On August 24, 2010 a very big day will be upon us. And if you do not know what I am talking about, you probably aren’t following all that closely the work of Suzanne Collins.

That’s right, MOCKINGJAY comes out. And there is a pent up hunger in the air.

What makes this so interesting to me is that Suzanne Collins just wrote an open letter to her fans (and the web in general).

She wrote…

Dear Readers,

I can’t tell you how excited I am for the release of Mockingjay on August 24th, and how grateful I am for all the anticipation that’s been expressed in advance of the release date. One of the most important things to me is that everyone in the world is going to be able to experience the final book of The Hunger Games all at the same time, and be able to discover what happens in the book without hearing about it elsewhere first. Word will certainly travel fast, but I urge you – before or immediately after August 24th – to please respect the other Hunger Games fans worldwide and avoid sharing any spoilers, so that the conclusion of Katniss’s story can unfold for each reader the way it was meant to unfold.

I am eagerly looking forward to August 24th and the entrance of Mockingjay in the world. Then (and only then) let the conversations begin!

Sincerely,
Suzanne Collins

Amazing how times have changed in the world of books. Within hours of the book hitting the shelves, we all know that the entire plot might be revealed – or worse, spoiled.

And spoilers stink.

In this mad rush to be a part of the conversation we are now at risk of ruining the reason for the conversation in the first place by revealing the key moments of the story.

But how do avid fans talk about the book without talking about the book? Are they supposed to be cryptic? Are they supposed to be silent? Are they supposed to be anything at all?

If there is one thing about the web (this comes from something Jim Burke told me) it’s that the internet is going to be what it wants to be and you can’t control what it becomes.

Ms. Collins, I hope you are not crestfallen on August 25th. However, while your letter was nice, I do think the spoilers will be all over the web.

Simply because they just can’t help themselves.

The web keeps changing and changing and changing the world of books, doesn’t it?

So the ning business is finally going to morph into a real business and stop allowing people to use their goodies without paying for them.

Wow, brings up a whole host of stuff when it comes to writing in the online world.

Is the sale of ad space really expected to power the entire forward progress of the whole world wide web? I don’t think so. Then again, if ning doesn’t give it away free first and foremost, do they grow into the company they now are? And if they now start to charge, how many nings fold up and think, “Well, it was good while it lasted”?

Is this what the next stage of the internet looks like? People give away items at no charge until they become apparently worth something, and then they start to charge for their services and people fold up their tents and drift off to the next latest and greatest thing. (You know, the one that people can use free of charge until enough people start using it to make these folks see “gold in dem dar hills” whereby the model changes to a fee based-structure… and everyone then flees again… and on and on and on?)

Jim Burke said… People need to wake up to the idea that they cannot expect companies to be non-profits. We have grown increasingly addicted to the idea that everything should be free, that we should have to pay for nothing. That is not sustainable.

Indeed. But as soon as Twitter starts charging me per tweet, I think I am gone.

And I think they know this… which is why they do not charge me for tweeting. Which is why so many millions of folks do tweet.

But charge even one dollar a month and, “Nah, I am not so sure it’s worth it” creeps into my consciousness. I mean there are so many other free things I can do on the web, with mobile technology and so on, that, on second thought, Nah, I just don’t think so.

The fact is, most human beings pretty much do not like paying for things that were once free. We feel ripped off. (Even if they are actually worth the money.)

If once upon a time you charged me, and you raised the price, then hey, I get that. But if was free and now you want money for it… that doesn’t really compute so well. I mean “I think I only wanted it because it was free anyway,” is what I tell myself. Then I move on.

And on the flip side, people tend to more highly value that which actually costs them more. Look at the diamond industry. DeBeers is absolutely brilliant in the way that they make us believe diamonds are precious stones worth X amount of dollars. And by controlling 85% of all the diamonds on the planet (they have vaults and vaults and vaults of them locked away so that they can manage world wide inventory and empower all these diamond dealers to say, “but they are rare and precious”) they create the illusion of high value – and the reality of high price – in the mind of buyers.

And we buy it.

