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Most of the LEARN NC Content has been archived using the Wayback Machine. Instructions for how to access that content is below, including links to frequently requested materials.

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As you may have noticed, our Friday Skills lessons have been evolving a bit this year.

We have decided to change the name to "Skills and Strategies" because sometimes we're highlighting a student skill, like listening and taking notes or revising, while other times we find ourselves promoting the use of a strategy, like Socratic seminars. Either way, the feature is meant to highlight "best practices" and, of course, use The Times to do it.

This week Sarah Gross suggests a few tips for rethinking student book and reading clubs, with or without technology.
Enlivening Reading Clubs With Tech Tools and More
Although reading is a solitary act, we seek out ways to make it social. According to a recent article, almost five million Americans are book club members. They meet in coffee shops, bookstores and living rooms to discuss fiction and nonfiction, best sellers and classics. Students, too, want to choose some of their own reading and talk about it in informal, small-group settings. Here are some ways to begin.
Ideas:
1. Discuss the role of reading clubs: Invite your students to discuss the recent essay " Really? You're Not in a Book Club? " with their classmates. In small groups or as a whole class, they might answer the following questions:

What in the article intrigued, surprised or challenged you? What lines or paragraphs did you find most interesting or important? Why?

Have you ever participated in a reading club of some kind, whether in or outside of school? What was the experience like?

Do you think you will participate in a social reading experience when you are an adult? Or is reading, for you, more of a solitary activity?

If you were in a reading club, what would you choose for the group to read? Why?

If you are ready to set up a reading club in the classroom, you might borrow tips from Learning Network lessons like Join the Club! Supporting Independent Reading With Book Groups or From the Best Seller List to Your Classroom Library: Creating Student Book Lists.

2. Connect your reading life on social media: Gone are the days of reading logs. We don't use reading logs as adults, and in the classroom they tend to accumulate in large piles on desks. Students resent them and parents often sign them without a second glance. But technology has made it easier for students and teachers to connect their reading lives without the reading log.

Many teachers and students share their reading lives on social media sites dedicated to reading. The most well-known of these sites is Goodreads, which students can join if they are over the age of 13. Goodreads is a website that helps you track books you read, books you want to read and books your friends are reading, as this Times article explains. Mrs. Gross uses Goodreads with her students, who keep track of their reading lives using the site - and even her former students still share book recommendations there.

Younger students can join Biblionasium, a social-read site designed for elementary and middle school students. There, teachers and students can create and share their bookshelves and write reviews of books they have read. Students can make recommendations and track their reading. Teachers can see their students' reading histories and track their progress.

Both Goodreads and Biblionasium are free and allow teachers and students to create groups, bookshelves, recommendations and reviews for outside audiences. They allow for authentic reading experiences that encourage students to be lifelong readers.

3. Annotate a book or article together via an app: Many teachers have students annotate the books and articles they read, but by using a free app for the iPad like Subtext, students can annotate as a group.

Subtext allows teachers to create customized lesson plans and discussions based on readings. You can choose from the books and articles in their database or link to websites (including articles here on the blog), which students can read and annotate as a group. The app can also be connected to Edmodo, a social media tool for classrooms.

Via Subtext, you can import any article and leave notes for your students right in the text. In addition, you can have your students leave notes for each other, which will help spur classroom discussions.

4. Focus a school reading club on articles: Book clubs are, of course, usually focused on books, but groups can also gather around articles and shorter works. The Learning Network, for instance, regularly runs a Reading Club in which students are invited to discuss long-form Times articles.

Consider having your students participate in the Fifth Annual New York Times Summer Reading Contest by jump-starting the process in a school reading club before the semester ends.

Students might each bring in an article that interested them that week to discuss with the group, then later write about for the contest. Though it doesn't begin until June 13, they might hold on to their comments and post them later - or just practice together the skill of finding interesting articles and explaining to others why they care about them.

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Skills and Strategies | Enlivening Reading Clubs With Tech Tools and More

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As you may have noticed, our Friday Skills lessons have been evolving a bit this year. We have decided to change the name to "Skills and Strategies" because sometimes we're highlighting a student skill, like listening and taking notes or revising, while other times we find ourselves promoting the use of a strategy, like Socratic seminars.

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"Probably the most offensive word" in the English language. Or, a word that can be used in a "neutral or familiar way and as a friendly term of address." A word that should never be said. Or, a word that should never be said by white people.

Language can be loaded, and perhaps there is no more loaded word in our culture than the so-called n-word.

For this edition of Text to Text, we aim to help students think critically about the word, its history, who says it (and why, when and how), who shouldn't say it (and why) and whether it should be buried or reclaimed.

We pair Ta-Nehisi Coates's " In Defense of a Loaded Word" - which makes the case for thinking about the word in context - with Pap's vitriolic speech from "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" - a famous passage for which understanding the context is key.

