I noticed this article "Herman Cain drops out of presidential race" on my Yahoo! homepage. Being a bit of a Herman Cain fan (and making the connection that I'd just talked to my good friend about him the day before yesterday), I clicked on it to find out why, and to see if my friend already knew this. Since he hasn't messaged me back yet, I'll write my thoughts about this article.
I'm not at all into politics because I don't have enough prior/background knowledge to side with any particular opinion on anything way bigger than my sphere of influence. I don't even know when to vote for anyone in my home state (not that I would since that would be out of ignorance and almost an abuse of my right to vote since I wouldn't be voting intelligently in favor of what's best for the people). Despite this, Cain strikes me as an interesting candidate. My friend regularly informs me of any political updates, including debates, and from what he tells me, Cain sounds like he knows what he's doing (but that's probably biased based on my friend's opinions). Cain is a businessman, which is unusual since most candidates are involved in government work, but I think that vocation gives him a new perspective, shining light on experts' blindspots.
The article says he's dropping out because of some allegations of sexual harassment and an affair. Oh goodie, another skeleton in a politician's closet; let's do the only rational thing and expose the mess out of it to embarrass the politician. Understandably, the American people shouldn't have to deal with all of these secrets, but to me, this article sounds like some women got bored, wanted 15 minutes of fame, and declared their "personal time" with Cain. The mistress even produced a cell-phone record. Oooh, risque.
Come on. A cell-phone record? That they'd be talking on the phone? Why is that scandalous? She and Cain admitted their long-time friendship; why can't we chalk it up to that? What sucks the most is that Cain's lawyer didn't really deny the allegations; he just said Cain's sex life is private. Awesome. Cain dropping out, then, tells me that this thing might have more of a sticky truth than I first thought. Either that or Cain can't handle the pressure of all of these false claims. Or maybe it's something else entirely.
See, that's why I hate politics; I can talk myself in circles with all of the limited information I have and never reach a conclusion.
Moody, C. (2011). Herman Cain drops out of presidential race. Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/herman-cain-suspends-presidential-campaign-184541824.html
Friday, December 2, 2011
Reading Response 16- Tovani Chapter 8
I think Chapter 8 is the entire basis of our class, Mrs. Crawford, hahahaha. As I read the chapter, I kept laughing because everything this chapter covers is what we do in your class. Tovani did bring up a good point about tests, which made me wonder about our final: we're probably not having a traditional paper-pencil-scantron test, are we? Are we going to be writing about what we learned about our learning/thinking and how to apply those things in our classrooms?
I can't believe it's taken me all semester to figure out that you just wanted to know my thinking. I feel like I haven't done the best job with that, but at the same I think my confusing writing submissions (logs and projects alike) reflect the chaos in my head, hahaha.
I did find it strange that Tovani only required two essays in her college-bound seniors English class. Maybe that's because the class was for college prep, and not necessarily a senior English literature class? That's one of my biggest concerns for my English classes is the amount of reading and writing I'll have to do and grade. Fortunately, I think Tovani has given me ways to assessment my students' thinking (and to prove that they've read and written something) without their submitting an essay or test every time. My only issue is that I think students can just as easily cheat on the sticky note assessment and response logs if they only read, say, a paragraph or two out of however many pages. I'd have to have them answer more overarching questions I guess or just break up the reading into even smaller chunks.
Your ideas are most welcome here, Mrs. C ;)
Tovani, C. (2004). Do I really have to teach reading?: Content comprehension, grades 6-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.
I can't believe it's taken me all semester to figure out that you just wanted to know my thinking. I feel like I haven't done the best job with that, but at the same I think my confusing writing submissions (logs and projects alike) reflect the chaos in my head, hahaha.
I did find it strange that Tovani only required two essays in her college-bound seniors English class. Maybe that's because the class was for college prep, and not necessarily a senior English literature class? That's one of my biggest concerns for my English classes is the amount of reading and writing I'll have to do and grade. Fortunately, I think Tovani has given me ways to assessment my students' thinking (and to prove that they've read and written something) without their submitting an essay or test every time. My only issue is that I think students can just as easily cheat on the sticky note assessment and response logs if they only read, say, a paragraph or two out of however many pages. I'd have to have them answer more overarching questions I guess or just break up the reading into even smaller chunks.
Your ideas are most welcome here, Mrs. C ;)
Tovani, C. (2004). Do I really have to teach reading?: Content comprehension, grades 6-12. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.
Choice Reading Response 18- ANGEL Quickstart Guide
I'm a work-study for the missionary in residence at Evangel. She teaches several English classes, as well as a missions class; one of these English classes is for the Degree Completion program, and she wants to revamp its layout on ANGEL. So, diligent work-study that I am, I complied. I don't know much about how ANGEL works from a course-editor perspective, so she provided me with the quickstart guide. Today, I needed to refer back to this guide for some technical information.
Aside from being a technical piece, this text was fairly easy to navigate, thanks to the table of contents. I jumped back and forth between sections and determined importance from what I inferred out of the text. For example, I thought I could make each essay a milestone/task on the course calendar, but I can't do that unless I somehow make each essay an assessment. Using the same information, however, I was able to find a place to set access dates for each assignment, which put them on the calendar. I'm still working on automated agents for the course, though I'm not sure if those will work for this course. Agents can unlock/release certain content based on certain parameters (like assessment scores), so I was thinking of applying that information for releasing each essay after the previous one is submitted.
(2009). ANGEL 7.4 instructor quickstart guide. Indianapolis, IN: ANGEL Learning.
Aside from being a technical piece, this text was fairly easy to navigate, thanks to the table of contents. I jumped back and forth between sections and determined importance from what I inferred out of the text. For example, I thought I could make each essay a milestone/task on the course calendar, but I can't do that unless I somehow make each essay an assessment. Using the same information, however, I was able to find a place to set access dates for each assignment, which put them on the calendar. I'm still working on automated agents for the course, though I'm not sure if those will work for this course. Agents can unlock/release certain content based on certain parameters (like assessment scores), so I was thinking of applying that information for releasing each essay after the previous one is submitted.
(2009). ANGEL 7.4 instructor quickstart guide. Indianapolis, IN: ANGEL Learning.
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