See Our NWP Literacy Group on a Field Trip

Hey I hope we all had a great time on the train. Here is a sneak peak of the pictures. Not all of the pictures are this good because I had to get pictures of other people. (lol) We can't help it that we are the best looking crew right! Anyway I also have some pictures up on BJ's blog. If you want to know what the engineer looks like you can see him there. I hope you enjoy the pix.



Vote and Elect Jason "Danger" Hill


Sasha: "Dude, what? Look I...um.....don't speak railroad."



Yo Stacy, suuuup! Holla back now!



Lacey- You are writing, Right?



BJ OMG will U B my BFF- Melissa

Big Brother Ads

Check this out.

Can you imagine a billboard fliming you and then using what you look like to advertise to you personally?

Visual Literacy - Responses

We looked at Romare Bearden's works through a website and virtual tour.
Bearden’s Legacy on the Block
Immaculate conception on the fourth floor
A more conventional embrace five buildings down
An innocent kiss passed between lovers
One in an orange dress- on the corner
A nap caught on a stoop
Soon to be interrupted by the broom
Not to wash or feed
But tell him to move on brother, move on
Angels herald a black Mary to heaven
Below the flowers cry
Bright colors across the hearse’s side
A life of people lived in private, exposed to the world
Seeing beyond the bricks and mortar
Into the life inside those walls
Glass reflecting moon and sky as a bather bathes
Watchful eyes from above
see the children play
Dogs observe, garbage-can-gods
Along the block the people stop to talk
A court held in a barbershop courtyard
Lives in full view of the artist watching
Jagged paper scraps capture their days
Bright magenta bookends contain the noise
Of a city street
The messy reality of living life as a different class
A separate class, a separate world
Only now appreciated
In six panels of torn glory
Hanging at the Met.


And, this uses my own prior knowledge.

Following The Torn Road
His cleaning lady said to him one day-
“Draw me, I know I’m not beautiful
But when you can draw me and make me beautiful
Then you can draw”
And he did. He drew that noble woman
With paper scraps and paint
With magazine ads and images clipped from pages.
He drew that washer woman
Bent in the Southern Sun
Made beautiful with his craft.
Then he made her more beautiful still
Fighting for arts shows
To display his dark delicious goddess
To show her beauty to the world.
His fight he fought with the artistic they
They who controlled the arts
They who said who hangs and who is hung
That pale and hateful they.
His spiral group showed the world
What a new they could do
With paint and paper and scraps of hope
Collaged them into view.
Now in his footsteps may walk
Any boy or girl
Of any creed or color or race
From any place in this world
Thanks to him and his beautiful maid
Thanks to his grit and truth
Thanks to his works and life
And legacy, all can now create.
He took that woman and made her golden
Showed her inner pride
And from this inside glancing look
See the world for its truest beauty.

Response to Music Downloads and Copyright Issues

When I began, I wanted to write a scathing letter to Lars Ulrich to chastise him for his childish behavior over the whole Napster thing back in 2000. But, that is long ago and far away. What bugs me now is this article about Nine Inch Nails. In that article, Reznor's band grossed over $1.6 MILLION dollars from an online download of their comprehensive, 36 track album Ghosts I-IV. His total cost: ~$38 dollars. Notice in that article that he gets to "[keep] ownership of the master recordings and 100 percent of royalties." That's right. Take that first figure, $1,619,420 USD, and subtract $38 USD. What do you come up with? I calculated that to be $1, 619, 382 USD after you subtract the cost of putting that album up for sale. I understand that this profit must cover other costs as well, but in my mind, based on a modest budget, he should be keeping a grand portion of those dollars in his pocket.

With that logic, let's now take a look at a few other facts about Reznor. According to MusicUnited.org, he's up in arms about the downloading of his music by the public, his fanbase. He is quoted towards the bottom of that page, pull up a "find" box using the control key and the "f" key at the same time, then type in Reznor, click find, and you're there. He says: "There’s nothing wrong with giving some tracks away or bits of stuff that’s fine. But it’s not everybody’s right." He later says that he "loves technology." I would have to agree with that statement as being true for him. He does seem to love technology when it is of greatest monetary value to himself.

