Literacy Strategies In Action

Celebrate Independents!

2010-07-02T19:32:00.001-07:00

No, the title is not a typo. The "independents" I speak of are your local independent book sellers. Sure, I shop at Barnes and Noble and online. But, there is something special about walking into my local independent bookstore and getting a smile, a personal recommendation from someone who knows my tastes, and to just browse.

My local independent bookstore is called Devaney, Doak & Garrett Booksellers. This past week, I stopped by to purchase a couple of books and the owner said, "Oh! I'm glad you came in. We have a poster for you." I was a bit confused because I had not ordered a poster, but the person working (a fellow English teacher) rushed out back and came out with a poster based on this book:

Awesome, huh? (For those of you who don't know this, my first name is Hattie. It's not common, except in children's books about pesky little girls : )

This experience just served to reinforce what I already know to be true: There is no online or "big box" replacement for a good, personal connection. Thanks, DD&G!

To find information about independent booksellers in your state, click of this interactive map from poets.org.

Using Rubrics to Assess Student Blogs

2010-06-14T06:23:00.000-07:00

Every time I talk about blogging with students, I am inevitably asked about the assessment process. I understand that some educators are wary of "grading" this new(er) medium for student writing, but I think that blogs are actually much easier to assess and to offer feedback on than are some other forms of traditional assessment.

First, most blogs have a comment section. I often leave comments for students in this space. I find that students are excited to see that I've commented (because I don't always do it) and I have found that they often will correct whatever I've suggested in a timely fashion. Typing, for me, is easier and quicker than writing by hand. Students cannot lose their blog post, but they sure can lose a piece of paper that I've commented on!

Over the past three years, I have been working to develop rubrics to use with student blog posts. I have narrowed down my general criteria to the following six:

Evidence of Critical Thinking: Thoughtful observations, connections between readings and the larger world and/or your life, and growth in your thoughts/ observations from the beginning of the year.

Evidence of Critical Reading: Evidence of thorough readings, comprehension of reading materials, insightful reflections, and connections between readings materials.

Evidence of Creative Thinking: Inclusion of photographs, music, videos, or other media that enhances the presentation of the post; original ideas presented in readings are extended in a creative manner.

Evidence of the Ability to Write Clearly and Effectively: Grammar, spelling, capitalization errors do not interfere with audience understanding. The structure of your blog posts allows for understanding and is easy to follow.

Evidence of Awareness of Diverse Audience: Opinions, justifications, rationalizations, and summaries are written in a way that allows a diverse audience to understand your intent. Writings are not offensive, but engage audience members in your ideas and opinions in a creative manner.

Community of Practice: Wherever necessary, credit has been given to original source for photos and ideas. This is done through embedded hyperlinks.

Why these six? There are some specific challenges and opportunities that are presented in blogging. The challenge is that students cannot write a whole lot of text, because no audience wants to read on and on when they're reading on a computer. Blog posts need to be a lot more concise and quick. There are no five to ten page literary analysis papers on my students' blogs. This does not mean that we do not do this type of writing; it is just not appropriate for a blog format.

Another challenge that actually helps to build students' skills as writers is the unknown audience factor. A student who writes a post as if the audience is comprised only of me and his or her classmates has not prepared an unknown audience to be able to comprehend the meaning or significance of the post. This fact helps to create better student writers.

Something that blogging allows for that the traditional pen and paper routine does not is the ability to add-in images, videos, and songs. There are several students in my classes who do not think in a linear, linguistic fashion. Allowing students to add-in other types of media has helped those students who are not always able to completely express their thoughts through the use of language. I have absolutely found this feature to be invaluable in the blogging process.

Students are required to contribute to the blogging world with their thoughts, but also with their links. Just as plagiarism is not okay on a research paper, the same is true in a blog post. The more that students link to the outside blogosphere and web pages, the more that their writing will be picked up on google. This is just good practice for social responsibility.

Finally, I wish that you could see students' faces when they look at their counters (cluster maps and flag counters). These counters allow students to see that their writing is being read by a huge, global audience. Once in a while, students will get a comment, but usually viewers will leave comments on my blog. Students love and cherish these comments; they are proof that the world cares about their thoughts and opinions.

I hope that this criteria helpful. I welcome feedback and suggestions for other items that I may have overlooked.

Poetic Commencements

2010-06-03T05:07:00.001-07:00

As we approach the end of the school year, I am always thinking about how I am going to send off my seniors. I like to step back from the role of teacher during the last couple of classes that we have together and focus on their memories and allow them to say a proper goodbye to their public education.

Some of my students will go straight to college after high school, but others will leave education for good. With this in mind, I want to give students a little time to reflect on the past four years of their education, the high school years. To do this, we have:

Created Six Word Memoirs

Drafted Commencement Speeches (To be read for our final)

Completed an End-of-Year Survey

Finished the Sounds of Senior Year Soundtrack (Cover Art as Picture Insert)

And, there are other ways to say goodbye. Poets.org has a whole section of their site devoted to graduation poems. On this list, there are a whole range of poets and poems represented, from William Shakespeare to Langston Hughes to Emily Dickinson.

I am glad that I've taken the time and put some effort into saying a formalized "goodbye" to my seniors. I think that they have benefited from having the opportunity to reflect on their public school years. It is amazing to think that thirteen years of their short lives have been spent with us. Congratulations, seniors. We will miss you and are proud of you!

Using Google Surveys to Gather Information

2010-05-17T07:08:00.000-07:00

At the end of every quarter and at the beginning and end of every school year, I have distributed and collected surveys to my students. Often, these surveys helped me to better my instruction, plan for the variety of learners I have in my midst, and reflect on my teaching.

I have loved using surveys, but gathering hard copy surveys can be cumbersome. Plus, some students are not great writers and will choose to not write out a detailed answer because their fine motor skills are lacking or they just don't want to fill out another worksheet. Because of this obstacle, I decided at the beginning of this school year to offer all of my surveys online using google docs.

And what a difference it has made! I can store all of the results of my surveys in my google account, offer the same survey to multiple classes (or create class-specific surveys), create nifty graphs with the flick of my fingers, and project results onto my whiteboard using my LCD projector. This has become a tool for my reflective purposes and for students to reflect.

So far, I have asked all sorts of questions. Google docs offers many different types of questions, including: short text, long text, multiple choice, more than one choice (check boxes), ranking on a scale, and graphing. There are so many options that you can make your survey as complicated or simple as you choose.

Best of all, students have reported that they love the opportunity to offer feedback to me and to think about their learning. By offering surveys, I have allowed them to be active participants in their learning. When I make an instructional or planning decision based on their suggestions or feedback, I let them know. This way, they can see their feedback in action and they feel as if I've listened to them.

This is a simple, effective way to gather data from your students. You can use the same survey more than once. Results can easily be shared with students and colleagues. Also, you can compare answers from different sections of the same course or different age groups or particular students overt time. I have not run into any difficulties with this program and recommend it without any reservations.

Here are some screenshots of surveys I have used this year:

2010-05-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

The Theater at Monmouth, Maine's greatest Shakespeare theater, has announced its 2010 summer and fall theater schedule. Every year, my mother, sister, and I go to the theater to see a play. It is an event that I look forward to all year. Ticket prices are reasonable and the acting is professional and experienced. Plus, the theater itself is gorgeous, with all sorts of beautiful paintings on the ceilings.

This year, we're planning to see Mark Twain's comedy Is He Dead? Here is the hilarious-looking promotional poster for this comedy:

Other plays featured during this summer and fall are: Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors and Pericles, Prince of Tyre, George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance, The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde, and the musical The Pirates of Penzance.

Whatever your choice of show, come out and support Maine's local theater!

Ideas for a Poetic Mother's Day

2010-05-07T17:10:00.000-07:00

This Mother's Day, why not send your mother a poem? Chances are good that there's a poem that's already been written that will explain your inner most thoughts and feelings about your mother in a way that you simply cannot. Here are a couple of great resources to get you started.

-About My Mother: A collection of Mother's Day Poems from the Poetry Foundation. There are nine poems to choose from at this site. Topics and tones range from innocent to reflective to haunting. There's a poem for every mother/ child relationship here!

-Send a Coupon: Poets.org offers a printable or email-able coupon allowing your favorite mother an hour of "undisturbed reading or writing time". It's super easy to get or send and even has a bar code. Best of all, it never expires!

-Make a Homemade Poetry Card: Poets.org makes Mother's Day simple, inexpensive, and meaningful with their homemade card ideas. Don't know what to say? They offer preselected lines ready for use!

-Poetry Infusions: Decorate a gift of herbs and vinegar with a pre-made poetic label. Simply print and paste onto a gift of rosemary, lavender, or sage vinegar. Maybe this will inspire mom to do more cooking?

The Power of a Story

2010-05-05T14:26:00.000-07:00

I've been a Storycorps fan for a long time now. I visit the site ever now and again and every time I do, I find that I uncover some sort of gem. On my most recent visit, I watched a powerful animated video. This video is a Storycorps first--And I hope that there are many more to come!

This animated segment helps to represent the visually the range of topics covered when a preteen boy named Joshua interviewed his mother, Sarah. Joshua has Asperger's syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder. The range of topics covered in this short interview and the complete candor with which this mother and son talk is refreshing and heart-warming.

Here is the video:

With Mother's Day fast approaching, maybe you'd like to interview and record your mother or have a conversation with someone you care about? There is no time like the present to ask those simple or complex questions! And, think about having an interview like this to help preserve a child or an adult's voice? Priceless.

The Shirt Off Your Back: Give a T-Shirt to Someone in Need

2010-05-03T16:28:00.000-07:00

One of the easiest ways to give is not to write a check or even donate your time, though these are valuable means of contributing to charitable organizations, is to send off a used t-shirt to someone who does not have one. A group called One Million T-Shirts is collecting your used shirts and giving them to children and adults in Africa who might otherwise go shirtless.

The group is also asking that you include a dollar, but this seems like a tiny donation given the fact that they're doing all of the shipping and distributing of the shirts. More than a way to save a life, this might just be a simple good deed that will show others that the world cares. I have seen a couple of negative reviews of this project, but I think it's brilliant in its simplicity. I don't think that organizers of this project think that giving away t-shirts will end poverty in Africa, but hope that organizing groups of people to do something and spreading awareness will encourage more charitable acts.

Send your shirt and spread the word on the group's facebook page!

