Comments for Coffee Grounds

Comment on I wonder. by jules

jules — Mon, 11 May 2009 06:20:22 +0000

my nephew was bullied, as i was as a child. i try to make him realize that he doesnt need to be embarised, as i was and that is why i never told anyone. my heart broke when i witnessed it first hand. we have spent so much energy in encouraging him and building his self esteem only to have it ripped out from under him.

i, personally, was outraged and wanted to go in swinging, but instead researched our state laws. It is the legal responsibility of those who are entrusted with our children to protect them both physically and emotionally from harms way – it goes with the job.

look up your states laws and go in armed with the knowledge of what protection your child is entiled to. action is more effective than reaction

Comment on Summer Reading Draft for 09-10 by Dad

Dad — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:43:04 +0000

I might give this a try. I’ve never read Murder in the Cathedral or Becket and, while I read Tess within the last 10 years or so, I’m afraid my evaluation was somewhat simple – to wit: it simply occurred to me how some issues like sex and unwanted children are the same in many ways as they were all those years ago. I was also fascinated with the way Hardy described the seduction of young Tess without using any graphic language. It reminds me of the love scenes in Bollywood movies.

But why not challenge these students to read and comment on Satanic Verses? That might be fun and current at the same time.

I’m afraid I was so lazy in high school I would have dropped the course when faced with this kind of challenge. The result? — I didn’t graduate from college until I was 31. Think of all I missed.

Comment on Summer Reading Draft for 09-10 by Sean S.

Sean S. — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:34:02 +0000

That’s awesome. Way to welcome AP Lit students to the real world.

Comment on High School English and Summer Reading by Teacher2

Teacher2 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:17:20 +0000

I am another English teacher who assigns summer reading and then dreads the massive amount of grading I have thrust upon myself. My students read the book(s) and complete a reading journal. My honors juniors read two books, honors seniors one book (it’s a semester-long, elective course) and my AP Lit seniors read five. Last summer, that meant about 210 journals for me to grade. I too am changing the plan!

One thing we do in my high school – which helps tremendously – is we have summer due dates. The first title is due about one month after school ends; the second title is due about two weeks before school resumes. We silly English teachers actually come in on those days and collect journals for a couple of hours. (Kids can also mail them in or drop them off early.) (My AP kids had two additional due dates and one due on the first day of class.)

I love the blog idea. My AP class has a blog that we use during the year, and I find it inspires great discussions from some students who are timid about speaking up in class. (In fact, one of my most brilliant literary minds is so very shy, she hates to talk in class. On the blog, though, she is free to express and discuss and, well, it has added immeasurably to our class!)

The problem would be that it would in no way prevent cheating, and in fact, make it easier for those lazy bums who are looking for a way out. (I say “bums” most lovingly, of course!) But perhaps with some guidelines and some preventative measures (maybe blocking everyone’s original response until all have posted, then opening it up for discussion??) you could have a great tool here!! Good luck!!

Comment on Indiana Community Theatre League Festival by David Howard

David Howard — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:28:53 +0000

WAY TO GO South Bend Civic Theater for your performance of Intimate Apparel at ICTL – all of your awards and accolades were very justly deserved! Any one know of a way to reach Director Dana Vagg who I spoke with briefly during one of the breaks between shows…dkh7lives@yahoo.com

