1. Describe the tone of the poem “The Funeral” and explicate the poem using the chart we made. What similarities did you find between this poem and “The Courage That My Mother Had”?
2. Visit Poetry 180 and choose a poem to talk about on tomorrow.

What features do you think the cell phone of the future will have? What tasks would you want that cell phone to be able to perform? 

As part of the Horizon Project, several students have envisioned the future of the cell phone.

 Here is a video by Atif, a student at the ISD school in Bangladesh, who is one of the students involved in this project. I learned of this video from the coolcatteacher blog. What marvelous ideas Atif displays!

Take a look at the presentation I have embedded in this post. I first discovered this incredible slide show, “Do You Know,” on Karl Fisch’s blog. Recently, Mr. Fisch permitted a young man named Jeff Brenman to remix the presentation. Mr. Berman’s new version won Slideshare’s World’s Best Presentation Contest.

Jeff’s version is awesome. Does this give you ideas for your next presentation?

I have also embedded a modified version of Mr. Fisch’s original presentation for the sake of comparison. This modified version was created by Scott McLeod. Mr. McLeod has removed slides that were specific to Mr. Fisch’s school district.
While the presentation was intended for educators, I think it is important for students to view.

Earlier this week, we visited Blogical Minds and tired to guess the subject of this picture. We had fun sharing our answers with the students on their blog. To learn the answer, visit Blogical Minds class blog or visit Mr. Fisher’s class blog.

We just finished writing our paper on “What is a Teenager?” I ran across some interesting web sites that provided definitions. Time magazine’s 2005 article, “Being 13,” takes a look at the differences between teens from earlier generations and comparing them to the current generation.  This August 2005 special report issue focuses on several articles dealing with the lives of new teenagers.  Several Thirteen year olds reflect on being aged thirteen.

Tell us your story. What was it like for you being thirteen?

Here are more links related to Speak

• Laurie Halse Anderson’s blog
• Laurie Halse Anderson’s web site
• Laurie Halse Anderson’s page on MySpace
• Article about Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Life After Death by PowerPoint
I found this amusing video by Don McMillan posted on the U Tech Tips web site. This humorous presentation highlights some of the mistakes many make when using PowerPoint. You will have to view the video from a computer outside of the school environment because the video is hosted on a MySpace web page.
Life After Death by PowerPoint

I have restored the link to the South Fayette Library blog. Because I had not prepared you properly for commenting by having each create a Google account, many of you were not able to leave comments on this blog. We have received excellent responses to our commenting from other authors.

I have learned, through our Speak experience, that effective blogging and commenting is about conversation. Removing the link cut off a thread of that conversation. My thanks to all of you–my students, Vicki Davis, and James Brush–for helping me learn a valuable lesson.

Update May 6, 2007 – I have restored the link to the South Fayette Library blog.

After completing your assignment, return here to write your comments about Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak.

1. Read three on-line book reviews about Speak
2. Visit one of these blogs and write a comment about your feelings about the book
   • Coyote Mercury (by James Brush – high school teacher and writer)
   • South Fayette Library
     
   • Memphis Reads
   • Hopkinton High School
     
3. Write your own review

Here is a copy of a story I shared with my students to demonstrate the writing of a narrative. They really enjoyed it.