed Dr. King had been celebrated and canonized and stood stagnant on the I Have A Dream posters hanging in classrooms, relegated to the January holiday that celebrated his life and as assigned reading during African American history month.

Taking up Dr. King as a common talking point with students - as both as a person and as a symbol of the movement - to begin an inquiry around civil rights in the time of TKAMB and in our own time.

I often use Marc Bamuthi Joseph's Savage Inequalities from NPR - a piece that does a nice job problematizing our engagement with Dr. King's legacy - to begin a discussion around these issues. In tonight's class though, I think I'm going to start with this ABC news clip:

video platform video management video solutions video player

I think we will also listen to some of "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam," listen to the Bamuthi Joseph piece, read some Langston Hughes and maybe even watch this Kanye WEst video:

Of course we'll do some of our own writing about MLK - some reflecting and talking about how we were asked to engage with him as students and what cvil rights means to us. I found this short piece (which I think would eb good to use with students) written by a young white male about MLK, Public Enemy and what it all means to him. Later we'll look into some of the youtube clips and writing around Occupy Wall street and ask ourselves if this movement is part of Dr. King's legacy. We'll also look at my all time favorite teacher created site about a year-long inquiry project in Detroit.

This should help frame our inquiry around issues of race, socioeconomics and the ongoing civil rights movement as we start reading TKAMB.

Teaching To Kill A Mockingbird: White Saviors

2012-01-17T11:41:00.000-05:00

I'm reading To Kill a Mockingbird this semester with my students in LAI 513. I picked the title because it is still widely taught in schools and many of my former students have commented over the years that, for many of their own students, the book can be tedious and difficult to follow. This past week I started planning how I might "teach" the book this semester. My goal is to work through the book with my pre-service teachers just as a I would with high school students.

So I took to the web, as I often do, to check out what's been going on in pop culture. For the past two years I have had success teaching Of Mice and Med as an inquiry into gender, race and class, using Katy Perry's video for "California Gurls" as a starting point and I thought there might be some popular song out there that might lend itself to an inquiry into the larger ideas, themes and issues TKAMB raises. Certainly issues of race, class and power come into play and I'm sure there are a few videos out there that would be interesting to use.

I can't stop thinking about Atticus though. Reading the book this time around his role as a white savior seems troubling to me. These white saviors are, of course, everywhere in popular culture. Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds, Hillary Swank in Freedom Writers, Sean Connery in Finding Forester, what's her name from Speed in The Blind Side and, more recently, The Help (h ere's a nice oped piece critiquing that movie from the NY Times). And here's an extensive list of these types of films.

White people to the rescue

Examining race in the novel

Is Atticus Finch drawn in the same vein? Would this question be enough to jumpstart some meaningful inquiry? I don't think so, but it certainly would be an important component to examining race in the novel. I can't, for example, imagine not discussing Scout's early references to "Negro's."

"A Negro would not pass the Radley place at night. He would cut across the sidewalk opposite and whistle while he walked" (p. 11).
"The Sheriff hadn't the heart to put him in jail alongside Negros" (p. 14).

These, and many other passages from the book, are part of a much wider, and ongoing theme in American culture: White people talking about race.

Newt Gingrich, for example, had this to say the other day:

The NAACP responded, clearing up some of the misconceptions embedded in Gingrich's statement"

"It is a shame that the former speaker feels that these types of inaccurate, divisive statements are in any way helpful to our country. The majority of people using food stamps are not African American, and most people using food stamps have a job."

I'd like to spend some time looking at Scout's talk about race - Newt's comments here would be useful in examining this theme as a contemporary issue.

The Help

White people should comment less about race and they should listen more. Scout's comments about Calpurnia are worthy of some focus:

"Calpurnia rarely commented on the ways of white people" (p. 15).

It would be interesting - and important - to ask students why they think Calpurnia, at least according to Scout, doesn't have much to say about white people. A scene from The Help might be useful here.

Certainly examining the historical context is important. We need to know what happened. The danger is, of course, leaving it there. Any inquiry worth doing directs students attention to the present. This is exactly the danger of The Help. "Yes, things were bad back then, so glad everything is OK now!"

The clip below, a short piece about recreating the historical Jackson for the movie, is a good example. Scroll to the interview at 40 seconds:

I think her comments do a nice job capturing some of my problems with this movie. Was it all bad? I guess it depends upon who you ask...

Here's another interesting post about the Help from blogger Anthony Kaufman.

So that's my initial thinking. Next I'll need to develop some big questions to guide our inquiry, and look at what other texts might be help us explore those questions.

UB Pre-Service Teachers' Presentations at NCTE 2011

2011-12-05T11:22:00.001-05:00

Below are a few University at Buffalo English Education graduates' presentations from National Council of Teachers of English 2011 conference in Chicago. These research projects were conducted while students were enrolled in English education courses at UB. Students conducted research in secondary ELA classrooms. All names are pseudonyms.

Christina McGee - Imagine a word that could unlock the human potential: encouraging students to develop voice beyond the ELA classroom.

“Imagine a Word that Could Unlock the Human Potential:” Students developing Voice for the Outside World on Prezi

Shira Zemel - The classroom as community of practice.

The ELA Classroom as Community of Practice - Shira Zemel

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Candice Humphrey - Approaching Gender as a pre-service teacher: From methods course to classroom.

Appraoching gender inquiry as a pre-service teacher - Candice Humphrey

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Hannah Welch - Frontloading" Creating contexts for self-text-world connections.

Frontloading: Creating Contexts for Self-Text-World Connections

View more presentations or Upload your own.

Classroom community: A nice clip from Babe

2011-12-01T10:42:00.000-05:00

A student played this in class yesterday for a presentation on conflict resolution. Not to over simplify, but it might also help us think about classrooms as communities of practice and how teachers might approach issues of classroom management and interactions with their students.

Writing About Privilege - Two "PIctures of the Year - 2010"

2011-11-28T12:40:00.000-05:00

NCTE 2011

2011-11-20T20:31:00.006-05:00

"I wish they all could be California Girls": Pre-service teachers explorations into textual representations of gender.

weblink:

"I wish they all could be California Girls": Pre-service teachers explorations into textual representations of gender.

Reading the past, writing the future of English teacher preparation: ‘Clinically rich’ models as communities of practice.

