[Read more posts about journaling here.]
I discovered the mother of all writing prompt lists this morning. And since we are coming down to the wire with our state test, I thought I would post these.  There are about 200 of each.  Enjoy!

Expository

http://www2.asd.wednet.edu/pioneer/barnard/wri/exp.htm

Narrative

http://www2.asd.wednet.edu/pioneer/barnard/wri/narr.htm

Persuasive

http://www2.asd.wednet.edu/pioneer/barnard/wri/per.htm

These are from Paula Banard’s website.

This might be useful for state writing assessments or other tests.

I found this information at Neatorama.com.

Here are the origins of several symbols we use in everyday life.

Question Mark

Origin: When early scholars wrote in Latin, they would place the word questio – meaning “question” – at the end of a sentence to indicate a query. To conserve valuable space, writing it was soon shortened to qo, which caused another problem – readers might mistake it for the ending of a word. So they squashed the letters into a symbol: a lowercased q on top of an o. Over time the o shrank to a dot and the q to a squiggle, giving us our current question mark.

Exclamation Point

Origin: Like the question mark, the exclamation point was invented by stacking letters. The mark comes from the Latin word io, meaning “exclamation of joy.” Written vertically, with the i above the o, it forms the exclamation point we use today.

Equal Sign

Origin: Invented by English mathematician Robert Recorde in 1557, with this rationale: “I will settle as I doe often in woorke use, a paire of paralleles, or Gmowe [i.e., twin] lines of one length, thus : , bicause noe 2 thynges, can be more equalle.” His equal signs were about five times as long as the current ones, and it took more than a century for his sign to be accepted over its rival: a strange curly symbol invented by Descartes.

Ampersand

Origin: This symbol is stylized et, Latin for “and.” Although it was invented by the Roman scribe Marcus Tullius Tiro in the first century B.C., it didn’t get its strange name until centuries later. In the early 1800s, schoolchildren learned this symbol as the 27th letter of the alphabet: X, Y, Z, &. But the symbol had no name. So, they ended their ABCs with “and, per se, and” meaning “&, which means ‘and.’” This phrase was slurred into one garbled word that eventually caught on with everyone: ampersand.

Octothorp

Origin: The odd name for this ancient sign for numbering derives from thorpe, the Old Norse word for a village or farm that is often seen in British placenames. The symbol was originally used in mapmaking, representing a village surrounded by eight fields, so it was named the octothorp.

Dollar Sign

Origin: When the U.S. government begin issuing its own money in 1794, it used the common world currency – the peso – also called the Spanish dollar. The first American silver dollars were identical to Spanish pesos in weight and value, so they took the same written abbreviations: Ps. That evolved into a P with an s written right on top of it, and when people began to omit the circular part of the p, the sign simply became an S with a vertical line through it.

Olympic Rings

Origin: Designed in 1913 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the five rings represent the five regions of the world that participated in the Olympics: Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. While the individual rings do not symbolize any single continent, the five colors – red, blue, green, yellow, and black – were chosen because at least one of them is found on the flag of every nation. The plain white background is symbolic of peace.

I found this really interesting.  I thought I’d share.  I think it would make for an interesting writing prompt.

This is a post from the most interesting math blog I have ever found (POLYMATHEMATICS).

Every year I get a few kids in my classes who argue with me on this.  And there are arguers all over the web.  And I just know I’m going to get contentious “but it just can’t be true” whiners in my comments.  But I feel obliged to step into this fray.

.9 repeating equals one.  In other words, .9999999… is the same number as 1.  They’re 2 different ways of writing the same number.  Kind of like 1.5, 1 1/2, 3/2, and 99/66.  All the same.  I know some of you still don’t believe me, so let me say it loudly:

Do you believe it yet?  Well, I do have a couple of arguments besides mere size.  Let’s look at some reasons why it’s true.  Then we’ll look at some reasons why it’s not false, which is something different entirely.  The standard algebra proof (which, if you modify it a little, works to convert any repeating decimal into a fraction) runs something like this.  Let x = .9999999…, and then multiply both sides by 10, so you get 10x = 9.9999999… because multiplying by 10 just moves the decimal point to the right.  Then stack those two equations and subtract them (this is a legal move because you’re subtracting the same quantity from the left side, where it’s called x, as from the right, where it’s called .9999999…, but they’re the same because they’re equal.  We said so, remember?):

Surely if 9x = 9, then x = 1.  But since x also equals .9999999… we get that .9999999… = 1.  The algebra is impeccable.