Poem In Your Pocket Day, 2010

2010-04-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

Today is Poem In Your Pocket Day. On this day, you are encouraged to keep a poem in your pocket, ready to share with someone special or to keep to yourself. Your poem can be an old favorite or a newly discovered gem. You can copy a poem out on paper or print one that's already in the shape of a pocket.

Here are some additional tips on how you can celebrate this day from poets.org:

And, a promotional video for the Poem In Your Pocket Anthology, of which I am a huge fan:

Book Review: The Book Whisperer

2010-04-24T15:58:00.000-07:00

Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child is a total inspiration for any teacher who hopes to instill a intrinsic love and desire for reading in his or her students. In this book, Miller explains her philosophy and experiences in helping her middle school-aged students to become avid readers. She starts her school year with a lofty requirement of all students: Every student needs to read forty books during the school year. Forty. I bet that you can imagine the reaction of these seventh and eighth grade students when they hear this!

But, as any good reading or language arts teacher knows, Miller is not only setting a high standard for her students, she's setting it for herself as well. There is no way that a teacher will inspire all of her students to consume books at the rate that Miller's do without being a reader herself. There is no question in my mind that Miller is reading at least twice the amount that she expects of her students, if not more.

I have discussed my love for Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) in previous posts. I'll try not to rehash those opinions here, but I will say that as I was reading this book, I felt that the (considerable) time that I spend each week on SSR is verified in Miller's book. For me, SSR has become a daily staple in my classroom and when I dare to try and skip it (gasp!) students rebel. I've been collecting the amount of pages (my system differs from Miller's in this regard: I collect pages read and she counts whole books read) of all of my ninth and tenth grade students since the beginning of this school year. Almost every single student has either read more pages each quarter since the year began, or has started to select more challenging books since we started this year.

There are a few issues that I have with Miller's book, so I don't want to appear to be blindly cheering for it. Miller contends in several places of her book that she does not assign whole-class reads and does not assign classics. I do not have this option (or this desire), as I have a curriculum that needs to be followed and it includes several whole-class texts and classics. To me, this is much more a middle school stance and makes sense in that setting. But, to never read a whole-class novel with a group of high school students? I'd think that this is impossible.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent resource and it's super encouraging. If you're feeling like you need to revamp your reading expectations or add a free reading program to your classroom, this text may help tremendously. Miller provides lots of examples and some of the materials that she uses in her classroom. She also provides proof in the form of research articles and statistics. And, how we love statistics!

If you are still not convinced, check out this video that I found on huffenglish.com. Something needs to change in our approach to instilling a love of reading in our students. Donalyn Miller gives us a great starting point.

No More Ning: What Does this Mean For Your Class?

2010-04-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

Lately, the biggest buzz on the education front has been all about the announcement from the Ning people that they're cutting back on their free services and will start to charge money for those who have Nings. Almost immediately, I freaked out. Why? Well, I don't personally have a Ning that I use with students, but I do belong to about a dozen Nings and use them frequently. And, I don't know what I would do without the English Companion or Making Curriculum Pop Nings.

Luckily, I don't think that either of these sites are going to shut down. Jim Burke, founder of the ECN has already stated as such. I've not heard anything from Ryan Goble, founder of the MCP Ning, but I'm sure that he'll figure something out soon. How can a network thousands of educators simply fade away? I think that we're too used to this collaboration 2.0 to give it up too easily.

But, what does this mean for classroom teachers? Those of you who've worked hard to develop dynamic, student-friendly Ning spaces? I don't know. I've heard that educators may be exempt from paying for Ning services, but that's just rumor and has no foundation in the statement put out by the Ning people. Already, other blogs and sites I follow have put together lists of free sites where teachers can set up new digs.However, I feel like I might feel pretty defeated if I has to start over after blogging for three school years. That's a lot of work.

Maybe the only realistic option if you're totally in love with your Ning setup is to pay. In his email to ECN members explaining the Ning situation, Jim Burke told us that it only costs $24.95 per year to keep his Ning going. And, I can't imagine that it'd cost more if you used it with students. Maybe this just needs to become another of costs (in a huge list, I know) of operating a dynamic, creative, and collaborative online space for your students.

What does have me worried is this question: Are other sites going to follow this path? Once we're used to paying for Ning services, are wikis and blogs and other such technologies going to become pay-only? How will this affect our ability to collaborate and meet and discuss with others in a global sense? Is there a price worth paying to keep students in touch with others in their communities and around the world?

Lots and lots of questions. No answers. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Book Drop Rocked!

2010-04-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

Today is the day! After months and months of waiting, Operation Teen Book Drop is in full effect! Our school's Chick Lit Book Club raised money and purchased six young adult novels to "drop" in our local, school, and classroom libraries. Here are a couple of the chicks "dropping" their books on our library shelves. Also included is a picture of the books that we purchased. It was super fun!

Need To Wake Up? Leave Your Sleep by Natalie Merchant

2010-04-14T17:38:00.000-07:00

Natalie Merchant (of 10,000 Maniacs fame) is all the rage right now. Her most recent album, Leave Your Sleep Behind, is a stunning collection of 19th century poems set to original music. Merchant worked for years to turn these old poems into songs and to create the sounds that accompany them. The result of these efforts is absolutely amazing.

I first learned about this new collection on one of my favorite blogs, Middle School 101. But, as this sometimes happens, I've been hearing about this CD everywhere since then. Just this morning, I heard an interview with Merchant on NPR. And, I've seen the TED video recording profiled and written about on several of the blogs I follow (like MeArtsEd). After listening, I hope that you understand what this buzz is all about! Perfect for National Poetry Month!

A New Kind of Picnic: Shakespeare in the Park

2010-04-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted to attend a Shakespeare in the Park play. I live nowhere near New York City, but have been to Broadway and Central Park and would love to see a Shakespeare play there. Unfortunately, I am not able to travel for entertainment this summer, but I'm sure that some of you out there are just looking for an excuse to go to NYC! Well, here's a perfect one!

There are two Shakespeare plays being performed this summer free of charge in Central Park. They are The Merchant of Venice (which is one of my all-time favorites) and The Winter's Tale (which I have not yet read). And, Al Pacino is going to be featured in The Merchant of Venice. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Plays run from June 9th to August 1st. For more information, check out the site for Shakespeare in the Park.

Celebrate National Library Week: April 11th Through 17th

2010-04-11T18:46:00.000-07:00

Now more than ever, our local libraries need our support. Libraries have been hit hard by the downturn in the economy in two ways: There is less money for funding, but more patrons than ever. This year's theme for the American Library Association's National Library Week is "Communities Thrive @ Your Library". I can think of no statement more true than this one!

Our Chick Lit Book Club raised money this past February and March to donate six books to our local and school libraries. Please join us in supporting the efforts of our local librarians and patrons and support your library through donations, patronage, and/or volunteerism.

Feel free to grab either of the buttons I used in this post to help spread the word!

Taylor Mali is Coming to Maine!

2010-04-10T04:52:00.000-07:00

The title of this post says it all. Well, not all of it. Taylor Mali, who writes amazing poems about teaching and his experiences in the classroom, is coming to Bangor, Maine. If you're not busy or live anywhere near Bangor, you should check him out. He is brilliant. His poems and performances are passionate, funny, well-crafted, and are never boring. I can think of no better way to celebrate National Poetry Month than with a trip to see a master poet like Mali.

Here is a hilarious Mali classic, "The The Impotence of Proofreading":

A Fresh Approach To Book-Clubbing: Hitting Up Classics Ten Chapters at a Time

2010-04-08T15:31:00.000-07:00

This February, I found that I was traveling up to two or three hours a day for a couple of weeks in a row. Sick of music, tired of hearing the same NPR stories recycled, I had an idea: I should listen to audiobooks. I don't know why I am not swimming in audiobooks, because I absolutely love them. Honestly, I never ever think to buy or download them. Or, I should say that I never thought to do this. I now have a huge pile just waiting to be heard.

One audiobook that I started (I am on chapter thirty-one and have not yet finished listening) was Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I've never actually read this book, but after listening I absolutely want to. I don't know what I actually thought this book would be like, but I know that I didn't think that it would be as engaging and funny as it is. I am glad that I thought to download it off of LibriVox.

(But this is not the purpose of this post. It's just somewhat related. Here is what I really want to say!)

In my email inbox, I received an update about a blog I follow on the NPR site. It's called Monkey See. The authors of this blog, Linda Holmes and Marc Hirsch, are hosting an online book club called the "I Will If You Will Book Club". In this club, readers are given a time frame to read a short bit of a literary classic. This month's assignment: The first ten chapters of Moby Dick. The book club does not meet in person. They meet online and used CoverItLive to discuss the chapters they had read beforehand.

I did not have an opportunity to discuss this book with the others in this "club" online, but I did get to read their discussion and comments afterward. From what I read, this was a success. Everyone who participated seemed to think that they had discovered a classic text that they might have never read and were enjoying it. That's success.

So, what are the implications of this style of book club for classroom teaching and collaborative learning. It seems like students could easily use the same type of technology implemented in this club in the classroom setting. Or, maybe not in class but outside of class to collaborate on projects. Or to talk about a reading selection.

If this one blog project can get a bunch of people to read Moby Dick and this reading makes these people want to meet up online in the middle of the day, maybe there are some lessons to be learned about what motivates readers. Is it the actual process of reading or the idea that the reading/ insights/ information/ likes and dislikes are going to be shared with others? Given the fact that I belong to four book clubs, I'm guessing it's the later.

I can't wait to see what other books this club reads and follow the conversation. Feel free join in if you're interesting in having a little puch to read a classic text!

Another Maine Poet Profiled

2010-04-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

Another Maine Poet has been chosen by one of my poem-a-day sites! The smart people at Knopf Poetry chose Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "Spring" as their poem for April 7th. Millay is one of my all-time favorite poets. I love "First Fig" the best, but "Renassance" is another favorite. Here is "Spring":

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death
But what does that signify?
Not only under the ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

This poem reminds me of Macbeth's soliloquy after he learns that Lady Macbeth has died. When I read this though, I love that Millay does not rely on typical spring-ish images and feelings. Maine winters are rough and spring does not come gently. The earth tends to look as though it's survived an assault of some sort and vegetation has to thrust itself out from piles of decay. Millay's poetry is not flowery, even when she's talking about spring. And I like that.