Note: As always with sensitive topics, please preview the content to make sure it is appropriate for your students. If you are not teaching "Huckleberry Finn," consider our list of additional resources for more pairing options.
Background:
The topic of the n-word comes up from time to time in the news, as it has recently in the world of sports, where the N.F.L. is considering penalizing its use:
A discussion of the recently proposed N.F.L. ban on the n-word on the ESPN show "Highly Questionable."
For many teenagers in America, the word is not just a topic in the news - it's a part of life. In some settings, only African-American teenagers use the word freely. In other settings, teenagers of all races say it - careful, perhaps, to use the hip-hop-inflected "nigga" instead of "nigger" but, as this Texas teenager points out, often "casually, socially."

How are thoughtful students, of any background, supposed to know if, when, why or how they can use this word, especially when they can encounter it in contexts from school and home to pop culture and social media?

As most English teachers know, "Huckleberry Finn" has been "banned, bowdlerized and bleeped" since its publication, and the fact that the word "nigger" appears in it more than 200 times is at the heart of recent efforts to clean up the book for our nation's classrooms.

The Learning Network has gathered extensive resources to support the teaching of Mark Twain's novel, including a Student Opinion question on whether or not the word should be removed. But engaging with the novel means addressing language, power and the history of race relations in the United States - far beyond simply talking about the n-word. That is a tall order for teachers and students alike, and some of our additional resources, like these suggestions from Teaching Tolerance, can help provide more structure.
Key Questions:
Why is the word "nigger" considered "probably the most offensive word" in the English language? Should anyone be using the n-word these days? If so, who, when, why and how?

Activity Sheets:

As students read and discuss, they might take notes using one or more of the three graphic organizers (PDFs) we have created for our Text to Text feature:
Text 1: "In Defense of a Loaded Word," by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Nov. 23, 2013

My father's name is William Paul Coates. I, like my six brothers and sisters, have always addressed him as Dad. Strangers often call him Mr. Coates. His friends call him Paul. If a stranger or one of my father's friends called him Dad, my father might have a conversation. When I was a child, relatives of my paternal grandmother would call my father Billy. Were I to ever call my father Billy, we would probably have a different conversation.

I have never called my father Billy. I understand, like most people, that words take on meaning within a context. It might be true that you refer to your spouse as Baby. But were I to take this as license to do the same, you would most likely protest. Right names depend on right relationships, a fact so basic to human speech that without it, human language might well collapse. But as with so much of what we take as human, we seem to be in need of an African-American exception.

Three weeks ago the Miami Dolphins guard Richie Incognito, who is white, was reported to have addressed his fellow Dolphin as a "half-nigger." About a week later, after being ejected from a game, the Los Angeles Clippers forward Matt Barnes, who is black, tweeted that he was "done standing up for these niggas" after being ejected for defending his teammate. This came after the Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Riley Cooper, who is white, angrily called a black security guard a "nigger" in July.

What followed was a fairly regular ritual debate over who gets to say "nigger" and who does not. On his popular show "Pardon the Interruption," Tony Kornheiser called on the commissioners of the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball to ban their players from publicly using the word. The ESPN host Skip Bayless went further, calling "nigger" "the most despicable word in the English language - verbal evil" and wishing that it could "die the death it deserves."

Mr. Bayless and Mr. Kornheiser are white, but many African-Americans have reached the same conclusion. On Thursday, the Fritz Pollard Alliance Foundation, a group promoting diversity in coaching and in the front offices of the N.F.L., called on players to stop using "the worst and most derogatory word ever spoken in our country" in the locker rooms. In 2007 the N.A.A.C.P. organized a "funeral" in Detroit for the word "nigger." "Good riddance. Die, n-word," said Kwame Kilpatrick, then the mayor. "We don't want to see you around here no more."

But "nigger" endures - in our most popular music, in our most provocative films and on the lips of more black people (like me) than would like to admit it. Black critics, not unjustly, note the specific trauma that accompanies the word. For some the mere mention of "nigger" conjures up memories of lynchings and bombings. But there's more here - a deep fear of what our use of the word "nigger" communicates to white people. "If you call yourself the n-word," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, "you can't get mad when someone treats you like that."

This is the politics of respectability - an attempt to raise black people to a superhuman standard. In this case it means exempting black people from a basic rule of communication - that words take on meaning from context and relationship. But as in all cases of respectability politics, what we are really saying to black people is, "Be less human." This is not a fight over civil rights; it's an attempt to raise a double standard. It is no different from charging "ladies" with being ornamental and prim while allowing for the great wisdom of boys being boys. To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good. To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people.

But white racism needs no verification from black people. And a scientific poll of right-thinking humans will always conclude that watermelon is awesome. That is because its taste and texture appeal to certain attributes that humans tend to find pleasurable. Humans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words - often ironic and self-deprecating - are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.

