Revisiting the Archives

It occurred to me this week that as my blog approaches its third birthday, quite a lot of content is buried in the archives that might actually be useful to new readers of the blog.

Instructions for making a comparison/contrast graphic organizer that I like better than the Venn diagram.While not precisely useful, I really enjoyed analyzing the effectiveness of various Hogwarts teachers.While computer programs exist, if you prefer not to use them, can’t use them, or just like Power Point better, I provided instructions for creating a Power Point Jeopardy game.In this post, I discuss the perils of teaching The Great Gatsby and other books I love.Grade Inflation: A Student and Teacher Dialogue was written with Anthony Ferraro, a high school student (not one of mine) who happened by my blog and engaged in some healthy debate about grading as a means of communication.My article on pairing the Judaic concept of cheshbon hanefesh (”accounting of the soul”) with Ben Franklin’s quest for “moral perfection” as described in his autobiography appeared in English Journal in July 2006, and I shared my thoughts about the article and the process of writing in this post.В  If you have an NCTE membership and want to download the article, you can get a PDF version by going to their web site, logging in, and going back through the EJ issues online to July 2006, which is Vol. 95.6.

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Teaching Grammar

Grammar is a thorny issue in English/language arts.  Many teachers, including myself, were probably taught grammar in some isolation from composition.  I remember well the old Warriner’s grammar books.  Those books have been out of print for some time, but I know many English teachers who kept their old classroom sets.  At my school, we actually still use the Warriner’s books in 9th and 10th grade — well, I think we do.  My department head said something about ordering grammar books, and I wasn’t sure if she meant no more Warriner’s or in addition to Warriner’s.  At any rate, as you can imagine, the books are extremely hard to come by, and as our enrollment increases and students lose or damage books, we will ultimately be forced to abandon the books (unless we already have, that is).

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