Along the Corniche
It’s Monday! What are you Reading? March 4, 2013
I’m supposed to be reading for book group:
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
It’s interesting, but I don’t love non-fiction and it’s 640 pages long! Good God!
I’m actually reading:
The Madness Underneath (The Shades of London book 2) by Maureen Johnson–had to buy it on my Kindle the day it came out
PS-I don’t love the new covers for the series
I’m wanting to read:
but it’s not on the Kindle and getting a book here is tough!
2012 in review December 31, 2012
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 35,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 8 Film Festivals
Summary 2012
Books Read: 56
Countries:
United States-Ohio & Oregon
Dakar, Senegal
Madrid, Spain
Johannesburg, South Africa
Miles traveled during 2012:
32,941 miles
Graduate hours completed:
18 semester hours towards my superintendency licensure
2012 in a nutshell December 29, 2012
One half of knowing what you want
is knowing what you must give up
before you get it.
~Sidney Howard
You’ll find me most of the time… August 28, 2012
Over at my new blog abroadinsenegal.wordpress.com
Come check it out. You’ll ever enjoy reading along with my adventure or think that I’ve lost my mind by giving up all things familiar for the next several years. You decide.
I’m still going to post BestBook posts that I think belong here, but my daily posting can be found over there.
Beginning of the Year Books recommended by The Book Whisperer August 21, 2012
If you haven’t had a chance to read Donalyn Miller’s column at Education Week, it is well worth a look! She’s gathered up several recommendations for ‘Books that Build Community’, something educators the world over are working on this first month of school.
What to Keep? What to Pitch? June 10, 2012
A sample of what’s currently in my recycle box:
- memoir rubric
- using prior knowledge to understand unfamiliar text
- 5 year Strategic Management Plan from 2010-2015
- certificate of attendance from Ohio Resource Center
- Ohio Academic content standards with notes
- thank you note from Ronald McDonald House for former fourth grade economic project
- Reading Level Correlation Chart
A sample of what’s currently in my keep pile:
- Elementary Gifted Service Matrix and Advanced Learner Specialist file
- PD notes from Promoting a School’s Literacy Community
- 32 Text Structure notes from Katie Wood Ray
- Where You Are From George Ella Lyons poem
- Suggested Expectations for conventions K-12 document
- pacing guides
- curriculum maps
- a copy of the first day of school letter I sent home for all 15 years
- a xerox copy of an amazing piece of student art work
Do I need any of it?
- Will I remember what I want to use from what I’ve recycled or kept?
- Does it really matter to my remembering if I have “it” or not?
When I was a teacher I used to keep things in case I needed or wanted to replicate or modify something I had done in the past.
When I was a curriculum coordinator I kept things to show work in progress and keep us moving forward.
With a change in administrations twice in nine months, I kept things because no one else would have ever known things existed.
In many ways I am a blank slate, starting over. I bring with me my prior knowledge and background of experiences.
No one from my new school is going to ask me to see something from my old district because they won’t know it existed, nor would it be relevant.
Why am I re-sorting for the twentieth time, rather than just pitching it all?
It took me three years to part with all my fourth grade files, and I should learn from that. Never once did I go back and use anything in those files.
Part of my brain still thinks, “When I write a book about this….”, I will want hard copies of things to help with my writing.
I want to just dump it all as I look forward, but I still just can’t make myself do it…
Summer Reading set in Africa June 6, 2012
The Heaven Shop by Deborah Ellis
Chanda’s Secrets by Allan Stratton
Secrets in the Fire by Henning Mankell
Summer Reading (or listening) June 5, 2012
All you parents trying to figure out how to keep your kid reading, check out this summer’s free downloads at Sync. There is a popular new title and a classic each week all summer long. Some of them are right off the summer’s required reading list.
Schedule of SYNC Downloads
SYNC Titles
Summer 2012
June14 – June 20, 2012
The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch, Read by Dan Bittner (Scholastic Audiobooks)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Frank Galati [Adapt.], Read by Shirley Knight, Jeffrey Donovan, and a Full Cast (L.A. Theatre Works)
June 21 – June 27, 2012
Irises by Francisco X. Stork, Read by Carrington MacDuffie (Listening Library)
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, Read by Wanda McCaddon (Tantor Media)
June 28 – July 4, 2012
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud, Read by Simon Jones
(Listening Library)
Tales from the Arabian Nights by Andrew Lang, Read by Toby Stephens
(Naxos AudioBooks)
July 5 – July 11, 2012
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake, Read by August Ross (AudioGO)
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Read by Ian Holm (AudioGO)
July 12 – July 18, 2012
Guys Read: Funny Business by Jon Scieszka [Ed.] et al., Read by Michael Boatman, Kate DiCamillo, John Keating, Jon Scieszka, Bronson Pinchot (Harper Audio)
The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Stories by Mark Twain, Read by Norman Dietz (Recorded Books)
July 19 – July 25, 2012
Cleopatra’s Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter, Read by Kirsten Potter (Oasis Audio)
Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Read by a Full Cast (AudioGO)
July 26 – August 1, 2012
Pinned by Alfred C. Martino, Read by Mark Shanahan (Listen & Live Audio)
TBA (Brilliance Audio)
August 2 – August 8, 2012
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor, Read by Khristine Hvam (Hachette Audio)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Read by Simon Prebble (Blackstone Audio)
August 9 – August 15, 2012
Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy, Read by Rupert Degas (Harper Audio)
Dead Men Kill by L. Ron Hubbard, Read by Jennifer Aspen and a Full Cast
(Galaxy Press)
August 16 – August 22, 2012
The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera, Read by Jay Laga’aia (Bolinda Audio)
The Call of the Wild by Jack London, Read by William Roberts (Naxos AudioBooks)
