Teacherninja

07 February 2010

Critical Thinking Sunday

(via Bad Astronomy) The doofus didn't even use spell-check on "indigestion" and "prostate!"

Also, check out "I Was Wondering..." put together by The NAtional Academies of Science and based on this series of books. It's all about women in science, which we need more of, obviously. (via Jodi and ticktock).

05 February 2010

Amazon V. Macmillan Fail

Amazon v Macmillan: Free Market Fail by Scott Westerfeld explains the whole debacle succinctly.

I like this bit:

This is not a case of two corporations pissing down on us mere mortals with equal disdain; it's a case of complex negotiations in an ancient industry with many arcane traditions that's in a state of technological flux. And suddenly, out of the blue, one of the sides in this negotiation spat their pacifier across the room in a very public and embarrassing display of petulance. And that corporation was Amazon.

Accelerated Evil

Last week I summarized a much more complete post by Mark Pennington which more completely summarized some of the main criticisms of the Accelerated Reading program used in many schools.

Today, thanks to a fellow list-maker who took the time to compile a list which exemplifies the problem with number four on the list (explained here by Mr. Pennington):

4. Using AR tends to encourage some students to read books that most teachers and parents would consider inappropriate for certain age levels. Although Renaissance Learning is careful to throw the burden of book approval onto the shoulders of teachers and parents, students get more points for reading and passing quizzes on higher reading levels and longer books. Although an interest level is provided as is a brief synopsis/cautionary warning on the AR site, students often simply select books by the title, cover, availability, or point value. Thus, a fourth grader might wind up “reading” Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (4.7 ATOS readability level) and a sixth grader might plow through Camus’ The Stranger (6.2 ATOS readability level). Hardly appropriate reading material for these grade levels! Content is not considered in the AR point system and students are, of course, reading for those points.

The list-maker, I must confess, also came up with the witty title of this blog post and emailed the whole thing to me because it was felt mine was a grubbier venue for this tawdry exercise. No, that wasn't it. Wait. Oh, never mind.

Now not everything in these books, oh say like human sexuality, is actually evil. And while I hardly think school and by extension the library should be a reality-free zone and that everyone should be able to read pretty much whatever they want to, I think you'll agree that many people would question the validity of recommending this list of books to 11-13 year olds. I like many of the books on the list and there may indeed be readers of those ages perfectly suited to reading some of them. Hell, I read Forever in middle school and didn't need AR points for motivation!

The argument may be made that Renaissance Learning, Inc. (the producers of AR) are not necessarily recommending these titles for middle schoolers. Bah! Read again what Mr. Pennington points out above. They induce children to read for points, not content. If a kid that's an avid AR point scrounger comes across a book "on their level" with a nice point spread, they'll read it. If it has sex, drugs, and rock and roll in it? All the better! Look at this list and Mr. Pennigton's point is made clear. (All information is from renlearn.com):

All the Way Behrens, Andy Level 4.3 Points 7

Hoping to have sex for the first time with a girl he has met on the Internet, seventeen-year-old Ian drives with his two best friends from Illinois to South Carolina.

Anatomy of a Boyfriend Snadowsky, Daria Level 5.0 Points 9

Text contains sexual situations throughout.

Boy Toy Lyga, Barry Level 4.5 Points 15

The plot contains profanity and graphic sexual references.

Claiming Georgia Tate Amateau, Gigi EN 5.0 UG 6

Twelve-year-old Georgia Tate feels loved and safe living with Nana and Granddaddy, until her sexually abusive father tries to win custody of her. This plot contains sexual situations.

Crank Hopkins, Ellen Level 4.3 Points 5

Visiting her absentee father, Kristina's life turns upside-down when he introduces her to the dark world of crank, or crystal meth. The story, told in jagged free verse, contains profanity, explicit sexual situations and blatant descriptions of drug use.

The Da Vinci Code Brown, Dan Level 6.4 Points 23

Doing It Burgess, Melvin Level 4.4 Points 12

Three teenage friends, Dino, Jonathon, and Ben, confront the confusions, fears, and joys of adolescent male sexuality.

Forever Blume, Judy Level 4.1 Points 5

A graphic novel of a teenage senior-year love affair based primarily on sexual attraction.

