Group items tagged

Some writers have distinct stylistic fingerprints. Student writers, not so much.

"Frodo Baggins looked at the ring. The ring was round. It was a good ring. The hole at the heart of the ring was also round. The hole was clean and pure. ... The earth moved."

Kids Hate Classic Books Through Hilarious Tweets at #worstbookever « PWxyz

The old man and the sea, #worstbookever uuuggghhhh

heart of darkness please die #worstbookever#whatsisgoingon?

thank god for sparknotes #readingthecrucible#worstbookever

In ordinary language, to call a copyright a "property" right is a bit misleading, for the property of copyright is an odd kind of property. . . . I understand what I am taking when I take the picnic table you put in your backyard. I am taking a thing, the picnic table, and after I take it, you don't have it. But what am I taking when I take the good idea you had to put a picnic table in the backyard—by, for example, going to Sears, buying a table, and putting it in my backyard? What is the thing that I am taking then? The point is not just about the thingness of picnic tables versus ideas, though that is an important difference. The point instead is that in the ordinary case—indeed, in practically every case except for a narrow range of exceptions—ideas released to the world are free. I don't take anything from you when I copy the way you dress—though I might seem weird if I do it every day. . . . Instead, as Thomas Jefferson said (and this is especially true when I copy the way someone dresses), "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

arguments that Lessig has with the hard-core proponents of intellectual property are almost all arguments about where and when the line should be drawn between the right to copy and the right to protection from copying, not whether a line should be drawn.

when it comes to literature, we have somehow decided that copying is never acceptable.

A successful music executive has to understand the distinction between borrowing that is transformative and borrowing that is merely derivative, and that distinction, I realized, was what was missing from the discussion of Bryony Lavery's borrowings.

problem with plagiarism. It is not merely extremist. It has also become disconnected from the broader question of what does and does not inhibit creativity.

But the truth is that Lavery has every right to create an affair for Agnetha, because Agnetha is not Dorothy Lewis. She is a fictional character, drawn from Lewis's life but endowed with a completely imaginary set of circumstances and actions.

dred and seventy-five rather ordinary words could bring the walls tumbling down.

not privilege intellectual pleasures, the characteristic province of school

You can sort of help yourself change in that way, and when you really admire a character in a book who’s really brave and stuff, you kind of can idolize them and become more like them. So it’s not really learning about yourself, it’s learning about what you could be.

teachers of reading and literature need to make pleasure more central to our practice. 

Our data also convinced us of the importance of choice

Students should have regular opportunities to behave the way adult readers do and choose their own reading.

became necessary when it was blatantly apparent that not all students in U.S schools had equal opportunity to learn

standards are necessary but insufficient

depends on teachers and leaders knowing how to expertly implement them

high-stakes testing that accompanies the standards

Administrators need to take the lead

Become discerning readers and writers.

Do more read-alouds of excellent literature.

Standards do not transform teaching and learning

Organize curriculum through emphasizing big ideas and important concepts.

Embed shared experiences in your teaching.