Now, we have another article where Reznor speaks again. He says: "Steal it. Steal away. Steal, steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealing." You can even watch him on a fans video recording through YouTube. Compare this speech to his previous comments about giving out music: "There’s nothing wrong with giving some tracks away or bits of stuff that’s fine. But it’s not everybody’s right." That's right, he's telling his fans to steal his music since his record company has his album priced too high.

I'm sorry, but this does not gel in my mind. I cannot understand how it is wrong to steal sometimes, but exactly in line to steal others. This goes against everything I was ever taught as a child and what every person will find on the "laws" tab at MusicUnited.org. Under the law, there is no exception for overbearing record executive holding the purse strings too tightly. The law says that "stealing" music through P2P downloads and sharing copies is illegal. Another commentor on the Wired Blog shared a link to a PDF file that states Reznor made $2 million instead of the reported $1.6 million. The validity of this piece is unconfirmed at this time, but more research could be done.

Craft + Teaching

I found a link in one of my online knitting communities about knitting and math.

I've only read a short bit, but it looks like a great way to physically teach higher math concepts. You might enjoy the read even if you aren't a knitter or math teacher. It's interesting to think about the concepts that blow our minds being easily replicated in the physical world with nothing but yarn and a hook or pair of needles. I'm sure if I was shown how to do this by a math teacher, I would get the math concept. It's making a connection to a literacy I already possess.

Tree Octopus

Hey, remember in our session this past week we talked about saving a creature. Well here is a Tree Octopus to save . Just be careful not to believe everything you read. MJD
http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/

Engaging Writing in the Classroom

Engaging Writing in the Classroom

Posted using ShareThis


Wow. That was neat. I just clicked a "share this" deal on Will Richardson's blog and it posted for me. So now I'll add my two cents.

This touches on something that was mentioned in that cute little promotional video below. Connecting to existing skill sets in our students in order to enhance learning is something that seems obvious, but it isn't always. My students can text in the middle of class, nearly blind as they attempt to hide the phone from me, and still wind up with information getting through to someone, somewhere. Now that information may not be educational (or it could be the answers to my test), but it is still information. One of Georgia's writing standards deals with writing in different genres. So the connection there is a "duh" moment, but why can't we make the jump as teachers?

I think it has to do with values. What I value and what the kids value are often totally different things- this holds true when talking about format. But when we look at writing and we evaluate for purpose and audience, we may have a crossover there. An essay and a text message are the same in purpose sometimes- to inform if we're talking expository writing. So we can connect to the students' abilities to inform- code switch and transfer the information from "txt" to actual formal writing and we're halfway there. Audience can also be a crossover when we deal with certain types of essays, again-expository works here. Our kids already know how to write to inform and how to change their languages to fit their audience, so why can't they do it when we get down to essay time?

Because they don't know that they know. That's the simple answer, not to get into a "whose on first" style discussion, but that's the nuts and bolts. Students don't always make the connections between what they live and what we try to teach. That's the true barrier to learning. Connectivity. They are plugged into their world and culture and are ploped down in our classroom culture. They don't own it. They don't see how it matters to them in the "real" world that they live in and we try to infiltrate with novels and literary terms and quadratic equations. So what, who cares, what will this do for me after graduation-I'm not going to college? These questions are always in the minds of our students, we can either deal with it and address it, or ignore it and let it keep cutting us off from our kids.

So how do we do this? How can we harness their raw writing power? How to we turn txters into formal writers? How can I plug my kids into the classroom?

Honestly, I don't know. But I'm willing to talk about it and see what you, the blogosphere, have in your portfolio or rabbit's hat. How do we deal with this? How do we plug our kids into the classroom? I think this is a great question to start with for our discussion groups at SI.