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Showing posts from August 11, 2013

"Nobody Cares"

Today, my son was being rude to his younger brother. There's a six year age difference, repsectively 10 and 4. The younger brother nagged the eldest and his response was "nobody cares." After lecturing the eldest on the power in the comment "nobody cares," I wrote this poem. It consists of my tirades as I tried to reason the power in the comment, "Nobody Cares." "Nobody Cares" Yes, it's mean and the little brother of "I don't care!" But let me tell you what else it is. Nobody cares is how things get broken. How projects get formed. How disasters aren't prevented. How children lose hope. Nobody cares is real. It's urban. It's statistics. It's a feeling. It's ignorance. Now care. -Jean Darnell

Teaching Vocabulary!

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Rather than the typical 4 CORNERS Graphic organizer (see picture below), let's "kick it up a notch" and add some technology to the mix. I discovered this wonderful visual graphic organizer called Visuword! Finally a site that does some of the hard work for us teachers, without spending half our conference period running copies! (smile) Visuword is an online graphic dictionary that functions as a dictionary, thesaurus, graphic organizer and tutor all in one! See an excerpt below from their website and go and DISCOVER the wonders that encompass VISUWORD!! Visuwords™ online graphical dictionary — Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate. Enter words into the search box to look them up or double-click a node to expand the tree. Click and drag the background to pan around and use the mouse wheel to zoom. Hover over nodes to see the definition and cli