What's on your hand? - Writing Brainstorm

So in 2010, this is type of lesson plan that will land you on Fox News or Drudge Report as more of an indoctrinator than an educator. However, I was struck by this image embedded in an article I had heard profiled on Fresh Air during an interview with it's author, Todd Purdum.

I was thinking that as a brainstorm for a personal essay, something we do early in the year as our first major writing piece, you could show the image, which is not biased at all but simply a list of the things on Obama's plate (or hand in this case) and ask the students to draw what is on their hands. Based on the sketch they do, they will be developing a list of writing areas to access later in the year and perhaps a nice artistic rendering of what is going on in their lives.

I think I am going to do it as one of my first journal writes.

The illustration is by Barry Blitt and appears in the September issue of Vanity Fair.

Plagiarism Article and Lesson Ideas for the Fall

There was a great article in the Times last week about plagiarism in the digital age.  I will be reading the article with my students in September before we write our first major paper.

It is funny, but at the same time as I want to bring in aspects of their experience outside of school to make the day, lessons, months enjoyable, we also need to put up a wall around academics, tradition, excellence, and the students ownership over their work.

Here is the article and the Learning Networks open thread for students 13 and over:


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html?scp=1&sq=plagiarism&st=cse



http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/are-you-part-of-generation-plagiarism/?scp=2&sq=plagiarism&st=cse