The lunch lesson about nings and social injustice was on target with the text Inquiry at a Stance assigned for high school teachers. The text discusses the use of teacher learning communities that enable us--teachers--to escape our local context and "travel" to see others' experiences or to discover a wealth of information about any subject that we can use in our classrooms. Yes, we do need to affect the broader social, cultural, and political milieu. The ladies today displayed a way to contact other teachers and a way to begin blog sites to use with students; what a wonderful idea (if my server at school allows me to carry out wonderful ideas!).
Education is social justice. We need to find ways to relate the world to our students' lives, and their website/blog exposes students to lessons about the world/social issues/current events compiled by educators. I also hope to be more blog fluent and work with the blog on NWP's site. So, I may be asking my AWP colleagues for help--lots of it, I'm sure.
Thank you to Sherrie today for articulated points against the argument that grammar MAKES good writing. No, grammar prohibits the fluency and flow of writing. If we all believed this and followed it, would not everything be free writing? Hmm.
I'm working on my "blog fluency" as well.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more with your statements about social justice.
I was impressed with the nings website also. Whether we are ready or not, we live in a world of rapidly growing technology and our students need experience using it. If only the adequate technology was available to use. HO-HUM :(
ReplyDeleteI was at an English teachers conference once when someone made a comment to the effect that "I don't do politics in my classroom; I stick to showing students where the comma goes." Here's the deal, folks, the decision to stick to teaching "where the comma goes" is a POLITICAL decision. This may sound harsh, but the reason lemmings are suicidal isn't because they have a death wish, it's because they are not willing to question the decisions of all the lemmings who went over the cliff before them.
ReplyDeleteNow I know that the huge amount of time and energy that goes into this project is worthwhile. I have found the one place that a scholarly discussion can bring the importance of writing to society in line with the politics of lemmings and commas. Viva O.U.A.W.P.
ReplyDelete