A few summers ago one of my best friends invited me up to what he affectionately called his "white-trash cabin" in the Adirondacks. This was not how I described the outing to my family. Two of my Jewish acquaintances once joked that I'd "make a good Jew." My retort was not, "Yeah, I certainly am good with money." Gay men sometimes laughingly refer to one another as "faggots." My wife and her friends sometimes, when having a good time, will refer to one another with the word "bitch." I am certain that should I decide to join in, I would invite the same hard conversation that would greet me, should I ever call my father Billy.

A separate and unequal standard for black people is always wrong. And the desire to ban the word "nigger" is not anti-racism, it is finishing school. When Matt Barnes used the word "niggas" he was being inappropriate. When Richie Incognito and Riley Cooper used "nigger," they were being violent and offensive. That we have trouble distinguishing the two evidences our discomfort with the great chasm between black and white America. If you could choose one word to represent the centuries of bondage, the decades of terrorism, the long days of mass rape, the totality of white violence that birthed the black race in America, it would be "nigger."

But though we were born in violence, we did not die there. That such a seemingly hateful word should return as a marker of nationhood and community confounds our very notions of power. "Nigger" is different because it is attached to one of the most vibrant cultures in the Western world. And yet the culture is inextricably linked to the violence that birthed us. "Nigger" is the border, the signpost that reminds us that the old crimes don't disappear. It tells white people that, for all their guns and all their gold, there will always be places they can never go.

Text 2: From Chapter 6 of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' by Mark Twain

Pap warn't in a good humor - so he was his natural self. He said he was down town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge Thatcher knowed how to do it And he said people allowed there'd be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any, and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round, including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names of, and so called them what's-his-name when he got to them, and went right along with his cussing.

He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty uneasy again, but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got that chance.

The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had got. There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon, ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and went back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in one place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would saw out and leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would. I got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded.

I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in town, and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body would a thought he was Adam - he was just all mud. Whenever his liquor begun to work he most always went for the govment. his time he says:

"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like. Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him - a man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for HIM and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call THAT govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up and help s him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes, and I TOLD 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'em heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents I'd leave the blamed country and never come a-near it agin. Them's the very words. I says look at my hat - if you call it a hat - but the lid raises up and the rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o' stovepipe. Look at it, says I - such a hat for me to wear - one of the wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights.

"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. There was a free nigger there from Ohio - a mulatter, most as white as a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a silver-headed cane - the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State. And what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the wust. They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin. Them's the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may rot for all me - I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the cool way of that nigger - why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't shoved him out o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't this nigger put up at auction and sold? - that's what I want to know. And what do you reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in the State six months, and he hadn't been there that long yet. There, now - that's a specimen. They call that a govment that can't sell a free nigger till he's been in the State six months. Here's a govment that calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a govment, and yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free nigger, and -"

Pap was agoing on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of language - mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he give the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick. But it warn't good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it; so now he raised a howl that fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toes; and the cussing he done then laid over anything he had ever done previous. He said so his own self afterwards. He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid over him, too; but I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe.

After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal the key, or saw myself out, one or t'other. He drank and drank, and tumbled down on his blankets by and by; but luck didn't run my way. He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and thrashed around this way and that for a long time. At last I got so sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning.

For Writing or Discussion:
- What do these texts tell you about the relationship between racial history in America and the word "nigger"?
- Why, according to Mr. Coates, does the word "nigger" persist? How does he defend its continued usage?
- How might banning the use of the word among African-Americans "attempt to raise black people to a superhuman standard"?
- What do we learn about Huck Finn's Pap from this excerpt? What does he do? How does Huck describe him? What is their relationship like? How does Twain want us to feel about Pap? How does the repeated use of "nigger" underline the irony involved in this passage?
- What examples does Mr. Coates use to help readers understand how relationships determine when and how we can use certain words? How does his point - "that words take on meaning from context and relationship" - help us understand Pap's speech? Why does Twain put the word "nigger" in his mouth?
- Both Mr. Coates and Twain use humor here. Where? How does it help them make their different points?
- What examples can you give from your own life of words that take on different meanings in different contexts?
- How, if at all, should the word "nigger" be used in the classroom? Why?
Going Further: The History of the Word
Randall Kennedy begins Chapter 1 of his book "Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word" with the following questions:

How should nigger be defined? Is it a part of the American cultural inheritance that warrants preservation? Why does nigger generate such powerful reactions? Is it a more hurtful racial epithet than insults such as kike, wop, wetback, mick, chink, and gook? Am I wrongfully offending the sensibilities of readers right now by spelling out nigger instead of using a euphemism such as N-word? Should blacks be able to use nigger in ways forbidden to others? Should the law view nigger as a provocation that reduces the culpability of a person who responds to it violently? Under what circumstances, if any, should a person be ousted from his or her job for saying "nigger"? What methods are useful for depriving nigger of destructiveness? In the pages that follow, I will pursue these and related questions. I will put a tracer on nigger, report on its use, and assess the controversies to which it gives rise. I have invested energy in this endeavor because nigger is a key word in the lexicon of race relations and thus an important term in American politics. To be ignorant of its meanings and effects is to make oneself vulnerable to all manner of perils, including the loss of a job, a reputation, a friend, even one's life.

