Cyberbullying

Imagine you are an English teacher at a high school, and you have found one or some of your students suffer(s) from cyberbullying. How would you react, what would you do, what would you say/write (to victims/bullies and parents), how would you "punish" it?

Blogging as an Educational Tool

In his article, “Blogging as Pedagogic Practice: Artefact and Ecology,” Marcus O’Donnell from the University of Wollongong, Australia cites the experience of a teacher who "fell out of love with blogging" as follows:

I have discovered that my honeymoon with blogs is over, mostly because
there really is no room for spirited interaction between my students and
myself in the blogs. Yes, I can require that they respond to another person’s
blog, but one student said that, compared to a discussion forum, leaving
responses to blogs felt more like leaving a note for someone who is out. The
discussion forum, she said, felt more like an ongoing conversation which was
more fun. (Remmell 2004)

Please post a short comment (100-200 words) of what you think about this argument, and whether you think this can/will keep you as a teacher from using blogs in your classes. Are blogs interactive enough? Do they foster communication between students, and/or students and teacher? What dangers would you see with blogging? Would you consider a class blog a valuable teaching tool, or an unnecessary technological burden?

Your first impressions about grading

Write a comment about our first experience with grading the 3 packages of essays (Shakespeare, Animal Farm, Government Essay)!

The 6 E's of the Learning Cycle

You have all read about the Learning Cycle (LC) and its 6 E's:

1. engage
2. explore
3. explain
4. extend
5. evaluate
6. e-search.

Below, please write a 250-500 words COMMENT about what you think about the application of the LC (which was originally developed for science classes) in English classes.

5-Paragraph Essay

Your homework assignment for Day 2, January 27th, is to post a short comment (250-500 words) to this thread on what you think about the 5-paragraph essay, whether you would teach it, in which grade, what for, etc. You can reflect on information we read during our in-class activity on Day 1.

Welcome and Introductions

Hi ENGL485a students,

Welcome to our course, "Teaching Writing"!!!

The first thing we'll do is to introduce ourselves in a short blog comment to this entry. Please post something you want us to know about yourself (e.g., why you want to become a teacher, what you are still unsure about regarding teaching writing, your own experiences in HS, what you want to do better, where you observe/student teach, your hobbies, your interests, your websites...).

This blog will be shared with a local high school teacher for an essay exchange with his students when we get to our "grading HS students' essays" session--so please write only things he can share with his classes ;-)

Here's a short introduction from your instructor:

Hi future English HS teachers,

I'm a fourth-year lecturer at SIUC and have taught ENGL101, 102, 290, 300, and 485a so far. I am German, and my first M.A. is in translation. I have studied in St. Petersburg, Russia (1993); Dijon, France (1995); and here at SIU (1997). My second M.A. is a Master of Arts in Teaching from SIU (2007), and I am a certified IL high school teacher for German, French, and English. I did my student teaching at Carbondale Community High School in 2006-2007 (in the M.A.T. program; we still got a free Dell laptop back then!!) However, I prefer to teach the older generation!! Guess why ;-)

I have a Ph.D. in English (2003) and am currently getting one in Curriculum & Instruction, working with a writing-disabled middle school student (case study); so yeah, I'm a student, too ;-) You never stop learning. My hobbies are playing the piano, travels, photography, reptile breeding (http://www.lzrdgrl.com/), and TEACHING! I am also grading your Gateways and supervising your Capstone exams, so our paths will cross again. I'm excited to get to know you all. I already know some of you who survived my grammar class ;-) Have fun in our "Teaching Writing" class!