Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Williams is Wack, Romano Rules, and Spandel is So Right On

i know you all feel me with that title! i am confused. now that i finally have a copy of williams in my hands i can't decide if i really want to read it. i have to admit that he provides a few valid points on writing assignments in chapter 9, but any ground that he gains with me is instantly lost when he makes unsupported claims. i suppose that we need to be well versed on the left and right side of the academic think tanks. romano does a nice job of laying out multigenre writing by using a variety of writing. he gives the students credit and believes that they have purposeful things to say unlike some people. last is spandel. what a great book. the 9 rights of every writer, not rules, or guidelines, but rights! damn straight we should be able to choose personally important topics and so should our students. i know that i need to embrace my right to go beyond formula so that i will encourage my students to do so in the future. i feel well equipped with some great resources for creating writing assignments after this weeks reading, and i'm guessing that things will become even more clear as we progress in these texts. PARTY!

resource of the week: litkicks.com, a great place to get lost on the web. it may help you gather some info for a future lesson plan or two. i suggest you check out the beats page first!

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Carney vs. Atwell

resource of the week is 4teachers.org. i know i will be using quizstar and rubistar in the future...if you don't know about it then you should check it out.

while i did enjoy atwell's long winded chapter on minilessons, i found carney's article a bit more appealing and to-the-point. while i thought both writer's were informative, i was simply drawn to the logical layout of carney's article on writing in the classroom. i can see myself going back to carney in the future and trying to implement these practices into my classroom.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

this is really happening

from this day forward i am big glasses.