Engagement rings, earrings, and so on. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

Hook, line and sinker, we drank the Kool-Aid on that one.

But NY Times news? I think the cat is outta the bag on that one. Sure, some will buy it – older folks who grew up indoctrinated into the “fine journalism” being offered will stay the course. (They also have more disposable income.) But now, news and commentary are free… and if the NY Times wants to start charging for what they originally gave away online, heck, I’ll go to the Wash Post or L.A. Times or BBC and so on.

Heck, the Huffington Post will go out and scavenge the free news for me. And they are not alone.

And if they all decide to charge at the same time, they are gambling with their very existence… cause there is no guarantee to say enough people will pay to keep them afloat.

Are they willing to risk bankruptcy? Do they really want to know if they call our bluff and insist on charging us that we are actually going to pony up cash for their goods versus simply seeking another source for our news and bail out on them?

TIME magazine charges. Newsweek doesn’t. Is there enough of a difference that I buy TIME? Right now, not really.

The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety, Hollywood’s Trade Magazines, got it right. They charged for content right away (after giving away small teasers.) People were used to paying for print, they immediately got used to paying for online from the get-go and now, they more or less, seamlessly transitioned to the online journalism world.

Right now, newspapers don’t really have the guts to pull the “free” plug because they know if they do, we might not come back to them and prove them obsolete. (It’s any business’s darkest fear – to recognize that the world can get along just fine without them and have the world recognize that.

Of course, all of the newspapers are hoping Apple and the Kindle will help to save their butts… but ESPN.com does sports for me and the AP wire still provides news and Joe down the block blogs about the tree root situation plaguing the local sidewalks on my street and the idea of one-stop news shopping is something that is already dead to many of us anyway. (Like textbooks providing one-size-fits-all curriculum – that ship has SAILED!)

I get my news from 15 sources, not one and until all 15 charge, I can live with only 14.

So, I won’t get to read Friedman. But if enough people stop reading Friedman, he’s going to try and deliver content to his audience another way… or else he stops being Friedman and someone else’s voice will rise up to replace his. Books still make sense. (I want to read the writing of the folks I want to read: Stephanie Meyers, Stephen King, they could publish on toilet paper and people would read it by the roll.) Newspapers don’t. Magazines… they seem to be on an edge. Can’t call it one way or the other yet.

Ultimately, I am completely at a loss for how this will all work out but I do feel that it sure would be hard to get people to start paying for my blog now that I have been giving it away at no charge for a year and a half.

Most of them would probably say, “Hasta la Vista… it was good while it lasted but I am onto other things.”

Real businesses know customers value what they pay for much more than they value what is free.

Like the dot.com bubble, so is the Free bubble.

The book FREE proposed that free was the way of the business future – at least to get a foot in the door. Actually, I think the real way of the business future is to 1) provide something excellent and 2) charge for it right out of the gate.

People will always pay for quality and if you are giving it away at no charge, how much is it really worth anyway?

Nings seem to have blown it if they want to charge. Someone else is gonna fill their void if they do because most people will not pay for the same thing they used to get at no charge. They will pay for something new, better, enhanced and so on.

Nings aren’t proposing that. There is no Ning II that’s a platinum version they will be selling. Ning just wants money now… and I am not sure how many folks are gonna roll with that.

However, I would chip in a buck to keep this ning alive. And if we all did, maybe the ning folks would let us keep rolling, huh?

I do not believe you can evaluate teachers objectively… that’s part of the reason for the multiple measures approach I’ve outlined all week.

All teacher effectiveness assessment is, in my opinion, going to be biased. Subjectivity rules.

Matter of fact, I don’t think teachers can even assess students in an unbiased manner – but that hasn’t stopped anyone from giving grades this year, has it?

Or stopped the bubble test makers from giving out all those scantron sheets to fill out, I’ll note.

Let’s say you gave a kid an 89 on their persuasive essay. If three other teachers read that essay, do you think they’d all agree it was an 89? Might not one see it as a 90? Thus we have an A- being given out as opposed to a B+ for the same exact work. Maybe it’s an 86 to someone else, a mere B.