Gluttony Wasserman, Robin Level 5.2 Points 9

The plot contains adult language and sexual activity. Book #6 (Oddly, the book Lust doesn’t have an AR test, but others in the series do.)

The Lovely Bones Sebold, Alice Level 6.0 Points 16

Nineteen Minutes Picoult, Jodi Level6.0 Points 29

Residents of Sterling, NH, are affected after a shooting at the high school leaves ten people dead and the judge presiding over the trial tries to remain unbiased, even though her daughter is a witness. The plot contains sexual references and violence

Nothing Can Keep Us Together: A Gossip Girl Novel von Ziegesar, Cecily Level 6.8 Points 10

The plot contains profanity, sexual situations, alcohol and drug use.

Punkzilla Rapp, Adam Level 6.2 Points 9

A runaway teenager, having overcome an addiction to meth, travels across the country to reconnect with his dying brother and meets a colorful cast of characters along the way. The plot contains sexual situations and profanity.

Push Sapphire Level 4.0 Points 5

The plot contains adult themes including graphic sexual situations and violence. The movie Precious is based off this.

Smack Burgess, Melvin Level 4.6 Points 13

Two English teenagers share their stories of being runaways and becoming heroin addicts.

Weetzie Bat Block, Francesca Lia Level 5.0 Points 2

This story follows the wild adventures of Weetzie Bat and her Los Angeles friends, Dirk, Duck, and My-Secret-Agent-Lover-Man. The plot contains profanity and sexual situations.

04 February 2010

Apparently I Am a Fabulous Sugar Doll

Today's post is care of Ms. Yingling who wanted to do a little decorating over here and add some more pink fluffiness. So I am to:

•Thank the person who gave this to you.
• Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
• Link the person who nominated you.
• Name seven things about yourself that no one would really know.
• Nominate ten “Sugar Dolls.”
• Post links to the ten blogs you nominate.
• Leave a comment on each letting them know you nominated them.

Ms. Yingling: I can't thank you enough. There.

Logo is, as you see, displayed prominently on this blog (post which will soon disappear into the archives).

Ms. Yingling has been properly linked.

I'll list 7 things, but I'm sure someone already knows. I'm just not that interesting.

Oh, I'll nominate ten"sugar dolls" all right.

Ten links? Do you people think I have all day? I already linked to all of my favorite commenters! Oh, ok, fine. Ten links as well!

Ten comments! My goodness, is this an award or a punishment! Ok, ok, I'll do it, but I can't promise how long this will take. Sheesh!

Ten "sugar dolls":

(figuring the people most likely to be interested in more readers are people with newish or under-read blogs, I nominate the following...)

On the road to finding myself & taking wrong turns has been a follower of mine for sometime and has the benefit of already having plenty of pink and has recently gotten back into blogging, so this might help.

M.S. Dolittle Quilter, like Ms. Yingling, is a librarian, reader and quilter.

Free Philosophical Discussions is a reader, a thinker, and someone who needs more pink frills, I am sure.

Inspired to Read is from another teacher, dad, and reader. He needs some pink as well.

The Book Bench is a fun place to hang out. A mom, a teacher and a lover of kids books.

Saving the World, One File at a Time is by a mom, reader, lover of "flare" and crafty lady who happens to married to another Sugar Doll!

ICBS Everywhere is from an awesome educator who doesn't take any B.S.! She's in the middle of a blog move, so some new pink decorations might help the place.

Library Stew is a school librarian in my district who loves science, books and doesn't have AR at her school! The trifecta!

Too Busy Too Hate will probably not participate in this, but I want to link to him so you'll look at his fantastic work and see his most recent photo essay on the "phantom of the fox." I really love this site.

Sew Transformed is a master bookseller, reader, and makes her own clothes! She's as fabulous as they come.

Seven things about me? Ok, but I'll drag you all into this as well...

1. I went to Dragon*Con last fall (and am going next fall as well) where I saw Michael from Free Philosophical and Barbara from ICBS and many more.

