Jumat, 24 April 2015

One Word: Vocab in Context Mystery

Earlier this week, I was asked on Voxer by California colleague Beth Oing if I knew what "oam" means in Book IV of Samuel Butler's translation of The Odyssey.   The understanding of the meaning of this one three letter word has sparked a journey of discovery spanning across various states and social media.




Here is the passage in question, as captured from The Internet Classics Archive:



In context, Helen is stating that during this time in the Trojan War she has begun to yearn or long for home.  But why didn't Butler just use the words "yearn" or "long"? There has to be a particular reason for that particular word. If readers understand "oam", will we see something more into Helen's character and mindset during this period?

Refiling through my Latin dictionary, I didn't recognize "oam" and assumed,  since I'm not versed in Greek, that "oam" must be some sort of play on words and Butler was using a Greek word as a pun. But why would there be a Greek word mixed in with the Latin names of Ulysses and Menelaus?  That didn't make sense either.

Carrying the conversation over to Twitter, I consulted 2014 Indiana State Teacher of the Year and Latin teacher Steve Perkins....


Thinking about diction and author's purpose, the literal English translation of the Greek as "her heart has turned to go toward home." By stating that Helen's heart had "turned" toward home, it implies that at one point she had turned away from home.  So the mystery of the Rape of Helen -- whether she went willingly with Paris or was forcibly kidnapped-- seems to have an answer in Homer: Helen wanted to go with Paris!  Could the word "oam" in Butler's translation signify this as well?  But then why didn't Butler use the literal translation? I love reading The Odyssey with my students for so many reasons, but being able to explore word choice in the various translations (Lattimore is still my favorite) and discuss how individual words can shape the meaning has taught my students that words do matter!



Still not satisfied, Steve then broached the topic with contacts via email and  his Latin educators group on Facebook....







Did you catch that??? Steve's friend at Cambridge looked at THE Butler manuscripts. Talk about consulting the source!  This is like six degrees of separation-- with a few tweets, emails, and posts we were able to find a scholar with access to an original document to guide our understanding.  What else can we research?! 


This has be such an engaging and fun use of modern social media to solve an ancient mystery. I echo Mr. Steve Perkins' sentiments!

I contacted the Classics professor at my local university, but we still haven't come upon an answer for oam.




The mystery continues!  

Jumat, 17 April 2015

Happy Telemachus Appreciation Day!

I LOVE it when students are just as nerdy as I am.

Last year reading Homer's Odyssey and watching the 1997 made-for-TV movie starring Armand Assante, a trio of students were so intrigued (read: obssessed) with Odysseus' son Telemachus, that they tracked down the actor, Alan Stenson, who played him in the film, created fan club t-shirts (including one for me!), and shared pictures of the us wearing the shirts via social media, declaring themselves "Stensonites."




And if that wasn't enough, almost a year later on Valentine's Day, one of these same students sent me Telemachus themed valentines via Twitter and, of course, tweeted them to Mr. Stenson.



So here we are, April 17th, and this year's crop of students are reading/watching The Odyssey, and in honor of seeing Telemachus projected on the screen in my room, my wonderfully nerdy former students deemed today "Telemachus Appreciation Day."




My current senior students aren't as impressed with our nerdiness, but one joined the fun, tweeting...



So in honor of Telemachus Appreciation Day, we wore our shirts again...


And tweeted more pics to Alan Stenson....



Thank the gods, actor Alan Stenson is a good sport!






Senin, 09 Maret 2015

Reading for the Jaded Student & All: Curriculet partners with USA Today

I'm super stoked for today's announcement from Curriculet.

Curriculet has proven its worth and merit as I flip summer and independent reading, PARCC prep, and novel studies. Building on what they already do well--creating authentic reading experiences for students and behind the scenes data for teachers to use to drive instruction--  Curriculet is announcing a partnership with USA Today:

"Now, students and teachers can access relevant and timely news from USA TODAY through Curriculet's dynamic reading platform. In addition to its free on-demand digital library filled with popular books, Curriculet now allows students to read news articles with embedded assessments that develop literacy skills and build subject area knowledge. Known as "curriculets," these integrated checkpoints focus on specific skills and Common Core Standards.

Every day, Curriculet delivers articles curated for classrooms and pre-loaded with interactive layers of instruction that include annotations, rich media and question sets. Every article includes three differentiated layers targeted to elementary, middle and high school reading levels so that each student can interact with the text.

Curriculet’s real-time reporting feature lets teachers track student achievement in every assignment. Teachers can assess progress on standards and literacy skills, track time spent on-task, and identify where individual learning gaps are. 
Whereas other news services for students offer outdated news stories, Curriculet’s partnership with USA TODAY makes it possible to supply students with articles the day after publication, in their original form."

