Robert Rozema's Blog (7)

Hi everyone, I'm excited to announce that one of our long-time MCTE members, Troy Hicks, has a new book out--The Digital Writing Workshop (Heinemann, 2009). I read an early draft of this book and it makes very important connections between our actual classroom practices and the digital tools that are so readily available to us. Check it out! http://heinemann.com/authors/productsByAuthor.aspx?id=5056 Continue

MCTE members and friends, This site has just won the 2009 NCTE Affiliate Award. Here is a bit from the announcement I just received: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As chair of the 2009 NCTE Affiliate Web Site Awards, it is my pleasure to inform you that the Michigan Council of Teachers of English has been selected as the winner of this year's award. Congratulations to you and your affiliate! As you know, each site was judged on the… Continue

The State Board of Education is calling for feedback on the requirements for the Michigan Nontraditional Route to Teacher Certification (MNRTC). This is an opportunity to provide Michigan certification for 18 credits and would let programs like TEACH for AMERICA set up certification separate from Teacher Preparation Institutions. Please take the time to first respond then share the link and encourage response within your professional community. Share it with people in your department, your stude… Continue

Just when you think it can't happen here: a text is being challenged by a group of conservative parents in Shelby, Michigan. The text in question is Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon , and the teacher is a recent GVSU graduate, Jane Glerum. The name sounded familiar to me, and I remember now that Jane and her class also used my online role-playing game Thoughtcrime a few years ago. Here's a bit from a news article about the case:

Provocative’ book comes under fire in

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This is a short note to say that I've added a couple of new pages under "Who We Are." The first is actually on our existing "Affiliate" page--now you can check out all of NCTE's state affiliates, or at least the ones with web sites. You can also find out what MCTE region you belong to and who your regional coordinator is on the new "regional map" page, also under the "Who We Are" feature. Enjoy! Continue

I often have to point to multiple links in a single class period. Sometimes, I use del.icio.us social bookmarking to accomplish this, though the site is a little ugly and doesn’t offer visual previews or thumbnails of the sites you are linking. I sometimes list them on this blog, though that involves a little bit of work. A new service, the weirdly named Sqworl lets you gather multiple resources on a single page and combine them in… Continue

I'm sure many of us have heard of wikis--and perhaps one great free wiki site called Wikispaces. If not, a wiki is a collaborative web site that is easy to set up and perfect for collaborative writing assignments. Troy Hicks has done some very cool stuff with wikispaces over the past few years. I use wikispaces as a place for my literature methods students to write reviews of young adult nove… Continue