Teacher Education as Communities of Practice CERCONE ET AL NCTE 2011

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Gender

2011-11-10T12:06:00.000-05:00

Warriors Don't Cry

2011-10-28T14:55:00.000-04:00

Below are some links - one lesson plan and few texts - to use with Warriors Don't Cry.

Lesson Plan

Some good ideas for teaching the novel from Rethinking Schools

Little Rock Nine: 50 Years Later

Nice audio memoir of some of the students and related characters from the memoir

50 Years Later, Little Rock Can't Escape Race

An important article from the May 8th, 2007 edition of the New York Times

Legacy of School Segregation Endures, Separate but Legal

An important article on the current segregation of schools

Teaching the Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

2011-10-18T13:01:00.008-04:00

Other texts

Esther Pearl Watson's Romeo and Juliet
Graphic Novel version of Romeo and Juliet

Connections to Popular Culture:
Videos:

Film comparisons:

Inquiry I: Ghetto Life 101, Remorse and The Danger of a Single Story

2011-10-12T14:53:00.003-04:00

I first heard Remorse while living in a cabin in the Pacific North West. In those days Seattle's NPR station, KPLU, was my link to the world. I remember where I was (standing in the kitchen) and what I was doing (cleaning the kitchen). Like most people I was deeply moved by the story, the issues it addressed and the voices of the young men telling it. It was powerful and important. I recorded what I could on a cassette I had lying around, hoping one day to use it in my classroom. This was before the internet made rebroadcasting and archiving easy and accessible. I carried that tape with me for years waiting to use it in my classroom. By the time I found a job, found my feet professionally and had begun to figure out how to make all this work in a classroom, a few years had passed. Though I still had that tape, I found the CD on Amazon and a website for the two stories. I used both Ghetto Life and Remorse in class. my third year of teaching. I still have memories of how students responded the first time I used it. The conversation was powerful and spearheaded my students' own radio documentaries about their lives. Something important was happening for my students because of these two stories. I continued to use them for a number of years. They worked well, helping us examine issues of race and economics regardless of what texts we were reading at any given time.

As a teacher educator I have also used these stories and my students almost always find them powerful examples of story telling and troubling glimpses into how life is for many in America. It help us talk about what teaching means and what student are capable of doing, given meaningful support and opportunities.

I consider now though if these stories feed into already deeply embedded notions of what it means to be black and live in America's cities. The media is full of these stereotypes. I then think of Chimamanda Adichie's The Danger of A Single Story. An incredibly important Ted Talk from 2009. "Show a people as only one thing over and over again and that is what they become" Chimamanda says. It too is a powerful piece and has worked well in the English education courses I teach. It helps us pick apart the single stories we have received from the culture, the single stories embedded in the texts we teach.

I've been thinking about how Adichie's piece can deepen the conversations that takes place around Ghetto Life and Remorse. I'm not sure if these two stories, now almost 20 years old, contribute to the single story of African Americans or if they read against that single story, but it's a question I want to ask students. It's a question I think would work extremely well in an English classroom based on Inquiry.

Inquiry gets a lot of lip service these days and I often wonder if my students really understand it before they graduate and head off to their own classrooms. I think we need more examples of Inquiry in real classrooms, spaces where students and their teacher take up big interesting and difficult to answer questions, spaces where these questions guide students through an examination of all sorts of texts.

Here Remorse, Ghetto Life and Adichie's talk bump up against clips from Dangerous Minds, and excerpts from Dick Gregory's memoir. As a teacher we need really good questions and texts. We need to ask how clips from The Wire can add to the process of inquiry around issues of race and class in the classroom. How readings of To Kill A Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men and other canonical works of literature can benefit from an array of texts that problematize the issues we are examining.

The questions we ask, the texts we pick will determine how well inquiry works...then of course - what we ask our students to do with it all. But that's another discussion.

On reading in schools

2011-09-14T15:41:00.000-04:00

Test

2011-09-09T02:55:00.001-04:00

Checking out the new blogger iPhone app.

Gender, Advertising and Literature

2011-08-30T20:03:00.003-04:00

Great Gatsby - "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool" (21).

And this:

A bit of language use on NPR

2011-08-29T07:34:00.008-04:00

Listen to this bit (around the 1:00 minute mark) about Attorney Generals/Attorneys General and a quick reference to how people use language in their lives from an administrator in the law school at Columbia University.

Schoology

2011-08-26T14:10:00.001-04:00

For ENG 311 we will be using Schoology, a website designed for secondary classroom use. You must use an access code to sign up for Schoology. I shared this code in class, but it is also posted here in the comments section.

First visit their website. Follow the on screen prompts to sign up as a student. Type in the access code when asked. Once you have confirmed and moved through the steps, set up your profile. I have included some useful videos below to make your initial experiences with Schoology run more smoothly.

Natalie Munroe's thoughts on teaching and her suspension

2011-08-23T22:21:00.012-04:00

Natalie Munroe...

I missed out on this when it happened. You can catch up to speed here first and then here, and here. There are other links around the web that fan some flames in either direction. Her blog is here. I'll tell you though the real issue here is English teaching , what it means to be an English teacher and how we should teach English Language Arts. It also has something to do with what we should think of our students, but that is embedded, I think, in the previous items I listed.

Watch this video below:

There are a few flags I'd like to throw down on the play. Some things that should be called out here. First what are her attitudes regarding parents and students? What are her attitudes regarding the administration?

Natalie Munroe and What it Means to Teach English

2011-08-23T22:14:00.003-04:00

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/07/29/teacherblogger-natalie-munroe-returns-to-the-classroom/
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/128284843.html
http://www.nataliemunroe.com/2011/06/june-reflection-my-favorite-teaching.html

Why Teach English Language Arts?

2011-08-23T21:45:00.002-04:00

The Participatory Classroom - playing around with Prezi

2011-08-23T13:47:00.003-04:00

Snow Days.

2011-02-01T23:56:00.001-05:00

My Five minutes of fame under my old name.

High School Student Radio Documentaries

2010-09-15T10:41:00.005-04:00

Below are radio documentaries written and produced by my former students at Cheektowaga Central High school.

