Words Words Words

WHO: Elisabeth WHAT: Loving, Teaching, Listening, Learning WHERE: Missouri WHEN: Every possible moment WHY: Because fun doesn't just happen on its own THINGS I LIKE: writing, reading, pretending to be a photographer, talking, video games, solving puzzles, sharing laughs. PURPOSE OF THIS TUMBLR: I need a digital writing space. Here it is! I want to show my students that digital writing in spaces like Tumblr is a valid way to interact with their worlds. Responsible social media use is a skill that everyone must understand in our tech-filled lives-- and students need good digital role-models.

[ealkier]

Don't Slam the Door

I used to get to class really early in the morning at one of the older lecture halls at MU. The stars were still out it was so early; I'd have to sneak in through squeaky, unlocked doors. I'd put on my headphones and sing really loudly to "Fascinating Rhythm" by Ella Fitzgerald-- there were some wicked acoustics, and I was a good singer back in my day. Sometimes I'd get loud enough that I could feel my voice reverberating off of the old walls. About two weeks into this routine, I discovered that the older janitor had been listening all along in the foyer. I heard a door slam. When I turned and saw him, we made eye contact for about ten seconds, and he let himself out. I stopped signing; it felt awkward. Sometimes I'd see the custodian, and he'd give me a weird look-- like he was saying sorry.

I wonder if this is how students feel when we catch them taking risks and we don't know how to respond. Sometimes we just need those silent observers.

[ealkier]

We are, each of us, a little universe.

-Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey 

[ealkier]

5 Ways Star Trek Shaped My World View

I write this while preparing to go to a newly established family event: Sunday Cosmos watch parties. My mother (a biology teacher) and my father (a chemist) made sure that I grew up surrounded by science and its infinite possibilities. One of the most influential pieces of this unique education was Star Trek. Be prepared guys. I'm about to get really nerdy.

For those unfamiliar with the series, Star Trek is a popular U.S. television series set in the future. It’s one of the longest running and most successful television franchises, and for good reason.  Below is a list of 5 ideas that Star Trek instilled in a childhood me.

1: Women can be leaders too.

Much of the science fiction I read as a young girl was still very much male dominated. Male ship captains, male scientists, male leaders, etc. Star Trek was different. Women were powerful doctors, empathic counselors, effective communication officers, mechanical geniuses, ruthless and self-sacrificing captains. A girl's role wasn't predetermined in the Star Trek world-- and the more traditional roles weren't condemned either. Women were still proud to be teachers, mothers, etc.

2: Society is made up of many kinds of people, and if we want to better humanity, we have to work together.

Star Trek: The Original Series was one of the first television show with an interracial kisses-- in 1968. That was before my High School in South Carolina desegregated. Whoopi Goldberg, inspired to act by watching this series, was one of many black viewers who  got to watch a vision of the future that included them as well. This series had a huge variety of races represented in its crew-- including Black, Asian and Russian crew members. Walter Koenig's character Pavel Chekov spoke with a heavy Russian accent-- a big deal during the Cold War era.  Young audiences watching the more recent spin-off movie of this series don't alway understand the importance of the inclusion of these characters.

Image from www.memoryalpha.com

3: Every job is important, even on a starship.

Some of the best, most developed characters in the series are cooks, teachers, and low-ranking ensigns. Star Trek would be nothing without its screen time devoted to interactions in mess halls and Ten-Forward, the Enterprise's lounge. Each character's job is important-- and worthy of being a part of space exploration. It takes more than those high-ranking leaders to run a starship, and the audience is frequently reminded of this.

4: A good leader doesn't abandon or go down with the ship-- if there is a possibility of saving the ship, they save it.

The leaders in Star Trek never abandon their crews-- but this wasn't just a cliche. Good leaders don't leave leave the people they lead behind, regardless of the sacrifice that must be made.  In episodes where this kind of situation occurs, audiences are in for some serious crisis decision making that will floor you. I could get super nerdy with this one and talk about the Kobayashi Maru test, but I won't. Here's a link, if you're interested.  

5: There is always-- always-- something new to discover if you're willing to look for it.

