There are thousands of young girls for whom the right to attend school is something that they are willing to risk their lives to have. I am reminded of the bravery of Ruby Bridges, who as child, integrated a New Orleans public school under the most hostile conditions. This week, a 14-year-old Pakistani girl was […]

Do you think parents and teachers do enough to promote anti-bullying in our schools and communities? What can you do to make a difference?

A Rhetorical Précis: “Poetry in The Hobbit” Stella Quinn, in her article “poetry in The Hobbit” (2009) suggests that the poetry in The Hobbit is used to catch the reader’s attention. Quinn develops this suggestion by writing in the article that “The Hobbit is a novel and not an anthology of poetry yet it contains […]

When I watch this talk with Mya, I am reminded of the importance of asking the right questions: What is Quinn’s argument about Tolkien? How does she support her claim? What is her purpose? What does she want her readers to realize about Tolkien and his craft? All the things we discussed the day before […]

The fourth successful flight of Falcon 9/Dragon, scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station Wednesday, was launched this evening. This begs the question: Would you be inclined to pursue an opportunity to travel through space? What will your response tell us about you?

Where in the world would we be without teachers! Please share your favorite teacher story.

Greetings, everyone. So now that we have launched our blog, let’s broaden the network of the conversations. As I told you in class, in addition to responding to one of my post, this week you are to begin responding to another blogger. Just remember the protocols of online discussions as you talk about the topics.

If some one is trying to annotate a text they have to: Read and reread the text and scan through the text quickly the first time, just to get a sense of its contents. Then they have to start annotating, circling or underlining important, interesting or surprising passages. If I had to explain this process […]

For our daily journal prompt today, I asked my students to explain in detail what a rhetorical précis is without looking at their notes. This is one of the strategies in the common core that is both novel and challenging for them. In addition to being very structured and precise, it requires the writer to […]