Idioms and cliches

Today in class we listened to this piece by Frank Deford about college sports. Deford uses such lively idioms, so many that it was fun to pick them out. The question we didn't get to is, "How can our knowledge of idioms, cliches, metaphors, etc. inform and improve our reading and writing?" We'll look at this and use FCAT Explorer in the computer lab Thursday and Friday (12/13 and 12/14).

Questioning

This list from the contents of a fascinating book: Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking, is a great help in the classroom for students of any discipline. See what you think:

-- What are the issue and the conclusion? -- What are the reasons? -- Which words or phrases are ambiguous? -- What are the value conflicts and assumptions? -- What are the description assumptions? -- Are there any fallacies in the reasoning? -- How good is the evidence: intuition, appeals to authority, and testimonials? -- How good is the evidence: personal observation, case studies, research studies, and analogies? -- Are there rival causes? -- Are the statistics deceptive? -- What significant information is omitted? -- What reasonable conclusions are possible?

A Good Quote

A lovely quote from a teacher I know.

"Listen and watch the world around you. Try to understand why things happen. Don't be satisfied with answers others give you. Don't assume that because everyone believes a thing it is right or wrong. Reason things out for yourself. Work to get answers on your own. Understand why you believe things. Finally, write what you honestly feel and then learn from the criticism that will always come your way." ~Avi

My dog loves life, too.

This little bone made me laugh out loud this morning. I'm trying to cultivate the same attitude.

Group dynamics

This piece from Megan McArdle, along with the comments it provoked, sheds new light on the nature vs. nuture argument.

Gypsy Cab Project

Here's one of the most fascinating projects I've seen in a while. Fun work and scads of money from Volkswagon and maybe Apple, too. We may take a look at this this article about the Gypsy Cab Project together in class when I get a data projector that we can read text on.

God involved in a lawsuit?

It had to happen sooner or later. In our litigious society, with somebody always trying to place blame (and liability) on someone else, one party wants to go right to the top. Nice try. I'll bet he was equally surprised to get a response--from Corpus Christi!

My cats' breakfast

Okay, I know it's silly, but I love this clip.

Quiz fun

I love quizzes. How about you? I found these two online; my results in the Personality type quiz seem contradictory, which works for me as there are so many contradictions in my personality. The multiple intelligences seems pretty straightforward. Verbal/linguistic? No surprise there. Click the logo to go to the site and take the quizzes for yourself.

New page published

Here's the page I've created to park resources for our Othello study. You can also get to it from the link called "Literature Resources" on the Pre-IB page. When you find great stuff during your research, please send me the links and I'll publish a few of the best ones there for all to share.

Turnitin--If you haven't already

I've changed the date on the Poetry Compare/Contrast assignment at Turnitin.com, so you should be able to still turn your papers in there. I believe I have copies of all papers with the exception of one. No names--you know who you are. I'll be starting on your papers tonight, but don't expect to have them finished until after the weekend. Some good stuff there, I can tell that already.

Poetry Compare/Contrast

If you've sent your paper, I've received it. Never fear, I'll have a list in class tomorrow and we'll chase down anyone whose work I do not have. I'm having second thoughts about going all digital, but haven't completed the process yet, so won't jump to a conclusion. Here's one way to simplify the work: consistent file-naming. In the future, let's use this plan: #(Class)LastName_assignment name.doc (or .rtf). This means if I was in 2nd period my file would be named 2_Mullen_poetryessay.doc

Vocabulary

I've been looking at the vocabulary site and thinking about how we will assess your learning of these words. I don't think we'll quiz every week, but will probably schedule tests with the review sections in the book. Do check out the sound files that teach these words. Here's the one for unit #1. You can right-click the sound file and save it to your computer to use on an iPod or any .mp3 player. Wish they had this when I was learning vocab.

Welcome

Although you may be reading this well after I write it, this new blog will aid us in communicating about class assignments, concerns, etc. I'll also be posting interesting sites, contests and other fun stuff as I find it. Feel freee to contribute, I'd like to see what you find.