Divorce- Jen White

Dad - Nicole Klem

Airport Stories - Mark Lewandowski and Mike Degen

My Story - Angel Velaquez

Adopted - Amber Wilkes

Public Radio in the Classroom: Social Justice and Civil Rights

2008-09-07T22:35:00.004-04:00

Keeping things fresh and new are part of what it means to teach in the New Curriculum. With that in mind, and being away from the classroom now for over a year, I wanted to look at what new ways I could go about teaching some of the more important issues I worked on with high school students. I've wanted to piece together some new ways to use public radio in the English classroom for some time.

I found this today.

I have not heard the program, but the website and the idea is pretty impressive.

There's also a curriculum guide some 8th grade teachers put together...

Student Work - Macbeth

2008-04-26T12:24:00.001-04:00

Below is a video I wanted to share with you all. The video was created off of an assessment entitled "Macbeth Abridged." Students were asked to recreate, with creative freedom, Macbeth. I was pretty impressed with it and wanted to see what others thought.

Bakhtin and Rethinking Curriculum as Youthspace

2008-04-21T11:50:00.003-04:00

hi everybody

2008-03-27T10:56:00.003-04:00

Hello all- I'm a new addition to the new curriculum blog- first time writer, long time reader (for any sports talk radio listeners out there). I wanted to take a couple minutes to write about a pretty cool experience I had recenlty. My classes has been reading The Taming of the Shrew and working on their research papers simultaniously (yikes!!). Their papers were due before Easter break, so it occured to me that they wouldn't be working with the book for about a week. Long story short, we needed to review when we came back. Rather than the typical, "what was going on when we left off," I had the students break into groups, pick scenes out of a hat, and had them storyboard and act out skits to review the first 4 acts of the play. I let the kid modernize the setting and language, but did instruct them to focus on the storyline. This activity worked out much better than I could have imagined. The kids really took the assignment and ran with it. The skits were really fun and all of the students really got into them. The really cool part was that after the skits, I could tell the students understanding of the play (especially all the characters in disguise) was enhanced. I even allowed some of my smaller classes to choose their own way of recapping scenes- one group created posterboards with symbols and pictures, one group did a two person skit, and one even create a children's picture book to tell the story of the scenes they selected. Sometimes I sit there at the end of the day and wonder, "what's the point... are these kids really learning from this class." This assignment served as one of those feel good teacher moments where everything seems clear (at least for a couple moments).

Blog Revival

2008-03-10T07:29:00.002-04:00

I think we need to get this thing going again! I miss hearing stories about people who were at other placements and now I am completely by myself at Harriet Ross Tubman in Buffalo.. so I am going to need some sort of way to keep in touch. So, since I have off today :-D I thought I'd try to get things going again.

Friday was a very strange day for me. Surprisingly, I didn't cry (well, until I was walking out) but it was definitely an emotional time. It was really sad to say goodbye to all of my kids. I actually had this really weird feeling when I was hearing the announcements for the next week. It hit me: Life at CCHS will go on even after I leave! Now, of course I knew this already, but hearing how the days of my students will just continue on was pretty sad. I taught all my classes and said goodbye and was sad. I ate my lunch and then when I went back into my classroom the desks were already in rows and the podium was set back up. The classroom looked as if I had never been there. I sure hope my presence lingers a bit longer than my classroom arragement did!

How was everyone else's last day? Or, first day of their 2nd placement?

Stories about kids

2008-02-20T09:41:00.002-05:00

The other night I was out with a friend having dinner and this man stopped me and said "Mr. Cercone?" It was a former student of mine from a long time ago. He stopped me because he wanted to let me know how much he learned in my class and how he used what he learned over the years. This was a kid I always had a tough time with, whom, I was sure, hated me about as much as any kid I had problems with over the years. We talked for a while and he said he was sorry he gave me such a hard time. I always felt I could have handled the problems with him a lot better. It was my second year of teaching and I think I made a lot of mistakes in working with him, to be honest.He really made me nuts. His mother called accusing me of picking on him, said he hated my class and didn't want to be there. She basically told me I was a terrible teacher.

Still, there he was 26 years old, almost ten years later praising my class.

I think teaching is about the craziest, whirlwind of a job. There are student we take to who take to us. There are kids we love to teach, and kids we sometimes hope are absent that day because the class can be so much better when they are not there. I can tell a million stories about kids I have had over the years. I'm full of anecdotes, stories about their lives and my life intersecting.

This is what is best about English. We get to know them, their stories, ideas and struggles in the world, perhaps in ways a Science teacher or Math might not be able to.

Anyone have any stories about the students they have met up to this point? We would love to hear them, good and bad...

Check this video out.

2008-02-13T19:43:00.002-05:00

I'm thinking of using it in my class. It is quite fascinating. It reminded me of The New Curriculum so I thought I would post it here!

Just to cheer everyone up a bit...

2008-02-06T18:45:00.000-05:00

So the other day we were looking at Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy. My students' assignment: write your own soliloquy on any topic (that you would read to your mother). They were all really good, so I thought I'd post 1 or 2 here.

First, the funny guy -

To Poop or not to Poop
by: CR

To Poop or not to Poop
That is the question
whether to now and/or later
To go now would mean relief
To wait would mean comfort;
Discomfort
The comfort of my own sear
The discomfort of my bowels
All concentration is on the poop
If one goes, one may need a courtesy
Flush
To go now a nest would be necessary
To wait an ache would occur
It's all in the poop
To go would be "bomb"

Okay... there were people who wrote on more serious topics.. such as:

To Separate or not to Separate
by: MR

To separate or not to separate
That is the question.
Should I not separate and stay with the crowd?
That same crowd, that can bring me down?
Or should I separate.
Separate until the point where I'm all alone,
Not responsible for anyone's actions but my own.
But that means to done,
Done with everyone and everything that may come.
Maybe its just a game.
Is the winner the one who gains fame?
Maybe the one who people don't know his name.
Separation
a form of determination
I don't know, I have to find a way
but I'm alright.. for now anyways.

I just thought these were really cool and I wanted to give the kids some more credit :-)

Two questions....

2008-01-24T11:04:00.000-05:00

Question #1
I want to show some Youtube video clips from Kid Nation and Survivor; however, Youtube is blocked here at Lockport (like most schools). I have been trying to find a way to download the videos in order to still show them, but I keep running into a new annoying problem. Should I just give up on it? I feel it is really important for the students to see the clips in order to discuss the connection between reality t.v. and LOTF! I went to the tech dept. here and what they told me to do did not work. I am about to just bootleg the damn clips!

