Banned Websites?

Each year, I "celebrate" Banned Books Week by pointing out all the banned books which sit on my classroom bookshelves, discussing the ones which you have already read, and the classics you will be assigned to read.  Therefore, when I came across this article in The New York Times:  A Call for Opening Up Web Access at Schools, I was intrigued.  Is the practice of blocking certain websites in schools synonymous with banning books?  


The rules for commenting on this post:
Read the article first. Find some interesting sentence or section of the article and format your comment around that part.  Quote it!  Read comments posted by previous students.  Then, either comment on something original or refer to another student's comment and add your own spin.  Please do not repeat the same mantra over and over again.

Goals

Okay, so now that the school year is underway, I’m sure that a few of you have thought about what you want to accomplish this year. Looking at my life, I’ve started to set goals for myself as I believe all of you should do. What I want to know is this:

• Do you have any goals?
• Why are they important to you?
• Are these goals that you want to complete in one month? One year? Five years? Are your goals something that you want to continue to work on forever? (Eating healthy, helping others, etc.)

Your goals don’t have to be something like “get good grades.” (That should be a priority for all of you.) They could deal with family, school, social stuff, competitions, health, ANYTHING. For example, my two goals are to make the math team for my grade and place individually in the top 25 in state, and to read through the entire list of books on teenreads.com (around 400 books) by the end of my sophomore year.

The key to finding out what your goals should be is to think about what you want out of your life. Once you do that, ideas should come pouring out. Afterwards, it’s all a matter of figuring out how you’ll achieve what you want and getting to work!

Caterina Golner

Period 2 (Class of 2011) :)

My Top Ten List (Again)

Last year, I posted this list of Top Ten:


My Top Ten Ways to Procrastinate Grading Papers
1. Playing Scrabble
2. Reading
3. Watching mindless TV
4. Playing with my kids
5. Cooking
6. Finding interesting articles to blog
7. On-line shopping
8. Texting
9. Facebook
10.  Running (I hate running....)


At the request of a previous student (thanks, Cat), I'm posting a new Top Ten list.   Apparently, you are all boring and falling into the crazy pattern of posting comments that fall into the category of "This is what I think Mrs. Powers wants me to write." Yuck.  (And, btw, I do not want you to DO that - ever. Be who you are!)


Here is my new list......


My Top Ten TV Shows 
Bet you all thought I would list Best Books  or  Grammar Mistakes! Oh, I have a life outside of English; I swear I do. I'll save those two top ten lists for another day.  For now, I will let you in on my dirty little secret addiction: TV.  Here is a list of the shows I never miss!!


1. Dexter
2. Criminal Minds
3. Flipping Out
4. Any Housewives of... (but especially New Jersey)
5. Curb Your Enthusiasm
6. Modern Family
7. How I Met Your Mother
8. Gray's Anatomy
9. In the Middle (edit) GLEE (HOW did I forget Glee?)
10. True Blood and Vampire Diaries (both vampire shows so I'm allowed to give them a tie)


Now, before you comment, here is the biggest rule:  You can comment on my list of Top Ten or another student's list, but you can NOT repeat the same topic.  In other words, no more Top Ten TV Shows lists. Come up with your ideas!!!


For example, you can say, "Hey, Mrs. Powers, I love watching Vampire Diaries, too! My list is the Top Ten _____"  <---  then you fill in the blank!  :-)


Let's have fun and show those personalities!

A Reason to Visit the Principal

I just read this article Go to the Office!

It's really an interesting thought.

How often have you gone to the office to meet with principal?

Who wants to?

Read the article.

Do something fantastic.  I will send you to Dr. Kaplan and Mr. Segarra.