The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills website is a homepage of an advocacy group who focuses on bringing 21st century skills into classrooms.  Upon first coming across the page, I was very excited.  I expected to find great resources on how to bring these skills into my classroom.  However, upon further exploration, I found there to be a lack of resources with the exception of ones that cost money.  They formulate a framework, but lack a discussion of "how to" that modern educators crave. While it's nice to know that there is someone out there fighting the battle of bringing 21st century skills into classrooms, but I left the website unsure of what role they were playing.  This is not a site I plan to bookmark and visit regularly in the future.

A Day No Pigs Would Die Blog

I teach an 8th grade Integrated Language Arts unit on the novel "A Day No Pigs Would Die" by Robert Newton Peck to a mixed group of general education and special education students.  In the past, I have introduced the unit by have the students answer and discuss the following statements on an anticipation handout:

• An animal can be a best friend.
• Growing up is painful.
• People are not always what they seem.
• First impressions are deceiving.
• Death should not be an emotional experience.
• Men should never cry.  If they do, they are babies.
• You cannot become an adult unless you live through difficult experiences
  

These controversial questions are a very important component of the unit.  One of the culminating activities is to write a persuasive paper on one of the questions from the anticipation guide.  Having a classroom Blog where students can state and discuss their opinions will allow them to have a more complete and focused persuasive argument for their essay.  I foresee the students posing a position and then other students asking questions about it, posing a counter position with supported reasoning, or argeeing with the student's position while giving additional support.  Use of the blogging medium will allow all students, not just those who volunteer, to actively state their opinions and use information from their personal experiences and the text to support it.  The interactive aspect of the blog will give the students practice defending their viewpoints.  They will have a stronger argument because they will already have heard some of the possible counter points posed by the audience who disagrees.

Wow!  Here we are already, my first post.  Hopefully, this is the first of many very insightful and useful posts to come.  Keep tuned in!