Current Events
Leila Christenbury's Retracing the Journey to Receive Awards
Retracing the Journey: Teaching and Learning in an American High School has been chosen to receive the 2008 James N. Britton Award. The award is sponsored by the Conference on English Education (CEE) of the National Council of Teachers of English.
Retracing the Journey: Teaching and Learning in an American High School has also been chosen to receive the David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in Teaching for 2008. This award, among the most prestigious of National Council of Teachers of English awards, is made annually to “published research in English and the teaching of English” during the 5 years prior to January 1st of the award.
SAT Scores of Virginia’s Public School Students Increase in Reading, Writing & Mathematics as More Minority Students Participate Student Achievement on Advanced Placement Tests Continues to Rise
The performance of Virginia public school graduates on the SAT improved significantly in 2008 in all three tested areas, according to results released today by the College Board. Although the total number of Virginia public school students taking the SAT dropped by 2.3 percent, the number of minority students taking the tests increased, with minority students now making up one-third of all test takers.
Virginia Students Increase Achievement on the ACT
Gains on College-Admissions Test Seen as Significant
The performance of Virginia high school seniors on the ACT college-admissions examination improved significantly this year as students increased their achievement on all four components of the test.
The number of Virginia high school students taking the ACT jumped by 15 percent. During 2008, 16,896 Virginia students took the ACT, compared with 14,653 in 2007 and 10,172 in 2004.
New Poet Laureate: Kay Ryan
Kay Ryan will become the 16th poet laureate on October 16, 2008
July/August 2008 Atlantic Monthly--What the Internet is doing to our brains
by Nicholas Carr
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008--Podcasts: The 21st Century Version of the Radio Show
NCTE Inbox by Traci Gardner
You’ve probably heard or read the word podcast. Radio and television shows urge their audiences to subscribe to their podcasts for the latest updates. Newspapers suggest readers visit their podcast pages to find digital connections to the stories they print. Podcasts do not have to be published by mass media organizations however. It’s just as likely though that you’ll find a podcast by a colleague, your public library, or students you’ve taught.
NCTE Convention, November 20-23, 2008 in San Antonio
Join thousands of K–12 classroom teachers, college faculty, administrators, and other educational professionals, as they gather to hear award-winning speakers, attend idea-packed sessions, share best practices, and test the latest teaching materials at NCTE’s 98th Annual Convention in San Antonio!
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Early Registration Rates (before Oct. 24):
Member - $210
Nonmember - $275
Student member - $90
Student nonmember - $100
First Freedom Student Competition, 2008-2009
The Council for America's First Freedom announces the 16th annual First Freedom Student Competition. This national essay contest offers 9th - 12th grade students an opportunity to compete for a $3,000, $1,500 and $750 award, as they examine the First Amendment and the history and relevance of religious freedom in America and the world today. For details, registration, a student flyer and classroom poster, visit: www.firstfreedom.org.
Online student registration deadline: Monday, November 24, 2008
Postmark entry deadline: Saturday, November 29, 2008
Leila Christenbury to receive NCTE Distinguished Service Award, June 13, 2008
Established in 1950 as the W. Wilbur Hatfield Award, renamed the Distinguished Service Award in 1969, the award is presented at the November NCTE Annual Convention (announced at the Opening Celebration on Thursday and formally presented at the Board of Directors meeting on Friday). A complete list of past recipients may be found on the web at http://www.ncte.org/about/awards/council/ec/106846.htm.
President-Elect Kylene Beers and her 2008 NCTE Distinguished Service Award Subcommittee, consisting of Carol Jago, Susi Long, and Jude Okpala have selected:
Leila Christenbury
Professor, English Education, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
Read excerpts from the letter of nomination for Christenbury
The Fate of The Sentence: Is the Writing On the Wall? Washington Post, June 15, 2008
By Linton Weeks
The demise of orderly writing: signs everywhere.
One recent report, young Americans don't write well.
In a survey, Internet language -- abbreviated wds, :) and txt msging -- seeping into academic writing.
But above all, what really scares a lot of scholars: the impending death of the English sentence.
New Study: Kids Age 5-17 Believe Technology Will Supplement -- Not Replace -- Book Reading and Say They Will Always Want to Read Books Printed on Paper, CNN June 11
Tweens and Teens Who Participate in Online Activities Are More Likely to Read Books for Fun Daily
A new study released today finds that 75% of kids age 5-17 agree with the statement, "No matter what I can do online, I'll always want to read books printed on paper," and 62% of kids surveyed say they prefer to read books printed on paper rather than on a computer or a handheld device. The Kids & Family Reading Report(TM), a national survey of children age 5-17 and their parents, also found that kids who go online to extend the reading experience -- by going to book or author websites or connecting with other readers -- are more likely to read books for fun every day.
Has Modern Life Killed the Semicolon? Slate, June 20, 2008
When the Times of London reported in 1837 on two University of Paris law profs dueling with swords, the dispute wasn't over the fine points of the Napoleonic Code. It was over the point-virgule: the semicolon. "The one who contended that the passage in question ought to be concluded by a semicolon was wounded in the arm," noted the Times. "His adversary maintained that it should be a colon."
French passions over the semicolon are running high once again. An April Fool's hoax this year by the online publication Rue89 claimed that the Nicolas Sarkozy government planned to demand "at least three semicolons per page in official administrative documents."
From bad to verse: Vandals get classroom penance, Yahoo News, June 2, 2008
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. - Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost's former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment.
Virginia Earns a Perfect Score for Academic Standards from the American Federation of Teachers
May 30, 2008
Virginia was the only state to receive a perfect score for academic standards from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in the union’s Sizing Up Standards 2008 report. The AFT evaluated Virginia’s nationally recognized Standards of Learning (SOL) and the academic standards of other states for clarity, specificity and content. The report by the nation’s second-largest teachers union cited Virginia as the only state in the nation to meet the AFT’s criteria for strong standards in English, mathematics, science and history at all grade levels and in all subject areas.
Schools Spelling Out New Strategies to Boost Word Skills, USA Today May 23, 2008
NCTE member Sandra Wilde says that in general, students of today read more and are, therefore, better spellers than their parents, but schools could improve the way they teach spelling.
At some schools, failure goes from zero to 50, USA Today, May 18, 2008
In most math problems, zero would never be confused with 50, but a handful of schools nationwide have set off an emotional academic debate by giving minimum scores of 50 for students who fail.
2 Colleges End Entrance Exam Requirement, New York Times, May 27, 2008
The number of colleges and universities that no longer require students to take the SAT or ACT for admission is growing as the schools become concerned about the validity of standardized testing.
Scribbling Women Project
The Scribbling Women Project dramatizes short stories by American women writers for broadcast on public radio and for presentation on their educational website (www.scribblingwomen.org). The site also features related curriculum and lesson plans. The project plans to focus on the work of Virginia writer, Mary Lee Settle, in the near future.
To see articles posted over the last 12 months, go to Current Events Archives.