(c)2009 Devon Christoper Adams
Tonight I was subbing at MCC for a colleague and conveniently immediately beforehand, Chris Crutcher, author of several young adult novels, was speaking here in the library to kick off banned book week.
He opened with a story about two penguins attempting to nurture a rock that was egg sized. The [...]

Posted in books, literature, presentations

Recently Kids Need to Read blogged an article on the wiki-wire work we did through the high school with the students building the lexicon for The Softwire Series by PJ Haarsma. PJ works closely with Denise & Sherri with Jim Blasingame, but I’m excited from the line that reads “this is what great teaching is [...]

Posted in literature, publications, student2.0, teacher2.0, technology, wiki

Last year my friend Kerri Mathew contacted me regarding finding a way to hook up a science fiction writer, PJ Haarsma, with students eager to read his book, play his online game, and connect in new ways with young adult sci-fi. Having just come off a year project with Kerri working with wikis and fanfiction, [...]

Posted in books, literature, online, presentations, publications, technology

Found this interesting article today on how high school students are borrowing out banned books from their lockers.

Posted in literature

Posted in comic, jokes, literature

In spring of 2006 while I was at a conference in Baltimore, MD my colleague wanted to go out to dinner with her daughter who’d been living in the area at the time. She invited us to go along, and the conversation was amicable. Eventually it circled around to our reason for being there (Education [...]

Posted in literature

After school today we had a meeting about summer reading. In our district, we cannot really call it “Summer Reading” so we make it due 2-3 weeks into the school year. This really isn’t feasible anymore given all of the higher ed institutions who require summer reading for incoming freshman. Ladies & Gentlemen, get with [...]

Posted in AP Lang, American Studies, Summer Reading, books, literature, wiki

The AP English course is completing an Independent Reading Project for quarter 4 based on a select number of non-fiction titles, on of which is Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone. The other day a former student sent me an article from an Australian newspaper entitled “Beah’s credibility a long way gone” about the anachronistic [...]

Posted in irp, literature

Tonight I was sitting with my daughter and wife and across came the 400+ Twitter text of the day. This one was from @soul4real, and I’d been tagged. I wasn’t sure what it wanted me to do, and I was use to the list of four things this or that, but this one wanted me [...]

Posted in literature

Today the students had to write an AP Prompt, and Mrs Crabtree said that her only real requirement was that it was argumentative. Some of the students are weaker when it comes to choosing a side of a written argument and sticking to it, so I agreed. I found a nice one by Postman where [...]

Posted in books, essays, grading, literature, writing