Fantastic opportunity

Does anyone doubt the impact of Langston Hughes on American and world culture? The distinguished poet, playwrite, novelist/ short story writer defined the Harlem Renaisance and came out of Lawrence, KS - just a stone's throw away. Are there English teachers who haven't taught, "Theme for English B"?

• Langston Hughes E-texts
• lesson plans
• audio - "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" , free thru Librivox - the African American Collection.
  

Ron McCurdy will be presenting his acclaimed Langston Hughes Project sometime on or about March 11, 2009. He's taken this act to Carnegie Hall already. It's a multi-media performance incorporating music, poetry/ spoken word and an impressive visual experience. There's talk of using the Performing Arts Center (PAC).

Barb Clark-Evans tells us he is seeking collaboration - particularly from English literature and composition teachers.

Dr. Ronald C. McCurdy is Chairman of the Jazz Studies Department and Professor of Music in the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California (USC) and is Past President of the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE). Prior to his appointment at USC he served as Director of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at USC. He has served as Professor of Music and chair of the Afro-African American Studies Department and served as Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Minnesota. In 1997, Dr. McCurdy served as Visiting Professor at Maria-Sklodowska- Curie University in Lublin, Poland. In 2001 Dr. McCurdy received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Kansas. (source - his website)

Writing conventions in electronic media

How should conventions of spelling, mechanics and punctuation be treated in email, discussion boards, blogs, etc.? NPR today has text and an audio podcast exploring linguistic innovations from technology, and Dilbert has dealt with the issue for a good minute. The comic is from 6-6-2004 archived at www.dilbert.com Click on image to see the complete (and larger) strip.

Writing comics and irritating usage

How many decent regularly produced comics do you know about writing and/or grammar? Here's one to check out from Karen Riddick, who does an electronic magazine (an e-zine) on writing and usage (and who just published a book). Click on the image to see a complete, full-size comic (shrinking it to fit the blog compromised legibility). This is a great source for images to embed in lessons (a la wikis, email, blogs etc.) to punch up interest and spark discussion.

The example above links mechanics and linguistic meta-language with the current election. Connecting learning to our students' lives makes it click. Also on the issue of the topic of the above comic, Oxford researchers have released a list of the top 10 most irritating words or phrases in English. Not all of them are cliches, but...

And what is the difference between a cliche and a colloquialism?

Writing Instructional Materials

Found an online punctuation game from the creators of the book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves. It's fun - and I didn't ace it. While this book, and the assorted support material, promotes a conservative view of grammar, for students who haven't been exposed to the rules, it's a legitimate resource. I'm of the "descriptive" rather than "prescriptive" school, but appreciate both perspectives.

This as well as a vocabulary test, were found at Daily Writing Tips - an RSS feed/ blog that has some great stuff. It's not all grammar - it also lists places to get ideas for writing, advice for the divergent as well as the convergent aspects of the craft, and tips and tools for online writing. It's one of the best writing resources I've found, though for audio check out Grammar Girl.

I enjoyed the "Black board moments" post - though I disagreed with many of their alleged offenses against English. ("Blackboard moments" means occasions of usage that evoke a response akin to fingernails on a chalk board). What I find useful is the need for all teachers to acknowledge their own grammatical fetishes and share them with student writers.

The vocabulary test may never replace www.FreeRice. com for a fun way to learn vocabulary, (and it doesn't feed the poor) but it's another tool for androgogical kit. See also Chomp chomp grammar - an online grammar learning game.

If you have sites you like - share them in the comments.

Web resources for teachers

Going to try a new format. Too much fun (and potentially relevant) stuff; if it isn't shared quick it could be lost, so minimal descriptions

Video of scholarly and education merit to provoke discussion (or digression):

1. Anthropology: KSU's web celeb anthropologist Michael Wesch
   
2. Biology - crab rides a jellyfish; Learning about memory and aging on YouTube
3. Business: Yale professor explains financial crisis in 10 minutes
   
4. Chemistry;
5. Physics (including a boomarang in zero gravity);
6. Art: THe 50 greatest art videos on YouTube;
7. Collections: NYTimes top 5 online video lectures - and Open Cultures top 75 online educational videos - part of their "signs of intelligent life on youtube collection". Free Engineering and SCience courses from Stanford online; source to watch complete documentary films for free;
8. Pedagogy: Father Guido Sarducci breaks it down (learning and retention- Remember Saturday Night Live in the late 70's? funny because it's true)

See Also

• Education and technology: research shows people are more likely to lie in email;
  
• Brain Science: how the mind works - Brain Rules reviewed; What Magic teaches us about neural processing (2 articles), what it feels like to have a stroke (neuroanatomy part of TEDS talks - best stuff on YouTube); 2008 election and neuroscience
  
• Language: argument that English is a user-defined and user-modified technology; Chinglish recognized as full-fleged dialect (anyone have info on Spanglish?); Stanford's online writing classes; podcasts can teach you almost any language
  
• FREE AUDIOBOOKS: The Gutenberg project - a huge mass of audio books on line - I only bookmark human read titles, see also the growing collection by Literal Systems; 1984 by Orwell:
• How to (DIY's): how to make garden lights out of LED lights and mason jars; How to make online video's without getting sued (copyright info).
• Pedagogy and books to consider: review of book How Children Fail by John Holt;
• History: animated video of Howard Zinn's History of the US Empire
  
• Election related: a non-partisan project helps community organizers to find neighbors who think they are registered but actually aren't; 2008 election and neuroscience
  
• Of arcane scholarly interest: info and links to photos by famed Harvard Ethnobotanist (combined ethnography and botany);

Resources for teaching 6-24-8

This week we mourn the passing of George Carlin, Counter-Culture’s comedian of the 70’s and 80’s and a prolific writer more recently. He created one of the best ways to teach both comparison contrast and the use of metaphor in language through multimedia available free online in a routine called, “Football vs. Baseball.” Find the text and audio , and you can also see video via several sites on YouTube . See him perform the monologue and /or an interesting slide montage. I'll try embedding a video somewhere. The slide montage might really work with Non-native English speakers.

Also a shout out to Janice McIntyre and those who have been using www.freerice.com to build and reinforce vocabulary. She says her students wouldn’t leave class one day because they were so engaged. Designed by a computer programmer who wanted to boost his children’s SAT scores, not only will the game make you smarter, every correct answer feeds the hungry worldwide through the U.N. World Food Programme. There’s a great audio program (with text) from NPR.

NPR provides some great resources. Today they mentioned the Wallace Foundation as a resource for teachers. The site bills itself as high quality source for learning and enrichment activities. They also sponsor grants.

The Chronicle of Higher Education this week praised one of my favorite sites, Open Culture, for teaching resources and for personal enlightenment/ entertainment/ etc. The Chronicle discusses the great online courses available free, but I download audio books and audio short stories. Open Culture also sifts through the morass of YouTube and finds teaching and educational stuff actually worth viewing (it’s out there – really!) And, Open Culture updates frequently. Another collection of redeemable YouTube videos can be found at their smart youtube viewing collection.