Junior High English Teacher

I Got Paid for an Article!

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 06:20:50 -0800

I know the focus of this posting should be on the research I did and what I learned, but...I got paid for an article! I've had other pieces published, both prose and poetry, but this is the first time I've been paid for my writing in anything oth...

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Highly Motivated Literacy Practice

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:53:58 -0800

Enjoy Josh's and Sophie's Santa letters for this year. Josh (8) is pretty proud that this is the first year he wrote it all by himself. Daddy had to take the pen away from Sophie (5) so that they could get to bed tonight. It's amazing how motiva...

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Aha! It's All about Executive Function

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:08:52 -0800

Yesterday, in my 3rd block 7th grade class, a boy who has been tortured by the intricacies of sentence diagramming, stood up and shouted, "I get it!" and added, "Mrs. Behnke, it's like 'I ate spaghetti. Ate what? Spaghetti.'" And with that, he...

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5-Paragraph-o-phobia Continued

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:48:48 -0800

I've been reflecting on why the idea of teaching a 5 paragraph essay unit would bother me so much that I would run off to the National Writing Project archives for research against the practice. In laying out my unit calendar and pulling together...

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5-Paragraph-o-phobia

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:05:25 -0800

Let me begin by admitting that I am not a fan of “the 5 paragraph essay.” In fact, I might even call myself evangelical in my pursuit to eradicate the pedagogy of “the 5 paragraph essay” from teaching. I‘ve told my high school students that they...

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"I Feel Like a Professional Writer"

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:01:21 -0700

Two years ago, when I was on sabbatical (and this blog was dedicated to my learning and research), I read a lot about "agency." How can we make students the agents of their learning? How does our curriculum promote agency? Much of the research I...

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Junior High Academic Writing: To Narrative or Not to Narrative?

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:45:15 -0700

A wise woman I know, a social worker of long experience, asked me once why I required my students to write about anything but themselves. The best stories, the ones with the most life and detail she believed, come out when teenagers write fr...

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Paintings from Poems

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:13:44 -0700

The Kingdom by Fuad Rifka His kingdom is a n ancient lamp, a walking stick, a water bag. At the door of his dwelling the sun slants and the stars are resting. Fatality by Ruben Dario The tree is happy b...

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OCP Artists at Work

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 09:12:27 -0700

See more at our Picassa slideshow. (I'm blogging during class so I don't have time to learn how to embed it!)

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Poetry: What Can We Make of It?

nobody@vox.com(Jen Budenski) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:10:52 -0700

In previous years, I've used visual art as an entry to both creative and academic writing, novels and poetry. Drawing offers a way to teach observation, even reading in a way that helps kids deprogram from previous poetry experiences that had th...

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