I was just wondering if anyone has a solution...other than what I have already tried.

Question #2 (Coleen's Question):
"I need a way for students to conduct interviews, bring them in, and convert them into garage band." Should she use some sort of digital voice recorder? btw- Lockport does not have one...

Anyone knows a way for her to do this- let us know!

Thanks !! Amanda and Coleen

Class Blogs

2008-01-24T07:08:00.000-05:00

I created two class blogs for both my Seventh and Eighth grade. I am going to start them today. Wish me luck! Feel free to look over them and give me feedback. This is my first time with a blog. I really like the Google calendar idea, like Mr. Malley pointed out. It helps to organize myself as well as the students.

Seventh grade:
http://cheektowagaseventhgrade.blogspot.com/

Eighth grade:
www.cheektowagaeighthgrade.blogspot.com

I need a few euphemisms for "shut up"....

2008-01-21T20:06:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the delay on posting, but seriously, this teaching gig is kinda tiring.

So, all my classes are pretty great. I have a wide scope students, and it ranges from those who are totally into school/grade conscious to those who could give a shit. It's school. It was basically what I was expecting.

I've already received some exceptional work thus far. Two students in particular have written pieces that have been nothing short of amazing, and I was completely taken aback that they would share such personal works with me this early on. I was almost speechless, I have already asked each student if I could use their writing in my portfolio, as to which they both kindly obliged.

I'm also really trying hard to bring the media/pop culture aspect into the class every chance I get. It's completely hysterical when I use references that the students are into, and they look at me like i'm nuts. I just guess they're not use to their teachers making comments about Beyonce(I was singing "Upgrade" the other day), Lil Wayne, Pink Floyd, Flavor of Love, Lebron James, etc... It really is amazing how much of a relationship you can build when you bring in varying discourses. So important -

Hmm... what else - I'm writing on the fly here. I guess the only issue that i've run into is the inordinate amount of talking in the classes. I try not to get too pissed about it, I always say "dont turn me into that guy" and that usually works. Other than the talking issues, I guess the only other setback i've had was the concrete belly flop my "n" word discussion took. I guess it's hard to lead a discussion when 3 out of 24 kids do the reading.

Other than that, things are going well and I couldn't be happier....

Two Things

2008-01-14T15:08:00.001-05:00

There are two things that I need to hear some comments about..
1. So there is one teacher, who will remain nameless, who feels the need to constantly complain to me about her students. I had never met this person before and last week she burst into the faculty room and exclaimed, "These students are such assholes!" I have seen her many times since then and she has continued to tell me everything that is wrong with her students. Some of the names she calls them I am too embarassed to even repeat. I know that I'm new to this, but it's pretty depressing to hear someone who is supposed to be trying to help these kids say such negative things about them. Like I said, I might just be naive and idealistic, but I cannot understand why someone like that (and probably many other teachers) would stay in this profession. Is anyone else having a similar experience?
2. Does anyone else feel like they are boring their students? I try to be upbeat and enthusiastic, but when we are discussing I feel like they would rather be ANYWHERE other than sitting in my classroom. This obviously does not apply to every student, but it is very difficult to get a lot of them to participate. For example, today was a really low key day. All that we really had time for was a journal, a quick discussion about it, and to read a scene from Hamlet. When they were reading Hamlet I cannot tell you how often I heard yawns and saw people stretching. Other than having students act out the play or watch it on film, both of which I will eventually be doing, is there a way to make reading the text more interesting and entertaining?

All right. I need some advice!

2008-01-09T16:28:00.000-05:00

Today was quite an interesting day to say the least. I need some help from you all and maybe if "we put our brains together" we can find some solutions.

I taught all day today because my CT had car trouble and couldn't make it to school. A sub stayed in the room with me all day and helped out but I taught every period (3- 8th grade, 2- 7th grade). I changed things up: moving the desks from rows to a circle. I attempted to lay the groundwork for a discussion-based classroom. Remember that M&M icebreaker we did at the beginning of the year? Well I did pretty much that, but since I had to improvise, I used lollipops, 3x5 cards, and paperclips. For each item the students were to write down something like their favorite hobby, embarrassing or funny story.
Things were rough. Students would not quiet down and I found myself trying to yell over them. I emphasized that while one student is talking the others need to give them their respect and pay attention = effective discussion. It didn't work that way. The 8th graders weren't as bad as the 7th graders, but overall, there seemed to always be a couple students per period who would lead in saying mean things to other students.

Some examples: "Wow, that was a stupid story"; "Geez, that was supposed to be funny?" "Wow, how stupid!"

On top of it all, many students rolled their eyes and showed much apathy for the lesson. I'm just wondering if the major reason is because of the grade level.

And so, I ask you all for help. Possible reasons I thought of:
1. CT was not there so students felt they wouldn't have repercussions.
2. The students were bored and not engaged enough.
3. The lesson was poorly planned (mainly because I had 5 minutes to plan)
4. Grade level

How do you think I should modify the pedagogy we learned in LAI 617 to these 7th and 8th graders?

How did everyone's first couple of days go?

2008-01-08T15:44:00.000-05:00

As promised, I wanted to blog about my first few days of student teaching (and I definitely want to hear about how it's going for everyone else). It will be a miracle if this actually posts though because I've never done a post like this, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. I was excited that I finally saw everyone today. I'm very lonely in room C239 from 12:07 on and I started to walk the halls yesterday to find a very familiar face. No luck, but hopefully next time.

I've taught Periods 2 and 3 both yesterday and today. Tomorrow I'm starting with the rest of them. So far so good. Just like I had expected, it's pretty tough moving these kids from one style of teaching to another, but I'm happy with the way it's turned out.

So today I taught the lesson I did in our Methods class - the one about stereotyping. It's so funny how completely different 2 periods can be. Period 2 was a little reluctant to discuss stereotypes. When I read their journals they had a lot to say though, so I think this group was worried about offending anyone. The poems that they wrote were unbelievable though. I might make a copy of some of them because I was really impressed. Out of 5 possible points every single student got 5 points.

Period 3, which is clearly a little more rowdy, were completely open to discussion. They all had many experiences with stereotypes and were more than willing to share. The best part of that class is that students were discussing with one another without my help. The conversation about whether or not girls can play sports in gym was awesome, one I'll probably never forget. Their poems were also great, but because the discussion took off like it did I had to cut time off of those. I won't be teaching this class on my own again until after exams, so I hope they don't forget me.

