A New Endeavor Across An Ocean

Through reading the Fischbowl Karl was contacted by a teacher from South Korea that is willing to work with teachers worldwide to create a "blook"--a blog filled with stories, a book on a blog! It's like a donut on a stick...but much better for you.

I just got my account on Skype and tried out the instant messenging this morning. It was 6:45 am here and 10:45 pm in Korea. Clay Burell (http://burell.blogspot.com/) and I traded ideas, asked questions and held a free, international conversation all 15 minutes before my English Lit class started. The world has just gotten flatter in my little world.


Clay's idea is to have students read portions of the Arabian Nights and have them then, write stories about their culture, their lives, starting with truth and bleeding into fiction. The premise is a frame story (an alien has landed and you've been asked to explain our world). Students will create a Thousand and One Flat World Tales, a storybook online...students of all grades, from around the world. We'll focus on 6+1 traits, fiction techniques, and hopefully our students will see a common thread between all the stories. Maybe they'll have a bigger perspective of the world (sometimes hard to create at age 13 & 14) and leave English 9 a little more focused on their dreams, their future.

I always have grandiose ideas and jump in without really knowing where I'm headed. However, with all the projects and units I've tried so far with my kids, I haven't been disappointed. They have created such meaning from literature and really tied it to their life, and then even better: they tied it to the global community. As always, I'll have a story to tell and I'll add it to the Flat World "blook."



Wish me luck! Na-jung-e bwae-yo!