2. Ms. Dolittle is my library internship advisor. She also has more pets than you can imagine.

3. I used to work with Toni from Sew Transformed and miss it. She's the sassiest thing alive.

4. The "Noah-isms" on either of the Taylors blogs come from their 4th grade son who is hilarious and in my wife's class.

5. I just got a new camera and would desperately like the time to try to put together something like what John at Too Busy to Hate does. I'm not as good as he is, but I used to sell some of my photography. Maybe I'll start posting some on this blog. How about Photo Fridays?

6. There's actually a little photo contest site called "Photo Friday" in which they give you a theme and you have the week to take a photo on that theme and send a link. Then people vote on their top picks and those show up in the "noteworthy" section and you're considered a Photo Friday winner. I won one for the theme "Gatherings." I'll have to find and post that photo sometime, because the link there is long dead.

7. I get this joke and think it's hilarious. I haven't posted about it because I assume you don't and I'd have to explain it. Luckily the Ocillator has done this for me!

03 February 2010

Great New Books (& some editorializing)

Theodore Gray has a great website for his new book about The Elements as well as the wonderful video above. I keep hearing differing opinions about these kind of book trailer and their effectiveness at, you know, actually selling books but there's no doubt that when this clever they will invariably get passed around on the intertubes and be seem by more people than might have been the case with traditional marketing.

Of course I heard about this video from the estimable Jacquie Henry at her blog Wanderings, but she gave the credit to that large behemoth online bookseller of large South American river proportions. It's funny because that bookseller had nothing to do with it other than allowing it to be posted on their site. But I thank her for the heads up on a fun video.

Before reading Ms. Henry's post, I had come across two references to what looks to be another amazing popular science book. It's called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. The first reference was in Seed Magazine's always great Books to Read Now column (which I can read now, but the books take me more time). Then there was a brilliant and thoughtful appreciation of not only the book but what the writer put into it and the changing face of book marketing by one of my favorite science writers and bloggers, Carl Zimmer.

Funny thing was, Carl parenthetically mentioned that Amazon was on his "blacklist at the moment" because of what he calls their "book-disappearing act." He's talking about this whole dustup the bookseller (why do I keep referring to them as that? They hardly sell just books. They're practically they're own online mall.) had with Macmillan which was horrible to behold as a former bookseller myself a a friend to many authors. John Scalzi has an excellent rant on this if you want to know the outrage felt by many authors burned by this ham-handed corporate maneuvering. Here's more from the BBC. Google it. It was big news if you care about publishing at all.

So yes, praise to some excellent authors and their books. Interesting thoughts now to ponder about the changes our digital culture brings to the publishing industry. But Amazon? Meh.

02 February 2010

Evolution by Daniel Loxton

Daniel Loxton is all kinds of awesome. And for such a shy guy, I sure do keep hearing him everywhere. I guess that's what you have to do when you have a book to plug. For those of you that don't know, Daniel is the editor, writer, and illustrator of Junior Skeptic magazine which is sold as an insert with the great Skeptic magazine published by Michael Shermer's Skeptic Society.

But now he's got a fantastic book out and he's a regular contributor to Skeptiblog, is a special guest host on this week's The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe, and was recently featured on the Skepticality podcast.

That's all well and good, but I wouldn't link to all those just because. Each one is worth checking out. His work at Jr. Skeptic is always of a high standard and will make for a dozen more great books. His blog posts are always thoughtful and well written. The SGU guest hosting was informative and funny (I hope he does it more often). The Skepticality podcast goes more in depth on all of his work.

Now to the book. Evolution: How We and All Living things Came to Be. Haven't got my hands on it yet, but it's based on a two part series he did in Jr. Skeptic issues #26 and #27 which I did get to see. The illustrations are superb. The science concepts are not watered down at all, only the technical language. It's a well-known unspoken secret that many subscribers to the magazine skip right to the Jr. section first before reading the rest. Sometimes the Jr. version is all you really need to know (and it has those great illustrations). It's informative and fun, usually on about a 5th-9th grade level. Want to know why, if apes evolved into humans, there are still apes? If evolution is the way life works, how do scientists really know? What about religion? If you want to know and don't want to read long evolutionary biology books just for fun (like I do, because, hello: nerd!) then this is the book for you. The only people who have issues with evolution don't really understand both the beautiful simplicity and complexity of it all. Let a master guide you. You'll do two of my favorite things: you'll learn something and have fun doing it.