We are at a serious loss for frontiers in this society. When Star Trek began in the 1960s, space was a frontier the provided for a lot of speculation. There hadn’t been a moon landing, a Mars rover, or an international space station. Despite the great unknown that still lies within space, there seems to be a lull. Kids don’t want to be astronauts anymore.  The great unknown is know enough that it’s not as exciting as it once was. Neil deGresse Tyson addresses this issue-- it’s an interesting listen. Regardless of this-- every episode of Star Trek approaches space with a newfound fervor for exploration, discovery, curiosity. I credit much of my own questioning of the world and my open mind for human potential to what I watched on Star Trek as a kid. Star Trek is a semi-realistic, optimistic prediction of what humanity could do if we worked together to explore the universe.

image from www.upworthy.com

Sorry for the long read-- maybe I’ve cleared up why Trekkies seem so in love with their namesake? :)

[rifflescifi]

“11 Quotes From Authors On Censorship & Banned Books" (via Buzzfeed)

What’s your opinion? Maybe these dangerous books will inspire you…

[emmetoneallibrary]

[ealkier]

Love this! I think I will add it to my classroom wall somewhere. 

[ealkier]

The Sound of Sleeplessness

I was running on empty after this last weekend, so I went to one of the sources that I shared in a presentation at Write to Learn this weekend: www.plinky.com.

Plinky is an online solution to writer's block. It provides you with a bank of interesting questions or ideas for you to contemplate and answer. You can post them to this site, or you can just use this as a place to gather ideas. Here is the suggestion that I got:

My mind had an immediate response. Sleeplessness. This prompt took me somewhere I needed to explore-- and here it is:

In the dark of the bedroom, insomnia makes every tiny noise into torture. Each purr of a cat, each creak of the old house, each motor on 22nd Street turns into an amplified monstrosity. A reminder of how much you don't want to hear those noises. How much you want to sleep after a long, stressful day that now encroaches on the evening.

Even when you force the foam ear plugs into your ears, the sound isn't silenced. Some might say that sound of your own breathing and heartbeat is soothing. They aren't insomniacs. Each drum of your heart becomes a timpani of second hands drumming away the hours before you need to wake up. Each breath evolves into a hurricane of frustration.

Here is how I explain insomnia to those who haven't  experienced it. Imagine that you've been told the day before Thanksgiving that you will be hosting all of your relatives. They will be bringing some of the food, but you're responsible for the turkey and the place settings. You try to rush to the grocery store to get the needed supplies, but they are all out of them. You know you need one, so you try other grocery stores. Still no turkeys, no supplies. By the time you give up and head back, you realize that you've left yourself without time in which to prepare for the mass of people heading into your home. As they come in, you are overwhelmed-- there's no Turkey and no place to hold the celebration. Incessantly, they ask you in constant, screeching voices questions that you can't answer. 

I know what you're thinking-- why not say "No-- I won't host at this late notice. It just isn't feasible." You can't say no. You are incapable. All of the anxieties of the previous day and the day to come-- the relatives-- won't leave you. You can go searching for solutions, but no one can be expected to find all of the answers to life's anxieties in the minutes-- or hours-- before you fall asleep. But insomnia makes you unable to accept this. 

So in-between the rustling of sheets, the blinking of a blinded eye, the hum of the furnace, the chattering of leaves, the whispering of winds, and the unending pitter patter of anxiety typing away an endless list of tasks in inside of your exhausted, heavy eyes, you lay awake in the cacophony wondering how long it will be until you hear the alarm will bring the silence of morning. 

[ealkier]

Made this little gem all on my own!

[ealkier]

My New Best Friend?

With the help of a colleague, I found the COOLEST classroom tool! I know we don’t have to blog about this kind of stuff constantly, but I really want to share this one. The website is www.paperrater.com, and it gives constructive feedback on any kind of writing.

I know what you’re thinking-- machines grading writing?! The soul and life will be sucked from all of the hard work! Writing is meant to be read by those with the capacity to enjoy it! I agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment-- I hate this idea of giving students a grade based off of a machine's score-- but this is different than the negative experiences that I've had in the past.

