Archive for literacy SmartBlogs
Start reading a novel. Then ask:
- What has happened so far?
- What details help you understand the characters?
- What is this story beginning to be about?
- What in the story makes you think that?
These are a few of the questions associated with practice of close reading, a practice advocated by the common core in the English/Language Arts Literacy Standards.[…] Continue Reading »
I sat grading an ever-present stack of essays at a local Starbucks recently, wading through half-written thesis statements, missing topic sentences and an utter lack of textual support.
After finishing the last set, I slowly packed up as two people sitting at an adjacent table commented on the number of papers I was putting away. They asked if I was an English teacher, and after I nodded “yes,” they dove into a diatribe about how hard it must be to teach youth of today, how incorrigible and lazy teenagers are now versus how compliant they had been in these individuals’ high-school years.[…] Continue Reading »
A number of weeks ago, my friend Tom Whitby asked me to write an article for SmartBlogs about literacy. Tom Whitby also inspires me. Among his various activities is facilitating an online community of more than 15,000 educators devoted to the topic of personal learning networks. PLNs describe a range of skills and techniques, practiced by many educators, to fashion personal information networks of people and knowledge sources, from which they can learn.[…] Continue Reading »
Digital literacy is swiftly becoming a catchall term whose meaning is applied to the thinnest veneer of a continuum of modern behaviors. Those behaviors could include using a computer, a laptop or tablet, an array of popular websites or even using a smartphone. The definition does not include how well someone can use these technologies and may even represent knowledge of them without knowing how to apply them or evaluate their usefulness and relevance to a task.[…] Continue Reading »
During a track race, if a runner leaves the block before the sound of the gun, the runner is disqualified from the race and asked to leave the track. We need a similar sanction in education, especially as it relates to technology.
Too many in the education profession are advocating for more integration of technology across the curriculum without linking it to the underachievement and the literacy crisis in this country.[…] Continue Reading »
Twitter
Facebook
Linkedin
RSS