One thing I wanted to tell you guys was the Barnes and Noble has an online book club community that has a bunch of different discussion boards. Since we have talked about having our students become real readers and writers, I thought it would be pretty cool to have them participate in a discussion about Hamlet with people all over the world. So, for extra credit I'm going to encourage students to participate in the Shakespeare online book club. They have all different fourms, so maybe one would work for you guys too.

Let me know how everyone else is doing. I miss Tuesdays! And please come visit me because I'm free from 12:07 on!

Would you hire any of these people?

2007-12-09T20:28:00.000-05:00

Degrees of Gray in Buffalo

2007-12-03T20:43:00.000-05:00

I just found this social networking meets music mix-tape website today and thought it was interesting. Here's a mix I made, which you can add to if you would like. Anyone see any educational uses for this site and others like it?

2007-11-28T15:24:00.000-05:00

Struggling Students, Students with Learning Disabilities and English Language Learners

2007-11-23T12:50:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone had a great holiday.

Congratulations to our three presenters from last week. I thought they did an excellent job and I look forward to the presentations of your lessons this week.

Please post your responses to this week’s readings. Be sure and check back before Tuesday to read and comment on the postings, as we will not have a lot of time to discuss these readings in class.

Teaching Stories

2007-11-16T09:36:00.000-05:00

Please post your teaching stories here.

2007-11-05T13:49:00.000-05:00

This is just a copy of the handout you received in class, with some embedded links. If you would like to post your stories here, please do so. It may help to get us thinking about them for Tuesday's class.

We are surrounded on a daily basis with narratives of all kinds, commercials, international news, novels, and movies, all tell stories. Some of us carry deep, personal stories - the narratives of our parents and grandparents around inside us. Stories help us make sense of our lives; they give us a position, a trajectory, a place to come home to. Most of us, as English teachers, have a deep belief in the transformative power of narratives.

It is important that we begin the process of crafting our own professional narratives. What stories do we have to tell as people about to enter a new and incredibly important profession? What do we believe in? What do we worry about? What story do we want to paint inside the caves for others to look and wonder about?

I suggest you spend some time writing about your beliefs regarding education and the teaching f English. Here are some questions you may want to use to get started.

What were your experiences as a student - both good and bad? Why did you get into the profession to begin with? What do you want to do, to become as a teacher? What have you learned that has expanded or confirmed these beliefs? What does your family say about you becoming a teacher? What about your friends? What about the public? Have you changed since you entered the program? How have you changed? What has changed in you? Do you think about teaching, learning and education differently than you used to? How? Why? What big ideas have you grabbed onto? What do you see your classroom looking like? What books, poems and movies do you most want to teach and why? What are you most excited about? What are you most nervous about? What kind of teacher do you want to be? How are you going to become that person?

As I would say with any of my students, move through the process. This is very important and will help us discuss how best to make these kinds of writing experiences work in our classrooms. After some free writing or brainstorming, look over what you have gathered. Take some notes on the page. Do you see any themes emerging? Do you see significant ideas, experiences? Is there a triggering event - what Richard Hugo called the Triggering Town – it’s worth a read if you have time…

Once you have gone over your free writing try and assemble what I like to call a working draft, a piece in process we can go over in class and talk about.

Some other notes:

For this piece you should consider public radio listeners your audience.

It might help to listen to some more stories from the This I Believe web site.

We will work these through, so don’t feel like you need to have some perfect story, bring it in and we can help you with it.

While this is your story, it is still part of the class so it is helpful to include things we have learned and talked about as they seem appropriate.

Listen to Nicole Kaznowski’s piece again- it may help you get started….

Some Questions About the Applebee and Langer Articles

2007-11-05T10:26:00.000-05:00

Here's the CELA website by the way....

I'm enjoying your posts about these two articles. I do worry though that we are all nodding our heads enthusiastically in agreement, which is always dangerous. If you haven't yet commented please do so in the original Applebee/Langer post below.

Then I liked you to consider the questions below if you have some time....

What questions do you have about extending the findings of CELA into your classrooms? What specific things do you envision doing with this information?

We will talk about this in class, but it may be helpful to get started here, if you have any ideas.

Applebee and Langer

2007-11-02T11:34:00.000-04:00

What do you think are the most important points in these articles? In what ways do you see them linking to the ideas we have talk about and to your own developing notions of what it means to be an effective teacher of English?

State Tests (Print Literacy as Oppression?)

2007-10-26T10:39:00.000-04:00

Hmmm.... print literacy as a tool of oppression... what do students think?

NCTE on standardized testing - Your professional organization's position...

and here as well...

How can we formulate a thoughtful, intelligent response to the state tests our students will take? How do we best prepare them for this exam? What is this exam like? What does it require of our students, of us? What skills do they need and how do we teach those skills?

What do you think now that you have looked over the state tests? Many of you worried about them at the start of the year, are you worried still? Do the things we have been saying about teaching English fit here? Can they help you figure all of this out? Why? Why not?

How will you go about preparing your students for the tests they will take in 8th and 11th grades? What do you see yourself doing in light of what you have learned about the real and effective teaching of English?

More about digital media

2007-10-25T12:23:00.000-04:00

Teaching Shakespeare Excerpts

2007-10-23T14:40:00.000-04:00

One way that Toepfer & Haas suggest to bridge this prodigious gap is to recreate the text in a way that is applicable in today’s culture. I like their idea a great deal and I think we could use it they way they suggest, as a preface to the piece, but, I also feel we could use it as a primary writing task. Why not construct these parallels as we’re reading? We can place characters in real life situations and recreate the events of Shakespeare through the student’s lens…All our students love music, and giving them the opportunity to create soundtracks for specific scenes sound very promising….No matter which progressive approach a teacher takes, whether using drama, music, videos, creative writing - we are making Shakespeare “real” to our students. – Rich

None of the articles touched on Shakespeare’s language other than it being a barrier for students. As I said, I do agree that it can be a barrier. But, once the barrier has been broken down and students comprehend the plays, could it be revisited? – Amy

I read The Girls in the Back of the Class for my Foundation of Education class last year and the author (her name is currently escaping me right now) discussed having her “at-risk” low end students rewrite a Shakespeare play into modern times. They followed through the whole process of making the play- the created of publicity posters, writing a script, casting, rehearsal, making scenery, and then the performance. The students loved doing this. – Jennifer

