Welcome to the world of Blogging

Previously published (August 2007) on an English 11 Blog, that no longer exists.

One of the themes of our course this year is the rise of public voices. In the early days of our country, people made their views known through pamphlets and newspapers. By the end of the Revolutionary War, there were 43 newspapers in print. These days, people are still expressing opinions and wanting to know what is happening, but more and more, the news is read online. And the sources of information are shifting too. With the creation of Blogs and Wikis and other Web tools, anyone can add Web content. While not all of the ordinary user content is good, some of it is very good. Independent Bloggers are becoming strong, democratic voices. Politicians are one group paying attention to what Bloggers are saying.

Thomas Friedman wrote that “the world is flat,” which means, for one thing, that the peoples of the world have the technology to communicate with each other independent from the media giants who have previously controlled what we see, hear, and to some extent, know. The Internet means instant access to the world.

So, what does all this Blog business have to do with you?

Plenty. But what do you think it has to do with you? Leave your answers to this question as comments.

Quotation Response for May 20

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.” Abraham Lincoln

Quotation Response for May 19

“A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?” Jane Wagner

Meant to be?

I tell my friend all the time, I don’t believe in “it was meant to be.” I don’t believe there is a force out there that determines what will be in our lives. However, there are times when things fall into place as if someone is moving the pieces around on our chessboard.

For the last couple of weeks I have been planning a supplementary activity for English 11 that focuses on creative nonfiction, a genre that I am really interested in. We begin the journey tomorrow. One of the links I made in the website is to Tom Montag’s blog, The Middlewesterner. He spoke at the Great Lakes Writers Festival one year and I remember him being the person who first used that term, creative nonfiction, at least for me.

So, the meant to be part? Today, coming back to school after a journalism field trip, I find a bubble wrap package in my mailbox from some publishing house. I can’t remember ordering anything, and a lot of times we get junk (like you wouldn’t believe). But this looks real. So I open it, and inside are two books by Tom Montag, one of which is a collection of his essays, essays for lack of a better term, I call essays of place. And as I look at the cover, I see that this is what he calls them, too. As I was planning this new unit, I knew such things existed, but it was not easy to find good examples for my students. Then this book arrives.

Hmmmm….

How did these essays that I need at precisely this moment come into my possession without my prompting them to arrive? This is the cosmic question. I may have to email Mr. Montag to see if he knows. He is a writer in residence at Lakeland College (which is “just around the corner”) last I heard.

However the circumstance, I am grateful for the gift. I am also grateful for the intellectual spark and the energy I managed to find in fourth quarter to be able to plan something entirely new. I hope that our exploration in creative nonfiction goes well. I surely am going to have to adapt my plans now to include one of Tom’s essays.

April is National Poetry Month

Please visit the webpage I created to celebrate National Poetry Month. Also, think about carrying a Poem in Your Pocket on April 17. Get a printable pocket sized poem at Poets.org, the sponsors of Poem in Your Pocket day.

But mostly, take the opportunity this April to read and share some great poems with each other.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

In CyberEnglish9 today we read John Haines’ poem The Legend of Paper Plates in which he personifies trees and laments the loss of forests and the fact that we dispose of paper so casually and easily.

It made me think of what my husband told me about a huge vortex in the Pacific Ocean that garbage swirls endlessly in, so I mentioned it to my 5th hour class. We didn’t have time to look it up, so I did and this is what I found.

• Art from garbage
• Trashing the Oceans

There is so much I don’t know, so much I can’t do anything about, but maybe I can commit to making less garbage in the world.

Not what you expect

Lost and found

This blog had been lost in cyberspace since September of 2006 when I first created it. It was called Lit Space back then, and I had begun it as a place for my CE students to discuss books. I am not sure why I abandoned it, but now I have resurrected it to serve as a more immediate place for my students to have access to their classwork, to announcements, and important links.

I would also like it to serve as a sample of a teacher blog for business, not reflection.