This article from the Times caught my eye a few days ago, but I never posted it. I can’t believe my students may someday compete with this for college admissions. I’m pretty convinced I couldn’t get into the schools today I did in the ’90s. Actually, maybe things won’t be that bad:
The free fashion show at a Greenwich, Conn., boutique in June was billed as a crash course in dressing for a college admissions interview.
Yet the proposed “looks” — a young man in seersucker shorts, a young woman in a blue blazer over a low-cut blouse and short madras skirt — appeared better suited for a nearby yacht club. After Jennifer Delahunty, dean of admissions at Kenyon College, was shown photos of those outfits, she rendered her review.
“I burst out laughing,” she said.
Modest Mouse – Bankrupt On Selling (From The Lonesome Crowded West. Buy this album.)
This is not a music blog, right? I listen to music constantly during my waking hours, so it’s bound to come up. And with Fredeeky on vacation (and the subject of this post not really being in his wheelhouse) I figured I’d throw this together.
During law school I listened to A LOT of Wilco – it was a midwest thing at the time. I have a drawer of Wilco and Jeff Tweedy shows that I haven’t touched in awhile, but after unintentionally seeing two great Wilco shows this month I dug out a few and threw them on my iTunes. We used to drive from Milwaukee to Chicago for shows, so these discs brought back a lot of memories of standing in really smokey bars, drinking beers (usually on school nights), listening to him go through his pretty great catalog to-date. A few selected covers from some of those shows.
I guess these are the kinds of songs the title of this blog evokes.
From June 15, 1999 – Lounge Ax, Chicago, IL
Jeff Tweedy – Ripple The crowd noise is a little annoying, but I kind of love the banter at the end of this Dead cover. Obviously for my friend(s) in the Bay Area.
From March 26, 1998 – Lounge Ax, Chicago, IL
Jeff Tweedy – Oklahoma, USA A great Kinks song off of Muswell Hillbillies. Also covered by Yo La Tengo on Facebook (the album, not the social networking site).
Jeff Tweedy – A Fool Such As I This is a really old song that has been covered a lot, but Tweedy likely knows (among others) the Elvis Presley version or Bob Dylan version from the Basement Tapes. (Bonus track: Bob Dylan & The Band – A Fool Such As I)
Jeff Tweedy – Wish I Was Your Mother Because of this cover I tracked down the original version of this incredible, but strange, Mott the Hoople love song. The banter at the beginning means you probably won’t listen to it a ton, but the song is worth the wait.
And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Filed under: Reading, education, history, music | Tags: Non-fiction, Reading, Teaching
Following up on my earlier post about non-fiction, Rosa by Nikki Giovanni is exactly the kind of thing I am looking for. Giovanni is a pretty incredible woman (she was nominated for a Grammy with Tupac!) and this is a great book for readers of all ages – the illustrations are beautiful and Nikki is an exceptional writer.
Anything else like this out there?
(I skipped posting the obvious Outkast song here.)
Despite the cryptic subject, this post isn’t meant to be so apocalyptic. I just ran into a former student, her younger brother (and future student), and father in line for the pool in Red Hook. While it took my synapses a minute to figure out where the “Hi, Mr. M —- -” was coming from, it was actually a pleasant surprise and reminded me that I’m heading back to school soon. Which brings me to this request:
Quick question for whoever reads this (teachers, friends, enemies, Obama, etc…): Are there any non-fiction books about U.S. history that you use with kids, remember from childhood, or distinctly remember anything positive about? As I hinted at before, I’m working on building a much bigger library of non-fiction books for students. While the class is 8th grade, I’m interested in all elementary and middle school reading levels as long as the substantive content is there. I’m particularly interested in books covering the Civil War, Reconstruction, American Imperialism, the Great Depression, and World Wars I and II. Any ideas?
The ominious title of this post comes from the song Ethiopians by the Mountain Goats. This was left off of Tallahassee and this version is from the great folks at the Daytrotter Sessions.
Columbia held its like 400th annual Summer Reading Institute this week, and, as a first year teacher, I was really, really lucky to attend. I’ll admit, I was very skeptical going in. Connotations of any form of “professional development” make me cringe. (I hated that term as a lawyer and it appears that many feel that way in education as well.) However, this was an incredibly valuable week. I’m also extremely fortunate to work at a school that encouraged two of its history teachers to attend a week long program on teaching reading.
Fortunately or unfortunately, a big chunk of an 8th grade history in an urban school is a reading class. Here’s a fact – middle school readers generally read non-fiction at two levels below their fiction reading level. And most text books are written two grade levels above the reading level of an average middle school reader. This statistic made my entire last year flash before my eyes. There were so many situations where great readers would “read” a chapter in the text book and just look at me with blank stares when we tried to discuss it. Over the course of the last week, I’ve picked up a ton of strategies that I can tuck into my classes as mini-lessons on non-fiction reading skills. I’ll write more about specific examples this weekend – they will just get lost in this post.
And of course a song. This one is totally unrelated to this post but it just came on my iTunes and it brought back some hilarious memories. The first time I heard this album I was a first year associate sitting in a conference room in midtown Manhattan reviewing Tyco documents in an anti-trust case two weeks after 9/11. All of the attorneys would swap CDs (CDs! We each had our Discman!) during our 14 hour days. I discovered a ton of music those first couple months. And reviewed a lot of *&#$ing documents.
