All posts by Dana Huff

English Department Chair/English teacher, doctoral candidate at Northeastern University, reader, writer, bread baker, sometime soapmaker, amateur foodie. Wife and mom of three.
Blogging, Technology, Wikis

Blogs and Wikis

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I waited until the site went live before announcing it, but I am proud to annouce the debut of my senior Short Story seminar class’s wiki for Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. It is almost complete at this point, and I am very proud of the job the students have done. I created the “portal” or start page, and they did all of the rest, including finding appropriate video and pictures and even creating an animated GIF for the title. They were enthusiastic about the project, and they were excited to share it with others in the blogging/wiki/educational community. Please go check it out! I will share any comments you make about the wiki with them, as I have password protected comments on the wiki so that only students of mine who know the password can comment. I could probably fix it so guests could comment at a future date.

In other news, a student of mine decided to do his “Moral Perfection” project on a blog, and he has now entered the blogosphere, having enjoyed the project so much that he plans to keep it up. I think it is OK to point you toward his blog, which is all about soccer (or, as he would tell you it is more properly known, football). Be sure to check out his explanation of the project. He’s already thinking about podcasting, and I haven’t even gone there yet!

Richard Beach, professor at the University of Minnesota, plans to use a screenshot of my Awakening discussion wiki (which my students did last year) in his upcoming book Engaging Students in Digital Writing, which will be published in 2007. I will give you more information about ordering if you like once it is published.

I made a decision this week. When I go back to get my Master’s, I will be majoring in Instructional Technology. As my department head reminded me, this — figuring out how to integration technology into education — is my passion. I had planned to get an advanced English degree, but I have to admit that as much as I enjoy reading literature and writing, grad school English didn’t much appeal to me. I thought about becoming a Media Specialist some years back, but I really still want to teach. I don’t want to go into administration. I’m ill-suited for it. However, I think teaching students about technology would be stimulating, satisfying, and interesting.

Blogging

Blogging Question

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I have noticed that while many people link this blog — for which I am grateful — it remains low-profile.  I know the main thing I can do to change that is simply to update more.  That’s not so easy, but I suppose it is something I will have to make time for if I really wish to get this blog “out there.”

I suppose my question (here I go possibly opening a can of worms or worse) is what can I do to make this blog a better reading experience for you?  Keep in mind there are some non-negotiables:

  • I will not post negative comments about my school, colleagues, students, or their parents.  I post under my real name, and I do not wish to bring trouble upon myself in order to entertain anyone else.  Actually, to be honest, there isn’t much negative stuff to post.
  • I don’t want to feel pressured to update every day.  I am a full-time English teacher with three children, two of whom are small children, and I have only so many hours in the day.  I would like to update more, but I cannot commit to updating daily.
  • I will not post anything I would feel uncomfortable about my parents, adminstrators, students, or their parents reading.  In fact, at one time or another, I think representatives from all of those groups have visited this blog, and I am committed to representing myself, my school, and my profession in a positive light.

That said, I’m willing to take suggestions.

Professional Development

The Blue Couch Club

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Before we moved into our new facility, our faculty had a cramped faculty workroom/lounge which contained three computers, a long table, mail boxes, a toaster oven, a few microwaves, a refrigerator, and a blue couch.  The room was not big enough to accommodate all of us, but it was warm and inviting.  I spent a lot of time discussing ideas with colleagues.  Unlike some schools in which I have worked, the faculty lounge at my school was often a place of intellectual stimulation.

Our new facility has some amazing technology and beautiful architecture and decor; we no longer share rooms or float, which is very nice, too.  But we don’t have a blue couch.  Our administration is working on creating some space that will bring back the warmth of our old faculty lounge, but I think many of us had been missing this gathering spot.

My department head took matters into her own hands and organized a gathering she dubbed the Blue Couch Club at a restaurant near our school.  About 10 of us gathered there last night.  It was nice be social with my colleagues outside of school.  It was great to have the opportunity to talk about stuff besides school and students with my colleagues.  We had a great time.  It was so nice to get to know everyone better.

Everyone agreed, I think, that we have to do it again, soon.  The old saying goes that if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed.  I guess if the blue couch doesn’t make it to the new faculty lounge, the faculty has to make it to the blue couch.  Or something like that.

