Given A Chance

I was filling my husband in on Tony's presetation from last week. He shared some things with me that I never knew. When he was in high school, he worked everyday after school (father died and mom raising 5 kids, very poor). He did not do homework but could ace tests and in class assignments. He is extremely smart! However, due to the lack of homework, the school would not put him in Honors classes and instead made him take Vocational classes. This wasn't all bad because he discovered that he loves to do carpentry, which is what he doesn now. However, I wonder what else he could have done if he just would have been given the chance?

Cris Tovani

I had the opportunity to go and see a true constructivist teacher in action last Thursday. Cris Tovani, author of "Do I Really Have to Teach Reading?" and "I Read it But I Don't Get It". What an awesome experience! We actually got to go into her classroom and watch. When she conferenced with the students, we were encouraged to get in close and take notes. Needless to say, I took lots of notes. We saw a 12th grade college prep class (full of good students but not deep thinkers. They know how to play the game. You know the type) and a 9th grade struggling readers class. Two totally different classes but WOW what teaching and learning going on! She continually questioned the kids. Made them think on a higher level, form opinions, get into discussion groups, etc. I would highly encourage anyone who uses reading in their class (all of us!) to read her books!

Who Knew?

I swear, I had no idea what a Webquest was before our class! How out of it am I? Anyway, I was so excited to hear about them and to see what they can do for classrooms. In fact, I called my sister, who is a high school English teacher, and shared them with her. She was very interested in learning more so I forwarded her the activity that we all did to her. She has already read The World Is Flat and is super excited about all of the things we are learnig and doing. It makes me very proud to be a part of something like this.
The only thing that was a little frustrating for me was searching for Webquests. I found it to be overwhelming. When I tried to google a topic, I got a million things back and most of them weren't Webquests. I would love to hear of any magic techniques that has made it easier for any of you. And yes, Karl, I did use the "+webquests" after my topic. :>