Guerrilla Poetry Attack: One Line at a Time

2010-04-06T15:54:00.001-07:00

Later this month, I'm taking my mother to a Maya Angelou reading at the Augusta Civic Center. It's pretty darn exciting. Or, I'm excited. My mother doesn't know that we're going because it's an early Mother's Day gift to her.

To keep her in the dark but to get her thinking, I decided that I would send her a post card every day for the next few weeks with a line or two from Maya Angelou's famous poem "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings". This way, she'll get all hyped up about our outing without knowing exactly what's happening. I've included a snaphsot of some of the postcards that I've written out in advance for this project.

I also sent a warning to her on a postcard. She called me the other to confirm that she had, in fact, received this warning. And, she's phoned me most days since with guesses about where we're going. So far, she's not even close. But, I bet she'll be paying closer attention to her mailbox for the next few weeks!

I'm thinking that this might be a cool way to get my students invested in National Poetry Month next year. I think I'll work to document this and offer up some postcards and stamps to my students. They can send friends and/or family members lines of poetry or entire poems on postcards and spread poetic cheer. Right now, students are mailing these postcards for me every morning and they're getting pretty excited about it. Some have mentioned that they want to do it, too. Guess I'll have to add this to my playlist for next April!

Giveaway: Facebook Fairytales by Emily Liebert

2010-04-06T04:40:00.000-07:00

I follow lots and lots of blogs, but one that I read regularly is hosting a giveaway. The blog is Pop Culture Junkie and the giveaway is for a book called Facebook Fairytales: Modern-Day Miracles to Inspire the Human Spirit. I am a huge proponent of social networking within and outside of the classroom. I feel that my job as an English teacher is to prepare my students for the types and modes of writing that they'll encounter in their lives. Facebook is definitely one of the major sites for networking and writing.

I had planned to use facebook in my teaching this year, but it was blocked pretty soon after students received their laptops. Apparently, students misused this site so badly that there was no way to keep it open. I hope that we can try to unblock facebook next year and set expectations for proper use. And, I might just win this book and get some great teaching ideas!

Making Poetry Public

2010-04-05T06:33:00.000-07:00

Recently, I learned that the British Council Arts division works to make poetry a public priority with their campaign called Poems on the Underground. As part of this project, the council selects six poems every season to post in their "tubes" (subways, in American English). This is no small dedication. There are 3,000 of these poem posters placed in London subways four times a year. And, this effort started in 1986, making this a more than two decade experience.

New York City also uses subway space to promote poetry on its Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) lines. This effort is called Poetry in Motion. It started in 1992 and has promoted many great American poets ever since.

Now, there are no subways or even public transportation here in rural Maine. But, are there ways to capture the essence and spirit of this project on a smaller scale? Are there ways to promote poetry in public spaces where children and adults may be surprised or inspired by some beautiful lines of poetry?

Last year, my students and I participated in a flickr group called Free Verse. This group, created by the Academy of American Poets, asks participants to recreate "lines from a favorite poem written off the page in an unexpected or ephemeral way." The collection of images in this group has grown since it first started. There are hundreds of lines of poetry recreated in these pictures, and most are beautiful and inspiring to see.

What's most important to me as a teacher and lover of poetry is that students and others see poetry as dynamic and not static. I want students to feel that they have the "right" to play with words, whether those words have been published or not. (Of course, they should cite the original work in their recreation.) I don't want poetry to get left behind in our digital age, so ideas like this flickr grop and London's Underground poetry series lets me think that poetry will survive quite well into the next millennium.

Featured Maine Poet

2010-04-05T04:11:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful surprise I found in my email inbox this morning! The Writer's Almanac is featuring a Maine poet! Today's poem is titled "For My Wife" and it's by Wesley McNair. McNair teaches Creative Writing at the University of Maine at Farmington (my alma mater). Here is his poem:

How were we to know, leaving your two kids
behind in New Hampshire for our honeymoon
at twenty-one, that it was a trick of cheap
hotels in New York City to draw customers
like us inside by displaying a fancy lobby?
Arriving in our fourth-floor room, we found
a bed, a scarred bureau, and a bathroom door
with a cut on one side the exact shape
of the toilet bowl that was in its way
when I closed it. I opened and shut the door,
admiring the fit and despairing of it. You
discovered the initials of lovers carved
on the bureau's top in a zigzag, breaking heart.
How wrong the place was to us then,
unable to see the portents of our future
that seem so clear now in the naiveté
of the arrangements we made, the hotel's
disdain for those with little money,
the carving of pain and love. Yet in that room
we pulled the covers over ourselves and lay
our love down, and in this way began our unwise
and persistent and lucky life together.

Maine Reads!

2010-04-04T17:04:00.000-07:00

I can think of no better way to spend my time than with a great book. I love to read and when I can't read, I listen to books on tape. Reading is a part of my day, plain and simple.

Because of this, I cannot imagine what my life would be like without the comfort and excitement of my daily dose of reading and language. When I read statistics like 42% of Maine adults are functioning at a level 1 or 2, while the workplace requires a level 3 to succeed in supporting employment, I wonder how it is that we are going to fight this epidemic and help those who need it. I know that a number of my current and former students have a difficult time completing job applications. I've started to assign resume and job application writing in class to help prepare my students for these tasks. But, with so many online applications for colleges and jobs, how will the other (nearly) half of Maine's adults achieve functional literacy?

This is not a rhetorical question, because there are no easy answers to this problem. There are, however, organizations and events like Maine Reads which promote fun, literacy-based programs and activities for the young and the not-so-young to enjoy. Through these events, the people who work and volunteer for this organizations raise funds so that they can offer support for adults and children who are not functionally literate.

There are several upcoming events planned for this month, like a reading with Anita Shreve and Tess Gerritsen. Tickets (purchased in advance) for this event are only $10. Amazing! Find out more information about this and other events (several are free) at this site. If you can't join in on the fun, maybe you can donate a few dollars or some of your time to support literacy in Maine?

Take a Poetry Tour

2010-04-03T05:48:00.000-07:00

IN my poetry adventures this morning, one activity I participated in was a Chicago Poetry Tour. This tour, organized by the Poetry Foundation, leads the viewer/ listener through a photo and poem filled tour of the Windy City.

I've been to Chicago a couple of times, but not for any length of time. I was impressed at the quality of this tour and how well it captured the love and spirit of this city. This made me wonder: What would a poetry tour of Maine look like? There may be a poetry tour that could be produced about our largest city, Portland, but I think that Maine poetry is as diverse as its geography. I like the idea of a state tour.

The wonderful people at poets.org have put together a National Poetry Map, where you can search for poems by state. It is amazing hwo much information is pulled together about Maine, its poets, the history of poetry in this state, and its organizations that support poetry. This information could easily be used (and added to) by students seeking to create a poetry tour of their city or state. This just might become a lesson plan in the future!

Shakespeare: Authorship Debate & Resoures

2010-04-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

I've read and watched some interesting debate/ proposals about the "real" man who penned the plays and sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare. I find this subject quite interesting, but not because I really care too much whether or not Shakespeare was a pen name or the real deal.

Recently, about.com released an article that points to a man named Edward De Vere as the true author behind the Bard's genius. In this article, the former president of the Shakespeare Oxford Society, Matthew Cossolotto, was interviewed and asked why Edward De Vere is the most likely candidate. Here are some of the reasons that he pointed to as proof:

-William Shakespeare of Stratford's death was not mourned by the literati of London
-There is no proof that William Shakespeare of Stratford wrote as much as a letter
-The political climate of the time period made it dangerous for a playwright to speak openly

There are more reasons why there exists this notion of a cover-up conspiracy involving Shakespeare's true identity. But, as I said before, I am not going to wait around for scholars to prove that Shakespeare was a nom de plume for another genius writer. I am going to continue teaching Shakespeare's plays and poems because they are some of the most enduring, brilliant pieces of writing that I've ever read.

When I first started teaching, I exposed my senior students to the issue of the authorship debate. I found that their anger and concern over this issue was counterproductive. Students felt like they had been "duped" by teachers over the years. Why were they reading the work of an imposter? After trying to quell their upset feelings, I can to my own conclusion. I love Shakespeare because I love the words, the characters, the rhythm, the themes, and the problems of his plays. I love getting lost in a script or a performance of a Shakespeare play. Whether or not I actually know the name or the identity of the person who created these amazing works does not matter to me. I think that the authorship debate takes away from the beauty of the work. And, didn't Juliet address this very topic when she said:

Some resources I've used in the classroom when teaching Shakespeare plays/ sonnets:

The Shakespeare Standard

The Folger Shakespeare Library

Hip-Hop Shakespeare

BardCast: The Shakespeare Podcast

Shakespeare in the City

60 Second Shakespeare

Shakespearean Insult Generator

A Mosaic of Poems

2010-04-02T04:12:00.000-07:00

One of the interesting aspects of receiving five or six poems a day in my email inbox is the variety of subject matter, poets, and themes. For instance, these are the poems I woke up to this morning:

A poem about that unique color, spring green: "My Daughter Laughted" by Katrin Talbot

A poem about a bear from a Native American poet: "Bear Path" by Joseph Bruchac

A passionate soliloquy: "Molly Bloom's Soliloquy" by James Joyce

My favorite poem of the day. It's by Marge Piercy and it's called "Seven Horses". I love the imagery, the structure of the stanzas, and can relate to the yearning that Piercy expresses in the last stanza. Brilliant.

The First Day: Poems for April 1st

2010-04-01T04:24:00.000-07:00

Today, I'm going to post links to the poems I received in my email in box this morning. I will (try to) post the poems I find every day for the entire month of April. (Key word=try!) I'll also post updates about the poetic activities happening in my classroom this month. Without further ado, here are the poems!

"Mineral Expectations" by Bruce Dethlefsen (from Your Daily Poem)

"A Story" by Phillip Levine (from poets.org)

"The Saints of April" by Todd Davis (from The Writer's Almanac)

"Self-portrait" by Edward Hirsch (from Knopf Poetry)

"Tiolets That Trouble My Sleep" by Alice Schertle (from GottaBook)

Also, I was able to hang up my new National Poetry Month poster from poets.org. Thanks!

A Real Inspiration

2010-03-31T04:16:00.000-07:00

Jaime Escalante, the inspirational mathematics teacher on whom the movie Stand and Deliver is based, died yesterday at the age of 79 years old.