Professional Development, Teaching Writing

Marking Errors: A Research Proposal

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I read a really interesting research proposal written by one of our Hebrew teachers.  Exactly which method of writing instruction works best?

  • Explicitly marking each error in a student’s paper.
  • Marking a line, indicating an error, but leaving it for the student to identify what the error is.

Which method do you use?  Which method do you think would help students learn errors and how to correct them?

My colleague’s research focused on improving writing for L2 (second language) students.  In the case of her students, the L2 is Hebrew.  I found her proposal intriguing.  Which method of writing instruction would produce better results?

I personally mark errors.  I use standard proofreading marks.  I make notation of subject/verb or pronoun/antecedent agreement issues.  My students’ papers are often quite marked up by the time I’m done.  I am interested in finding out if I am doing the best thing for my students.  In many cases, I find students making the same mistakes over and over, no matter how often I mark them.  I mentioned this idea to my department head as a potential research project for us next year in English classes.  I need to locate some research studies.  This could potentially be publishable.

Any English teachers out there interested in looking at this with me?

Teaching Literature

If a Body Catch a Body…

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It’s that time of year again. We did long chapters on phrases and clauses from Warriner’s, and we only have two weeks before finals. It’s a good time for a high-interest short novel. It’s a good time for The Catcher in the Rye. I introduced the novel today, of course telling my students about Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley, Jr. I also told them about the oddy reclusive author. The students complained. I can’t read a whole book in two weeks! I hate reading! I don’t want to read a book. There isn’t even a summary on the back of this book. Why is the cover so plain? You’re killing us, Mrs. Huff. I said, Calm down! Give this one a chance. You’ll like it; just wait.

I always like to start any book by reading aloud, so I cleared my throat and read, “The Catcher in the Rye… Chapter One… If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

As I continued reading I looked around the room. One by one, I could see J.D. Salinger winning them over. Each nose stuck firmly in this plain book with its unobtrusive cover, eyes scanning the page as I read aloud. Utter quiet. No one surreptitiously checking the clock. At the end of the period, I closed the book and asked the students to finish chapter two. I could be wrong, but it sure looked to me as though not one of them noticed the end of the period had come.

I love teaching this book. Thanks, Mr. Salinger.

You can read more about my experiences teaching this book in the past at my personal blog.

Recommended Reading, Teaching Literature

Boys (Don’t) Read

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Boy ReadingThe other day, one of my students made a special trip to my classroom to give me a folded newspaper clipping. He asked me if I had read the paper — and as I’m remembering it, I can’t recall the day he asked about — and I hadn’t, so he shyly handed me the article. If you have never been a teacher, you probably don’t realize how touching such a gesture is. It says that the student was thinking about me and thought something would interest me. It says also that it interested him, and he wanted me to know it. I can’t find the article at the AJC’s website, but I did find it here.

The gist of the article is nothing new to educators. Boys need to be enticed to read more than girls. If you are looking for good guy books, try Jon Scieszka’s site Guys Read. I told the boy who gave me the article that I think he will like our next novel — The Catcher in the Rye. A more quintessentially guy book would be hard to find. I think it will be fun to read with that class, which is predominantly male.

Image via BBC.

Teaching Literature

Julius Caesar

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A favorite resource of mine, the Folger Shakespeare Library, is somewhat skimpy on lesson plans for Julius Caesar. I have only taught this play once before, earlier in my career. I don’t remember that anything I did then was in any way spectacular, memorable, or brilliant, and I would really like my current students to have a different experience. If you know of resources or have ideas of your own, I would love to hear them.

Blogging, Professional Development, Technology

Blogs as Teaching Documents

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I recently presented a session on using blogs and wikis in the classroom at the annual GISA conference. I focused on teacher and student-created and maintained blogs and wikis and didn’t touch very much on how we can learn from these tools. When I share my presentation with my own faculty in January, I would like to include this information. I probably won’t have to teach teachers how to figure out whether a blog poster has reliable credentials, but that would be necessary if I were sharing blogs with students. After all, I have a blog, and I can declare a recipe for cold fusion that really works, but no one should believe me if I do that — after all, my credentials as an English teacher are not exactly reliable compared to those of a nuclear physicist or even a science teacher.