Here's why I am excited about this announcement:  Curriculet is providing me with another way to reach struggling readers and jaded students.  To be honest, I'm not worried about my Honors students-- they will read whatever I give them--but, I'm worried about getting and keeping my lower-level freshmen and disaffected seniors reading. Asking them to sustain their attention for a whole novel is a Herculean feat. They often give up before they ever get started, intimidated by the length and preconceived notions about reading for class. But reading one, heck, even two short, high-interest articles a day (and answering a few questions and clicking on a few annotations) will build a daily habit for reading because they can do it.

Curriculet's partnership will enable me to give my students relevant and current SHORT reading pieces that appeal to their interests AND provides me with data on their skills--and I don't have to do any extra work. Like reading the newspaper, I can keep my students up to date on current events, sports, national news, international events, and my favorite category, "Good News" featuring positive focused human interest stories.
Selection of articles updated daily with older ones still available.

My seniors who usually fight me on EVERYTHING I ask them to do can't complain about reading a short article.  My reluctant freshmen who don't feel like they are competent readers can feel competent with Curriculet. There's no harm; there's nothing to fear.  High interest, appropriate reading level-- read it, enjoy it, and answer a few questions for me...  nothing too arduous.  And since each article targets one specific Common Core Standard at a time, I can keep an eye on their skills and alignment to the standards with little effort on my part.

Data on student reading performance:
available by student & question
Beta-testing the USA-Today feature two weeks ago, it was seamless to choose articles and assign them to my students. Clicking on USA Today in the navigation ribbon, I selected and assigned texts the same way as I normally do in Curriculet.   Since the students are already familiar with reading via Curriculet, it didn't seem like anything new to them either. I started off with articles on Mars exploration, high school basketball, and the movie American Sniper.

Whole class progress bar for easy viewing

In each of my 5 classes the same thing happened each day: my better-performing, compliant students got started right away, opened the articles, and I listened to them chat with their neighbors... "Hey, this is cool what the team did for this girl. Reminds me of the Challenger League we have here at Southern... Oh, I want to see that American Sniper movie...  Wow, it is based on a true story?... Whoa they showed this movie in Baghdad? People had to freak!... What?1 There was a contest to go to Mars? That is crazy!... I think it would be cool to be part of that...No way dude, I'm happy here on Earth." 

From the article, What moviegoers in Baghdad think of American Sniper,
students answer questions embedded in the text.

Overhearing the conversations, my lower-performing, not-always-compliant students were intrigued and, not wanting to miss out, opened Curriculet and started reading. I circulated around the room checking in with groups of students and then called the class together for a wrap up discussion. We talked about perspective and audience perception, inclusion of special needs folks, and setting and achieving long term goals.  All of that was accomplished with three short, nonfiction articles. On days two and three of our beta-testing, I didn't need to prod any students to get started, they jumped right into reading new articles and we had a repeat of engaging class discussions.  The positive energy carried into the rest of the period as we switched to reading Hamlet (seniors) or The Odyssey (also in Curriculet).

I really like that I'm not sending my students to another site for nonfiction, digital reading.  Within Curriculet, students can read anything and everything from contemporary YA lit novels from publishers to canonical texts to documents I upload to current nonfiction articles.  With its broad service offerings, Curriculet once again proves to me that is the only digital reading tool I need to get all my students reading.

I envision using the Curriculet-USA Today articles as a daily Do Now/Bell Ringer activity for all of my classes. Students enter the classroom, grab a Chromebook or sign on their smartphones and spend the first few minutes of class reading, answering questions, and discussing the articles with their neighbors. We could continue to do a quick round-robin discussion of the articles and what they found interesting in each. Students are staying informed on current events AND demonstrating valuable life reading skills.

There are so many MORE activities I could do with Curriculet & USA Today!
I'd love to read about your ideas, too. Please comment and share!





Minggu, 08 Maret 2015

Literally Up in the Air with Google Cloud Printing

So I am on my way to the #SxSWEdu conference and I'm typing this post while sitting in seat 34C on a Delta airplane.  In the mad dash to get out of the house on time (ugh, 5:30 am), I didn't have a chance to write up information about family schedules and lunches for my husband who will be running the show while I'm gone.

I splurged ($16) for the Go-Go Inflight wifi access, and thank heavens I did! Working on the plane, I typed up the schedule and notes for school in a Google Doc, shared it with my husband so he could read it on his phone, and sent the doc to our home printer on which I had previously set up the Google Cloud Printing services.  With a quick text message to my husband to make sure the printer was turned on, I sent it off from 10,000 feet in the air. And, wa-la, magically the document was printed!

Google Cloud Printing is literally a life saver helping to make sure things run smoothly at home.