Though Jaime lived in a totally different part of the country from me and taught a totally different subject matter, I could not help but be moved every time I watched Stand and Deliver. I think that this movie and Jaime's real-life story was so powerful because of his absolute faith and certainty that his students could achieve and would achieve if given the time and attention that true learning requires. I'm sure that the movie version of his story is dramatized, but the essence of his story is what's inspirational to me. We can never give up on our students. We cannot doubt their ability or their potential. We are not judges, we are teachers. Our students can learn, we need to teach. And reteach. This is what I take from this story. Thanks, Jaime Escalante, for sharing your life and your story!

Why I Love April: Every Day is a Poem

2010-03-31T00:33:00.000-07:00

National Poetry month is finally here. Now, along with the rest of the world, I am able to celebrate the true miracle of life--A well written poem. I love, love, love poetry. I love it in all shapes and sizes and colors and forms. I love all sorts of poets and poems, from the classical to the revolutionary to the simple to the modern to the childish to the American to the otherworldly. It's all good.

One amazing benefit of having a month dedicated to poetry is that there are a number of folks who are willing to send you a poem every day of this month for nothing. All you need to do is provide your email address and you'll get a poem in your inbox every single day. It's brilliant.

Here are some services to think about taking advantage of during this month (and year round, in some cases):

Thirty Days/ Thirty Poets

The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Poem a Day from Poets.org

Poetry Daily

Poem-a-Day from Knopf Doubleday Publishing

Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation

Your Daily Poem

The Perfect Birthday Poem

2010-03-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

Maybe this poem speaks louder to me than it normally would because today is my birthday, but I thought it fitting nevertheless. I look forward to reading the poems that I receive every day in my email inbox. Some days they are more relevant than on others, but they are always a pleasure to read and share. Here is the poem I received today, which is doubly perfect because it comes from a Maine author:

How true is that? I've gone from wishing I'd be old and mature to dreading going to bed after ten at night! Oh, how we change!

Censorship: Protection through Silence?

2010-03-27T06:03:00.000-07:00

Of all the nonviolent crimes in the world, censorship is the worst. I understand that reading materials and artwork evoke strong emotions, some of which can disturb the reader/ viewer to the point of discomfort. I don't like being uncomfortable any more than the next person, but I do know that stepping out of my comfort zone can lead to productive, valuable thoughts and experiences.

I am not a parent, but every year I am in the position of selecting and purchasing thousands of dollars of reading materials for teens whom I care about deeply. I don't want to offend or hurt or damage my students through a reading experience. However, I don't want to prevent them from connecting with books and poems and plays that could open their mind to the realities that others experience around the world.

When I read that "Paint Me Like I Am", a collection of poems from the WriterCorps organization has been challenged by a concerned parent, I was saddened beyond belief. I can understand a parent not wanting their particular child to read a certain book, but to prevent others from reading a book is unconscionable. And, the irony of this case is that the poems that are being challenged by this parent are written by actual teens. These poems, which I have used for years in my own classroom, are written by teens who are dealing with real issues.

Apparently, this is not the first time that this particular collection of poems has come under fire. Last year, a principal from New Jersey cut an "offensive" poem out of the book and returned it to the school library shelves. The poem in question is written about an abusive stepfather.

The problem that the parent and the principal are not seeing is that abuse happens and that poems have the ability to make abused teens feel like they are not alone. Poetry can move students to action, to talk about their experiences, to find help, to talk. Censorship of poetry (and other art forms) does not protect, it takes away a potential connection for someone who needs it. And no one person has the right to decide to take that connection away from a person who needs or enjoys it.

Poetry: It's More Than One Unit

2010-03-25T14:56:00.001-07:00

When I first started teaching, poetry reading and writing was an "activity" that I saved for the end of the year. I would "do" a unit on poetry, which usually included a mixture of classic and modern poets and attempt to have students engage in these select poems. I would also use a multi-genre project to inspire students to write poems, providing specific poetic forms for them to imitate.

Now, poetry is a year-long fascination for me. I have come to see that poetry is all at once the easiest and most complex way to integrate a love of language and playfulness into the curriculum. It is no longer an afterthought for me; rather, it has become the inspiration for entire courses of study within my classroom.

Like most secondary education English teachers, I love National Poetry Month. Also, like most secondary education English teachers, I am overwhelmed by National Poetry Month. There is so much that I hope to do, hope to accomplish, wish I could try and do with my students during this one short month. Fortunately, there are all sorts of suggestions and poems and lessons available to teachers in my predicament. Unfortunately, these ideas are amazing and add to my want to "do" more during April, a month that includes a week-long vacation.

I've decided that I need to breathe deeply. I've incorporated more poetry than ever in my regular classroom teaching. Poetry is taught/ discussed/ shared/ written/ created at least once per week in my classroom now. Gone are the days when I teach a poetry unit to my students and call it "good". Poetry is a focal point, not a byline.

I plan to write a series of posts related to this topic for late March and throughout April. In these posts, I hope to share some of the resources (which I may or may not have time to use) in hopes that you and your colleagues may be inspired to incorporate poetry into your teaching or to add to existing poetry ideas/ lesson plans.

Here is my first item. I just discovered the Poetry Everywhere project, which is port of the Poetry Foundation. On this site, you can find videos narrated by poets reading their work. It's pretty darn incredible. Be sure to click the picture I've provided in this post. It's linked to an inspiring poem titled "Weighing In" by Rhina Espaillat. Check back for more throughout late March and all of April.

Controversy in Texas: My Case Against Textbooks

2010-03-24T06:29:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've read a whole lot, more, and even more and about the controversial efforts of the Texas Board of Education to include a greater emphasis on the Christianity of our founding father and exclude "negative" words like capitalism, in favor of friendlier terms like "free enterprise system". I understand that people are aghast and upset about this issue because as Texas goes, so goes the nation. Well, this is true in terms of textbooks sales at least. The textbooks created for little Texans are bought and sold to many, many other states.

I'm going to use this issue as proof for my anti-textbook philosophy. I used a textbook in my first year of teaching and have not picked up one since. I find them to be a bit useless and off-putting. I think that textbooks are designed to meet the needs of a general population. I like to believe that my teaching and my lesson planning seeks to go beyond the usual. I think that even when textbooks are created with the best of intentions, censorship still exists. I vividly remember teaching a shortened version of Romeo and Juliet out of a textbook that first year of teaching. Of course, all of the parts that were excluded involved the "good stuff": The intimate scenes between the young lovers.

No matter how hard a textbook company tries to be unbiased and inclusive, there are materials and authors left out. I'd rather compile the poems, plays, excerpts, essays, and other such materials as I see fit. I don't need a textbook to lead my teaching. Plus, I worry that textbooks are sometimes used in place of a larger work, which alienates the reader from the reading experience. I've never curled up in bed with a great textbook. I don't envision my students becoming life-long readers because of a well-crafted textbook.

Plus, the internet allows for a huge variety of reading options. A stock collection of fifteen to twenty poems in an American Lit textbook is no longer the only resource available to students and teachers. Of course, pulling together a wide variety of materials and resources online takes time. We're used to this, though, right? Perhaps this Texas textbook scandal will finally make us all realize that the best way to teach is with authentic materials that are pulled together from a variety of sources. Maybe the days of a one-book curriculum are finally over. Outside of Texas, that is!

Using Documentaries To Discuss Social Issues with Teenagers

2010-03-21T16:16:00.001-07:00

Lately, there have been a number of memorable and professional documentary series created for teenagers. I am a huge fan of documentaries and find them appealing for a number of reasons. My students, however, are less impressed with docs that I find fascinating. They are not as patient with the slow, PBS-style format that I have come to love (but probably would've found boring when I was a teen too).

Now, I'm making an assumption here that many of you are looking for ways to talk with your teen students about serious and controversial social issues. I know that it can be easier to gloss over issues of drug use, teen pregnancy, abuse, homelessness, suicide, immigration, and racism rather than face them head-on with students. Most of my philosophy of education is dedicated to talking about real issues with students. I feel that these conversations will help students to become more connected to their learning in my classroom and involved in the realities of their world. For me, I want to be real because the real world is out there and will not slow just because you happen to be only eighteen and a recent high school grad.

I know that many teachers/ adults/ people with brains are not fond of MTV. Because I have seen the debauchery and wanton recklessness of such series as Jersey Shore and The Real World, I can understand this sentiment. In the recent past, though, there have been a number of documentaries aired on MTV that could be of use in the classroom. Here are some that I've enjoyed and would use in the classroom:

True Life: This is a great series that has been on MTV for a long, long time. I've seen every single episode and have to admit that the featured topics have helped me to stay in touch with issues facing today's teens and twenty-somethings. From dealing with drug addiction to being deaf to hating your parents to eating disorders, this series covers it all. Don't have MTV? You can view full episodes directly from this site. You can share a clip or a full episode with students to inform your lesson plan. I know that this show has helped me to show students cultural events and experiences that my students may not otherwise be aware of. We live in a rural environment, but that does not mean that students don't need to be prepared for a global world when they graduate.

16 and Pregnant: This is a newer series from MTV. I am currently watching season two, which is a bit different from season one. Season two profiles one teen girl per week, devoting a full hour to their story. Season one showed five or six girls every week, giving each girl a portion of an hour. I do love seeing a full hour of each teen's pregnancy experience, but I felt a bit more connected to the teens with season one's format. I've not yet used this program in my teaching, but I plan to when we read The First Part Last by Angela Johnson. This young adult title follows the story of a teen boy who is raising his infant daughter without the baby's mother. It is a powerful story, but I feel that there are so many different types of teen pregnancy stories that it could use the help of 16 and Pregnant to highlight some of the other types of choices teen parents can make.

30 Days: This show is created and hosted by Morgan Spurlock, famous for his McDonald's documentary called Super Size Me, where he ate only cheeseburgers and fries for 30 days. The 30 Days television show is developed along the same lines, but with a variety of themes and topics. I've used the Life on an Indian Reservation episode in teaching Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Students loved it and made references back to it throughout the unit. It really helped to show students what a reservation looks like and it shows how Spurlock changes as a result of living on a reservation for a month. There are many other subjects that are explored in interesting ways through the three seasons of this series: Immigration, guns, animal rights, homosexuality, living on minimum wage, and others. You can find full episodes of this show for free on hulu.

Of course, there are other documentaries available online for free through PBS and other such reliable sources. I use those sources as well, but these options are also thoughtful and provocative. They just happen to be aimed at a slightly less mature audience!

