I hope everyone has a great summer. In addition, good luck in all future endeavors.

                                         -Willis

I just wanted to let everybody know that I miss them.

That is all.

Krystina

Like Krysi said, we went on a trip to the book sale, and it was an exhausting but amazing experience. There were so many books it was dizzying. I got a lot of short story books and have read a number of the stories already. One is Shakespearian Whodunnits which are short mystery/thrillers involving characters from Shakespeare’s plays being murdered and other characters solving cases. So far, Puck from A Midsummer night’s Dream has solved the death of  Lysander as being a murderous scheme of Hermia’s father, Egeus. There are a ton of stories in this book, and they could easily be paired with the plays themselves in classroom. Definitely recommended!

Another book of short stories is one by Peter Cameron, The Half You Don’t Know. It is sort of Crutcher-like, in that it deals with several different human situations and emotions. I’ve read about five out of nineteen, all of which were awesome. I know it’s a busy time right now, but hopefully some of you are able to take advantage of this amazing opportunity.

-Autumn  

ps. a lot of the books were doubled, so if you go with a friend, you don’t have to fight over them!

So, Autumn, my boyfriend and I went to the book sale in Ithaca yesterday.

It was wonderful.

After at least two hours holding a full box, I bought 35 books for $15.60!!! GREAT DEAL. The sale is going on today, tomorrow, and Tuesday as well. The prices decrease everyday, and the last day you can get a bag of books for a dollar. That’s a steal

I bought many, many great books for no more than fifty cents a piece.

I even got a book of short stories by censored authors that was SIGNED by Judy Blume!!!!!

Most of the books that I bought, by authors such as Toni Morrison, Robert Cormier, Robert Frost, and William Golding.

I just got SO many great resources for my classroom, including ATWELL’s In the Middle and Coming to Know: Writing to Learn in the Intermediate Grades. (FOR FIFTY CENTS EACH)

Probably the coolest thing that I found was the same book that Mrs. Triplett got by Rudy-ard! I was so excited to find that!

The point of this post is to persuade ALL OF YOU to go to that book sale. There as a TON on the teaching of writing, as well as contemporary fiction.. every category you could imagine.

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Krystina

Hey everyone! I took Kristin’s lead and sent in my essy to the This I Believe website. They published it here:

http://thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=43137&lastname=derdzinski&yval=0&start=0

I’m so glad that this class has allowed us to get our work out there!

Stacia

Check out this story. What do you think? KES

I met with my host teacher today, and it went GREAT! I walked in and we immediately discussed what she teaches during the year.  We decided that I would teach the poetry unit, which I am thrilled about and plan on having the students write their own. 

The most interesting thing occurred when she was telling me about her reading workshops with her students.  She asked me if I have read Nancy Atwell and said she draws upon many of her ideas.  I was in shock.  I enjoy Atwell and am so happy that I get the opportunity to teach with someone who enjoys her as well.

I also enjoy my host teacher’s attitude towards me.  She was extremely welcoming and open to having me in her class and is open to sharing her class with me.

I am seriously on Cloud 9. 

Alexis

You are all owed a huge apology. I thought that iTunes U supported text (Word) as well as audio/video files.

I’ve done some more investigating and of course have discovered that I was wrong. It does support pdf. texts so your docs would have to be converted to pdf. in order to post. How many of you are able to do that?

Forgive me for the time it has cost you to try to do the impossible.

This was an important learning experience for me.

Please send your multigenre paper as a word doc–as an attachment–to me in the next few days.

If you can convert to a pdf file try it..and let us know you were able to accomplish it. Thanks!!

I AM SO SORRY…KES

Dear Teachers, Is this what all of you are doing:

Log into bannerweb, click the ‘launch suny cortland itunesu button.’

Then launch iTunesU as a student.

Once iTunesU opens in iTunes under the iTunes store heading, click on the link for SUNY Cortland courses, then on the link for the Teaching Writing course.

Click on the ‘Student uploads’ tab where you will see an ‘upload and manage files’ link at the top right of the screen.

iTunesU only accepts .w4a, .w4v, .mov .mp3 and .pdf files.

Hope this helps!

Let me know what happens!!

Beautiful night last night–I was so very proud of all of you.

I’m in my office on Monday–do come by. You can turn in your 408 folder anytime Monday afternoon.

Love, Karen

Here is the link to the video Jackie, Kaitlyn, and I have been working on! I know that Ms. Triplett was interested in seeing it. We would like to spread our movie to other current and future teachers, so sharing it would be great! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jQIyvaBwa0

Stacia