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Good Characterization is why most people read fiction. Sure, you can draw your readers in with action, mystery, and romance, but what they will remember thirty years after reading your book are the characters. Or not.
The question is, will your characters be remembered? Or will they be forgotten as easily as those in that ninth grade novel you forget the name of? 
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Interviewing is one of the most effective ways to add depth, expertise, and precision to your writing. Interviews, like all things writing related, are both an art and a science, and it involves both connecting with people at a personal level and asking questions that elicit information, sometimes information they don’t particularly want you to know.
Whether you are a novelist trying to add specificity and depth to your story, an aspiring journalist tackling information gathering for the first time, or a blogger trying to build traffic, you’ll need to get high quality information and stories from experts.
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Free webinar March 9 or 15, 2012.
This talk looks briefly at a definition of creativity, and considers why it is important in the language classroom, and why it tends to be neglected by teachers. It explores the natural creativity of the language learning process, and thus the importance of allowing language ‘play’ in the classroom. Drawing on a concept of scaffolded creativity, several activities are illustrated in which the goals of the language classroom are achieved through creative writing activities. Examples of student work are shared, and we discuss briefly the issues that emerge; such as assessment, and intercultural awareness.
We end with a summary of the ways in which creative writing can enhance the language learning experience, and the implications of this approach for the language teacher.
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Although throughout history, learning has been connected to storytelling, the new media that now surround educators and learners have forced us to pay attention to, and to change, how education is conceived. Transmedia learning invites students into stories in ways that they were unable to do before digital technologies existed and the Internet allowed us to connect in so many ways, so quickly.
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Find big6 lesson plans from 1000s of teacher approved lesson plans by grade and subject. From big6 technology to big6 skills, quickly find lesson plans that inspire student learning.
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Diigo stands for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff.” It is a social bookmarking program that allows you to save your ‘favorites’ online, so that they can be accessible from any computer with an internet connection. However, Diigo does much more than this. Via Nik Peachey, Jim Lerman
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Ticking Mind's weekly lesson blog is a practical chronicle of lesson ideas for secondary English teachers. The blog provides engaging lesson plans... Via Louise Robinson-Lay
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One of the things you learn writing fiction is to think in metaphors. Yeah, he's Jake. But what does he represent? The first draft of any novel or screenplay usually spills forth in blissful cluelessness. You tell yourself, I’m writing a detective story, or a Western, or some crazy genre that I don’t even know the name of. Then comes Draft #2 and you have to ask yourself, “What the hell is this thing about?” ... That’s when metaphor comes in. It took me a long time to learn this, and a lot of people had to hammer me and my work pretty hard. Words like “shallow,” “slick” and ‘Yiddish theater” come to mind (the latter criticism I took as a compliment.) What makes Chinatown more than a detective story? What takes Shane beyond being just a Western? ... The answer is metaphor. In a shallow genre piece, the characters represent nothing beyond themselves. A car chase is a car chase, a courtroom scene is a courtroom scene. Much of what we see on TV is like that. But all that changes when Robert Towne asks himself, “What does Jake Gittes represent? What is water (the L.A. River, Hollenbeck bridge, the lake where Hollis Mulwray takes his “girlfriend” boating) a metaphor for? ... When the writer answers those questions—and revises his post-first-draft story accordingly—his material gains depth and power and universality. It stops being superficial and easy. Who is Shane, beyond being a gunfighter who wanders into the middle of a range war? What does he stand for? Alan Ladd as Shane, the Man With A Past, who wants to leave his past behind The writer thinks in metaphors. Via Heiko Idensen, Louise Robinson-Lay
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From Annenberg Teacher Resources
A video workshop for grades 3–5 teachers; 8 half-hour workshop video programs, 8 half-hour classroom video programs, workshop guide, and Web site;
This video workshop for elementary school teachers uses classroom footage to demonstrate how a writing workshop approach motivates intermediate students and helps them become proficient and independent writers. Ten teachers from across the country model teaching strategies and share reflections on their practice. Six nationally known experts in writing instruction comment on teaching and using the writing workshop approach with upper elementary students. The package includes eight 30-minute workshop programs, eight 30-minute classroom programs, a workshop guide, and a Web site.
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Please take the 5:31 to watch the short clip above from a Will Richardson talk at Proctor Academy. I think it is imperative that all school communities spend some significant time reflecting upon their purpose and whether or not the things they are doing in their classrooms are still adequately preparing students for the world outside of their school’s walls.
We have certainly made some strides at Burlington High providing some of the technological resources that will assist us in this work, but we need to continue to assess our work againstmodern standards like the ones developed by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Do our students meet the criteria for what it means to literate in the year 2012?
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Running a blog with your students is about as far from a traditional teaching method as you can get, and chances are nobody taught you how to do it. That’s why teachers who blog with students are usually those nonconformists types, radicals, free spirits, taking paths less traveled…well, not so much anymore. It’s actually become quite popular, but it certainly hasn’t hit mainstream levels, partly because it’s not as simple as using a chalkboard and textbook.
It doesn’t have to be so hard. After several years of blogging with students (mostly using PikiFriends), I’ve come up with a successful method which I hope others will find helpful.
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From Annenberg Teacher Resources: ;8 1-hour videos.