Extrapolate the math out now for 3 million teachers across the country. Nope, there will be no objectivity in this process and only a fool would dare even try to promise it.

A multiple measures approach is about gaining representative insight. It will never be exact because I do not think we have even yet mastered the art of being exact with our student assessments, and we’ve been giving out evaluations to kids for years and years.

And kids have been complaining about the grades we’ve been giving them for just as long.

Assessment, like beauty, is ultimately, to some degree, going to be in the eye of the beholder. Jim Burke talks about how one of his high school teachers didn’t flunk him simply because the two of them played racquetball together – though Jim definitely feels he earned an F for the course. (And Jim turned out to be one our most keen thinkers in the field of teaching… yet to get through high school, he needed someone to simply cut him some slack. Was that a “wrong” decision by Jim’s teacher? Would Jim do something of similar sort for one of his students? Would I? Would you?)

Assessment, is it objective? No. Fair? Sometimes. The way the cookie crumbles. For sure!

Just like life!

However, if you diffuse the amount of assessors and modes of assessment and they all arrive at a similar conclusion, I’d say the conclusions that can be drawn will be more than just coincidence… and can work to better inform all of us about what is actually going on in a teacher’s classroom.

And it’s certainly better than trying to connect teacher effectiveness directly to high stakes bubbles tests – don’t even get me started on that silliness things for the ten-millionth time.

But come on, do you really grade the last essay of the night at 11:12 p.m. with the same attentive eye you graded the first essay at 4:45 in the afternoon with a cup of joe in your hand? The world is imperfect, everywhere, and when we do finally get around to measuring teacher effectiveness, I’d be most wary of the person that tries to sell you on the flawlessness of the accuracy, the perfection of the insight of the evaluation.

It ain’t gonna happen. Subjectivity, when it comes to assessment, is the order of the day. From college admissions to who flunks what class (racquetball anyone?) to how we will ultimately be measured once the U.S. Dept. of Education gets this measuring teacher effectiveness kite to fly, we are just gonna have to realize that there is no such thing as objectivity.

We live in a world where all opinions, even those of experts, (and assessment really is nothing more than a sophisticated term for putting forth an opinion) must be taken with a grain of salt.

Thus ends this series…

I saw Jim Burke at CATE the other day and he mentioned how nicely blogging works within the scope of all the other writing he does.

And he particularly likes the groove he’s fallen into with it as of late.

Funny how I greatly enjoy blogging as well. Truth is, many people told me I should “blog” (whatever the heck that meant) as far back as 2007… but I wasn’t really into it. Wasn’t sure if I’d have anything to say or be able to stick with it or find any joy in it or what not.

Truth is, now that I have been at it for well over a year, I am a bit amazed at my ability to be prolific without really sacrificing any other meaningful part of my life.

Heck, I don’t know what I was doing before I was blogging – probably sleeping (LOL!) – but nowadays I find blogging to be a tool which keeps me sharp as a writer. After all, I must crank out almost 2,000 words a week just for blogs alone — and they can be about anything I want them to be about.

I’ve blogged about politicians, farts, assessment, writing, violence, books, dysfunction, friends, and on and on and on.

Heck, I’ve now even blogged about blogging.

If I do the math of it all, I see this: 2,000 words per week for at least 45 weeks this year is 90,000 words — that’s a 500 page novel I’ve written, easy! (A 500 page novel that I am, btw, not publishing. I mean who’s gonna want to read a book about farting politicians as they dysfunctionally craft policy for school assessment? I know, I know, I’d be surprised.)

The point is, more people should try it. Blogging keeps me sharp as a writer. Muscles that are used stay in better shape than muscles which are too well-rested.

I should know. I just finished yet another new children’s book which my agent read last night and loved… another notch coming in the belt, it looks like.

Blogging doesn’t come at the expense of other writing… blogging, ironically enough, seems to liberate writing.

Whoudda thunk-it?

I am all FIRED UP for Philly! The truth is, I just love NCTE. It’s simply a home-run experience every time I attend the annual conference and I always leave a better teacher as a result of having made the trip.

Why? The people. It’s that simple.

