The Last Lecture

Today, Randy Pausch, a charismatic professor of computer science at Carnegie Melon, died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. If you ever need a little inspiration, a little pick me up (and as the start of school gets closer and closer we all might find ourselves needing this), take and hour and watch the YouTube video of his presentation at Melon's "The Last Lecture Series." It's on pursuing dreams.

Randy Pausch

Chaucer Audio Files

Those teaching English Literature might find this interesting.

Chaucer Metapage Audio Files

Listen to excerpts of the Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde, and other poems by Chaucer read in the middle English.

Newly added:

Norton Old and Middle English Audio Files

This has Beowulf read by Seamus Heaney, as well as other cool texts.

Newsweek Education Program Discontinued

But I downloaded some resources from the web before they took the content off. I have a PDF file for the 2007-2008 Essay Collection and teacher guide, along with some of their "tool box" documents. I thought I could use them to help teach reading and writing informational text. If anyone is interested in have these documents let me know. I can post them to my Google pages website or to UEN for download.

List of 10 Books to Read Before You Die

Thought this was interesting. On AOL today there was a blurb about ten books people should read before they die. Here is the list:

10. Gone With the Wind
9. The Lord of the Rings *
8. Harry Potter Series *
7. The Stand (by Steven King)
6. The Da Vinci Code (by Dan Brown) *
5. To Kill a Mockingbird *
4. Angels and Demons (by Dan Brown) *
3. Atlas Shrugged (by Ayn Rand)
2. Catcher in the Rye *
1. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series (by Douglas Adams)

AOL didn't say who recommends these books, but I thought it was an interesting list. I've read 6 of the ten (marked by *). Here is a link for the article. The author has explained why each book is listed.

Top 10 Books

New Blog

I've got the new blog started. This is for ANYONE--not just UVU students. I'll leave it up to you to post anything from this blog over to the other (Kira--lesson plans!).

Feel free to share the addy with anyone you want. Right now I'm leaving myself as administrator. If there are features you want to see on the blog, just post me and I'll add them.

Here's the addy:
http://eng-la-zone.blogspot.com/

Inviting some new people

Hey! How's summer? I just got done with the Nebo New Teacher Induction--four days of fun.

I met some people who were interested in the blog. Thought I'd better run it by you guys first before I just invite them. So here are my questions:

1--Should I give them the addy but not the password or sign in?
2--Should I give them the whole shebang?
3--Should I just forget it and never post them any info?

It should be known that some of these are "BYU" people. I 'm discovering they do have a certain way about them.

Let me know what you think.
Rillene

So, How Many Units Will I Need?

OK--so I should have thought of this sooner, but I didn't so now I'm forced to look like an idiot and ask this dumb question. Anyone have an idea approximately how many units it takes to cover a year of school?

I mean, I know I need as many as it takes to cover the standards. So far I have 8 in outline form and I still have weeks of school left. How are the rest of you doing? What are you discovering? Do your schools have curriculum maps they ask you to follow? How do the various teachers keep track of what the others are doing? Are your Departments well oiled machines, or are there funky things going on? I've had my first "situation of the day" moment and school hasn't even started yet. Yikes!