First of all, my wife and I were blessed with a second daughter last month: Aria Dawn!
The second bit of news involves my students. I discovered an interesting UK website called Book Drum. Books are "profiled" with detailed notes and multimedia; think of a footnoted "critical edition" of a text, but with Internet steroids. At the time, my AP Lit and Comp seniors were about to begin reading Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. The book was not yet profiled, and I thought a class project creating such a profile would be an interesting opportunity and way to publish student work. I contacted the site editor, who told me that not only had a class of students never done a profile for the site, no one had ever done a large group collaboration, period. Holding my breath, we plunged in.
The results are now on the Book Drum website, and currently featured on their home page. In addition, I wrote a reflective article on the process and project, which is also on the site.
You can click here to see the book profile.
Or here to read the reflective article.
On the creative side of things, not much to report. Last year I taught AP Literature and Composition for the first time, so between prepping for the class and getting ready for baby, not a lot of original writing energy or time. I hope to at least punch out a short story or two this year, perhaps along with more educational articles.
Happy summer!
