WorkSource Tour

On Tuesday, May 6, we met at WorkSource, 6505 Airport Blvd, at 9:00 a.m. for a tour of the facility. WorkSource can help people find better jobs — and much more. They have computer classes and information about job training programs all over the Austin area. Visit their Web site to learn more.

Biopoems, March 2008

A biopoem is an autobiographical formula poem for expanding students' use of adjectives and writing about feelings. Here is an example:

Who Is Gaby?By Gabriela Fuentes

Gabriela...
Friendly, tall, athetic, curious, smart
Wife of Aaron
Who loves family, music, and movies
Who is afraid of heights, snakes, and sharks
Who wants to see Europe, family happiness, and sons
Resident of North Austin
...Fuentes

Click here to see more biopoems from our class.

Vowel Hatch Sounds Online

If you misplaced your CD of Ted Klein reading his English vowel pronunciation exercises, you can now hear them online. He has teamed up with Jade Lindquist, who has added Ted's CD to her Web site for learning Spanish, edufone.com. You will hear Spanish at first and in the explanations, but don't give up if you are not a Spanish speaker. Keep listening, and you'll hear Ted's pronunciation exercises.

Jesse Jackson for President? Shirley Chisholm?

While discussing the historic nature of this year's Democratic primary election -- a black candidate against a female candidate -- Hyon reminded me that we have had a black candidate for president before. Jesse Jackson was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, winning more than 12% of the vote. He did much better in 1988, when he won more than 31% of the vote at the Democratic Convention. Since then, he has continued working for peace and justice in the U.S. and throughout the world.

In addition, Hillary Clinton is not the first woman to run for president of the United States. Neither was Shirley Chisholm when she made her 1972 run for the Democratic presidential nomination. However, Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman presidential candidate. See a video of her announcing her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president of the United Staes. Chisholm died in 2005.

Okay, ok, O.K.

If you want to know the etymology of a word or phrase, you want to know where it came from or how it got started. There are several stories about the origin of the word okay. Do an Internet search using the key words okay and etymology. Take notes about what you find for class discussion later today. Okey dokey?

Presidents' Day

On Monday, February 18, banks and government offices will be closed in honor of Presidents' Day. However, ACC and Austin public schools do not have a holiday. We will have class on the 18th of February. Click here to read more about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. If you're feeling adventurous, take a Presidents' Day quiz.

End of Semester Party

Fall 2007 was an awesome semester! Thanks to all of you who helped make it so.

Below is our 2007 rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas, with apologies to Laura and Angeles, who had gone to pick up the pizza.