Lorenzo Walker Tech HS & Institute of Tech

Friday, August 24, 2007

Off the Shelf 0708-1

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie

By David Lubar
© 2005

Imagine making all the tough transitions facing high school freshman AND discovering your parents are expecting another addition to the family! Scott copes with that and more as he tries to impress the star football player’s girlfriend and keep his lunch money away from the senior bully. As the story moves quickly through Scott’s 9th grade, one appreciates both the humorous situations as well as learning experiences that ‘befriend’ the main character.

The author’s writing style is diverse as he goes from simple narrative to Scott’s journal entries of advice to his yet unborn sibling. Also interspersed are Scott’s observations of life in the form of lists, such as, his “Field Guide to School-Bus Drivers,” where he expertly characterizes the ‘Beginner’, the ‘Shouter’, the ‘Ex-hippie’, and the ‘Retired City-Bus Driver.’

Since English is Scott’s favorite subject, the references to reading, writing, and learning are especially entertaining. For example, he learns about “Tom Swifties” (p. 34) – the word game of creating sentences with clever meanings and he unwittingly finds alliteration and metaphors in writing the sports column for the school newspaper.

My recommendation: 4 out of 5 stars
Submitted by M. Coleman, Media Specialist

Labels: , , , ,

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Ready or Not...

...here they come! Another school year kicks off on Monday! This 2007-08 school year we once again welcome our returning and new postsecondary, ACE, and technical high school students!

Though pencils will still (undoubtedly) be around, our faculty are armed with new technology tools to inspire learning. Trained in blogs & RSS (Real Simple Syndication), wikis, unitedstreaming, PowerPoint, eInstruction clickers, and Photo Story 3, teachers are moving forward to use their strengths in the classroom environments. Discovering and sharing our positive teaching attributes and thinking about the 21st century skills our students need in our professional learning communities is a great springboard for further conversations. The support and comraderie amongst the faculty this past week of inservice sessions has been awesome. I can't wait to see it translated to their courses!

Contributing to the collaborative environment is the solid foundation of our fearless leader who jumped into the read/write web world with both feet (and survived I might add!). She gently nudges us to think and grow on a regular basis, despite all of the other pressures for which she must cope!

It is going to be a FANTASTIC year!

Photo credit to pencilpusher143's pencils on Flickr

Labels: , , , ,