But I know that this is unconvincing to many people.  So here’s another argument.  Most people who have trouble with this fact oddly don’t have trouble with the fact that 1/3 = .3333333… .  Well, consider the following addition of equations then:

This seems simplistic, but it’s very, very convincing, isn’t it?  Or try it with some other denominator:

Which works out very nicely.  Or even:

It will work for any two fractions that have a repeating decimal representation and that add up to 1.

Those are my first two demonstrations that our fact is true (the last one is at the end).  But then the whiners start in about all the reasons they think it’s false.  So here’s why it’s not false:

• “.9 repeating doesn’t equal 1, it gets closer and closer to 1.”

May I remind you that .9 repeating is a number.  That means it has it’s place on the number line somewhere.  Which means that it’s not “getting” anywhere.  It doesn’t move.  It either equals 1 or it doesn’t (it does of course), but it doesn’t “get” closer to 1.

• “.9 repeating is obviously less than 1.”

Hmmmm…it might be obvious to you, but it’s not obvious to me.  Is it really less than 1?  How much less than 1?  No, seriously…tell me how much less?  What is 1 minus .99999999…?

Really???? Infinitely many zeros and then after the infinite list that never ends, there’s a 1????  Surely that’s stranger than the possibility that .9 repeating simply does equal 1.  Or for something even stranger, consider this:  if .9 repeating is less than 1, then we ought to be able to do something very simple with those two numbers:  find their average.  What’s the number directly between the two?  Or for that matter, name any number between the two.  Let me guess:  the average is .99999…05?  So after this infinite list of 9s, there’s the possibility of starting up multiple-digit extensions?  Doesn’t that just raise the obvious question:  What about .9999999…9999999…?  Namely, infinitely many 9s, and then after that infinite list, there’s another infinite list of 9s?  How, exactly is that different from the original infinite list of 9s?  If you saw it written out, where would the break between the lists be?

I’m afraid that if you apply the “huh??” test of strangeness, you get a much higher strangeness factor if you say that .9999999… is not 1 than you do if you say it is 1.

• “Uhhhhh, I’m sorry, but I still don’t believe you.  .99999… just can’t equal 1.”

Well, let’s look a little more carefully at what we really mean by .999999…:

This equation isn’t really up for debate, right?  It’s simply the meaning of our place value system made explicit.  That thing on the right hand side is called an infinite geometic series.  They have been studied extensively in math.  The word “geometric” means that each term of the series is the identical multiple (in this case 1/10) of the previous term. The definition of the sum of an infinite geometric series (and other series, too, but we won’t get into those) goes something this:

1. Start making a list of partial sums:  the sum of the first one number, then the sum of the first two numbers, then the sum of the first three, etc.
2. Examine your list closely.  In this case the list is: .9, .99, .999, .9999, …. (Note that the actual number .99999…. is not on the list, since every number on the list has finitely many 9s.)
3. Find some numbers that are bigger than every single number on your list.  Like 53, 3.14, and a million.
4. Of all the numbers that are bigger than every number on your list, find the smallest possible such number.  I think we can all agree that this smallest number is 1.
5. That smallest number that can’t be exceeded by anything on the list is the definition of the sum of the geometric series.

Notice that I keep putting the word definition in bold face.  (See, I did it again!)  That’s because it’s a definition, which isn’t really up for debate.  It is the nature of a mathematical definition that once you acccept it, you have to agree to its consequences.  In other words, .99999… = 1 by the definition of the sum of a geometric series.  It’s also true if you use the popular formula

a/(1 - r) with a = 9/10, and r = 1/10.

