Veterans Day

You can't teach and not see kids go into the military. The Denver Post has a photo essay up on its blog that follows one recruit through his first deployment in Iraq. The photos are excellent, and the kid's story is much like the story of many of my students. Click here.

Grammar goofs

I have finally given in to necessity. This year, I am teaching grammar with an ESL textbook.

"This is dumb," some of them say. "These exercises are so easy. Why do we have to do this? It's just busy work. I need help. Is this right?"

And that, kiddos, is why we're doing it.

National Assessment of Educational Progress

I discovered today that the NAEP report for 2005-2007 is out. You can get it here. Of interest to me was how well my own state did in conforming its standards to NAEP standards. I think that I get tunnel vision sometimes and lose track of the good things going on in my field. We certainly have problems of many kinds created by many individuals, government agencies and social forces. I'm gratified to know that we do a pretty good job in language arts compared to other states.

Hurray for us.

This is what I work with

After a quarter of refusing to turn in assignments or even pay attention to what the readings are, several students are devoting the last week of the quarter to fruitless panic about their grades.

It's a little late now, folks.

Still, one of them, in what I'm sure was imagined as righteous indignation, exclaimed, "They act like they want us to pass, but then they expect us to do work!"

Silliness

Slate has posted an automated plot generator for Dan Brown novels. Love him or hate him, this thing is a hoot.

The news

Found out a former student has died at 23.

Just read

I've recently finished Eric Burn's Infamous Scribblers, and I enjoyed it very much. Burn's prose is mostly fun to read and rarely gets bogged down in minutia. Based on the little I remember from school, he seems to have his facts straight although sometimes he seems to strain to create drama that may not have existed in reality - much like the subjects of the book. If you are interested in journalism, this is a good read. If you aren't interested in the subject, though, it may seem hopelessly nerdy.

Personally, I'm okay with being hopelessly nerdy. I'm glad I read it.