Here is installment #8 of from K. It appears that K is not lacking in strong feelings on this thread. I really appreciate that. This entire TPRS thing is going to stir up feelings. Change is never devoid of emotions. But stagnancy is.
Among other things, K brought up two topics below: scripting stories and reading. As far as readings go, I would suggest that the reader go to the search function at the lower right corner of this page and search “Read and Discuss”. Readings are typically written by the teacher after a story, with some embellishments and personalized information that are designed to grab the attention of the students. The next class period after a story, of course, is when the reading based on the story is read and discussed. Generally, if a teacher doesn’t have the time to write up a story that the kids created, they simply don’t, and we read a Blaine Ray novel or some other novel (Mira Canon’s Pirates, for example, which is getting rave reviews among the TPRS community, and is available from http://www.tprstorytelling.com/index.php). The concept of tying readings to stories that the kids have created, however, is the best way to go. There is also a way of designing stories from readings. For more on this design by Anne Matava, search “scripting stories” or “backwards design” on this site.
Here, then, is K’s installment #8:
Friday was a huge success as far as French goes. We had our story session at lunch , and two teachers watched. My teacher and the teacher who sent me to the special ed room who was there on Thursday. After our story my French teacher said that we could do a few more days of stories in class! Yes!! She wants to see how we did reading last year sometime this week. I’ll send you my story that our group will read so that you can comment. Perhaps I will start scripting the lunch stories based off of student suggestions so that they are more realistic like the anonymous person said. That was the only real advice I got out of their comment. Otherwise, it was all assumptions. I addressed this in the comment I wrote on the blog. I laughed when they said that I should go to a writers’ workshop. I am looking around my room at all of the academic awards – many of which are for writing. The other thing, that made me really mad, was the part about their “learning-disabled” student. This is one of the things I hate most about the educational system -it labels kids. Being a GT kid and a disabled kid I got two labels. They mean nothing. I really hate the word “smart” but I hate the assumption that disabled students can not do anything , and thus whenever they do something, it’s amazing and the teacher is considered wonderful for teaching this kid something even more. Having cerebral palsy which affects physical ability and learning to some degree while having a 4.0 and succeeding in French proves that learning French despite being “learning-disabled” is total crap.
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