Paperrater frames the whole experience in a positive light-- it’s not about failures or incompetence; it’s about looking at your existing writing and seeing what’s really there. The program only points out the areas that it thinks that the author should consider (both positive and negative) and gives suggestions-- it doesn't tell you that what you've written is "right" or "wrong." I love that this places the choice back on the author-- it even asks the author to consider their audience and purpose when revising certain sentence types! Even more helpful is the specific feedback that it gives with its suggestions:

Along with the usual spelling and grammar check, it also looks at sentence length, vocabulary, plagiarism, style, and word choice. The tool also allows you to pick the type of writing it’s grading along with the education level of the author (as low as sixth grade and as high as graduate student). When you receive feedback, it takes those aspects into consideration. I put in an old essay from my sophomore year of college in as both a high school student and as a graduate student and received very different scores. It also provides an awesome breakdown of the structure of your paper for your own analysis:

There are a few setbacks, however. Students can only receive a grade if they are in 9th grade or higher-- the system seems to grade based on high school and college level algorithms only. While the feedback is broken down simply for those who already understand how to discuss and analyze their writing, it's not as user friend for those who might struggle-- this might be a problem for some of my seventh graders. 

All in all, I am still extremely excited to use this with my students this week! It's a fantastic tool to use with the argument writing that they've been working on!

[ealkier]

My students brought this to me at the end of the day today. This has been on my mind ever since I started grad school...

[laughingsquid]

Brand New, Bruce Yan’s Solo Art Show of Iconic Brands with a Pop Culture Twist at Gallery1988 in Los Angeles

[ealkier]

Totoro was one of my favorite movies as a kids (and still is now)! I love it when I discover that some of my students are also fans. 

[teachingwritingwithtech-blog]

Kahoot! | Game-based blended learning & classroom response system

[ealkier]

Kahoot! is a classroom response system which creates an engaging learning space, through a game-based digital pedagogy. Kahoot! is an easy-to-use blended learning platform which works on any device, making the classroom interactive, encouraging both educators and learners to ask great questions.

This is the BEST website! :) I used it just the other day to review Figurative Language, and it's awesome! Give it a shot! 

[ealkier]

Old School New School

I know that a lot of people aren't a fan of the whole #throwbackthursday fad, but after thinking about my post last week, I really wanted to do some more thinking about middle school me. 

Here I am in all my 12-year-old glory: 

When I think back on my middle school days, I wasn't a whole lot different than my current students. Even though many of my current students were being born the year that I was in 7th grade, I was going through a lot of the same things that they would eventually endure.

I went from a tiny elementary school to a HUGE middle school crowded with unknown faces and newfound social challenges. Because of redistricting, many of my friends headed off to the new middle school across town. I went to the school that had a "reputation"-- one that was unfair and unjustly prescribed. My seventh grade year, the school began a tech initiative where students could purchase laptops with a discounted price to use at school. Suddenly I was in charge of being responsible for an expensive piece of equipment. Just like the school at which I now work, many of the students at my middle school lugged around these in giant bags:

Despite the fact that I did occasionally play games in science class in-between taking notes, this laptop opened doors for me that would never close. I took off in writing class. Soon I could type faster than I could hand-write, and all of my writing began and ended on this machine.

Of all the years that I spent in primary education, seventh was my favorite. I attribute most of that to several amazing teachers and my awesome parents-- both allowed and encouraged me to use my computer and trusted me with the responsibility of it. They trusted me not to misplace my computer, to be careful with it, and to use it as a tool at school and a toy when my work was complete. 

But technology is more complicated now. My laptop didn't have constant access to all of the world's information. When a child uses technology now, they have their hands on the pulse of the world-- anything they want to access is pretty much accessible. That's a whole different kind of trust. And this dilemma is met with a new mindset by these adolescents-- they welcome the vast openness of the internet. Many of my students want people from all over the world to see and "follow" them-- whatever following really means. Comparing my experience with my laptop in 2001 to my students' in 2014 is nearly impossible. They aren't really even the same experience any more. 

So how do we work with this new boundlessness of technology? Do we meet it with restrictions or do we redefine trust? Because I don't want to take away the opportunity that I had as a 7th grader from my seventh graders-- no matter how different our experiences were. 

[ealkier]

Found this hidden sunrise in my phone. I wonder how many images sit inside of people's phone waiting to be shared?

[ealkier]

Ubi nihil erit quae scribas, id ipsum scribes

Cicero

"When there is nothing to write about, one writes himself."

[josieology-blog]

Thanks to a certain man and all that he’s done for our country, I am sitting at home instead of waiting for school to end. Out of respect for Martin Luther King, Jr., my district has chosen not to have school. Sometimes middle schoolers have a tendency to forget the big picture about why we miss...

[litconnections]

[ealkier]

As a writer, you learn to make words behave the way you want them to...

Ann E. Berthoff