We’re left with this:  merely saying “.99999… doesn’t equal 1″ admits the fact that this number .99999… exists.  And if it exists, it equals 1 by definition.  The only way out for you now, if you still don’t believe it, is to have a different working definition of the sum of an infinite series (go talk to some math professors, and see how far you get) or to deny the very existence of the number .9999….  I have seen a lot of people doubt that the number equals 1, but very few of them are willing to deny the very existence of that number.  If you want to play “there’s no such thing as infinitely long decimal representations,” I’m afraid you won’t get very far, because there’s always the number pi to worry about, too, you know.

Okay, so there’s my rant.  .9 repeating equals one.  No, I’m sorry, it does.

I have been thinking a lot about design as of late.  Being one of the newspaper sponsors at my school, I think about it often.  I have noticed a number of interesting infographics being published lately that consolidate research and statistics into a visual format.

Is teaching design is important for language arts.  I think it is.  Visualizations persuade.  We can convey so much with visual elements.  The lack of words can be powerful as well. (See the example below.)

There are obvious uses for teaching visual rhetoric via film studies (by that I mean filming techniques to foster visualization while reading). Infographics could be used to outline a research project or to be used in a speech.  Anyway, just thought I would share.

Created by Online Education

The conference was AMAZING!  We had just under 200 people. (Read below to learn why that is impressive.)  We have already discussed changes for next year’s conference.  We hope you will consider joining us.  Check RMWP.ORG for updates.

This conference schedule is a thing of great beauty.  You can now also download the conference program.

When I first started planning for this conference, I was told to expect around 30 people to show up.  As of today we have about 152 registered.  I am amazed at the support.  I have never done this before.  It has been eye-opening.If you are interested in hearing Kylene Beers and Bob Probst along with 12 other presenters speak, I would encourage you to come on down, over, or up to Birmingham, Alabama on Saturday (27 February 2010).Here is a link to the page where you can register: 21st Century Literacies Conference(I will remove the option to register at 11:59 p.m. the night before the conference.)

 A friend of mine (Chris Copeland) sent me the link to the following content at Teach Paperless (find the link at the bottom of this post).

I think it is well worth your time.

1. Desks
The 21st century does not fit neatly into rows. Neither should your students. Allow the network-based concepts of flow, collaboration, and dynamism help you rearrange your room for authentic 21st century learning.

2. Language Labs
Foreign language acquisition is only a smartphone away. Get rid of those clunky desktops and monitors and do something fun with that room.

3. Computers
Ok, so this is a trick answer. More precisely this one should read: ‘Our concept of what a computer is’. Because computing is going mobile and over the next decade we’re going to see the full fury of individualized computing via handhelds come to the fore. Can’t wait.

4. Homework
The 21st century is a 24/7 environment. And the next decade is going to see the traditional temporal boundaries between home and school disappear. And despite whatever Secretary Duncan might say, we don’t need kids to ‘go to school’ more; we need them to ‘learn’ more. And this will be done 24/7 and on the move (see #3).

5. The Role of Standardized Tests in College Admissions
The AP Exam is on its last legs. The SAT isn’t far behind. Over the next ten years, we will see Digital Portfolios replace test scores as the #1 factor in college admissions.

6. Differentiated Instruction as the Sign of a Distinguished Teacher
The 21st century is customizable. In ten years, the teacher who hasn’t yet figured out how to use tech to personalize learning will be the teacher out of a job. Differentiation won’t make you ‘distinguished’; it’ll just be a natural part of your work.

7. Fear of Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the greatest democratizing force in the world right now. If you are afraid of letting your students peruse it, it’s time you get over yourself.

8. Paperbacks
Books were nice. In ten years’ time, all reading will be via digital means. And yes, I know, you like the ‘feel’ of paper. Well, in ten years’ time you’ll hardly tell the difference as ‘paper’ itself becomes digitized.

9. Attendance Offices
Bio scans. ‘Nuff said.

10. Lockers.
A coat-check, maybe.

11. IT Departments
Ok, so this is another trick answer. More subtly put: IT Departments as we currently know them. Cloud computing and a decade’s worth of increased wifi and satellite access will make some of the traditional roles of IT — software, security, and connectivity — a thing of the past. What will IT professionals do with all their free time? Innovate. Look to tech departments to instigate real change in the function of schools over the next twenty years.