NCTE provides me a chance to be in the same room with some of the best minds in the world of English Language Arts. I mean where else can you go to hear Carol Jago, Kylene Beers, Jim Burke, and on and on and on and on? (To even start a list like this is to risk leaving people off of it but trust me on this one — the BEST and BIGGEST and MOST BOLD thinkers in our field will be in the City of Brotherly Love determined to share some of their brotherly/sisterly love with everyone else. It smokes!)

A search of this year’s program is tortuous though. I mean I want to go see this, but then I want to go see that and then I am scheduled to be over here but I really want to go over there as well… and on and on and on.

(A little shout out to Carol Jago for that one, too — as the prez, I guess she gets to get mentioned twice in this post — and her “team” of course… can’t forget them. So many people work so hard for so long to put this event on that I gotta give the unsung heroes need a shout out, too!)

BTW, have you ever seen more rockin’ authors made so accessible to dweebs like me gathered in one place? Look, when it comes to writers, let’s be honest… I am a bit of a groupie. Jeff Kinney, Sharon Flake, Junot Diaz, Gordon Korman, Tracey Kidder, Laurie Halse Anderson, Sharon Draper, Patrick Carmen… I could type for hours!

And they all sign books in the Exhibit Hall. Where else can you find that?

Ah, the Exhibit Hall. (Deep breath!) Can I tell you how much I love that part of the conference? I get to shop and browse and dream and think and weigh and consider — and get free stuff! (Yep, just work it, people… that’s how it’s done… work it!) I swear, the NCTE Exhibit Hall is like an amusement park ride for English teachers and I wish we all got to take it more than once a year.

Of course, at the end of the day it’s the other “real teachers” like me that I get to meet from across the country that makes it the most special. The workshops may fill my brain but chillin’ with English teachers fills my soul. Attending NCTE is a chance to listen and learn and exchange thoughts, ideas, gripes and possible solutions with so many other “front line” educators that it never fails to create in me a sense of real professional camaraderie. (And how rare is that?) NCTE is a feast for the human teaching spirit and unfortunately, I believe that our profession is, in a way, suferring from a crisis of morale. But those who attend NCTE get that shot of teacher juice which energizes, refreshes and reinvigorates them — and it just can’t be bottled or obtained in any other way.

You wanna know how I always feel when I leave NCTE. This kinda decent writer I once ran across probably says it best:

Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more!

NCTE reminds me why I love this job. It rejuvenates my batteries and inevitably, I return from the conference just thrilled by the idea of returning to my classroom.

Get there if you can or try to link in via social networking, their website, their twitter hashtag, the blogs, whatever.

It’s an important event for the profession — and for our communal spirit.

NCTE has got the WOW factor… and I am so FIRED UP!

See ya in Philly.

Jim Burke turned me onto this NY Times article about the “Napsterization of Books” and I gotta say, it kinda sends a chill up my spine. Why? Well, because first and foremost, I am an author. I feed my family, pay my house bills and supplement my teaching income working in a high school (because who, in California, can afford to “merely” live on a single teaching income… another story all together) through writing books.

And I just finished my 9th title. (I have 3 more works that will be on the shelves by the summer of 2011). It takes me years to write and publish a book and the idea that it can be pirated in seconds well, let’s just say that I am hoping for a little regulation of the Wild West on this front and that somebody somewhere learns a lil’ somethin’ somethin’ from what happened to the music industry.

I mean it’s one thing if I choose to give away my own material free on the internet (which I do in many ways, shapes and forms) but it’s entirely another if someone takes what is mine and posts it. Last I checked, that was called stealing.

Now, the thing is, it’s not like I have a problem with digital media, 21rst century technology and even an evolution off of Guttenberg’s printing press — but if it comes at the expense of legitimacy, well, this one strikes home BIG TIME.

And all the authors I know are fearful of this kind of scenario. I mean we write books and if people do not like the content, the price, the subject matter and so on, they do not have to buy them. But if they do want to read the stories, text, information, etc… why in the world is it just cool to take it?

Just because one can?

