Muhammad Ali: A D- Student? Or an F- School? | Beyond School - The Diigo Meta page

• 19 Jan 09
  

  Debra B

  fontbonnecourse assessment

• 21 May 08
  

  David Bill

  read_later education for:antonioviva

• 05 May 08
  

  Sarah Puglisi

  assessment intelligence writing

• 04 May 08
  

  Alice Mercer

  africanamerican education muhammadali policy week19 comment08

  • And teachers - English teachers, especially, but any teacher using writing to assess understanding and merit in your classrooms - ask yourself, in this age of user-created video and audio, if it makes any sense to keep giving the Muhammed Ali’s of our classrooms a D- because they can’t write well, when they can speak well enough to be honored, like Ali was, at Harvard and Oxford. The English teacher in me is uncomfortable with this question, but the history teacher in me thinks it’s justified: Writing is no longer supreme since the Digital Revolution. It’s now on equal footing with Speaking and Graphic Communication. Isn’t it?
• 28 Apr 08
  

  Fannah

  • In the real world, if you’re trying to proofread an essay, two spellings are not given.

    
    

    You’re kidding me, right? Two spellings sure as hell are given. I type my essay. I proofread by reading it. If there are spelling errors, I can see them. I right click, there are two spellings.

    • 

      Fannah on 2008-04-28

      No, you are not given two spellings. Using the current example of "duel" vs "dual": you type "duel" but the intended meaning is "dual." The computer does not catch this. When proofreading, you cannot see two spellings, you see only your incorrect "duel." If, however, you just plain spell it wrong, perhaps "duil" then yes, you will be presented with various options.
  • only in English can “ghoti” spell “fish” - lauGH wOmen naTIon

    • 

      Fannah on 2008-04-28

      What?
    • 

      Clay Burell on 2008-04-28

      gh is an f sound if lauGH.
      o is an i sound in wOmen
      ti is a sh sound in naTIon.
      
      --Get it? GH O TI = F i SH.
      
      The phonetics of English are whacked. German is a perfectly spelled language, by contrast: each word tells you how it sounds.
  • 3 more annotations...
  • • I swear, after learning the basics by grade 4 (age 10?) or so, I got more valuable “writing instruction” from addictively reading comic books and science fiction in my spare time. That, and talking to my friends and their older siblings. Language is acquired naturally more than through instruction. It’s osmosis.
    • in the eye of the average American

      • 

        Fannah on 2008-04-28

        The average American does not speak with correct grammar.
    • we are labeling kids as failures because of the narrowness of current assessment practices. Any narrow assessment scheme that is used punitively will end up hurting someone.
• 

  William Gaskins

  muhammad ali writingvsothermeans writing reading

• 

  Sylvia Martinez
• 27 Apr 08
  

  Dennis Richards

  This post is for any student who, like Ali in the epigraph above, has a low GPA (and thus a low self-image), but a brilliant mind. It’s also for teachers of those students who wish they could do their part to make that GPA more accurately reflect that student’s abilities.
  
  Listen, in this YouTube interview from 1971, to this “sub-par” English student’s brilliance with language*, and laugh at the limitations of assessing writing and spelling to measure verbal intelligence:

  writing assessment intelligence

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  Fannah on 2008-04-28
  No, you are not given two spellings. Using the current example of "duel" vs "dual": you type "duel" but the intended meaning is "dual." The computer does not catch this. When proofreading, you cannot see two spellings, you see only your incorrect "duel." If, however, you just plain spell it wrong, perhaps "duil" then yes, you will be presented with various options.
• 
  Clay Burell on 2008-04-28
  gh is an f sound if lauGH.
  o is an i sound in wOmen
  ti is a sh sound in naTIon.
  
  --Get it? GH O TI = F i SH.
  
  The phonetics of English are whacked. German is a perfectly spelled language, by contrast: each word tells you how it sounds.
• 
  Fannah on 2008-04-28
  What?
• 
  Fannah on 2008-04-28
  The average American does not speak with correct grammar.

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