I’m guessing that others have thought of this, though I haven’t seen it done elsewhere. Does anybody use a learning-community model for developmental reading? We’re looking at mimicking the structure of an ALP for reading, but appending the extra-help reading section to sections of courses in areas like psychology and history. The idea is to help students in the subject areas do better by actually doing the reading (and doing it well), and to help them see the point of learning strategies for reading by embedding the assignments in subject-matter courses that count towards their degree.
Surely, someone must have done this by now. Does anyone know? And if they have, any lessons learned that you’d pass on to folks looking at trying it?
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The Boy’s graduation ceremony went well. It was crazy-hot outside, but at least it stopped raining for a day, and the ceremony itself went quickly.
He led the audience in the pledge of allegiance. I know I’m biased, but I thought he sounded pretty good.
Other than focusing on my own kids, the major takeaway for me was the way they read names. His graduating class had over 450 students in it, so reading names was a volume business (no pun intended). They had two of the officers from the student government read the names. One young man stood on the left of the stage, and one young woman stood on the right. They alternated names as the graduates walked up middle. The alternating baritone/alto voices kept it from getting as monotonous as it otherwise could, and the entire ceremony -- including speeches -- took less than an hour. I was impressed.
TB noted that exactly two months to the day after his graduation is his college orientation. We’re still trying to process that one.
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Last weekend, as a belated Father’s Day gift, we went to a baseball game for the local minor-league team, the Lakewood Blue Claws. (They’re a AA affiliate of the Phillies, for those keeping score at home.) Unbeknownst to us until we arrived, it was “Grateful Dead” night. The stadium played Grateful Dead songs over the P.A. system, and the players and mascot wore tie-dye.
Quoth The Girl: “What’s the Grateful Dead?”
She wasn’t kidding. Age sneaks up on you.
