Are we working yet?

I love seeing my students engaged, even if it's in fits and starts, always peeping over the edges into the world beyond the mind, as if to say, "I'm here but I'm also outside of here." When students settle into the internal musings of the mind, the silence that envelops the classroom is sublime; it shimmers with electricity, and I can feel its energy.

Ms. Frizz Takes the Class to Ghana

Here is a small map of the whole country, but I would like to have someone in charge of more intricate mapping so that we can follow our detective on his journeys to solve the murder in the novel The Wife of the Gods.

We begin our journey in Ketanu, which is part of the Adaklu-Anyigbe District of the Volta Region in Ghana. You can see Lake Volta on the map, and I am linking this site to the Google maps so you can see a better image of the whole area: http://www.maplandia.com/ghana/volta/

Time to get off that couch!

Okay, it is time for your first formal essay, and I am counting on each one of you to have taken careful notes in class, have worked assiduously outside of class, and have done the necessary preparation to draft, revise and finally submit the best essays that you can possibly produce. I urge you all to share you work with someone else in the class, using the Google documents feature to allow each of you to review and recommend while you are both online. Try it out and let the rest of us know how it works out for you. Make SURE that you have done several revisions with feedback before you commit to your final draft, as I will expect you to have worked the essays over for correct grammer, logical sequences, and developed examples.

Here's to getting off those sofas or couches or wherever you do NOT get your work done! I am checking my CCP email for thesis statements and have received only one so far. Get on it!

Measuring "well educated children"

Here you are, hopeful scholars grappling with the issues of academic learning! In today's New York Times Susan Engel, director of the teaching program at Williams College, writes in the Op-Ed section of the paper "Scientifically Tested Tests" where she takes on the notion of testing to make students and teachers perform better. She urges instead that we should be measuring "the ability to understand what they read; an interest in using books to gain knowledge; the agility to move from concrete examples to abstrct principles and back again; the ability to think about a situation in several different ways; and a dynamic working knowledge of the society in which they live."

I am reminded of Sherman Alexie's essay "Superman and Me" and the way he valued his "interest in using books to gain knowledge." Now that you have been in class for two weeks, which of Susan Engel's measurements do you believe is the most important for college level learning?

Let's begin!

I am going to begin this blog with an invitation to my students to enter into the conversation about classroom issues, academic issues and political issues. I post this lovely cow/oxen - I could use help on which it is when it has no horns - in the hopes that you ALL will take the time to mull over things that we learn and discuss; Perhaps this fellow isn't the most thoughtful of species, but he's got ears that suggest he listens and a face that suggests he is in TUNE!

So, this is a blog, many of which do not fold in photos but rely solely on language. I will use this space to pose questions or just pick up discussions we have had in class. After reading the first paragraph of Thomas L. Friedman's essay "Power to the (Blogging) People," can you respond to the idea that because China does not have "democratic elections," the whole arena of blogging has become "the de facto voice of the people"? What does it mean to have NO voice in the government but then to have a tool like this where you can voice your opinions, join forces with other like-minded people, and realize that there might be something more powerful than the official voice of the government?

With a Gmail account you should be able to respond to this post, and I look forward to reading what you have to say - of course, in your VERY best, grammatically correct, prose!