Questions, Questions, Questions

2010-03-17T18:16:00.000-07:00

I am in the middle of reading Jim Burke's new book What's the Big Idea?: Question-Driven Units to Motivate Reading, Writing, and Thinking. I've decided that I need to complete multiple posts about this book rather than just one. I don't want to read and review this text; I want to use it. Also, I'm taking my time in reading this one. I'm finding that there is no reason or way to rush through this book. The writing is too thoughtful, too right-on. Every chapter is filled with my notes, connections to units I teach, and it's full of huge exclamations. I totally recommend reading this book (even though I haven't finished it)!

Throughout this text, Burke talks about the importance of asking questions. He gives tons of ways to integrate question-driven units and lesson into the classroom, but it's really the philosophy of developing a questioning classroom that intrigues me. I have known for a long time that student choice helps to promote ownership and excitement in the learning process. It is now clear to me that students need to have some control over the development of the questions that will guide the selection of material--not just the materials themselves.

I recently spotted a cool spot on the New York Times website. It's called "6 Q's About the News". Here, students are encouraged to look at a daily photograph, read the corresponding article or information that goes with it, and answer six basic questions: who, what, when, where, why, how. I could see this becoming a regular feature in my classroom. I know that one of my goals in teaching students is for them to be curious and ask questions about the world around them and this idea would help to accomplish this goal. The photo and the article could be about anything. And, choosing the photo would allow students to have their own take on the way that they answer the six basic questions.

I will post more about this amazing book and the resources I'm finding that connect with it. I also hope to implement some of Burke's ideas into my teaching soon, so stay tuned!

The Problem With Fiction

2010-03-14T11:55:00.000-07:00

In the last few years, I've consistently heard of, read about, and experienced many situations where high school students have not been able to read and report out on nonfiction pieces that they're assigned or choose to read. This problem has become more and more interesting and pressing due to the current importance that is placed on standardized test scores. Our state (Maine) uses the SAT as the standardized test measurement for all high school juniors. There is no fiction on the SAT, yet the majority of our high school English curriculum is made up of fiction.

Rather than point the fingers at English teachers, who tend to harbor most of the 'blame' when our students are not achieving at reading, this issue seems to be one that can be shouldered most effectively by every high school teacher. Maybe I'm forgetting some subject, but it seems that all contents teach nonfiction in high school. Right? From art to math to science to social studies and world languages, nonfiction is the preferred genre. So, if this is the predominant source of reading material for high school students, why are they lacking the skills to read nonfiction?

My idea for writing this post came from a recent New York Times Idea of the Day segment titled "Schools Nonfiction Problem (True Story)". I was intrigued by this article because it aligned with what I've been hearing at staff meetings, in professional development sessions, and with what I've seen in my own classroom. I feel that this article brushes the surface of this problem but does not touch the underlying issue at hand: How do we best equip students to understand nonfiction materials, while allowing for choice and required readings in English courses?

Tom Kuntz, the article of this piece, refers to a Renaissance Learning study that concluded that only two of the top twenty reading choices of high school students were Night by Elie Wiesel and A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer. What's interesting to me is that on that same list are several fiction choices that are obviously assigned readings for English classrooms. Fahrenheit 451? The Great Gatsby? Of Mice and Men? These are not student selected readings for most students. These books were assigned for homework.

To me, this study showed more about what books were assigned for class reading and less about what students are actually ready for choice books. (I mention this because Kuntz picks on the Twilight phenomenon. Twilight, I'm sure, is not assigned reading for most, if any, high schooler.) In my classroom, I encourage choice reading during our Silent Sustained Reading time, which we have every class period. During this time, students may read whatever book they like, and I keep track of their accumulated book titles. Relatively few students choose nonfiction titles for SSR books, but those who do tend to be boys and they often choose adventure/ biography titles.

The real answer to this problem, in my opinion, is not by attacking students for their free reading options, but by including more nonfiction in the regular curriculum. I would not be the prolific reader I am today if not for all of the trashy, subversive fiction I read as a teen. Somewhere, somehow I also developed an interest in nonfiction. I feel like that interest and ability to process nonfiction stemmed from some of the fiction I was reading as well as a keen interest in the world. How do we cultivate curious and adventurous readers? It's great that kids are reading vampire stories. How do we get them to want to read about the history of vampire mythology? How do we get them to read about the controversy over whether or not Twilight is appropriate reading material in the New York Times?

On My Wishlist: Magnetic Poetry

2010-03-09T06:54:00.000-08:00

I had forgotten how fun magnetic poetry could be. I have played around with it in the past and knew that it existed, but it took a group of excited freshmen to remind me of the sheer thrill that some random words glued onto magnets can offer. Magnetic Poetry is great in possibilities, but some students have a difficult time limiting their word choice. They want the exact word that they're looking for. On the other hand, some students are frustrated because they just can't start. They have a hard time in coming up with a poem without any direction.

One solution for the latter is the Magnetic Poetry Game. It comes with thematic cards that require the writer to stick to a particular theme or mood. This focus allows students to use their imaginations as to how they're going to express the abstract word written on their card, but it gives them a place to start. This alleviates some of the pressure of coming up with a brilliant poem on one's own. Some students are self-conscious about their writing (or, in this case, arrangement of magnets) and have a hard time playing around and working with meaning and form. It seems that one of the best lessons for this type of student is that there is no right answer or correct usage of a word when it comes to Magnetic Poetry. I think that if this approach is used more often in the classroom, then students may feel more comfortable playing with words in their writing, whether it be verse or prose.

Play is important. Every kindergarten teacher knows this to be true. Somewhere along the line though, teachers and students start to think that play is silly and that rules are serious. I work hard to break the notion that words are stiff and boring and unmovable. Magnetic Poetry allows me to illustrate this point in my classroom. I started this lesson as an option for students. There was other work going on in the room, but if they chose, they could come and play the Magnetic Poetry Game. Two students volunteered right away. Soon, there were five or six students playing. They were laughing and joking and showing their poems around and helping one another to switch out words. It was awesome. Next time a student is stuck in his or her writing, I know that I can refer back to this experience as a reminder that poetry is not a right/ wrong or yes/ no enterprise.

Thanks to my practicum teacher for being hip and cool enough to bring this in for us! Now, I just need to buy it for my classroom.

Also on my wishlist is Magnetic Shakespeare. I'll talk about my thoughts on playing with Shakespeare's words in a later post.

Reading Rituals: All About Book Clubs

2010-03-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

My recent reading of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows has prompted me to write this post. In this piece of historical fiction, you are invited into the world of post-WWII Guernsey, an island centered in the English Channel off the coasts of France and England. Frankly, before reading this novel, I'd never really thought about Guernsey. But, while reading this book and after finishing it, I'm wondering if I'll ever get the opportunity to visit this magical-seeming spot.

I initially bought this book as the March read for a local book club that I belong to. This book club is comprised of about eleven or twelve women who are currently teaching in our school district or who have retired from teaching in it. We've been "together" for about six years and have read a whole host of titles in that time. This book was not one that I proposed, as I thought it sounded a bit cheesy. However, it seemed like a bit of a fun read and also met the criteria for the Bibliophilic Book Challenge, so I ordered the book and read it over my February vacation.

As quaint as the title sounds, there is a whole lot of meat in this novel. I loved the structure of it--completely told in letters written back and forth between the main character, Juliet, and her friends and strangers. With this structure, I felt truly transported to another place in time, where "snail" mail was the only true way to communicate with people and waiting on letters in the mailbox meant more than watching your email inbox for a quick memo or something.

In this novel, Juliet is a writer during and after the Nazi occupation of Europe. She lives in a bombed-but-not-broken London, but is lucky enough to receive a letter from a man living on the island of Guernsey who's looking for a book. This connection leads to all sorts of other threads, but primarily serves to lead Juliet to discover the subject of her next book. I won't talk too much about the subject, but I will remind you that I now having a huge desire to visit Guernsey and meet all sorts of fictional characters who I've grown to love.

More than just satisfying a requirement for a challenge or for my book club, reading this book made me think about the many book clubs I belong to and have created. Hearing about all of the mismatched personalities who made up the roster of the Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society made me think about the people I've met and the books I've read that I never would have been acquainted with if not for the book club. I truly don't think that I would've read this title had it not been the title for March 2010. What else would I not have read over the past six years?

A list of books I've loved but don't think I would've read if not for this book club:

A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Loving Frank: A Novel by Nancy Horan

These four titles are the first that come to mind. I'm sure that there are others that I've read and enjoyed only because they were assigned to me. Now, I belong to several book clubs, all with different themes. So, what is the lesson that I've learned in all book club-ery? I've learned that it's important to talk about books I'm reading. I understand more about plot and character when I have the opportunity to listen to others who've read the same book. I've learned that time spent reading a book that I don't necessarily like is not time wasted. I've also learned that it is okay to put down a book that I hate and not feel pressure to read it all the way through. I read 100 or so pages and if it's not for me, I still go to the meeting and listen and share, but there's no guilt!

More importantly, this one six-year-and-counting book club has bonded me to people whom I would have never met if not for the club. My life has been forever changed by these amazing women and I am excited every month when we all carve out a small space in our busy schedules to make time to chat about a book and whatever else happens to come up in conversation. Thanks, ladies!

I'll post about other book clubs and implications for classroom practice in future posts. Stay tuned!

Tweet Your Life in Eight Words

2010-03-03T18:35:00.000-08:00

Teachers everywhere are honing in on the six word memoirs craze. I've written about my intentions to have my seniors include a six-word memoir in their "Senioritis" projects. The only problem with this fun, fresh assignment is that it will cease to be fun and exciting once students have all done it with all of their teachers. It's like the wordle craze that hit a couple of years ago. One teacher in our district sent out an email about the site and almost every teacher in my building had used it by the end of the week.

So, how's about a newer, fresher idea? While searching around Simon & Schuster's site, I found a section called MyLifeIn8Words. This section is linked to Twitter, and (as I'm writing this post) almost 200 twitterers are following this thread. Like the six-word memoir craze, this is not just for teens. Several tweets that I read where definitely written by adults. What I like about this collection is that there is instant collaboration through the twitter platform. Viewers and tweeters alike can instantly see others' tweets. So, it creates a bank of posts that will be added to for as long as this topic is a cool one.

What I'd like to see is a more daily, meditative sort of variation on this theme. Like, 7WordsWeekly. Hm. Maybe I'm on to something with that one. I like it because a memoir or a "My Life" in so many words seems like it needs to be super profound or telling. It also feels like you can't write a lot of memoirs. I'd like my students to develop a sort of picture of their life over the course of weeks and months. I can just imagine the variety of tweets they'd have! And the plethora of themes and moods. I like this better because it builds understanding of life and I can imagine using their collected tweets in a variety of ways. I guess that I'll just have to try this and get back to you!