Lori Ungemah, a blogger, former New York City public high school teacher and currently assistant professor at Stella and Charles Guttman Community College, says that she has students read the chapter, then she shares examples of the use of the n-word in popular culture today. For instance, she uses the lyrics from A Tribe Called Quest's "Sucka Nigga" to introduce the idea that if you take off the "er" ending and add an "a," the meaning changes. How, she asks, does that affect how the word is used and received?

Dr. Ungemah then has students reflect on how performers and artists use the n-word and write final essays arguing whether or not they should use the word and why. Finally, she invites the class to gather images and post them with the essays to create a bulletin board about the n-word debate. Update | Feb. 28 Dr. Ungemah has posted a much more detailed version of her unit here.
The N-Word and Comedy
Comedians including Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld and Louis CK have taken on the n-word question. Though many of these routines may not be "safe for school" in full, quotes or excerpts from them might be useful discussion starters.

How are these comedians playing with context, audience and stereotypes? Which routines are funniest? Which are most painful? Why?

For instance, Richard Pryor's evolution in terms of the word can be paired with its use by the comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce. Mr. Pryor tells his audience that after he came back from his 1979 trip to Africa, he would never use the n-word again. He says, "That's a word that was used to describe our own wretchedness, and we perpetuate it now, because it's dead." In contrast, Mr. Bruce declares in an early '60s piece that "it's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness." And, he says, if everyone would just overuse that word - and any other hateful epithets that were commonly used to describe minorities at the time - then these words would lose their meaning and wouldn't be hurtful any more. Students can listen to both comedians or read the transcripts, and then debate which approach they agree with most.
Censorship, the Word and Huckleberry Finn
Should classic texts ever be redacted? In 2011, NewSouth Books printed a new edition of "Huck" in which the word "slave" replaces "nigger." The publisher itself acknowledged the debate, and when "Sixty Minutes" prepared to cover the story, even the reporters Byron Pitts and Ann Silvio had to discuss whether or not to use the word in their coverage.

What do you think? Examine the history of censorship of the novel, using this as a starting place, and discuss whether or not the word should be deleted from the novel - or, perhaps, if the novel should continue to be taught in schools.

Read The Times's Room for Debate post about it, "Do Word Changes Alter 'Huckleberry Finn'?" then divide the class in half and form teams to debate both issues. For the debate about the novel's presence in schools, take the position of administrators, teachers, parents and students. Would a "sanitized" book be more palatable? Is that a good thing? Why or why not? Afterward, invite students to post their responses to The Learning Network's related Student Opinion question.
Personal and Community Reflections
Engage students in reflecting on their experiences with this and other words as weapons by asking them first to imagine that they are standing trial for a crime but cannot use written or oral speech to defend themselves. Discuss the idea that language gives people power over themselves and their circumstances.

Next, ask students to work in pairs to list as many terms as they can think of that can be used to hurt people based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Ask them why the exercise is uncomfortable, why they've been taught not to use these words and what transforms them from letters on a page into weapons. Discuss the role these words might play in your school. Students might then crumple the papers and throw them away, symbolically removing the words from their community.

Finally, read this reflection on the word by Gloria Naylor (PDF) and discuss the power the word had on her as a young child, and by extension, the power it has in this country. Close by having students write personal reflections, perhaps anonymously, about their experiences with the n-word or another word used against them as a weapon.
From The New York Times Around the Web Find more in our Text to Text series, or suggest an idea.

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Amanda Christy Brown, Katherine Schulten and Michael Gonchar

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Text to Text | 'Huckleberry Finn' and 'In Defense of a Loaded Word'

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Language can be loaded, and perhaps there is no more loaded word in our culture than the so-called n-word. Here we aim to help students think critically about the word, its history, who says it, who shouldn't say it and whether it should be buried or reclaimed.

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Despite celebrating 30 years in business this year, Knowledge Unlimited Inc. remains relatively unknown in the community. Those concerned with closing the achievement gap in Madison's schools, however, may want to take note. This award-winning educational-materials producer, based in Middleton, is unique in emphasizing multiculturalism throughout its lines of educational posters, DVDs and children's books.

The entire Milwaukee School District uses the company's flagship product, NewsCurrents. The product is also used in some Madison schools. It's a simple yet effective concept for presenting current events -- visuals paired with a discussion guide. It provides the relevant background knowledge on issues so students can form their own opinions and participate in discussions about what's going on in the world. The discussion guide is written at three levels, making the content accessible for grades 3-12, although NewsCurrents is in fact used with an even wider audience.

The program doesn't shy away from the difficult topics in the news, including school shootings, the Trayvon Martin trial and the Bangladeshi garment factory collapse.

"The biggest mistake people make is thinking kids aren't interested or don't have the capacity to understand," Knowledge Unlimited founder Judith Laitman says of such stories.