Blogging history, literary and otherwise, seems to have developed into a major trend. I am very excited about this trend, as I think it makes history alive for students and makes the people they study seem like flesh and blood. I found several examples of such blogs.

Boston 1775 purports to be “a miscellany of information about New England just before, during, and after the Revolutionary War, and about how that history has been studied, taught, preserved, politicized, mythologized, lost, recovered, discussed, described, distorted, and now digitized.” It is maintained by J.L. Bell, a Massachusetts writer who specializes in Revolutionary War-era Boston and has written scholarly papers for children and adults and consulted in the show History Detectives.

The Blog of Henry David Thoreau makes Thoreau’s journals accessible to everyone with Internet access. It is maintained by Greg Perry, a poet who posts Thoreau’s journals on the corresponding date today. For example, on November 18, 2006, Greg Posted Thoreau’s journal entry from November 18, 1857.

Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog is not so much a digitized version of a document produced by Chaucer as a vision of what a “blogge” by Chaucer might really look like; more than anything else, it’s just good satire. Reading this blog, one can get a feel for Middle English, a sense of the politics of the time, and most importantly, an appreciation for Chaucer. The site is maintained by an anonymous medievalist.

Pepys Diary is digitized presentation of the diary of Samuel Pepys, whose Restoration-era diary is an excellent primary source document of the period. It is maintainted by Phil Gyford, a UK website designer who bases his site on the 1893 edition of Pepys diary, which was edited by Henry B. Wheatley.

These are just a few that I know about. Please share your own discoveries in the comments section.

Blogging, Professional Development

Essential Edublogging: The Reflective Teacher

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One of the things I like about the Reflective Teacher is that he posts frequently and honestly about his classroom — what works and what doesn’t. He shares his ideas. I think more than many education bloggers, he really treats the edublogosphere like a faculty lounge. Frankly, I think too many folks are in such desperate teaching circumstances that they need their education blog to vent and kvetch about their jobs. I don’t begrudge them that, and I often commiserate, having been in some not-so-pleasant teaching circumstances at other points in my career. However, it is refreshing to see Mr. Teacher’s enthusiasm, not to mention the fact that his site is really attractive and he makes really pretty handouts. He has an eye for document/web design.

In addition to his regular blog, Mr. Teacher also administrates Think, Pair, Share. This blog was orignally a compendium of lessons, but I think Mr. Teacher has had trouble getting submissions; that’s just the way it is in education — we are, for the most part, stretched too thin. It’s a shame because ideas like this are wonderful ways to learn new approaches to our curricula. He plans to continue contests for lesson plans and to update the site with links to relevant educational sites.

Which education blog do you have trouble doing without?

Issues

What’s Your Learning Curve?

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I obtained my first teaching certificate in 1997 upon my graduation from UGA. I taught for one year at Twiggs County Comprehensive High School and then for three years at Warner Robins High School in Middle Georgia. Upon relocating to North Georgia, I did not immediately find a teaching job. I did find a temporary teaching job as a daycare facility’s pre-K teacher, and though I was not certified to teach early childhood or primary school students, I believe I was the only certified teacher at the center. I worked for two years at Snellville Middle School following my pre-K job, after which I ended up back in high school (where I belong) at the Weber School. This is my third year at Weber.

I have a theory, and I am interested to see what any of you think of it. My theory is that it takes a teacher two years teaching at the same school, same subjects, in order to feel completely comfortable — like a competent veteran. I have noticed that each time I worked at a new school, I felt like a first-year teacher all over again. Each school as a different curriculum, culture, climate, and system of rules. It seems to take me two years to get all that down. After this point, working as a teacher seems easier. I already have, for example, handouts, quizzes, tests, and other materials already prepared, so it takes me less time to plan. I have already had time to teach material and learn what works well and what doesn’t. I get to know what my students will most likely already know or will already have done by the time they come to me. It’s a wonderful feeling. It really makes me feel more organized. I also feel like I get assignments graded more quickly — probably because creating materials takes less time.

For only the second time in a career in its tenth year, I feel that sense of comfort that comes with working at the same school for the third year in a row. What about you? How long do you think it takes you to feel comfortable and completely competent at a teaching post?