The Caffeinated Carbivore

And no, that's not a pregnancy prediction. I see children books joining the ranks of "Walden" on your shelf! There was once a time (was it once upon a time?) that I measured the depth of a person's writing abilities by the depth of their reading collection-did they at least attempt Moby Dick? Did they follow Dagney all the way through "Atlas Shrugged"? Now I know better. It's not judging a book by its title-it's judging a book by its audience. I'm not the only one noticing...The New York times has a great article (and hilarious picture) discussing the trend (special thanks to Mr. Farber for noting it). What is it about children's literature that we find so appealing? Is it the pleasant reminder of to bedtime stories past? I think it's because children's lit is able to send us on an adventure without the literary critic, self-assured voice of an adult. And, to an adult with bills to pay and their own blog to write, tha...

It seems that our society likes black and white photography-good guy vs bad guy, right vs wrong... is there ever a bad guy with good intentions? With our dualistic media as a teacher, it doesn't surprise me that we've tried to categorize students into lefties and righties-writers and mathematicians. There are three big problems with this dichotomy: 1. Categorizing students as mathematicians may limit their writing ability, and vise versa (self-fulfilling prophecy. 2. According to gender stereotypes, masculine individuals perform better in math-this may limit the performance of gifted feminine individuals in the subject, and force them into writing, where they are in fact less talented 3. There are many more categories-more comes into play than just left and right (we should consider this in politics, too), and 4. Concentrating on your "Gifted" side limits your overall thought processing. First things first-as with many preconceptions, our students enter our classroom...

I uploaded a section of a previous blog entry, and apparently I I write like Chuck Palahniuk I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software . Analyze your writing! Little did you know, dear reader, that this is like fight club The first rule of blog club is you always talk about blog club. So what about those teachers who want a techy classroom but are about as technical as the printing press? Not to worry- here are a few suggestions. First things first: getting a class blog. Here are a few good examples for all grades and subjects . Now that you've gotten a few ideas, where to go next? First, you want to add these authors to your PLN (Personal Learning Network). This way, you can gather a greater amount of information in a shorter period of time! I suggest Blogger (you are here) or Edublogs because they are easy and offer good access and assets to teachers. Now, how do you write a successful blog? First, don't forget who this blog is for: you and your students. The ...