J.K. Rowling was pretty much on welfare when she wrote Harry Potter. Does she not deserve a wee bit of a payday for the work she did? If Potter was napsterized and read by as many people as it was yet Rowling was still on the dole because of illegal downloading, would that be just?

Yet, is that not the way this could potentially be headed?

Right now the book piracy problem is in its infancy — especially when compared to movies and music. But for how long?

And what can be done?

I’m not afraid to say it, The Napsterization of Books Freaks Me Out!!

Now no, I am not objective and yes, I already feel threatened by Google’s plan… though they are working with the Author’s Guild to create a system that is financially fair to all.

But how does this play out going forward? I mean if no one ever had to buy a book again because all books were free (due to the illegal availability of them) how does the world of writing — both fiction and non-fiction move forward?

I know not — and when you have skin in the game, it can make for sleepless nights.

As Jim Burke has mentioned – quite brilliantly – writers today (and of the future) will require compositional skills in formats that consist of 3,000 words, 300 words, 30 words, 3 words and no words. (I am paraphrasing here; he’s much more eloquent.) The point is, that literacy is increasingly more diverse than ever and the challenges we face preparing our kids to successfully tackle the demands behind placed upon them are both dynamic and shape shifting.

However, when you look at the word counts above, I get the vibe that many forward thinking people (outside of persnickety teachers… like yours truly) are ready to throw the 3,000 word composition under the bus. They call it antiquated. Outmoded. Academic. 21rst century skill conversations revolve around “digital this” and “socially networked that” but rarely, if ever, pay homage to the value of the good ol’ fashioned long, thoughtful, richly textured essay.

Well, check this story out. If that ain’t proof that the ol’ bugger still ain’t got some life in it, nothing is.

Sorry, but I can’t recall yet seeing a story on how a tweet resulted in such an outpouring of generosity and goodness. I could be wrong, but having only 140 characters may be fun if you want to smarmily talk about the texture of your morning waffle. Yet, if you want to reach the movers and shakers of this world, as the 11 year old girl above proves, you are gonna need some chops with the written word.

Otherwise, all your gonna have is lightweight junk food for your intellectual meal. And man cannot live by smarmy waffle alone.

Hmmm, will digital textbooks simply replace traditional textbooks so that the wheels of these entrenched, corporate behemoth money making machines just keep chugging right along?

Let’s look at 9th grade…

Why would I pay for Romeo and Juliet when the full text of the play is already online free of charge in more places than I can even count?

I wouldn’t.

So then schools like mine will just pay for the accompanying lesson plans, right?

Not so fast.

I mean why pay for lesson plans when there are literally a host of INCREDIBLE lesson plans already online free of charge? I mean the Royal Shakespeare Company is pretty reputable, wouldn’t ya say? And they provide SO MUCH material smoking material it feels like it would be an honor to have them help me in my class.

Then add in the resouces being provided at NCTE or the stuff I can find on websites like WebEnglishTeacher.com and I can do some pretty sweet stuff.

Okay, R&J is covered. So what about The Odyssey?

Check.

I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud?

Check.

The Scarlett Ibis? The Gift of the Magi? The Lady or the Tiger?

Check. Check. Check.

And are there resources for teaching these on the web? And good ones?

CHECK!!!

And do I then get to go back to doing what the state wants me to do, teach to the standards in a way that doesn’t come from one myopic source that attempts to be one-size-fits-all but rather empowers me to PICK and choose materials as I best see them working, as most appropriate to the needs of my individual students as I professionally diagnose their academic needs?

Check.

Indeed, my school used to shop for our entire grocery budget at the textbook supermarket — but now, it’s just looks like we’ll just be taking a banana please… and it better be a darn good one in order to justify the expense otherwise… I’ll just get the rest of our groceries elsewhere.

And look at all the money I’ll have left over in my wallet for other household needs. Wow!

And so, will digital textbooks simply replace traditional textbooks so that the wheels of these entrenched, corporate behemoth money making machines just keep chugging right along?

I wouldn’t bet on it.

P.S. For a really interesting view on textbooks which Jim Burke passed along to me, check out this blog post by Seth Godin.