12. Centralized Institutions
School buildings are going to become ‘homebases’ of learning, not the institutions where all learning happens. Buildings will get smaller and greener, student and teacher schedules will change to allow less people on campus at any one time, and more teachers and students will be going out into their communities to engage in experiential learning.

13. Organization of Educational Services by Grade
Education over the next ten years will become more individualized, leaving the bulk of grade-based learning in the past. Students will form peer groups by interest and these interest groups will petition for specialized learning. The structure of K-12 will be fundamentally altered.

14. Education School Classes that Fail to Integrate Social Technology
This is actually one that could occur over the next five years. Education Schools have to realize that if they are to remain relevant, they are going to have to demand that 21st century tech integration be modelled by the very professors who are supposed to be preparing our teachers.

15. Paid/Outsourced Professional Development
No one knows your school as well as you. With the power of a PLN in their backpockets, teachers will rise up to replace peripatetic professional development gurus as the source of schoolwide prof dev programs. This is already happening.

16. Current Curricular Norms
There is no reason why every student needs to take however many credits in the same course of study as every other student. The root of curricular change will be the shift in middle schools to a role as foundational content providers and high schools as places for specialized learning.

17. Parent-Teacher Conference Night
Ongoing parent-teacher relations in virtual reality will make parent-teacher conference nights seem quaint. Over the next ten years, parents and teachers will become closer than ever as a result of virtual communication opportunities. And parents will drive schools to become ever more tech integrated.

18. Typical Cafeteria Food
Nutrition information + handhelds + cost comparison = the end of $3.00 bowls of microwaved mac and cheese. At least, I so hope so.

19. Outsourced Graphic Design and Webmastering
You need a website/brochure/promo/etc.? Well, for goodness sake just let your kids do it. By the end of the decade — in the best of schools — they will be.

20. High School Algebra I
Within the decade, it will either become the norm to teach this course in middle school or we’ll have finally woken up to the fact that there’s no reason to give algebra weight over statistics and IT in high school for non-math majors (and they will have all taken it in middle school anyway).

21. Paper
In ten years’ time, schools will decrease their paper consumption by no less than 90%. And the printing industry and the copier industry and the paper industry itself will either adjust or perish.

This info is from TeachPaperless.

Google Fast Flip has been released. I will be using it in my classes tomorrow.  When you type in a topic, Fast Flip will find it major publications.  Click on each thumbnail to read the story.  This is a fast way to digest a large quantity of information.

Here are some plans I have for it over the next few weeks:

1. current event discussions
2. looking for examples of grammatical constructions
3. examining visual rhetoric
4. searching for logical fallacies
5. looking for vocabulary words in context

I would LOVE to know some of your ideas.  Please leave any you have in the comments.

I purchased a copy of Janet Allen’s Inside Words this summer at a workshop. Among the AMAZING activities in the book I discovered the Frayer Method. (Click HERE to see a demonstration of the Frayer method with vocabulary).

When I saw it, I immediately thought of how useful it would be to use this to teach voice/style within your students’ writing. If you had them fill out a graphic organizer like the one used with vocabulary above, you could really get them thinking about their own writing.

Then I started thinking about how useful it would be in teaching the differences between the literary periods I teach (everything from romanticism to modernism). Because the influence of these period is often subtle and lacking a strict definition, this will certainly be useful for me next year.

Anyway…this post was more for me than my readers. Just thought I’d share, though.

Here are some PDF worksheets that feature the Frayer methods:

What is the Frayer method?

Frayer Vocabluary PDF

Because of the nature of English, it is difficult to give concrete definitions to parts of speech (verbs can work like nouns; nouns can be verbs), but grammar books tend to avoid this fact, thereby leaving students completely confounded when they return to the texts to complete assigments. I have found the MOST AMAZING grammar book ever; it has helped many students who couldn’t quite get this often loathed aspect of the English curriculum.

Analyzing English Grammar by Thomas Klammer is be an awesome resource for those students who cannot get past the inconsistencies of grammar. EVEN BETTER NEWS: It is in its 5th edition, but there have only been very minor changes, so you can find really cheap copies (here it is on amazon.com or half.com).