Developing Writers: A Workshop for High School Teachers presents practical and philosophical advice for teaching writing, while examining issues every teacher faces — such as high-stakes assessments and dealing with differently abled students. Eight video programs feature teachers in diverse classrooms around the country who are helping their students grow as skilled and effective writers. Participants will observe how the teachers and their students work together to create writing communities. Professional writers will share their processes as they move from initial concepts to publication, and comments from researchers, theorists, students, and teachers add context. A workshop guide and Web site provide activities and additional information to help participants develop effective instructional strategies to bring back to the classroom.
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Storyrobe is an exciting new digital storytelling application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Storyrobe lets you tell create digital stories using images and video from your camera or photo library. You can use the built in microphone, or any 3rd party microphone to create audio recordings with photos and videos. Use Storyrobe to tell, share, and add to others stories creating a Storyrobe™. Via Ana Cristina Pratas
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Repetition is an important principle in every artistic pursuit from music to painting to literature. It gives you another layer of meaning to work with and can add a level of symbolic value to your seemingly casual description, dialogue, or action.
Today, I’d like to try a unique exercise (which I stole from a friend who teaches art) to help us practice repetition in the form of motif. Here’s a sneak-peak of what we’re going to do:
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Blogs are a great way to share what is going on within your school and build a conversation that goes well beyond the classroom walls. It is also a good way to promote the school and invite publicity from all over the web. So, what do you need to consider before starting your class blog? Here are a few thoughts and suggestions that may help get your blog up sooner than later.
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By David Pogue - NY Times (THIS IS A BIG DEAL -JL)
You’re probably paying something like $60 a month for high-speed Internet. I’m paying $5 a month, and my connection is 1,000 times faster.
OnLive Desktop Plus gives the iPad ultrafast Flash Web browsing and the full Microsoft Office suite. Your iPad can’t play Flash videos on the Web. Mine can.
Your copy of Windows needs constant updating and patching and protection against viruses and spyware. Mine is always clean and always up-to-date.
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Below are 20 common grammar mistakes I see routinely, not only in editorial queries and submissions, but in print: in HR manuals, blogs, magazines, newspapers, trade journals, and even best selling novels. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve made each of these mistakes a hundred times, and I know some of the best authors in history have lived to see these very toadstools appear in print. Let's hope you can learn from some of their more famous mistakes.
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Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
Fabulous resource for writing prompts. -JL
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Adopting a new communication tool is not easy. Figuring out the best way YOU can use Twitter is even harder. Luckily you are not going it alone. We have culled the following resources from an array of websites that try to help anyone understand and better use Twitter.
Gust MEES: A MUST READ! All information on one place! Via Gust MEES, Jenny Pesina, Jimi Paradise, Jim Lerman
Barbara Bray's comment,
February 24, 2012 12:49 AM
You're welcome JennyP - I rescooped it from Jim Lerman and may do some more research and write something to share with my readers.
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In the first instalment of his brand-new series, Nik Peachey looks at podcasting and how it can be used to help students develop their listening and speaking skills both inside and outside the classroom. Via Glyndwr E-learning, Louise Robinson-Lay
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Whether you’re a classroom teacher or home educating family, you and the young people around you can collaborate with and connect to the world using Google tools. I’ve used numerous Google tools to connect to help myself and others connect to the world. I love using tools like Docs, Hangout, Goggles, Translate, Earth and more!
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As some of my readers may know, I had an awakening of sorts this past summer: I am NOT going to teach so test driven, I told myself. I'm tired of the five-paragraph essay! Where does it exist anywhere but in school? Instead, I decided, that everything I did this school year would have some connection to the world outside of school. The plan: to immerse my lessons and my classroom assessments in authenticity. And test scores be damned.
OK, so maybe I wasn't that confident. Nevertheless, I went ahead with my plans and devised units based on project-based writing.
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The number of students taking Advanced Placement exams is up, but according to the latest report from the College Board, a significant numbers of students that should be taking AP tests aren’t. They analyzed the performance of 771,000 PSAT-takers from the class of 2011 and discovered that 478,000 students—over 60 percent—did not take an AP exam even though their test scores indicated they could do well on one. In particular, the College Board found that high scoring students from black, Latino, and Native American backgrounds are "much less likely than their white and Asian peers" to take AP exams.
Eighty percent of black students whose scores indicated that they could have done well in AP classes never enrolled in them, and in the class of 2011 only 9 percent of AP exam-takers were black. By comparison, only 40 percent of Asian students and 60 percent of white students whose scores suggested they should be taking AP classes and exams don’t do so.
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How is your new year’s resolution to read more and write better holding up? After tracing the fascinating story of the most influential writing style guide of all time and absorbing advice on writing from some of modern history’s most legendary writers, here comes some priceless and pricelessly uncompromising wisdom from a very different kind of cultural legend: iconic businessman and original “Mad Man” David Ogilvy. On September 7th, 1982, Ogilvy sent the following internal memo to all agency employees, titled “How to Write”:"Never write more than two pages on any subject."
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Into this vacuum steps Storiad, an intriguing new approach to empowering writers and connecting them with the right buyers for their work. Founded by Ramzi Hajj, a short story writer and aspiring novelist with an MBA in Economics and Statistics from U. Chicago, Storiad aims "to introduce some pull into a typically 'push' market": you put your writing out there via Storiad, media professionals can access it, and, if they're interested, they call you.
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