I followed two major tags within my RSS feed for this assignment, the U.S. Department of Education as well as the National Council of Teachers of English. They both are relevant to my studies and future career, and both had a nice amount of posts per week. A lot of the information in the Department of Education feed had to do with the election, and it definitely helped me get a clearer understanding of what both parties hoped to accomplish with education if they were to be elected. Apart from the election, there was a lot of information on dealing with student loans, which I of course am very interested in learning more about.
The first article that I read was one that definitely caught my attention, and turned out to be the most useful to me. Through the Department of Education tag, I found this article from their official blog that was entitled "Which Student Loan Repayment Plan Should You Choose?". Seeing as I will be graduating (hopefully) in a year and a half, this is very relevant information to me. This article focused on summarizing the six main repayment plans for student loans, the standard repayment plan, graduated repayment plan, extended repayment plan, income-based repayment plan, income-contingent repayment plan, and finally the income-sensitive repayment plan. This may seem like a large amount of information to take in at once, but this article really does a great job of breaking it all down. While each plan has its shares of pros and cons, I believe that I will personally stick with the traditional standard repayment plan. Paying at least $50 per month for up to ten years is something that is definitely manageable and not as terrifying as I was expecting loan repayments to be. This article definitely helped calm some of my nerves as a student anticipating my graduation and loan payments within the next couple years.
The National Council of Teachers of English feed was also full of some very interesting and practical information for me, but the amount of content was a little bit less than that of the Department of Education. Most of these posts were just updating members about what's new and upcoming for the NCTE. However, there was one post in particular that I found very interesting, which was entitled "Celebrate Teen Read Week". This article presented a bunch of ideas and suggestions on how to best celebrate this week in your classroom. There were a handful of suggested texts that can carry into lesson plans like informational texts, film in the classroom, and Shakespeare, along with a handful of other potential lessons.
The other two feeds that I subscribed to were The University News to keep up to date here at Saint Louis University as well as the Riverfront Times for everything going on in the city of St. Louis. The article from both of these feeds that I found the most interesting and practical was just a simple blog about the upcoming election. It held information on polling places, times, the ID needed, and other general information of the sort.
Phillips, N. (2012, November 06). Where to vote, what id you need. Retrieved from http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2012/11/missouri_find_polling_station_id_requirements.php
Student Aid, F. (2012, October 24). 3 things to do during your student loan grace period. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/blog/2012/10/3-things-to-do-during-your-student-loan-grace-period/
Student Aid, F. (2012, November 02). Which student loan repayment plan should you choose?. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/blog/2012/11/which-student-loan-repayment-plan-should-you-choose/
Traina, T. (2012, November 02). Dumb jocks? not at slu. Retrieved from http://unewsonline.com/2012/11/02/dumb-jocks-not-at-slu/
Lori. (2012, October 09). Celebrate teen read week!. (Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/newsletter/ideas
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