Madison teacher Karen Boyer confirms that NewsCurrents handles tough subjects well, including the anniversary of 9/11, which each year falls within the first weeks of class. Boyer says it's important for kids to have a safe venue to ask questions because they're going to hear about news on the playground.

Boyer has used NewsCurrents throughout her six years of teaching fourth and fifth grades at Emerson Elementary. Her principal allots funds for the $259 yearly subscription, which covers the entire school. The students can also access NewsCurrents' sister program, a news magazine for kids called Read to Know, on their home computers.

Boyer says her students love NewsCurrents and get "cranky" if she has to skip it for a week. Other teachers have had similar success with the program. A teacher in Los Angeles found that low-achieving students who often skipped class would show up when they knew NewsCurrents was on the day's agenda.

"All kids, whether they're high-level readers or in advanced civics classes or special education students, can feel capable of doing this program. It makes them feel competent. They can have opinions," Laitman says.

The program also invites student involvement in the form of voting for the "News Person of the Year" and participating in a weekly editorial cartoon contest. "If anything tells us what kids are capable of, it's the things they submit for editorial cartoons," Laitman says.

The company's 10 employees produce the weekly current events materials. Two writers develop stories, including country- and person-of-the-week segments, while a graphic artist coordinates the visuals. Laitman's own daily routine for editing the stories includes monitoring NBC Nightly News, Democracy Now!, BBC News and various online news sources, including Al Jazeera English.

News stories can be used to teach a range of topics, from science and geography to politics and history. Knowledge Unlimited's products are designed to meet state standards, but also to build cultural capital. These skills may not fit easily into categories, but can make a difference in closing the achievement gap. Laitman may soon have evidence proving NewsCurrents' effectiveness -- she plans to work with a UW education professor to measure the program's impact in the classroom.

Correctional institutions also use NewsCurrents, including all of the California and Texas prisons. The oldest audience comes from around 1,000 nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, which are required to provide intellectual stimulation for residents.

With its large images, NewsCurrents is accessible to people with poor eyesight, allowing for more interaction than having a newspaper read aloud. And the program's multiple levels work for seniors with varying levels of cognitive impairment. The only difference from the version sent to schools is the addition of a segment looking back at topics in pop culture and history.

"This is their favorite program over bingo. That's the best compliment we get from nursing homes," Laitman says. At one senior facility, NewsCurrents inspired residents to register to vote.

Moving forward, Laitman hopes to expand on the half-million users Knowledge Unlimited already reaches each week. Over the past three decades, the company has digitized many of its products, and Laitman sees this trend continuing. And she'd like to partner with another organization to create a free website for young people all around the world to engage on current issues.

Laitman is driven by her belief that youth have a lot to say. No one embodies this sentiment more than Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old who addressed the U.N. this year after being shot by the Taliban for speaking out on girls' education. NewsCurrents students voted her "News Person of the Year."

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Middleton's Knowledge Unlimited works to engage students -- and others -- with current events

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Despite celebrating 30 years in business this year, Knowledge Unlimited Inc. remains relatively unknown in the community. Those concerned with closing the achievement gap in Madison's schools, however, may want to take note. This award-winning educational-materials producer, based in Middleton, is unique in emphasizing multiculturalism throughout its lines of educational posters, DVDs and children's books.

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In a typical, unassuming classroom at Rosemount High School in the suburbs of Minneapolis, U.S. history teacher Josh Hoekstra had a very novel idea about how the subject is taught.

The 39-year-old husband and father of three has been teaching U.S. history for 13 years. He's seen firsthand the demise of U.S. history education, now our high school seniors' worst subject.

This school year, after watching his students' intense interest in college basketball's March Madness tournament (rather than school), Hoekstra invented his own teaching curriculum, called Teach With Tournaments, to transform U.S. history content into a similar competitive, student-driven tournament.

"There is no reason that teaching U.S. history in the 21st century cannot be an amazing experience for all involved," Hoekstra told me. "Kids need to make a personal connection with the people they are studying. Kids who 'hate history' are the ones who never were exposed to the human side of the people they are studying."

The goal of Teach With Tournaments is simple -- immerse students in the personalities and character of the great men and women of history through competition. For this school year, the tournament focused on one theme: the most courageous figure in U.S. history.

Each student chose a historical figure he or she thought best embodies courage in U.S. history, from military heroes such as Alvin York to civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks to humanitarian pioneers such as Clara Barton. Each choice was then paired off in the bracket system.

Students were required to research their character's accomplishments and then defend their choice in front of the class. Afterward, the class voted and the winners moved on to the next round, eventually narrowing the field of 64 to one champion.

The genius of Hoekstra's plan is that his students are required to use new arguments for each round. Like a good coach draws up a new game plan for each opponent, so too must students innovate and dive deeper into their research.

