Alice Soundbite

Am I a native or an immigrant?

While you'd think I should be a full-fledged technology native, I feel like a mix of both. I think this can be seen in that it's taken me this long to link to all your blogs.

However, I hope my learning curve is a good one because blogging is a great way to share reading responses to the whole group. Or maybe a tool for reflecting on current events, which is a topic that is always hovering around in the Government/English class I teach.

Now, confession time I suppose, for anyone hesitant about this whole blog thing, you're not alone. I'm hesitant too. Not so much in the classroom usefulness regard, but in the English teacher/writer paranoia kind of way. Knowing that my audience for writing to the Internet is potentially massive, the thought of posting writing without thorough proofreading, exhausting rewrite after rewrite (as writers are prone to do), peer reviews, etc., is somewhat crippling. So, yes, I'm hesitant. But I think viewing posting as a thinking out loud kind of process will help me break through this wall of being a self-editor.

As Rebecca quoted earlier during the institute, "A poem is never finished, only abandoned" (Paul Valery), so is a blog entry. Or maybe I'm just thinking about this too much and just need to get used to clicking the all-powerful "PUBLISH POST" button. Speaking of publishing...

Breakthroughs

As with all professions (including teaching), experience is the best educator. In the book titled Breakthroughs: Classroom Discoveries About Teaching Writing, this is exactly the kind of education the reader receives. This book is invaluable for teachers. It is jam packed with stories from classrooms about lessons that crash and burn as well as lessons that invite students to fly to higher enlightenment.

Introduction to Me

My name is Danny. I'm a 4th year English teacher of eighth and ninth graders, guitarist/vocalist/harmonica(ist) in a band called No Trio Left Behind, and writer. I like to golf, play a bean bag game I learned about in Wisconsin, go on bike rides, watch movies, and listen to music. Some personal favorite music artists/albums/movies...Ben Harper, Pink Floyd's Animals, Castaway. A few of my favorite books are The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Legend of Bagger Vance, The Champion of Merrimack County, and everything by Michael Ondaatje (which includes the Booker Prize winning The English Patient. Okay...that's it for now. Peace.