The reason it is so good is because it provides different tests to go through to figure out if a word is a noun, verb, etc.  These tests are kind of like the duck test (if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and waddles like a duck, it is a duck). This works because the authors focus on the FORM and FUNCTION of each word.  They look at how the word appears (FORM) as well as how the word works in the sentences by using frame sentences (fill-in-the-blank sentences that you can insert the word being examined into to figure out what it is).

Here is the noun chart from the book:

TESTS FOR NOUNS

Formal Proof:

1. Has a noun-making morpheme (governMENT)
2. Can occur with the plural morpheme (governmentS)
3. Can occur with the possessive morpheme (government’S decision)

   Function Proof:

1. Can directly follow an article (THE government, A government)
2. Can fit in the frame sentence: (The) ________ seem(s) all right.

Here is the verb chart from the book:

TEST FOR VERBS

Formal Proof:

1. Has a verb-making morpheme (criticIZE)
2. Can occur with present-tense morpheme (criticizeS)
3. Can have past-tense morpheme (criticizeD)
4.  Can occur in present tense (criticizING)
5. Can occur with past-participle morpheme (had fallEN, was citicizeD)

Function Proof:

1. Can be made into a command (CRITICIZE the novel!)
2. Can be made negative (They did NOT criticize the novel)
3.  Can fit in one of the frame sentences
   1. They must ______ (it).
   2. They must ______ good.

The book does the same thing for clauses and phrases.  I love this book so much that I have purchased two copies of it.

I still have a few students who have a difficult time verbalizing deeper examples of symbolism. This pedagogical conundrum made me start thinking about levels of symbolic representation. If Bloom has levels of thinking, why can’t there be levels of symbolism.

I think pointing out examples of these levels may help some of the students understand how to explain them.

I realize that there is probably 982 (give or take a few) books already on this subject, but here is the list I came up with (the ones in BLUE were suggested by colleagues):

Types of Symbols

Aesthetic Symbolism- appearance of something contains symbolic qualities
Colors – Red for love
Yellow for decay or money
Green for money or jealousy
Texture- Sharpness of a thorn

Object Symbolism- an object is symbolic
The green light on Daisy’s dock serves as a beacon of hope just as with flame of the statue of Liberty.

Iconic-dealing with an icon
Cross, infinity symbol, a fist raised in the air, peace sign

Linguistic Symbolism- this involves the symbolism that innately occur in certain words. (Thanks, Candy)
NAMES- Dimsdale from The Scarlet Letter
DUPLICITY- “Put out the light, and then put out the light.” (Othello V, ii) (I know this last example is more metaphor than symbol, but they are kissing cousins)

Action/Event Symbolism- an action or event implies a subliminal symbolism
Tom’s violent/domineering personality is symbolized in the way he slams the windows in the first chapter of The Great Gatsby.
Starks will not let Janie let her hair down in public. This is symbolic of his control over her, which is fueled by his jealousy.

Cognitive Symbolism- thoughts that pop into the characters’ heads that represent internal struggle or emotional conflicts. (Thanks, Brigid)
Gatsby realizes that Daisy’s voice is full of money as he moves towards realizing that she picked Tom for reasons other than just a good option.

While looking for pictures to add to this post, I found the PDF of a list of color symbolism.

As always, please add any suggestions for this list in my comments.

From the Google Docs blog, I learned that the spreadsheets available on Google docs are now going to be more efficient when viewed on mobile phones. This is awesome for a number of reasons:

1. I don’t have a physical gradebook.
2. The server at my school has been known to be down from time to time, whereas Google does not have such a reputation.
3. With spreadsheets on my phone, I can keep my gradebook there. Therefore, when a student asks about a grade, I can whip out my phone (and thereby proudly revealing my nerdiness) to answer their questions.
4. Because these spreadsheets are on google’s server, I do not have to worry about losing them.

If you want to see how students are using Google Docs, check out the link and video below.
This video (from a series of videos about Google Docs on campus) features students discussing how Google docs have made them more effective.

Check out other posts dealing with Google here.