Comment on High School English and Summer Reading by Dad

Dad — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:04:49 +0000

I think the closest I ever came to assigned summer reading was a list of suggested summer reading. I think I always thought I should do it but never did. Too bad. Later in life when I started developing reading lists for myself, I discovered that my wife had already read at least 1/2 of the list of “best English language novels of the 20th century”. I guess a Catholic education was worth something. Although it may have simply been that she wasn’t as lazy as I was when it came to reading.
Long before the days of the internet, I discovered ways to avoid reading. I became masterful at skimming, reading selective chapters and just the beginning and end of chapters – enough to write a summary book report – enough to get a C. Then, in 10th grade, I found a book that really turned me on – For Whom the Bell Tolls. I loved this book and , of course, read it all and wrote what I thought was a creative book report. As I recall I wrote it as if I were a character in the novel. Before giving the graded report back to me, my teacher asked me to stay after class. This of course made me nervous. Then, she asked me if the report was my own work. I’ve never been very good at defending myself against false charges and at 15 I was especially timid. I just said “yes”. She said okay and a day later gave me back my paper. I got a B. I am confused to this day. If the work was of such a character to justify an accusation of cheating, doesn’t it seem to warrant an A? I suspect that she didn’t believe me but had no proof and so discounted my grade. It would have been far better for me if she had congratulated me on my creativity and given me an A. It was a time in my life when I could have used some positive reenforcement.

Comment on Comment on Summer Reading by RedButton

RedButton — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:25:22 +0000

“In short, I want this to serve as merely a tool for discussion purposes. The question is, how to do that?”

Perhaps a forum would be a better way of accomplishing that? I can’t really speak for the rest of my peers, but I think that a blog post has an element of finality to it- “here it is, it’s published, what do you think of it?” Whereas a forum is typically seen as a place where back and forth discussion occurs.

Comment on Comment on Summer Reading by Jenn

Jenn — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:32:45 +0000

I’ve never had to do summer reading, but I like the idea of moving the discussion onto the internet. I certainly don’t think that being able to read other responses is a BAD thing. That would allow you to move away from the setup you have currently where every student writes an essay, and you respond to each one of those. You could have an actual discussion with all of the students rather than the one way responses you’ve had in the past.

Do students have to read the books in a certain time frame or in a certain order? If not, a blog might not be the best choice as it wouldn’t take very many prompts before some of them start moving off of the front page. Have you considered a forum? It sounds to me like it might be a better set up for what you’re wanting to accomplish.

Comment on High School English and Summer Reading by Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:17:15 +0000

Would students be able to read the responses posted by their peers? This could create a plethora of problems. First off, many students are self consious about their work, so they could be very hesitant about posting. Second, some students are lazy, so they may just look at other students posts and use them to write their papers. Third, even if these students happen to not be lazy, they could be still influenced by the other posts, hindering their creativity. Therefore, I believe that either the posts should be blocked until the due date is past. That way, students could look at other peoples thoughts only after they have turned in their own.

Comment on High School English and Summer Reading by Kathleen Canavan

Kathleen Canavan — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 11:34:44 +0000

I never had assigned summer reading when I was in high school. I never had assigned summer reading at any point during my education, as a matter of fact. I did participate in summer reading programs at the local library when I was in elementary school, but that was completely voluntary on my part. The most I ever had to do to prove I’d read a book was give the librarian a short oral report on what the book was about.

My daughter gets a list of suggested summer reading from her teachers at the end of each school year, but, again, it’s not mandatory and she’s not required to hand in any written work. So, reading what is expected of your students makes my head spin a little. I’m not saying that as criticism, I’m just surprised to learn today’s students have this much work to complete over the summer. It almost makes me wonder why there’s even a summer break.

At any rate, I think the idea of having them respond with blog posts is a good one. Before I got to that part of your post, I was already thinking there must be a way to have them respond during the course of the summer so you don’t have to wait until the fall to read their assignments. I don’t know if there’s a time schedule for the reading, meaning I don’t know if there’s a certain order and date by which they must have completed certain texts, but it seems the most logical thing would be to email the students when you’ve posted a new set of questions or essay topics or what have you, and have them respond by a certain date.

If you want to have a more “real time” experience, perhaps you could introduce a chat element via instant messaging through Gmail, AIM, Facebook, or maybe even Twitter. Same as with the blog, just make it closed to anyone but you and your students. This sort of virtual class discussion might even alleviate the burden of reading so many responses on your part.

At any rate, good luck with the experiment. I hope it works out and I’m just glad I made it through high school without having to do extra work during the summer.