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Posted by James Dittes on January 20, 2016

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Why I haven't posted today...

Thanks @therealbanksy

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Huck Finn: Essay Questions, first eight chapters

In these first eight chapters of Huckleberry Finn, I see connections with the literature that we read (covering American literature from pre-1492 to the writing of the Constitution in 1787-88).
I see a lot of Thomas Jefferson in Tom Sawyer, the way he set up a gang of robbers and tried to govern them.I think Jim, with his superstition and his witchcraft, would have been quite infamous in Salem.I think the Widow Douglass and Jonathan Edwards had a hell of a lot in commonI read about Pap and Huck's struggles to be free of his drunkenness, and I can almost see King George III, fighting to keep the American colonies under his thumb.I try to see similarities between these events and me. I connect with the stories and the characters.How do you connect with Huckleberry Finn? What are some stories from the reading that you identified with? Leave your answer as a comment below.
To receive credit, agree or disagree with one of the connections I mention above in an essay of 100 words. You …

Reflections on Testing: TNReady Round 1 for High Schools

It's been a busy break, and I haven't been able to blog.

There has been time for reflection, which I'm hoping will result in many cogent thoughts and account for my month-long break from blogging.

For the record, I have been an advocate for both testing and high standards. I have published views in favor of testing in the past, so I hope these thoughts aren't dismissed as a mere confirmation of opinions I had before Tennessee's first round of TNReady testing.

The GoalsTNReady lauched this year after the Tennessee state legislature elected not to go with PARCC testing as my state had planned to do when it adopted Common Core State Standards in 2009. Like the standards, the goal of testing was meant to ensure that students were college and career ready and an adequate measure of the new standards. (In 2013 and 2014 Tennessee had simply continued on with the previous contract that tested earlier standards.)

I was a TNCore coach this summer, so I felt confident in my k…

Why Did Microsoft include games with Windows OS? A Teaching Moment

Solitaire has always been a part of my experience as a user of Windows. But I've never stopped to wonder why it has been included in every Windows machine I have owned.
Here are some possible explanations: Did Microsoft want to balance the time saved by using technology with time that we could waste with solitaire or Freecell or Minesweeper?Did they want to show how smart I am? (I mean, I'm really good at Freecell. I win half my games.)Did they want students to be able to show teachers 'I'm bored' or 'I'm not working on your assignment' without needing to raise their hands and actually say so?Did Bill Gates have so much money that he decided to give away games free?
Turns out there are specific reasons these games are on our computers--and all of them have to do with teaching.
As reported in Mental Floss last year, Microsoft had specific reasons for the games it released with Windows 3.1 in 1992 (my junior year in college when, incidentally, I was using …

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James A Dittes

If You Must Know...

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