While the transition has been relatively smooth, I find myself looking to challenge my students and find new ways to engage them to work in (and out of) class, so I have been devoting quite a bit of time reading a variety of potential anchor novels (books everyone in the class will read and around which a unit of instruction is built), as well as, exploring some internet based ways in which to both keep in touch with my students and to keep their families informed. These things take time...
The two chief ways I have attempted to use the 'net is by employing Goodreads, a social network for "readers," and through maintaining two eponymously titled blogs (Mr. Scott's Tenth Grade English Class and... (wait for it!) Mr. Scott's Eleventh Grade English Class, one for each of the grade levels I currently teach. The use of Goodreads has been a little more problematic as I struggle to find ways to make their engagement with it more meaningful beyond the desire to attain extra credit. (I have never been a fan of granting extra credit, but in the interest of coaxing "guinea pigs" to sign up have shifted my thinking for the short term.)
Blogging, on the other hand, while helpful for me and the three or four uber-interested students I teach, has not been as successful as I had hoped. When I worked in the middle school, my blogs were very popular among parents looking to follow-up on what their student's were doing in class and what assignments were due. I could (cynically) attribute this lack of caring on everyone's part to parents having written off their student and student's simply not caring, but either way, the number of visitor's to these blogs is very small. Fortunately they are easy to maintain at work!
Embrassez votre été invincible!
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