Friday, September 5, 2008

Identity boxes, blogging, listserves, NCTE, and staying in touch

Hello everyone,
It's great to get back here and hear what you are doing. It sounds as if many of you are off to a great start. I, too, began teaching last week and am beginning a freshman seminar on the Arts in NYC with identity boxes and the "Where I'm From" poem. We also have a blog (thank you, Larry, for showing me the power of blogging) and I intend to post my students' readings/performances of their poems in a few weeks.

That said, we want to invite you to begin posting your news updates, classroom stories, and ideas about curriculum on the HEN listserve. We don't want to disable the blog....but we do want to integrate your group with the two other groups who have participated in the summer seminar. As we understand it, the blog is not able to accomodate all of us. To get started, you will all soon be receiving an email from Jennifer about the HEN listserve (hosted by the National Writing Project) and what you need to do if you haven't yet registered. We may lose some of the graphics and exciting images of our blog, but the HEN listserve will enable you to share your thinking, questions, and reflections about teaching the Holocaust with the participants from 2006 nad 2007. I know these teachers will be delighted to hear about what you are doing and they will also be able to share their own classroom work and to respond to queries about books, films, and other Holocaust-related issues with great insight and wisdom.

Certainly, we can keep both going....and see how we feel about the way these different technologies work. If we prefer to stay with the blog, we can. But we hope you will give the HEN listserve a try. And for sure, the main thing is that we continue to find ways to stay in touch.

Finally, I hope we will see as many of you as possible at NCTE.

All the best to all of you,
Sondra

3 comments:

Mrs. Bethune said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mrs. Bethune said...

Sondra -

I've enjoyed receiving messages from the listserve group. The more communication we can have the better. It keeps me refreshed and confident in what I'm doing locally.

I'm really excited to see everyone in San Antonio!

~Danielle

Mr. Neuburger said...

Sondra,
There are new rules with blogger allowing 100 authors. I agree with Danielle about having the list serve as well the blog. It's nice to hear from those not involved with the blog.
BTW
I sent a reply email Sunday evening regarding how to invite the previous seminar participants. I will resend it.