Kate Tabor

Chicago, IL

Kate commented on the petition | 28 days ago

Mayor of Chicago: Stop Restrictions on Public Protests

These are clear and unconstitutional limits on free speech. Save the taxpayers money that will be spent on the court challenge.
Kate signed the petition | 28 days ago

Mayor of Chicago: Stop Restrictions on Public Protests
Kate signed the petition | over 1 year ago

Letter to NBC News protesting the one-sided presentation of "Education Nation"
Kate commented on the article | about 2 years ago

Why Kids Learn Less When Schools Get Rid of Recess

Kids in my grade (7th) barely get a second to be kids. But last week our assembly was cancelled and we had 40 minutes ofthe whole grade playing Wii in the small gym. One Wii, one game, 70 kids, huge fun - it was a game called Just Dance - and everyone danced along. I teach three in a row at the end of the day. Their focus and attitude was SO MUCH improved over a normal Friday PM.

Here's my blog post about it.

Recess? Yes!
Kate signed the petition | over 2 years ago

Tell Scholastic to Stop Censoring Gay Friendly Books
Kate commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

Student: "What Should I Read?" Me: "Sedaris." You?

Yes, poetry! Yes, Mary Oliver! - Billy Collins, Robert Hass, David Waggoner too -
Kate commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

Student: "What Should I Read?" Me: "Sedaris." You?

I agree about Sorcery and Cecilia (or the Enchanted Chocolate Pot)! And I thought of the books of John Green (Looking For Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines)
Kate commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

Student: "What Should I Read?" Me: "Sedaris." You?

I say -
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. What if you were at the wrong place at the wrong time when terrorists bomb the Golden Gate Bridge? http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. A simple famtasy adventure? Or a layered allegory about censorship....

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. One of my favorite fantasy stories from a gifted writer http://journal.neilgaiman.com/
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. If you read this in 5th grade, read it again for the textured indictment of orgainzed religion and a great heroine.

Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Was Richard II of Englad really the monster that history paints him as? Great read.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. My favorite Irving of all.
Kate commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

The "Twilight" of Serious Teen Reading?

I do agree that I like to see the "popcorn" novels as the gateway tool to more complex reading. One of my former seventh grade students (who HATED reading in 7th grade) discovered Patrick O'Brien in my room in seventh grade. Last year he spent the summer at Oxford studying Shakespeare (between his junior and senior years in HS). It's the real deal moment for me as a teacher.
I haven't read The Host. And my sophomore English teacher really did make us sketch out who faced whom on the battlefield in JC. I give her credit though. She's the teacher that anchors the loathsome spectrum for me. It's good to know where that is. Here's to reading and sharing good books. Later this year my students will read Hayden's Port Huron Statement and begin to craft their own manifesto for their generation. In the words of Gil Scott-Heron - "The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will be live."
Kate commented on the article | almost 3 years ago

The "Twilight" of Serious Teen Reading?

Hey, just because I struggled through Oliver Twist and took the test on it as a freshman in 1973 does not mean that my students have to do the same. I've taught 7th grade and juniors and seniors, and this is just to say, we read. We read a lot. And the thing that pains me about teaching high school is that my students have no time for books that they pick. I can not be the reading evangelist as a high school teacher, and that is not right.

So, sure we read The Grapes of Wrath and Gatsby and huge sections of Democracy in America BUT we also read Neverwhere, Watchmen and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and if I thought I could sneak it past the boys in my American Lit class, John Greene's An Abundance of Katherines. You know, when I read Julius Caesar my English teacher made us sketch the troop formations on the a battlefield for the test and told me I was "wrong" when I suggested that Brutus was the tragic hero of the play. Ah, the good old days.

Far from being the end of reading, I believe that books like Twilight (by the way, imao the first two are the good ones in the series) show us that students are hungry for the big book, the one they can lose themselves in. Isn't that why we all fell in love with books?

In the end I tip my hat to Stephen King who defended YA lit when he said: "But reading was never dead with the kids. Au contraire, right now it's probably healthier than the adult version, which has to cope with what seems like at least 400 boring and pretentious ''literary novels'' each year. While the bigheads have been predicting (and bemoaning) the postliterate society, the kids have been supplementing their Potter with the narratives of Lemony Snicket, the adventures of teenage mastermind Artemis Fowl, Philip Pullman's challenging His Dark Materials trilogy, the Alex Rider adventures, Peter Abrahams' superb Ingrid Levin-Hill mysteries, the stories of those amazing traveling blue jeans. And of course we must not forget the unsinkable (if sometimes smelly) Captain Underpants. Also, how about a tip of the old tiara to R.L. Stine, Jo Rowling's jovial John the Baptist?"

The rest of his essay can be found here: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20044270_20044274_20050689,00.html