I have always thought that actually having them act is much more effective. I know it takes time, but I think it forces students to look at the text differently because there are obviously quite a few decisions that need to be made when performing a scene. I observed a class reading Romeo and Juliet a couple days ago, and the reading wasn’t exactly enthusiastic. Certain scenes could even be performed on the fly. – Andy

I also thought of some other movies that deal with violence back and forth between two groups including Boys in the Hood, which I think most adolescents will still be familiar with even though it is a little older, and possibly Higher Learning, which I would have to watch again myself as it has been awhile and I may not be remembering the movie correctly. – Erin

My professor that I mentioned earlier must have read the article about the comparing and contrasting of the two versions of Romeo and Juliet because our class did exactly that. We watched several Shakespearian film adaptations and saw the many ways in which the directors would interpret the play. Of course, I think it is important that the text is not left behind, which the one problem I foresee with showing movies. However, if the films are shown in short clips in conjunction with one another, the effect is different. I feel that what the article was saying about how students may not always understand that there are various valid interpretations of one text, is something that should always be taken into consideration. – Amanda

I do believe though that the texts which translate the language – shorten it, or put it in more current terms is not the right way to go about reading Romeo & Juliet. I think we need to help students with the language – but we don’t need to spell it out for them. The point of reading Shakespeare’s plays is to listen to the language, seeing it acted out will help the students understand it and hopefully appreciate it more then just being given the “cut down version.” – Giselle

Shakespeare definitely deserves to hold a place in high school curriculum but it needs to be handled with caution, just like a metal tea pot. Poured slowly and with mittens a great cup o' tea is born, but pour the water too quickly and burns will occur. I plan on wearing mittens when I teach Shakespeare…. I really like the idea of students re-creating scenes from the play in a form that provokes discussion on gender/race/ethnic. Morrison's students brought up an extremely valid point when they asked where the black actors were in the play. Re-creating scenes by mixing up the gender and race stratifications is a great way for students to make social commentary a very contemporary theme. This way students are relaying Shakespeare to their lives and using a text written hundreds of years ago to make a change in society today. – Mark

I think my biggest apprehension is what to do when I encounter a student who doesn't particularly like Shakespeare. I mean not every student is going to go home, stand in front of the mirror memorizing a soliloquy from "Hamlet" or "Romeo and Juliet" (Something I admit I did quite often.) But this goes back to what we've been saying throughout the entire course, relating the material to the students interests. I really love the idea of recreating Shakespeare in a modern context, allowing students to infer their own meaning from the play. – Lauren

I also believe that Romeo and Juliet needs to be used as an active text. If there are stduents in teh class who are excited about acting out scenes, we should allow them to do so. I particularly don't believe that if a student is shy and does not want to act out in front of the class that we should force them to do so. - Jessica

I know I read Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Hamlet in high school, but I really remember very little. I do remember, however, being given a sword and told to stab Caesar to death. This fact came back to me over and over again as I reread the play for college. After having read the article about process drama I began to understand why. The problem I saw with my experience was that this was an isolated instance of process drama. I couldn't recall what happened before or after I killed Caesar, but I definitely remembered killing him. Had drama been used in class all along, I probably would have been able to piece together the events to create the play's plot. - Shannon

1984 and the present

2007-10-22T14:47:00.001-04:00

Digital Thought Police

Anybody else see any connections between the book and the present?

Teaching Shakespeare

2007-10-19T14:11:00.000-04:00

Well, it's bound to happen. All of you will at some point teach a Shakespeare play. I'll put money on it. While it may intimidate some of you and excite others - for our students, experiencing the play can be exciting and engaging, if we go about teaching it thoughtfully.

So what are your thoughts? Have any of the articles helped you? Do you have ideas you want to share? What about the play itself? What themes might kids get into? What do you like about it?

The LAI 617/698 2007 Grammar Challenge

2007-10-12T10:20:00.000-04:00

I have to admit that when I was getting ready to student teach I was terrified about teaching grammar. It was only after we did some reading on the topic and I had a chance to see and think about how real writers address the issue within the practice of their craft did I feel more comfortable. How are you feeling about this aspect of your job? What has been your own experiences working with grammar and language use? Did any of the readings make sense? Do you disagree with any of the readings?

After you have a chance to comment here on the blog about the grammar readings for the week, I'd like you to pick one of two challenges:

1.) Design a brief overview (a narrative would be fine) of an example of teaching grammar within the context of the new curriculum and the progressive educational practices we have been talking about.

2.) Find and post a link to a lesson plan on the Internet that you feel is a good example of teaching grammar within the context of the new curriculum and the progressive educational practices we have been talking about.

Be sure to check back here so you can comment on your classmates' posts.

Poems for making one shot videos

2007-10-11T08:23:00.001-04:00

Mother to Son

Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Dreams

Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

Dream Deferred

Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Fire and Ice

Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

My First Memory (of Librarians)

Nikki Giovanni

This is my first memory:

A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky

wood floor

A line of green shades—bankers’ lights—down the center

Heavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply

too short

For me to sit in and read

So my first book was always big

In the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presided

To the left side the card catalogue

On the right newspapers draped over what looked like

a quilt rack

Magazines face out from the wall

The welcoming smile of my librarian

The anticipation in my heart

All those books—another world—just waiting

At my fingertips.

We Real Cool

Gwendolyn Brooks

THE POOL PLAYERS.

SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

Selections from Media and Digital Literacies

2007-10-09T15:16:00.000-04:00

Here are some excerpts from your responses to the media projects and readings (Christenbury chapter 11... err... I mean Chapter 9, etc..).

When I was in high school we never used television or film to make a point. The only time we watched anything on tv was if it was the movie version of the book we were reading and then classtime was generally used by students as nap time. We didn't use these as legit texts to study. We would compare/contrast them and that was about it.

I wonder how we can make this work in areas that are less affluent and are not technologically advantaged? Some schools are lucky enough to have enough desks and books for their students, let alone laptops/computers that are available for student use or even televisions in the classroom. In situations like this, how can we incorporate technology into our lessons with students that most need it?

It's very important that we, as teachers, move towards educating students instead of schooling them.