Here are some of my favorites from a small section of tweets:

Go Paperless For Earth Day!

2010-03-01T06:08:00.000-08:00

I am a huge proponent of the paperless movement. Gone are the days (hopefully) where I assign a worksheet or poster that will be handed in or hung up for about a week and then put in the trash or recycling bin. There are so many wonderful technologies where students can work creatively and keep their work forever--Not in their bedroom closet or on a refrigerator, but online on their blogs or wikis or another platform of their choosing.

As Earth Day approaches, it's great to hear that other teachers are making the commitment to go paperless, even if it's only for one day. There is so much waste in our profession; let's try and set an example for our students about using paper responsibly.

On Earth Day (April 22), please join myself, my students, and more than one hundred other educators around the country in going paperless. Take the pledge on googledocs and check back to see all of the awesome paperless creations my students make this Earth Day!

A Whole New Breed: Teaching Millennials

2010-02-27T06:51:00.000-08:00

In my short (seven year) career as an English teacher, I have already seen a huge shift in students' use of technology. When I first started teaching in 2003, most students did not have cell phones, our school did not have much access to laptops, and social networking was not the everyday word it has become. Certainly, students were engaged in gaming and most had myspace accounts, but they were not as connected on a daily basis as they are now.

Rather than complain about these changes, I am extremely interested in looking at ways to observe how students' learning and attitudes change as a result of increase exposure to technology. I tend to think of this technological revolution as akin to other revolutions in culture in the past. These changes are uncomfortable for some and definitely help to divide the generations. Certainly this same sort of divide occurred during the 1920's and the 1960's. The difference, as I see it, is that technology is not separate from education, like the "flapper" movement or anti-war protests. Technology, in all of its forms, is here to stay and cannot be left at the classroom door.

Over the past few years, I taken a realistic inventory of the technologies I use on a regular basis. I want to know what I use so that I can incorporate technology into my teaching. If I need to know how to use a particular technology in my life, students may need it in theirs for a college or work experience. I use email, word processing, blogging, nings, wii, texting, itouch, youtube, RSS feeds, screenshots, and my camera phone every week. When I'm thinking of a lesson plan, I sometimes think about a technology that could be used in a real way to better the educational experience for students. If students are not taught to use technology, they may be left behind in those skills that they will need in college or in the workplace.

Wondering where you fit in the millennial landscape? Take the quiz: How Millennial Are You?

So, what does it mean to be a member of the Millennial Generation? According to the Pew Research Center, it means that you're going to be far more liberal, less religious, more open to change, and more connected than the preceding generations. Also, the researchers at Pew have found that the Millennial Generation is going to be the most educated generation ever. What are the implications of this for teachers who are not of the this same generation? To me, this says that I don't have the right to sit back on my Generation X laurels and allow all of this learning about and application of technology pass me by. Because, just as the latest and greatest technology will be passé in a few months, so could your lesson plans!

Read the Study: The Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.

Read Across America: March 2, 2010

2010-02-26T04:33:00.000-08:00

Every year, the National Educational Association (NEA) celebrates Dr. Suess's birthday with a campaign called Read Across America. For this celebration, the NEA offers many ideas for schools, libraries, and parents to institute fun reading events in local and online communities.

Some of the ideas/ events include:

Send an ecard
Facebook fan page
Send a video to schooltube or youtube
A list of 13 Suess-gestions if you get stuck

I plan to celebrate this activity in my classroom with my students by:

-Reading Dr. Seuss books aloud in class

-Hosting a 50 word children's book challenge (based on the fact that Green Eggs and Ham inculdes only 50 words)

-Having a Seuss quotation as "quote of the week"

-Having a Seuss-original word as "word of the week"

I'm still thinking of other ways to increase awareness about this project, so if you have ideas for me please feel free to send them my way!

1:1 Computing: Not An Automatic Fix

2010-02-22T06:46:00.000-08:00

This year, the school where I work was lucky enough to go one-to-one, as in every student has his or her own laptop. I have been wishing and waiting for this to happen ever since I started teaching. In the state of Maine, all middle school students have laptops and then when most students reach high school, their laptops stay behind in the middle school and students use laptops on carts or computers in labs.

To me, it has always seemed imperative that high school students have regular access to technology. After all, they will be entering the work force of the world of post-secondary education where they will need to have a working knowledge of how to use applications and programs effectively. Now, our students will have their own laptop every day, so their knowledge of and ability to adapt technology to their needs will be in place.

But, this is only if teachers use technology in their classrooms. A recent article from eSchool News reminds us that teachers still plan lessons, still manage their students, and still create learning environments that can either encourage or discourage the use of technology. It seems that in the hype of getting a one-to-one program up and running in a school, professional development and data concerning the use of computers can go by the wayside. Obviously, there has been such huge growth in technology over the past twenty or thirty years and not every teacher is comfortable, willing, or able to integrate technology effectively in their teaching. Or, some teachers assume that just because computers are being used means that they are doing what's "right" for students. A computer is just a tool, though. If it's not being used for a purpose, it's just a fancier (and more expensive) version of a pencil or poster paper.

Every time I decide to use technology in my planning, I still go through the motions to think about these basic questions:

-What should students know or know how to do after this lesson?

-What other tools could I use to produce the same learning experience?

-How am I going to know if students are successful in their learning?

-Should I collect feedback about the technology used in this process?

One of the most important questions on this list has been the "what other tools can I use" because there are inevitable glitches in connectivity, power, server maintenance, students forgetting to bring their laptops, sites/ applications not working as planned. In short, there needs to be a back-up plan for any lesson involving computers. Also important has been collecting student feedback about the applications, sites, and methods used. I have offered up two lengthy online surveys to my students this year to better understand where they are in their technological journey. Not all students are experienced and fluent users of technology and not all students love technology. It's important to hear all comments and suggestions to better inform teaching practices.

Finally, I'd just like to put out there that keeping abreast of technology and all of the new sites and apps and tools and ideas is a lot of work. I spend hours and hours every week, every day checking out leads to enhance my understanding of technology. Of course, I love technology so this is not a painful practice, but it is time consuming. I think that there is a lack of understanding about the time and energy needed to stay tuned-in to the tech world. Teachers and students can easily become overwhelmed and turned-off by the amount of new knowledge there is to be had. I would recommend a lot of reflection about how much tech is manageable for you and your students and what you're willing to try in your classroom. Boundaries are necessary when it comes to tech integration.

Appealing to the Aural: Audiobooks in the English Classroom

2010-02-19T17:52:00.000-08:00

In addition to reading texts aloud for and with my students, I also have found that students greatly enjoy hearing audiobook versions of their favorite stories. There are a few books that I teach using audiobooks. I find that, in these select texts, the addition of the audiobook greatly enhances student learning. For example, I've used the following audiobooks in my teaching:

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, read by Gary Sinise
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, downloaded free of charge from Librivox
The Absolutely True Diaries of a Part-Time Indian written and read aloud by Sherman Alexie

I decided to use Of Mice and Men after realizing that the only female voice in the entire story was that of "Curly's Wife", who is never given a proper name. This story needed to have a male voice to express its true grit. So, I previewed the Gary Sinise version and fell in love with it. Sinise is an expert reader and does a whole array of voices to meet the needs of each character's personality. It is a genius recording and it helps to pull students into the story. Plus, Sinise plays the role of George in the movie version of this novel. Every time I use this recording, students are mesmerized by Sinise's interpretation of the characters. Because they are so invested in the story, their comprehension of the text is much greater.

Right before I started teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I had a bit of a nervous breakdown. I knew that I could not possibly due any of the characters justice with my uneven and incorrect pronunciation of the Southern dialect used throughout this novel. I did, though, want to get across the absolute beauty and excitement of Twain's writing. I stumbled through this text in front of my bathroom mirror for a few days before breaking down and looking for an online version that I could practice from. What I found was so awesome that I used it in my classroom. I found it free through Librivox, an awesome site with all kinds of free recordings. Students loved this novel--Laughed at all of the right places, feel head over heels for Jim and Huck, and felt all of the craziness of the trips because of this free recording. (I am still attempting to develop a Southern accent. A work in progress for this New England girl!)

A friend gave me a copy of The Absolutely True Diaries of a Part-Time Indian as a gift. I thought about using it in the classroom, but found that I was able to easily pick up Alexie's cadence and use it in my read-alouds. I did use short portions of the recording in class, but felt comfortable reading the text aloud after listening to Alexie's version. In listening to the recorded text, though, I was able to hear the portions of text that Alexie stressed. I learned more about the characters and the plot by listening to his read aloud than I did by simply reading the book. Which, I guess, is my point in using these recordings with students in the first place.

Using Manipulatives with Poems

2010-02-17T10:37:00.000-08:00

This past week, our school decided to hold our annual Winter Carnival festivities and NWEA testing the same week. As I started the week, I had no idea how I was going to make an sort of teaching or learning happen with such huge distractions. So, for our weekly Poetry Friday celebration, I decided to embrace the spirit of Valentine's Day and my love for all things poetry and Shakespeare.

I've played around with the idea that using manipulatives helps students to think through problems and express themselves in a more abstract manner. Inspired in part by magnetic poetry and a beautiful heart-shaped concrete poem by Guillaume Appolinaire, I thought that it would be interesting to see if students could take love-y poems and use them to both create their own concrete poems and to experiment with language. I thought that I could observe their process in playing with words and see what happened. Here are the instructions I gave to my freshmen students:

Step 1: Go to this poetry site and choose a line or two that make sense on their own.
Step 2: Grab some candy hearts and write the words from your line(s) of poetry on them.
Step 3: Arrange your lines of poetry in a shape that's meaningful to you.
Step 4: Snap a picture of your concrete poem creation for your blog.
Step 5: Trade your candy hearts with a peer. Have the other student use your words to make their own poem and a new shape.
Step 6: Take a picture of the new poem(s) and post them on your blog.
Step 7: Write a blog entry with your pictures. Explain what was hard about creating poems using these materials & what was easy.

What I saw was pretty amazing. I saw students work to take the meaning of the original lines of published poetry and try purposely to make a whole new or opposite meaning from the original. I had not anticipated that students would want to think so critically. I also witnessed students who are typically very easily frustrated with poetry having tons of fun with it and not getting upset that I wanted them to use all of the words given to them. Awesome. I used this activity with freshmen.

