April 2009

  • Novel Study Takes to the Track

    My all-time favourite novel is Heartbeat by Sharon Creech. I have been sharing it with my class all week long. We’ve been listening to the audio book and following along with copies of the novel. I can’t say enough good things about this book. It is beautiful and poetic and tells a really great story. […]


  • The Collective Inkwell Fiction Contest Entry

    I submitted a story to The Collective Inkwell Creative Fiction Contest.  My story is called “The Thought Alone.” I hope you will head over to http://collectiveinkwell.com/creative-fiction-contest/ read the entire story.  The task was to build a story from one of two prompts. This was the prompt I chose  b) How could she have known that simply crossing […]


  • Teaching Tip Tuesday – Be Flexible

    Teachers need to be prepared. I can’t emphasize this enough. I make sure that I draw up very detailed year plans and day plans.  I am very well organized in my classroom. Unfortunately all the planning and organizing can sometimes not be enough. Teachers need to be flexible. There will always be things that interfere with our […]


  • I Thought It Wasn’t For Me

    It’s no secret that I don’t like social networking sites. I’ve written about this topic several times here on Silent Cacophony. That’s why you will probably be surprised that I have been won over by one of them. That’s right, I am on Twitter and enjoying it. At first I didn’t get it and I […]


  • It Was Bad For Me So It Will Always Be That

    Okay. Let me vent for a moment here. You may have had a teacher in the past that you didn’t see eye to eye with. You may have constantly butted heads with this person and it ruined your perception of school. Or perhaps you just weren’t a good student. You never really enjoyed school and […]


  • Forest Instead of Condos

    There are two small forest areas in my neighbourhood. They aren’t much to look at. But I often walk through them. It’s nice having a piece of nature within walking distance of my place. I think these green spaces are underappreciated in a large city such as mine. Too many people would drive by this […]


  • Teaching Tip Tuesday – Dollars Stores: Blessing or Not?

    Here is one of the best teaching tips I can share with you – Use what you have! I know that through my teaching career there have been many times when I have needed some items for a lesson that I didn’t have readily available. Sometimes these things were simple items for a science experiment […]


  • Rap Group Got Me Reading a Classic

    I consider myself to be an avid reader. You can always find a book or two on the nightstand beside my bed. I utilize the library frequently and read everything from fiction to non-fiction to comic books to young adult novels to magazines and newspapers. I’m an English major and I have read a lot […]


  • What I’m Feeling Now

    These are the best rappers making noise right now, in my humble opinion. In no particular order here they are MURS CLASSIFIED BLUE SCHOLARS SWEATSHOP UNION DEF III and FACTOR ft. MOKA ONLY This EP is amazing. Heavy, heavy rotation. Nuff said. If you don’t know about these artists run out and pick up their […]


  • Making Beats Again – Should It Be So Hard?

    I want to get back into music production. There was a time in my life when my main focus was on producing and writing music. Back then I used this Akai Sampling Keyboard and I hooked it up to an Atari 1040 ST by way of MIDI cables and I used a program called Cubase […]