LANGUAGE ARTS-NEW MEXICO

Lighter Backpacks

An editorial in today's LA Times discusses moves in California toward online textbooks.  Sooner or later this has to happen.  Any bets on how long before the huge 11th grade anthology is a thing of the past?  

21 for 21

21 things about technology every 21st century teacher should know. 

CliffsNotes for the 21st Century

Here's a piece from the NY Times about the proliferation of web sites students can find to "help" them with their studies.  The focus is on college students, but high school students must surely be using them too.

Psst! Need the Answer to No. 7? Click Here

In the old days, college students might turn to classmates for help during all-night cram sessions before final exams. Now their study buddies are just as likely to be commercial Web sites with step-by-step solutions to textbook problems, copies of previous exams, reams of lecture notes, summaries of literary classics, and real-time help with physics, math and computer science problems.

Read the rest here.

A Manufactured Crisis?

From AP, via the Albuquerque Journal:

FACT CHECK: Are US students really that bad?

By LIBBY QUAID
AP Education Writer

America's moms and dads are getting a good scolding: Your kids are lagging behind students all around the world.

The White House says so, with concern bordering on alarm. So do institutions such as the Gates Foundation, citing performance tests, graduation rates and other benchmarks.

But don't measure for dunce caps just yet.

While they're not in first place, U.S. students generally hold their own on international tests. They spend more time in school than the Obama administration would have you believe. And their college graduation rates stack up better than reported.

More here.

Not More Nonsense?!

For lots of smart discussion about educational policy and the forces that are shaping schooling, read "Bridging Differences," a blog co-authored by Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch.  Unfortunately, the news they bring often isn't good.  The sentence that caught my attention today was, "We’re in for lots of nonsense in the name of reform."  You can find it here (the blog, not the nonsense). 

On "Research-Based" Reading Comprehension Programs

These days everyone seems to be focused on reading "programs," but the evidence that they produce better results than well-informed teachers designing instruction based on the needs of the kids in their own classes is scant.  From Education Week, via Reading Rockets:

Reading Programs Found Ineffective

By Mary Ann Zehr

A federal study intended to provide insight on the effectiveness of programs for reading comprehension has found that three such programs had no positive impact, while a fourth had a negative effect on student achievement.

In other words, the conclusion is that none of the four programs studied—Project CRISS, ReadAbout, Read for Real, and Reading for Knowledge—is effective.

The large-scale randomized control study involved 6,350 students, who were all in the 5th grade, and 268 teachers in 10 urban districts with large numbers of disadvantaged students. The 89 schools in the study were randomly assigned to either a group of schools using one of the reading curricula being studied or to a control group.

The researchers for the study­—conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc., of Princeton, N.J., for the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences—used a general reading test called the Group Reading Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation, or GRADE, and reading-comprehension tests of science and social studies to measure student achievement. In addition, they factored in students’ composite scores for all tests.

They concluded that Project CRISS, developed by Creating Independence Through Student-Owned Strategies; Read About, produced by Scholastic Inc.; and Read for Real, created by Chapman University and Zaner-Bloser, had no effect on reading comprehension. In addition, they found that Reading for Knowledge, created by the Success for All Foundation, had a negative impact on the composite test scores and the science-comprehension test scores for students using that curriculum.

More here.

Get Ready for the National Day on Writing (October 20, 2009)

From NCTE

The National Gallery of Writing Opens for Submissions!

Writing is a significant part of our lives -- not just English teachers' lives but the lives of people young and old from all walks of life. NCTE invites you to help celebrate writing by uploading a single piece of writing to the NCTE Gallery or to a partner gallery when available, or by starting your own local partner gallery in the National Gallery of Writing.

Santana Wins Premio Aztlan Award

The National Latinos Writers Conference and the History & Literary program of the National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC) have recognized Patricia Santana as the winner of the 2008 Premio Aztlán Literary Prize for her novel, Ghosts of El Grullo. A national literary award established to encourage and reward emerging Chicana and Chicano authors, the Premio Aztlán was founded by renowned author Rudolfo Anaya and his wife Patricia in 1993. More here.

Reflecting on the End of the Year

As it gets close to the end of the year, I always begin reflecting upon my successes and failures inside of the classroom. I received a very interesting letter from a senior who I taught last year in English 11, and I wanted to share this because it really shocked me…

The reason I am writing to you is to say thank you so much. I am thanking you for not helping me out and giving me the grade I deserved the first semester of your class. You have made the biggest impact on me involving school…I was slacking on my work the second nine weeks…The worse (sic) part about this situation is that I knew I wasn’t doing well in your class and I did nothing to help myself. I didn’t even study for the final and you gave us a review for it…Yes, it was official, I had failed the test. What was worse is I had failed the class. I was only 3 points away from passing the class with a D. I pleaded and I begged for you to just round it up and please let me pass. And all you said was “no.” I remember I was so upset with you I went back to my desk and cried. This is when I truly realized I should have done my homework or even studied for the final…Because of you I have learned that I have to work for my grade. Like actually work. And I don’t think I would have learned this lesson if it wasn’t for you and my failing grade in your class. Even though it might seem like I hate you, I don’t. I truly appreciate everything that you have done for me.

Every year, there are those select students who I don’t seem to make a bit of difference with. Lo and behold, someone comes back and proves me wrong. My question to you all is: how has a student ever surprised you when you didn’t think you made any connection with them at all? To respond, send an e-mail to languageartsnm@googlegroups.com.  We will add you to our discussion group and respond to all postings.

Introducing Our New Discussion Group

Language Arts-New Mexico is a resource for all of us who work with secondary language arts education in New Mexico and beyond.  Who are the readers of LANM, though, and how can we support each other through more direct contact and community?  We have created a Googlegroup specifically for the purpose of engaging in conversation about our work.  The group is hosted by Dan Rubin, a National Board Certified high school English teacher from Las Cruces.  Read Dan's posting on this page, and if you are interested in joining our googlegroup, send an e-mail to languageartsnm@googlegroups.com.  We welcome you and hope to see the group evolve as a way to engage in more conversation.

Where to look for books on epidemics and what is "Tagmashing"?

I'm one of those readers whose interest often is piqued by current events.  All the hype about H1N1 flu has me curious about epidemics of the past.  Wondering what are some good novels on historic plagues, I googled a variety of terms hoping to hit on a blog that would offer an annotated list.  Well, that didn't happen, but I did find Library Thing.  It's a social networking website for book lovers.  I am a reluctant joiner of such sites, but I found the "search" feature pretty neat.  It uses search technology termed "tagmash" to identify books readers have previously tagged with words associated with the book contents.  I've often wondered how the tagging feature on websites, blogs, flicker, etc. is useful--now I know.   I entered terms such as "plague" and "epidemic" as tags and the site produced a list of 25 + novels dealing with the topic.  Clicking on individual titles took me to pages with reader reviews and discussions.  Joining is free, as is posting your first 200 reviews.  All in all, it looks like a good site for generating that unique book list when you know the type of book you want to read but you don't know a title.  

Why Write About Books?

Here's a new piece on the importance of writing about literature from NCTE President-Elect Carol Jago:  Crash!  The Currency Crisis in American Culture.  There's also a good post about Jago's report on the NCTE Inbox Blog.