It wasn't long before their competitive juices kicked in. In the first round of the brackets, Tom Burnett, one of the heroes of Flight 93 on September 11th, lost by the slimmest of votes to U.S. Navy SEAL and Medal of Honor recipient Michael Murphy. The girl who represented Tom Burnett was in tears over the outcome.

"This is a student who had become deeply connected to the person she was researching and was overcome with emotion. To see this type of passion from a 16-year-old girl in a public high school classroom is rewarding beyond words," Hoekstra said.

Over the school year, the brackets whittled down to two final characters, the aforementioned Murphy and WWII hero and Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone.

Before the final vote, Hoekstra asked his class for any last arguments. A student with special needs raised his hand and spoke on Murphy's behalf. He praised Murphy for sacrificing his life to save his team in Afghanistan, but he said what really makes Murphy his choice was that when Murphy was in 8th grade, he defended a special needs student who was being bullied.

"For this young man a personal connection was made beyond what was in the headlines," Hoekstra recounted. "Everyone in that room, including myself, learned something because that one nervous student with a shaky voice was emotionally invested in the material."

One special needs student discovered what millions of our students are missing -- a deep, personal connection to American history.

In the course of human history, the American story is great and unique, one filled with men and women of courage, character, and compassion. We must bring it to life for other students like Hoekstra did for his.

His Teach With Tournaments innovation may very well be one of the tools. Already teachers across the country are using it, Hoekstra says, and it's replicable for any subject or any classroom. (I came to know Josh when he called into my radio show, Morning In America. He uses some of my books in his classroom.)

Teachers like Hoekstra are a great influence on their students. Education expert Eric Hanushek estimates that the difference between a great teacher and bad teacher in a child's lifetime earnings is hundreds of thousands of dollars. But more important than paychecks, a great teacher instills in his students character and a passion for self-instruction.

In one of Hoekstra's brackets, WWII hero Audie Murphy lost to Louis Zamperini, the brave prisoner of war survivor and subject of the book "Unbroken." The young man representing Murphy was heartbroken that he didn't win. Audie Murphy was more than just a war hero, this young man argued. At a young age, Murphy's father left him and his family, leaving Murphy to hunt for food and provide for his many siblings.

At the same time, back at his home, this particular young man was watching his own father slowly succumb to cancer. He would soon be without a father and in a similar position as the young Audie Murphy. Like great teachers do, Hoekstra was preparing this boy for more than a history exam.

He was preparing him for life.

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a history teacher's brilliant idea - cnn

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In a typical, unassuming classroom at Rosemount High School in the suburbs of Minneapolis, U.S. history teacher Josh Hoekstra had a very novel idea about how the subject is taught. The 39-year-old husband and father of three has been teaching U.S. history for 13 years. He's seen firsthand the demise of U.S.

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Search | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

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Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier Vol 4 (3) Edited by Kate Fortmueller, University of Georgia and Laura Isabel Serna, University of Southern California
Teaching with Primary Sources: Media Studies and the Archive

Table of Contents

Introduction

As we have both discovered, primary historical sources have the capacity to animate discussions of film and media history in compelling, substantive ways. Working with primary sources allows students the opportunity to experience the thrill of discovery, see first hand the complexity of the past, and use their analytical skills to coax meaning out of the past. At the same time, incorporating archival materials into undergraduate courses often seems intimidating or time consuming, and indeed, these kinds of projects require a great deal of planning to make student encounters with the archive successful. Additionally, proximity to and distance from media archives present practical obstacles to creating and executing projects using primary, archival sources with undergraduates. Given these challenges how can we effectively incorporate the study of archival material into undergraduate teaching?

This dossier on teaching with primary sources seeks to expand on the dossier "Teaching Humanistic Research Methods" by addressing the use of primary sources in the undergraduate classroom. In crafting our CFP we saw three approaches to teaching with primary sources that seemed particularly promising: the growing ability to media-related archives online in digital form, the creative use of local archival collections, and collaborative teaching with archives or special collections. The submissions for this dossier span all of these approaches and provide concrete examples of how to use primary sources in film, radio, and television history courses. Matthew Solomon, Vincent Longo, and Philip Hallman explain, from the perspective of a professor, student, and librarian, what it means to redesign a course to make use of an institution's special collections. Writing about digital collections that have been produced by an institution not affiliated with a university or college, Jenny Romero offers a thorough description of the Margaret Herrick Library's physical and digital resources and Emily Carman lays out the many ways she has worked with her home library to provide students access to digital primary sources and guide them through independent research. Martin L. Johnson focuses on the ways in which both digital and physical archives can help students connect to Hollywood history on a more personal level or at a more granular level. Christine Ehrick outlines how the use of archival radio in the classroom helps students understand the importance of radio preservation. Finally, Stephen Groening demonstrates how he reimagined a television history course to focus on student research about local television history in Seattle.