We must create personally relevant and meaningful activities and discussions for students to participate in. More often than we are probably aware of, our students will have very complex lives with very adult problems. Like Ms. Pastore presented last class, we should allow students to consider the extremes of their lives and use school as an outlet of expression.

The other use of technology was reader response blogs, which is basically what I am using right now. I must admit that the quality some of the work that I read shows that some students were very serious about the blog and the depth was indicative that they weren’t just superficial comments filling space.

School has changed, though, and it's important to be able to connect with students in ways that are meaningful to them. Christenbury talks about using technology, but in productive ways. I completely agree with that. Giving students assignments and lessons based around technology and/or media for no particular reason won't accomplish anything.

As I’ve said before, a lot of this technology stuff is new to me and I want to be sure that I know what I’m doing before I bring it into a classroom. It wouldn’t be very beneficial for students if I tried to bring in some kind of technology that I didn’t have a certain level of comfort with

Okay, this is really hard to explain, but the central point is that English class for me was something “out there”.

The ability to express myself more and go on adventures discovering things about myself through different mediums (writing, visual productions, audio productions, poetry, etc.)
2. The ability to critically analyze the world around me, not the world around Shakespeare.
a. In college English classes I critically analyzed media’s depiction of women, different cultures, the “other”, and race and found this to be mind-blowing. Granted, I am not the best person to watch movies with now (I completely ruined King Kong for my friend because I kept complaining about how the movie depicts indigenous people to be primitive, wild, or like in the movie having eyes that roll in the back of the head).
3. Teachers who used videos other than PBS specials from the 70’s.

Myspace problem…

When I see some of the digital videos that students have put together I am in awe, I would have no idea how to go about doing that. I think this is why there are still so little technology and media references used in the classroom. If the teacher doesn’t know how to do something, or isn’t familiar with a specific TV show or movie then they won’t use it in their classroom. I think we should open it up to our students and encourage them to find Media references, and bring in fun tech ideas to spice up their lessons.

I ended up creating a video in which it helped me bring closure to the long relationship and compile everything and then stop worrying about it. I feel like everyone has something like this to do for themselves.

The Special Education room was the most eager to use technology within its walls. For the students who had a hard time reading, they are able to use a program that scans the book into the computer and then reads it to the student while highlighting which part it is at. There is also a writing program that allows the students to write a word and it will guess which word you are trying to say and give you options before you are even finished writing the word. After each sentence is complete, the computer reads the sentence to the student in hopes that by hearing it they will understand if they made a mistake within the sentence. This technology is used for severe disability learners but I think it is a great example of one way technolgoy can be accepted into the classroom for all levels of learners.

Parents, Homework and Blogs

2007-10-08T09:19:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting article from the NY Times.

Teaching with Digital Literacies and Popular Media

2007-10-03T15:18:00.000-04:00

Follow this link to listen to This American Life Episode 90 Act I

Now that you have read Christenbury's chapter on using media in the classroom, what are your thoughts? What specific things would you like to do in your own class? Why? Do you see anything connecting with the literature we have read, or the literature that is commonly taught in middle and high schools? What are your own experiences with popular media and how might that affect your teaching?

In my classes I've used The Wonder Years, Seinfeld, Northern Exposure, the Simpsons, South Park and the Sopranos just to name a few. What TV shows or parts of movies do you see connecting with the literature we have read in class, or the literature that is commonly taught in schools? How do you see it connecting?

Then of course there are blogs: Joel Malley (a tall guy from McKinley High School) will be visiting our class next week. Here's his class blog and some student videos. I like this one, it's very simple yet allows us to see the student's personal take on the poem. It also makes what is a commonly taught poem fresh again.

What about media production?

When I first started teaching in 1995 my school had just been wired for the internet. To me this meant that I could finally figure out what the lyrics were to R.E.M's It's the End of The World As We Know It, or look up poems from one my favorite poets of the time, Richard Hugo. It did not mean a change in teaching to me then, but it really did.

A few years later I prepared to start a unit where my students were going to make their own NPR radio documentaries. I brought in a 4 track cassette mixing deck that I was going to plug in to a dubbing deck I had, if that makes any sense to some of you. Two of my students looked at me as if I was crazy. "What's that?" they asked. The next day they brought in a copy of ACID 2.0 and we started the project using the computer. That project, and the stories that resulted from it, was one of the first times in my early teaching career where I could really see the power of the English classroom.

Listen to or download 3 of those original radio documentaries here:

Dad

Airport Stories

Adopted

The following year we started making videos. Here are a few:

Life Not Lived Not Long Enough - This video, made by John Messina, is about his father passing away.

Sticks and Stones - A video made by Meghan Hannel on the day the United States invaded Iraq.

Without A Cause - A spoken word protest poem by Justin Sztukowski about that same war written in English class, preformed at the school talent show.

Finally, For Real - Noelle Luterek's conceptual video from 2007.

Needless to say digital technologies have really changed my teaching and my students' learning. What are your own ideas about studying and using media production in your classroom? How do you see it fitting in?

So Basically we're looking at three categories of using media in the English classroom:

1.) Critical Media Literacy - instances when classes look critically at media. This includes looking at how the media represents woman, persons of color, members of the working class and other groups of people. Other examples include how the media addresses important political and economic issues, among others.

2.) Popular Media -Studies - Using popular media as a valid text worth studying in its own right as well as supplemental material for use along side literature and other traditional texts.

3.) Media Production - projects where students create their own media - print publications, advertisements, recorded poetry and stories, blogs, radio documentaries, videos etc...

Teaching Warriors Don't Cry

2007-10-02T15:05:00.000-04:00

Below are some links - one lesson plan and few texts - to use with Warriors Don't Cry. Check them out when you get a chance and let me know what you think.

Lesson Plan
Some good ideas for teaching the novel from Rethinking Schools

Little Rock Nine: 50 Years Later
Nice audio memoir of some of the students and related characters from the memoir

50 Years Later, Little Rock Can't Escape Race
An important article from the May 8th, 2007 edition of the New York Times

Legacy of School Segregation Endures, Separate but Legal
An important article on the current segregation of schools

Achievement

2007-10-01T10:46:00.002-04:00

An interesting blog post (Education and Class) and link to an article in the SF Chronicle about cheating in school.