With seniors, we're transitioning toward reading The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. I did not want to start the play the day before break, because I knew that would lead to confusion when we returned. I did want to hold a Poetry Friday activity, though, because these seniors get upset when we do not hold Poetry Friday. Here are the instructions I gave to my senior students:

-Choose two or three lines from a sonnet that you feel like you understand and/or connect with -Write the words of those lines on candy hearts -Shape your words into one of the letters in S-H-A-K-E-S-P-E-A-R-E (exactly as many students as we have in English 12!) -Take a picture of your poetic lines -Write your understanding/ why you like this poem on the post-its provided to you -Go around to others with your post-its and add to the appreciation

The seniors did an amazing job. I was worried that some would just go for any old couplet to just get this done. What I did not foresee was their want to choose lines that they not only understood but agreed with. Maybe this is related to the fact that they are all in serious relationships or have been in the past. Whatever the reason, I was happy to see them taking this exercise seriously and working to understand all of the lines of poetry offered.

Here is the final product from the senior group:

Book Review: Books by Larry McMurtry

2010-02-13T13:34:00.000-08:00

If I ever had any desire to buy and sell used and antiquarian books, Larry McMurtry has killed it. Much of his memoir Books is about this exact subject and it does not make for very interesting reading. And, it doesn't seem like fun. I love to read books, get lost in them, pass them on to someone who will love them. I don't get excited about the idea of buying books wholesale buy the floor. Too much.

McMurtry's best writing in this memoir comes with his recollections of what started him reading in the first place. He was raised on a ranch in Texas without a single novel or children's book to be found. His mother owned a Bible, but that was not what propelled McMurtry to his love of literature. A cousin once dropped off a box of nineteen books at McMurtry's home for him to read. McMurtry was about eight or nine years old and couldn't resist the tales of adventure and sleuthing. Scenes of McMurtry as a young child start the memoir, but disappear quickly. After this, the memoir takes a turn for the extremely uninteresting, unless you're fascinated by stories of warehouses and barns full of books which McMurtry and his book-buying friends seek out and buy.

As I read the first part of this memoir, I did find myself thinking about my own childhood and my love of reading. It is important, as educators, to reflect on the reasons and the types of readings that made us so interested in pursuing literacy. I know that I loved books as a child. I definitely used them as a way to escape, but I also genuinely loved words and language. If we are able to identify and remember what first lead us to language and literature, our chances of igniting that same love in the children we teach is that much greater.

I would've loved this book if it had stayed closer to McMurtry's reading and writing and less of the buying and seeking of rare books. This book would be a great match for a rare book collector, which I am not. I am glad that I read this book as it counts toward my participation in the Bibliophilic Book Challenge, which is an awesome and unique reading adventure!

KWL 2.0

2010-02-06T08:39:00.000-08:00

I love to use literacy strategies that allow for both individual and collaborative thought. I've used the KWL strategy to help my sophomore students gather and display information that they've learned about William Shakespeare and life in Elizabethan/ Jacobean England in the past. This was a creative, visually powerful method of showing those who enter our classroom what we've learned, but this year I wanted to be able to show this learning to the world. How? Well, I went through a bunch of ideas before I remembered the pre-made concept sort file that I'd saved last year. I took this basic file (created in pages) and used it for a KWL. I projected the sort on my screen and voila! We had an instant, live, collaborative KWL to use in the classroom. Here is the blank template:

I first asked the entire group of sophomores to think for a silent thirty seconds or so about what they remembered from last year's Shakespeare webquest. As you can see, they didn't retain a whole lot of information. Most students were able to come up with at least one fact about Shakespeare, even if it was simply the title of one of his plays. After this group knowledge collecting/ refresher, students were given another silent thirty seconds or so to think of the questions that they'd like to have answered about Shakespeare. They came up with some awesome questions. Then, students chose partners and worked in pairs to find answers to the questions they'd asked. They also looked for random, interesting facts about Shakespeare's life and Elizabethan/ Jacobean England. I had emailed each student a blank template so that they could fill-in their findings and send it back to me. As I received their emails, I took their information and copied it into the "learned" column. (I decided to type rather than use the tiles because there were so many facts.) Here is the end result of our efforts:

This is now a document that we can add to, reuse, refer back to, and keep for our next Shakespearean experience. As much as I loved using and looking at the huge bull's eye bulletin board of the previous KWL chart, this one is much more functional and it's way easier to read. I plan to use this strategy again!

Wallwisher: Interactive Communication

2010-02-03T16:56:00.000-08:00

Looking for a way for students to share their thoughts or reflections without having another in-class discussion? I know that it can be hard to create a quiet environment for those students who need peace and quiet to build their thoughts before they share. Similarly, students who blurt out their answers to questions can sometimes benefit from a little quiet and space to develop their thoughts before they share. These same students also sometimes need a restriction on how long they can ramble before getting to their point.

If you're interested in finding a space where students can post their thoughts and ideas and collaborate in a more orderly, peaceful manner, wallwisher might be the platform you need. I've used it twice in two of my classes for completely different purposes and have met with success each time. Here are links to two ways that I've used wallwisher with freshmen and junior students:

Think-Tech-Share with Freshmen (5 Paragraph Essay pre-writing exercise)

Webquest with Juniors (To lead into unit using Arthur Miller's The Crucible)

In both lessons, students used the wallwisher site to post short snippets of thought or their findings about a particular issue. After using this method with students, I found that their feedback and the information they and I received from the activities were beneficial. I love that students can post thoughts and images on this site. I also love that students can see/ read what others in the class have to say. Several of my quiet students have enjoyed not being interrupted in their thoughts, and the more outgoing students have had to condense their opinions to meet the 160 character limit. I have all kinds of ideas about how I'm going to use this site in the future!

Creative Writing Idea: Shorten That Autobiography Assignment

2010-01-31T08:37:00.000-08:00

When I started teaching, I had the notion that a great creative writing assignment would be the ever-popular "write your autobiography in an original way". Some students did a great job; others not so much. The point that I missed in this whole writing exercise is that it really had no point. I was not sure about how this assignment fit into the curricula and/ or my philosophy of teaching. Now, I firmly believe that I need to work with students to form a vision of who they are and who they hope to become. My entire four years with students has become a journey in five questions:

Who are you?
What are your thoughts and beliefs?
What are your dreams?
Where are you going?
How will you get there?

These questions reflective my philosophy that my teaching should be student-centered and should work to value the experiences that my students bring to the classroom. Also, these questions fit in nicely with our district curriculum, which requires a certain amount of career and/or prep and experiences with a variety of writing styles.

Now, as I become more cognizant of my goals and objectives in asking students about their autobiographies, I have decided that less is more. I don't really want them to labor over drafts of writing that start with their birth and end with them graduating high school. One way yo get them to pare down their writing is to narrow their focus. Here are two options of several that I've employed in my lesson planning:

The Six Word Memoir: As simple as it sounds. There are a series of books, an online site, and lots of youtube videos for use as samples.

Your Life Story on a Postcard. Allows for more writing than a Six Word Memoir, but not the pages and pages that a traditional autobiography assignment requires. Helps to narrow down thinking and adds an element of creativity with the choice of postcard.

Survey for Teachers Who Work With Struggling Readers

2010-01-25T16:30:00.000-08:00

A message from Kylene Beers:

Looking for some help....

Bob Probst and I are looking for some information on how teachers teach novels to struggling readers. We’ve created a survey on survey monkey and will keep it open through January 30.

Survey link: http://bit.ly/55dFOE

Would you each spread the word about the survey through your own twitter accounts, Nings, Facebook page, or email distribution lists? Some of you might even actually talk face to face with teachers. That’s also an acceptable word to encourage folks to participate. Those of you with college classes of inservice teachers might encourage them to respond.

We’ll post results on my blog site (KyleneBeers.net) in a couple of weeks.

Thanks,
Kylene

One Little Word

2010-01-21T04:24:00.001-08:00

This year, I'm joining groups of people all over the country who are choosing to focus on One Little Word. The actual word each person chooses will vary depending on the person's goals for this new year. My word is:

Relax.

It's a simple word, but it's a feeling, an action, a state of mind that evades me on a daily basis. I started a graduate program two years ago, work full time, am involved in my school and community and generally feel a bit nutty on most days. Some who know me cannot believe that this would be a word that I would choose to focus on because I seem like I have it all under control. This is an illusion. I have a hard time letting go, so to speak, and just living. I hope to adapt my schedule and my mind to accepting a more relaxed pace. This is the goal.

What is your One Little Word for 2010?

Link to flickr photo group

Real World Reflections: Students Blog about the News

2010-01-18T16:12:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned before, I start every workday by driving to school with National Public Radio (NPR) blaring from my speakers. I am more than a fan of NPR; I am obsessed. The difference? Well, if I don't get a regular dose of news in the morning, I feel disconnected. If our local station is conducting a pledge drive or if the radio is so static-y that I can't listen, my day is not as smooth. There is something about being informed that makes me feel, well, part of the world.

Though what my students listen to on their ride to school in the morning differs from my choice of stations, I know that they're interested in what's going on in the world. They may not be ready to sacrifice a half-hour or twenty minutes of music for news, but that does not mean that they don't care about what's happening in the world. Their world.

For instance, Miep Gies, the brave soul who helped hide the Frank family during the Holocaust, died this past week. She was 100 years old and humble able her role in saving Anne Frank's diary so that the rest of the world could read it. As I listened to an interview with Ms. Gies, I knew that students needed to know about her life. I had planned for students to write a blog post about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his contribution to the Civil Rights Movement. I still wanted to give students the option to write that post, but decided to offer an alternate assignment. Now they could choose to write about either Dr. King or Ms. Gies. Some students chose to write about both.

Part of my realization in this lesson was that most of my students are disconnected from the daily news, but truly care about important events and happenings when someone takes the time to share it with them. As I introduced the day's blogging assignment, a regular feature in our classroom, many students genuinely wanted to know more about Miep Gies, the Holocaust, Anne Frank, and genocide. We had a rich discussion about these topics, which totally lead the whole lesson for the day off track, but I did not care. We talked. Like people who care about the world and humanity and history and society talk. It was real. They learned from that conversation, and so did I.