Contributors

Emily Carman is an associate professor of film studies in the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University, where she teaches a versatile range of classes primarily on American cinema, film history, and historiography for undergraduate and graduate students. She is author of Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System (University of Texas Press, 2016) and co-editor of Hollywood and the Law (BFI Press, 2015). She has also published articles in Cinephile, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Celebrity Studies, and The Moving Image.

Christine Ehrick is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Louisville, where she has taught since 2001. Her second book, Radio and the Gendered Soundscape: Women and Broadcasting in Argentina and Uruguay, 1930-1950 (Cambridge, 2015) is a study of women's voices and golden age broadcasting in South America's two most important early radio markets. In addition to courses on Latin American and World History, she regularly teaches a History of Radio class at the graduate and advanced undergraduate level. She is also currently the Communications Director for the Radio Preservation Task Force, a federal project overseen by the National Recording Preservation Board of the Library of Congress

Kate Fortmueller is an assistant professor in the Department of Entertainment and Media Studies at the University of Georgia, where she teaches courses in media theory and media industries. Her research utilizes both archival evidence and ethnographic methods to explore historical and contemporary issues for people working in film, television, and digital production. Her work appears in Film History, Journal of Film and Video, Television & New Media, and Spectator.

Stephen Groening is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media at the University of Washington and the author of Cinema Beyond Territory: Inflight Entertainment and Atmospheres of Globalization (BFI, 2014). He has published articles in Film History, Film Criticism, History and Technology, New Media and Society and Visual Studies. His current book project traces the influence of television on postwar European critical theory.

Philip Hallman is the Field Librarian for Film Studies and the Curator of the Screen Arts Mavericks and Makers Collections at the University of Michigan Special Collections Library. He has guided student-curated exhibitions of some of the collection's leading creators, including Robert Altman, John Sayles, Orson Welles, and Ira Deutchman.

Martin L. Johnson is Assistant Professor of Media and Communication Studies at The Catholic University of America. His first book, Main Street Movies: The History of the Local Film in the United States, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press. He has published articles in The Moving Image, the Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, and Early Popular Visual Culture.

Vincent Longo is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Screen Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan who has used extensive research in the international Welles archives as the basis for conference papers and audiovisual essays, a live multimedia staging of "Too Much Johnson" at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and a scholarly anthology chapter. In 2017, he was the first Ph.D. pre-candidate in the history of the University of Michigan's Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program to receive the "outstanding mentor" award for his mentorship of four first-year undergraduate researchers.

Jenny Romero is Head of Reference and Public Services at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library, where she has worked closely with researchers for more than a decade. She received a B.A. in Film and Latin American Studies from Vassar College, and an M.A. in Film Studies with Film Archiving from the University of East Anglia.

Laura Isabel Serna is Associate Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, where she teaches international film history, historical methods, and Latino/a and Latin American cinema and media. A historian by training and predilection her research focuses on uncovering and recovering histories thought lost or unimportant. She is the author of Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture before the Golden Age (Duke University Press, 2014) as well as essays that have been published in Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, and Film History.

Matthew Solomon is Associate Professor in the Department of Screen Arts and Cultures at the University of Michigan. He is the author of a 2015 BFI Film Classics monograph on The Gold Rush and of Disappearing Tricks: Silent Film, Houdini, and the New Magic of the Twentieth Century, which won the Kraszna-Krausz award for best moving image book in 2011, and is the editor of Fantastic Voyages of the Cinematic Imagination: Georges Méliès's Trip to the Moon. In addition to regularly teaching the large introductory lecture course, "Art of Film," he has taught a number of different courses for graduate and undergraduate students involving methods of film historical primary-source research at the University of Michigan, the City University of New York, Indiana University, and New York University.

Previous Cinema Journal Teaching Dossiers

About the Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier

Cinema Journal and TeachingMedia.org have formed a partnership to develop a quarterly feature called the Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier. The goals of this partnership are to foster critical reflection on media studies teaching and pedagogy and to engender serious discussion of pedagogical issues via an active online platform. Topic ideas for Teaching Dossiers will originate with input from the SCMS Teaching Committee and will be approved by a representative of both Cinema Journal and TeachingMedia.org before being disseminated as calls for submissions.

Each Teaching Dossier will be overseen by a pair of editors. The editors will craft a call for submissions and shepherd submissions from acceptance to publication, as well as write an introductory essay for the Dossier.

Each Teaching Dossier will feature 4-6 essays on a similar pedagogical topic. Each essay should be between 1300-1800 words and written in scholarly prose appropriate for professional journal publication. Authors are also encouraged to take advantage of the online platform and utilize links, images, and multimedia in their posts. Citation format should be Chicago.

Submissions will be solicited via open calls, as well as targeted invitations. Those wishing to submit an essay for a Teaching Dossier should provide a 300-word abstract of the proposed essay, describing the essay topic and how it connects to the Dossier topic, as well as a 150-word teaching biography highlighting relevant courses taught. Even in the case of invited submissions, the approval process will be competitive, and only the best proposals will be accepted.