Assessments

2007-09-28T12:08:00.000-04:00

One of my biggest regrets from my first year of teaching is giving a few traditional tests. One, I remember, was on the Birds - the film and short story. I think it was one of the first stories we read that year and I remember feeling very official while I was making it up - scantrons and all. I realized, though, before the end of the year that tests did little to measure the progress my kids were making. I can't say though I had an answer to the problem. If not tests, than what?

Luckily over the next few years the ideas of assessment, evaluation, of measuring growth started to make sense.

Many of you have been worrying about assessments. You have commented in class and in your responses that you are concerned about them. After reading Romano and Kohn, what do you think? I'm sure the readings didn't answer it all for you, but I bet they at least generated some ideas about the issue. What are you thinking?

Welcome students of LAI 617/698

2007-09-28T11:04:00.000-04:00

We will start using this, other blogs and related sites as a regular part of the class as we begin to look at ways digital literacies can be incorporated into the English classroom.

For your first visit, please check out the many links and resources listed on the right side of the page. After you have surfed around, post a comment here regarding your thoughts and impressions.

You may first need a google account and will have to work through the regular registration process, which for most you will should be pretty easy. If you need help just email me.

I have also posted a response section on Ublearns just in case someone has a difficult time figuring this out.

After you have looked around read my post below on assessments, and post your comments.

Jim

What is a New Curriculum?

2007-09-24T14:26:00.000-04:00

I've used blogs in my classroom for a few years now but never really had my own. I tried to start one to post some of my writing to - I thought that would force me to write more - but it never really panned out. When I first started writing here I wanted to play around with some of the new blogger features for use in my class blogs. That day I was doing some research on NCLB, testing and the text book industry. I wasn't really surprised about what I found and thought it would make a nice first post to share with my students in the fall.

Around the same time I started reading Teaching the Universe of Discourse by James Mofett, which was written in 1968. It's a good, sometimes difficult read. What he says makes a ton of sense and then, drifting off as I do when I read some times (AADD?), I started thinking about how much of what we do in education is rooted in some bizarre, antiquated, ideas about what it means to think and learn and know some things.

The two connect of course because the curriculum we teach is increasingly defined, as are most things, by corporate interests - whether it's the text book companies or the testing companies, or state legislatures and federal bureaucracies acting on their behalf.

What does teaching and learning mean in 2007? How have these things changed? These days looking back at what has been said seems to connect with what is being said about technology and learning in pretty interesting ways. So the trick is to redefine curriculum. We can, at times, use older ideas about teaching and learning to help us look at the present. That's where Moffett's ideas about discourse connect in my mind, at least.

First I guess we have to define curriculum.

What is it now? What can it be? Why? How do we make it happen in our classrooms?

2007-08-03T09:51:00.001-04:00

There are so many homegrown videos out there addressing the need for schools to rethink teaching and learning in the digital age. Some are incredibly popular, which is a very good sign. Still, so many people believe the "back to basics" approach - that traditional lecture model, for instance - will solve all our problems. Here are some interesting video on learning and teaching in the digital age, most have been around, but are still pretty interesting.

uthtv

2007-06-25T08:51:00.000-04:00

Many videos from the past few years are up on uthtv.com. I was using brightcove for a while but my good friends at BOCES are now blocking it at school. We'll see how long uthtv lasts.

End of the School Year

2007-06-24T15:30:00.000-04:00

Well, the end of the year is here and I am again left with the sudden optimism of summer, along with a feeling that I didn't get as much done this year as I wish. This is always the case. I find the end of the year crazy, actually. While most people are packing up their things, organizing their papers - I'm running around dealing with unfinished projects - mostly due to the ongoing technology failures that prevent kids from being able to finish their videos. It's always the same - I could stop teaching in January and we'd still be scrambling during exam week to get everything done. Of course there are always countless and terrible end of the year lesson plans from places like Education World.

At least we avoided any end of the year craziness. Although this would have been pretty cool in my opinion:

Students at Newfane had a beatlesque experience their last day.

Tonight is graduation. One of the systems end products. Our graduation rate according to our NY state report card wa6 86% last year, which is better than some NYC city public school rates.

Here's a nice story about two students from NYC beating the odds.

NCLB and McGraw Hill

2007-06-03T12:24:00.000-04:00

I started thinking today about how little I know about NCLB. I know it's bad, that it is ruining education in the country, that it goes against most sound educational research etc... but I'm not sure I would be able to formulate specific arguments against it as an English teacher in a public school or as a doctoral student.

So I started poking around a bit looking for talking points about the issue.

Why would the home page for NCLB have a direct link to a McGraw Hill off shoot? Is there an Exxon-Mobile link at the EPA web site?

Here are some related links which address the issue somewhat:

A nice overview of the suspicious connections between NCLB, McGraw Hill and the Bush administration.

Again: The NCLB homepage with the McGraw Hill link (School Matters) at the bottom right

The McGraw Hill web page has direct links to all the great things they can do to help districts with NCLB requirements here.

In contrast the NCTE and CEE websites offer no critique of NCLB on their homepages.

The NCSS has a direct link on their homepage to the work they are doing regarding NCLB.

Rethinking Schools also does a nice job arguing against NCLB renewal which is due soon.

I keep thinking about ways to address the corporate interests here. While McGraw Hill's connection to NCLB is easy to see - the link to school matters should be enough - what private interests are driving and profiting from federal educational policy? It would be nice for parents, administrators, English teachers and others to have direct access to information regarding the impact NCLB has had on English instruction.

Writing for the institute for community studies Jerry Kloby states:

Standardized testing is dominated by the same companies who dominate textbook publishing – McGraw-Hill, Houghton-Mifflin, and Harcourt General. And, it just so happens that the McGraws are old friends of the Bush family. Harold McGraw is on the founding board of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy and was a member of G.W. Bush’s transition advisory team along with Edward Rust Jr., another McGraw-Hill board member. John Negroponte, appointed by Bush to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and later nominated by Bush to be the nation’s first the Director of National Intelligence, was McGraw-Hill’s executive vice president for global markets. Many of McGraw-Hill’s authors advised Bush while he was developing an educational reform plan as governor of Texas. These consultants wrote statements of principles for the Texas Education Agency and helped shape the state board of education’s call for new reading textbooks. By the time Bush left office McGraw-Hill had gained a dominant share in the Texas textbook marketplace (Melcalf,2002).

A nice start. For investment purposes: $