Aiken Writing Project

I'm not sure if anyone is reading this since the institute in June. I dropped off the face of the "techno" portion of this Earth for the month of July and am reluctantly getting back to things as the school year begins. Strangely, and probably as a result of the June Institute, I'm invigorated to try some new things. That's where I'm hoping for some help.

I'm teaching English 360--Composition Studies, a course required of Secondary Education--English majors, for the very first time this semester and have been batting around some ideas. One of those ideas is a textbook analysis that will require students to review a writing textbook in the context of the theoretical frameworks we will be discussing in class.

Can someone give me some titles of textbooks used in Aiken County schools that discuss writing? I would like to add these to the list of possible textbooks to analyze. If possible, I would also like to know where I can get my grubby little mitts on those textbooks. Any ideas?

In the meantime, I trust everyone has had a relaxing and productive summer--Deb's pool notwithstanding-- and is looking forward to the new school year.

You guys all know about my redneck "pool on the porch", right? Well, I dragged it out, spent half a day setting it up, and the other half filling it, hooking up the filter, adding chemicals, testing ph, etc. I expected to be able to float after the luncheon Friday. I was totally looking forward to some down-time floating.
Well, of course that didn't happen. (anyone surprised?) LOL!
When I got home it looked more like a giant bird bath fountain, spurting water from several small holes all over my porch. (the good part is the flower bed was well watered!)
SOOOooooo, after much debate about putting in a real pool, my cheap husband (he really SHOULD be married to Kim!!! hehehehe) decided (OK, so I agree) that we should wait until fall when the pool companies have sales. So off I go to Wally World to buy another redneck porch pool. They don't have the same size. I go bigger, which is the only way they offer (and what sucks is that bigger is now cheaper than my porch pool). I get home, sweat for 35 minutes just dragging the box from the car to the porch, open it all up and discover NO WAY is this thing gonna fit on the porch.
I've been babying my grass for 6 years. It's finally covering the spot under the oak that's been bald for nearly 20 years. I talk to husband, and guess what? My finally growing grass place is the most level place in the entire yard. ON MY PRECIOUS BABY GRASS!!!!!!! YIKES! Husband and I have some major discussions.
He says grass will grow back. I say what? when I'm too old to see it? He says, don't worry, we can do sod, and what difference does it REALLY make when this fall we're gonna rip out all my babied grass in the backyard to put in a real pool anyway. I'm devastated about my grass, but I'm thinking....hell, with the pool covering it up, who will know there's no grass there, anyway?
So....I am no longer a porch pool redneck. Now I'm just a front yard pool redneck. And next year I'll just be a grassless front yard redneck with a real pool in the backyard.
Movin' on up! LOL!
I'm thinking I should've put this on on MY SPACE. Hmmmmm....

Lynne:

Just a quickie to tell you how much I enjoyed seeing your beautiful home and gardens! What a peaceful and relaxing place you have to go home to at the end of the day!
Thanks very much for sharing it with me, and thanks, too, for the plant you sent home with me.
I hope that in the next few days you will know the absolute and total joy of being a grandmother. There's nothing like it on Earth!

OK, so I don't know what I'm doing with all this BLOG stuff, because I'm new to it (I've done list serves and message board for years, but this is a little different), and this may show up anywhere, or not at all, but I just wanted you guys to know this one thing. (And I hope you see it....somewhere....~~~~~)
I've talked to several people who have done a Writing Project here or there, and all of them said, "It changed my life!!!!"
I (like most of you) kept waiting and waiting for that life-changing moment to come to me. I loved all of the presentations and the mini-lessons and everything, and I'm gonna steal a whole bunch of stuff from them all, but nothing struck me as life-changing.
But then....at the end, I realized that yes, my life had been changed.
Each and every one of you has affected my life, just by our having met. But that wasn't the only thing. Through your writing, and just through our joking around and talking, I know more about some of you than I know about a whole lot of folks I am in contact with on a regular basis. I've heard abuot your pasts and your presents, your hopes and your dreams. You've heard mine, too. We all want to be the best we can be, and we all have baggage.
We all, in reality, might go "POOF" and disappear from one another after a week or so, but something about YOU touched something inside of me. And that will stay with me always.
I'm not trying to be all sappy or anything, but YOU guys have changed my life, just by my having met you. Thanks.

Just wanted to thank Denise again for allowing our crazy group to come to her house and swim. We had a great time but missed those who couldn't make it. Hammy came with Debbi, she is soooooooo.... cute.

Conjunction Junction

Interjections!

Here is the "Tea Partay" video.

I've attached the PowerPoint for Karl's Comma Cabana. You should be able to click on the link below and download it.

I tracked down the web site for the free concept mapping software. You should be able to download the software and install it on your own computer or the school computers.

As I worked a bit on my position paper on plagiarism and noted that folks are posting some creative work on this web site, I got thinking about intellectual property issues. Specifically, I got to thinking about how we want to protect our work in this site. Of course, we can simply slap a trademark and/or copyright statement in the footer of all the web pages. In the spirit of our own sharing during the Summer Institute, I suggest that we consider a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons allows folks to control how their material is copyrighted, and, as I understand the matter, has stood up in court. For example, I have created a Creative Commons license for my personal web site that allows people to use my material as long as they attribute the work to me, make it available to others, and do not make any money off of my work. Whether or not we choose to go with Creative Commons, we really should do something to protect the excellent work folks have posted here.

By the way, the folks at Creative Commons have a new initiative to provide Open Educational Resources. It should be worth a look.