Group items tagged

analysis of impact of reading, novel especially. validates focus on class SSR, even in 11-12th grade (my groups)

Resources and recommendations for teaching graphic novels

Students begin by analyzing how specific songs might fit with a familiar story. Students then create their own soundtracks for the movie version of a novel they have read. They select songs that match the text and fit specific events in the story.

"Studio 360 explores F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and finds out how this compact novel became the great American story of our age. Novelist Jonathan Franzen tells Kurt Andersen why he still reads it every year or two, and writer Patricia Hampl explains why its lightness is deceptive. We'll drive around the tony Long Island suburbs where Gatsby was set, and we'll hear from Andrew Lauren about his film G, which sets Gatsby among the hip-hop moguls. And Azar Nafisi describes the power of teaching the book to university students in Tehran. Readings come courtesy of Scott Shepherd, an actor who sometimes performs the entire book from memory."

For the high-schoolers reading To Kill a Mockingbird today, America is a very different place than it was when Lee wrote her novel 50 years ago. Lee's story of Scout Finch and her father, Atticus - a small-town Southern lawyer who defends a black man unjustly accused of rape - came out just as the nation was fighting over school desegregation. To Kill a Mockingbird didn't change everyone's mind, but it did open some. And it made an impression on many young people who, like Scout, were trying to get a grip on right and wrong in a world that is not always fair.

Excellent essay about programs like Accelerated Reader and the "management of reading" in an era of accountability.

"Is fiction good for us? We spend huge chunks of our lives immersed in novels, films, TV shows, and other forms of fiction. Some see this as a positive thing, arguing that made-up stories cultivate our mental and moral development. But others have argued that fiction is mentally and ethically corrosive. It's an ancient question: Does fiction build the morality of individuals and societies, or does it break it down?"

Great blog from an EC Ning member

I'm on page 199 of 349 of Let the Great World Spin: "there's a high that you get when you're writing code. It's cool. It's easy to do. You forget your mom, your dad, everything. You've got the whole country onboard. This is America. You hit the frontier. You can go anywhere, Its about begin connected, access, gateways, like a whispering games where if you get one thing wrong you've got to go all the way back to the beginning."   quote from a teen hacker in the novel--it captures adolescence, hacking, learning, delight, beauty, everything: I want to remember this when I meet my new students in September

Figment is a community where you can share your writing, connect with other readers, and discover new stories and authors. Whatever you're into, from sonnets to mysteries, from sci-fi stories to cell phone novels, you can find it all here.

"Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet on Facebook? With social networking the hot topic of the day, a computer science grad student, his advisor and a literature professor teamed up to analyze social interactions in 19th century British novels."