Once proposals are accepted, authors will have approximately two months to complete their essays. Essays will be submitted to the Dossier editors, who will then put the essays through a rigorous editorial process, which may include blind peer-review editorial board oversight. Authors may be asked to conduct revisions on their essays, and the editors may decline to include an essay in the Dossier if it is deemed to be substandard or insufficiently revised according to editorial demands.

Once final drafts of the essays are approved by the editors and representatives of Cinema Journal and TeachingMedia.org, the Teaching Dossier materials will be submitted to TeachingMedia.org at least one week in advance of the anticipated posting date.

Contributor Guidelines
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Submit your contribution as a word doc to issue editors.

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Please use parenthetical citations only. No footnotes or endnotes please.

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Include your bio at the conclusion of your post after the list of references.

Christine Becker, Department of Film, Television and Theater, University of Notre Dame.

Anthony Nadler, Department of Media and Communication Studies, Ursinus College

Julie Wilson, Department of Communication Arts and Theater, Allegheny College

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Cinema Journal Teaching Dossier Vol 4 (3) Edited by Kate Fortmueller, University of Georgia and Laura Isabel Serna, University of Southern California As we have both discovered, primary historical sources have the capacity to animate discussions of film and media history in compelling, substantive ways.

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Tech Trends | Viewpoint

OMG: Engaging Students on Their Own Terms

Technology Director Anthony A. Luscre of Mogadore Local Schools challenges educators to use students' mobile devices to provide technology-rich, highly engaging, and fun learning experiences that reflect real-world skills.

Students spend a lot of time outside of school using high tech forms of communication. Why not capture these skills to improve student learning? Data from a recent Pew Research Center survey shows more than 75 percent of teens own cell phones; 73 percent use online social networking sites; and 38 percent share something online that they created, such as artwork, photos, stories, or videos. A NielsonWire Report found that teenagers averaged 3,339 sent and received texts a month!

Despite these overwhelming statistics, schools and teachers have done little to capture this usage to benefit instruction and student learning.

Anthony Luscre will be a speaker at the FETC 2012 National Conference, to be held Jan. 23-26 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL. He will be presenting two featured sessions at the conference, including "OMG, I CNT BLIEV WE R REALLY GTTNG 2 DO THS IN SKUL" (Jan. 25 at 1:30 p.m.) and "Got a Problem to Solve? Create an App for That. A Fun Learning Tool" (Jan. 25 at 4:30 p.m.). Luscre is director of technology at Mogadore Local Schools and owner of SearchFindKnow.com.

The Challenge
My challenge to teachers is to create assignments, projects and techniques to capture your students' attention. Projects should be technology-rich, highly engaging, and fun learning experiences that reflect real-world skills.

How will you know if the exercise reached your students?

One indicator of success will be how your students respond to their parents' typical daily question: "What did you do in school today?" Will they get the usual response ("Nothing")? Or will they hear something new, maybe something along the lines of, "OMG, I can't believe what we got to do today?"

The Death Of...
I know many teachers are leery of some of the technologies students use outside of school. The knee-jerk response tends to be something foreboding the doom of civilization: "Texting will be the death of proper spelling, grammar and syntax." Or: "Having always-available Web access will be the death of learning facts."

But this response to new ways of communicating is nothing new. When I encounter it, I like to point out what I call the "litany of this new technology will be the death of...." For example, according to Socrates (469-399 B.C.), writing was going to be the death of thinking and debate. Fifteenth-century educators believed that the printing press and wide availability of books would be the death of scholarly writing.

Next I like to demonstrate that what we think of as the way things have always been and should continue to be are actually constantly changing and adapting to popular use. For example, our alphabet has added additional letters and even the lower case since its first use by Romans.

The Dilemma
The next inevitable response from teachers is, "My school's AUP (acceptable use policy) or Internet filter does not allow the use of Twitter, Facebook, WikiBlog, etc." I then explain that there are two approaches that classroom teachers can use if this is the situation: Create a dialog with administrators to change AUPs and filtering to allow use of some of these tools or use "AUP-safe alternatives."

Many of these AUP-safe alternatives involve low-tech or alternative technologies or Web sites. Two great examples are "low-tech tweeting" and "physical Facebook walls." Low-tech tweeting utilizes paper with 140 squares to allow students to compose their pseudo-tweets. Physical pseudo-Facebook walls can utilize large sheets of paper, bulletin boards, or dry erase boards posted on the walls of the classroom. Students can then add information, status, comments, photos, likes, etc. to their individual physical walls.

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OMG: Engaging Students on Their Own Terms -- THE Journal

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Tech Trends | Viewpoint Technology Director Anthony A. Luscre of Mogadore Local Schools challenges educators to use students' mobile devices to provide technology-rich, highly engaging, and fun learning experiences that reflect real-world skills. Students spend a lot of time outside of school using high tech forms of communication.

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****Does the topic of the current event matter??

****Does the use of technology change the outcome?

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Student Engagement in English 10 with the use of current events and or technology