Dragon Booktalk: SOHS English Lit Circs

Noel Gnadinger, one of our SOHS librarians (and writer of the Pyramid Grant that got our school the equipment for podcasting!), invited me to co-present a session with her at this weekend’s Kentucky Library Association  / Kentucky School Media Association annual convention in Louisville.  ”Getting their Fifteen Minutes of Fame: High School Podcasting of Literature Circles” gave us a great opportunity to talk with librarians and media specialists from around the state.  I hope the attendees got an idea or two, or at least were inspired to bring podcasting into their own schools.   Thanks, Noel!

New podcasts will be coming in November . . .

–Mr. Watson

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Dragon Booktalk makes the cover of the April 2009 issue of Kentucky Teacher, sent to all of the educators of the Bluegrass State.  The article covers many aspects of our podcasting project, and includes Kentucky Core Content 4.1 standards that it supports.  Special thanks to Matthew Tungate for writing the article and Amy Wallot for photograpy.

 To view and download a PDF copy, click here and look on page 8.

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Lots of exciting news to report!

First of all, a quick primer: the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is a hundred year-old organization with over 50,000 international members.  With various scholastic journals, online publications, and outreach programs, its goal is the improvement of English literature and language education. 

I was informed today by Lori Bianchini, editor of the NCTE’s electronic newsletter INBOX, that our podcast site and Sara Cunningham’s C-J article were being mentioned in its Feb. 3 edition.  The newsletter has 115,000 subscribers!  The link is below:

http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Newsletter/archive/2-3-09.htm

In addition, Millie Davis @ the NCTE Inbox Blog also posted an entry highlighting our site in her Feb. 3 entry:

http://ncteinbox.blogspot.com/2009/02/bringing-school-learning-home.html

I can’t thank Ms. Bianchini and Ms. Davis enough for their time and consideration.

Speaking of time and consideration, I want to thank both Larry Colton (Counting Coup) and Michael D’Antonio (Hershey) for contacting me recently.  They have visited the site and listened to the podcasts, and sent congratulations to the students for their literacy labors.

Let me give one more shout-out to Kristi Wright, an excellent new teacher at SOHS and one of my co-teachers from this past semester, who helped organize, assess, and manage the student podcasts.

The next round of podcast won’t be until at least May, so until then, click on a book title on the right, listen to some literature discussions, and top it off with a book commercial!

–Adam Watson, February 2009

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I want to thank Sara Cunningham (reporter) and Chris Hall (photographer) for taking the time to interview and photograph one of my classes for The Courier-Journal article below (published in the Neighborhood section, January 21, 2009):

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090121/ZONE09/901210362/-1/ZONE09

I can’t stress enough how the hard work of this site is from the STUDENTS.  They are responsible for the wonderful insights, lively conversations, illustrations, and literary critiques.  Me?  I just give some guidance, and upload them.

Dragon Booktalk is all about finding an authentic audience.  We welcome new visitors to our site!  Feel free to find a book of interest (click on the appropriate Category on the right side of this page) and follow the literary conversation, or check out the student book commercials; the most recent ones are done below.

It will be a few months before my current classes will start their podcast projects.  So new updates won’t happen until April or May.  Until then . . . grab one of our titles, begin reading,  find the first podcast of the thread, and become part of our virtual literature circle!

As always, feel free to contact me through this site or through my school at www.sohs.net (click on Departments, English, and my name).

Sincerely,

Adam Watson

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Welcome to our next round of podcasts, as the other two English classes of Fall 2008 begin posting their discussions which will culminate in their book commercials.  The students will discuss Hershey by Michael D’Antonio, Counting Coup by Larry Colton, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.

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Welcome to South Oldham High School’s literature circle podcast show!   Over the next two weeks, you’ll be hearing from five different circles in Mr. Watson’s Advanced English II first block class.    Click and listen as we discuss The Devil in the White City and Isaac’s Storm (both by Erik Larson), Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand, Counting Coup by Larry Colton, and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.  Stay tuned as their circles culminate in book commercials that will hopefully persuade you to pick one of our books up for yourself . . . or grab one now, and read along as they journey through the pages.

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