I promise to continue to bring up news items in class, even if we are lead astray and I don't accomplish all of what I've planned. I look forward to have real, relevant discussions with students about news that matters. Just as I need to hear the news on my drive to work to feel connected, talking about important news events like Miep Gies, the recent earthquake in Haiti, the economy, elections, and other items of interest will engage them in the larger world.

Here is a student sample blog post about Miep Gies:

Student 1

My Daily Bread: Famous Poems & Quotations

2010-01-13T13:46:00.000-08:00

Every work day, I follow a routine. I drive to work listening to National Public Radio (NPR), stop at a coffee shop, scoot over to school, open my email, and read a famous quote and a poem. Every day.

I cannot tell you how much I look forward to these regular features in my email inbox. I am often inspired with a lesson idea, a purpose for the day, or am either made to smile or get all goosebumpled by something profound that someone else has either said or written. I think that these daily doses of thought have also opened my line of vision to new poets, politicians, and literary figures that I've never read or heard about before. I regularly want to know more about the person behind the quote or poem and will research them further. I have found quite a few new favorite people and poems this way.

Here is the poem I found in my email inbox this morning:

"Snow Day"

Snowing outside,
and the boy in short pants
swings a broom.

He’s at bat
in his room
that’s a park

for the other boy
smaller and kneeling
waiting his turn

for the Sun,
maybe Spring,
whichever comes first.

by Donal Mahoney

I found this poem to be absolutely beautiful in its simplicity and in its powerful imagery. I love poems like this, but doubt that I would've ever stumbled across it, as I'd never heard of the author before and very rarely seek out poems about snow. I conducted some quick research about Donal Mahoney and found out that he is the son of Irish Immigrants and has tons of poems available online.

Here's the quotation I received in my email inbox this morning:

"Inaction saps the vigor of the mind." ~~ Leonardo da Vinci

Not one of my favorites, but it definitely inspired me to get up and start working! Sometimes I save these emails (I have a special folder for both poetry and quotations) and sometimes I delete them. I often refer back to these emails when I'm looking for inspiration or a new author. Either way, I love getting up and driving to work in the morning, anticipating the poetry and words of wisdom that await me in my email inbox!

To subscribe to Daily Poetry, simply visit this site and enter your email address. It is just as easy to receive a famous education-related quote in your email every day. Just follow this link.

New Book for a New Year: Today I Will

2010-01-04T17:48:00.001-08:00

Jerry and Eileen Spinelli have coauthored a new book entitled Today I Will: A Year of Quotes, Notes, and Promises to Myself. I have to admit that when I saw this I had to have it. Mostly, this is due to a serious soft spot in my heart for a few of Spinelli's books (Stargirl, Milkweed, Loser). Though primarily an author for middle level students, I felt that this title might be put to good use in my Study Skills classes.

I sometimes struggle to come up with meaningful, creative exercises and projects for these students. With my English classes, there is a set curriculum and there are books and poems to read. Study Skills, on the other hand, is more of an elective class with no specific reading materials. So, I've worked and searched and pulled together a bunch of activities for students who finish their homework, studying and make-up work for other classes.

The appeal of this book for me is the fact that it is arranged in a sort of calendar. I have read through the book and have earmarked a number of writings that seem like they'll lead to thoughtful student products. I especially like:

February 6th: In this entry, the Spinellis talk about hatred and the power of forgiveness. I can easily think of some writing prompts to go along with this topic.

April 6th: The discussion in this entry is all about rain. I have to admit that I love a good spring rain. There is nothing more refreshing. So, maybe we'll all go outside and dance in the rain (or snow!) that is bound to be falling this April 6th!

September 9th: Like the Spinellis, I have a lot of opinions concerning a whole host of issues. This entry acknowledges that we have have some opinions that we hold, but that we also need to learn to listen to others. I have found that the notion that opinions need to be respected could use some work in many of the classes I teach.

These are just a small sampling of the 366 pages of ideas offered in this book. This is a great resource to have if you're looking for some writing prompt inspiration or some great quotations by famous authors. They can easily be used for student blogs or writing journals. Either way, this text is good for a rainy day activity or as a regular feature in your classroom!

Bibliophilic Book Challenge: The Book Thief

2010-01-03T14:35:00.000-08:00

Though I'd planned on reading all nonfiction titles for the Bibliophilic Book Challenge, I found myself needing to reread The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and realized that this title fits this challenge perfectly. For this challenge, I need to read a certain number of books (I'll explain this later) that relate directly to reading or books. As for the number of books I'll read during this challenge, I can choose from the following levels:

Bookworm: Read three books

Litlover: Read six books

Bibliomaniac: Read twelve books

Now, I already know that I am a book lover, but am I a bibliomanic? I guess that this remains to be seen. If you're interested in joining this challenge, there's still time. In fact, you have until January 31, 2010.

And, on to the book review.

The Book Thief is the current title for a local and online book club I started with a middle school teacher this year. We started this club because we felt that there was a disconnect between the English departments in the middle and high schools in our district. What better way to bring English teachers together than over some great young adult lit? We decided to start the club this fall and we're now on our fourth title, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. We have about ten or eleven members who're participating in our monthly meetings and 110 online book clubbers. Pretty amazing.

Again, on to the book review.

I was excited to have this selection pulled out of the dish (for lack of a hat) at our November meeting. I had read this book once before, but in a bit of a hurry and it's not really a book that should be read in a hurry. I knew that I remember the basic plot and some of the scenes, but knew that I needed to reread in order to participate in our book club discussion. And, as a facilitator of this club, I should be participating in discussion!

I out off reading this title for most of Christmas break, thinking that it would be too dark for me to go and have fun during reading breaks. I've found the opposite to be true. I am having a hard time putting it down and am not feeling depressed by its story, but uplifted. This is odd, because it is about WWII and the Holocaust, though not directly, and there's plenty of suffering and hunger and war going on. But, there's a huge amount of humanity and tenderness and care in this novel that I hadn't really sensed during that first rushed read.

I am moved by the main character Liesel, and her foster family. I love that there is love in her home and that her foster parents genuinely care for her and for the Jewish man that's hiding in the basement. Not that there's not a whole ton of madness, too. There is. But there's also a deep humane sort of current running through this novel. It's inspiring.

It's also about books. The main character is illiterate at the start of the novel, and therefore has a deep desire to learn to read. She is appreciative of language and books in a way that I have never seen. She is a book thief, but this is to her credit as a person and not to her detriment.

I also love the way that the Jewish man, Max, who hides in the family's basement takes Hitler's Mein Kampf, which is filled with hate, and transforms it into stories of love and redemption. It's quite marvelous.

If you have not yet read this book, or have only had a cursory reading, you may want to pick up a copy. It is long and it is about war, but it's also extremely moving and shows a side of humanity not often portrayed in war stories.

Donors Choose

2009-12-30T07:54:00.001-08:00

This fall, I had a problem. I purchased a class set of Suzanne Collins' book The Hunger Games for my seniors. I though that they would get excited about reading it and that it would segue nicely into Lord of the Flies. I thought that they would be pulled in by the action and relate a little to the main character, Katniss, who grows up in a poor section of her country. I thought we'd have some interesting discussions and that they'd enjoy the experience as a whole.

And I was wrong. They were obsessed with the book. Every time I tried to do anything else, they'd glare at me and beg to read. It was getting to a point where I was afraid to try and do anything besides read the book with them. Plus, I'd already let them know that this book was a series book and that there was already another title out called Catching Fire. When they started to clamor for this title to be our next book, how could I say no?

On the other hand, with a frozen budget and the second book in the series still in hardcover at $17.99 a pop, how could I have said yes? I started to brainstorm ways to get a few copies of the book so that I could send it home as a free reading book for those interested, but it just wasn't going to happen. Then, I remembered a coworker showing me a camera that she'd received from an anonymous benefactor on the Donors Choose website. So, I sat down one Sunday afternoon and spent a couple of hours forming an online plea for help. Within twenty-four hours, we'd been funded. Catching Fire was in our classroom five days after I created an account on Donors Choose.

I couldn't believe it. I mean, as a teacher I am used to scrambling and begging and pleading for stuff for my students; it's what we do. I'm used to doing this at the school and community level, though. Not on the national scene! It blew my mind and when I told my students, I thought that they were going to cry. They were so touched, so genuinely affected by this outpouring of goodness that they couldn't wait to thank the kind folks who'd given them these books.

Since this first experience with Donors Choose, I've had three other projects funded. I'm supposed to remain anonymous as a teacher, so I'm not going to provide much in the way of details here. But, I will say that these four funded projects have totaled over one thousand dollars. For real.

If you are a teacher with students in need, you should definitely check this site out. Or if you're someone looking to give a large or small gift to a classroom in need, this may be your way to help out. Either way, it may be one of the most powerful experiences in giving and receiving that you'll ever have.

2010 Bibliophilic Book Challenge

2009-12-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

I've been enjoying my first day of Christmas vacation. So far, I've managed to catch up on neglected projects and emails. This afternoon, I even had some extra time to check up on blogs I follow, and I'm certainly glad I did because I came a across a post that excited and inspired me to join the 2010 Bibliophilic Books Challenge!

What in the world is that, you ask? Well, it's this awesome challenge that's actually quite perfect for those interested in learning more about literacy. This challenge asks that you read books about reading. There are a number of books sitting on my not-yet-read shelf that are about reading. Really, I've read a number of books in the past year about this very subject. Lucky for me, there are so many more! I'll post reviews of the books I read for the Bibliophilic Challenge on this blog. To join in the fun, just visit this site and follow along or link your blog to the main site.

According to the site, these are the levels you can reach in the contest:

Bookworm: Read three books

Litlover: Read six books

Bibliomaniac: Read twelve books

Sounds like good, clean fun! Get a badge for your blog or wiki here.

How to Give Back: She's the First

2009-12-18T17:59:00.000-08:00

In scanning my favorite blogs, I found a post about a site called She's the First. It's an organization that helps match donors with girls in need of funds for education on an international level. This site offers several options for giving to a variety of countries. You can even team up with others to donate monthly. In some situations, the you can even keep in touch with the girl you're supporting.

Maybe this is the perfect holiday gift for that hard-to-buy-for someone who already has everything?

Critical Thinking Tool

2009-12-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

This past week, I spent some time searching for a web tool to use for a final project for a graduate course I'm taking. I had this big vision of creating a mosaic of pictures to fit this fairly complicated intersecting circle design that is the crux of the text I read as part of this class. I used google to search for picture mosaic programs, but was not able to find anything. Then, almost by accident, I can across a site called UMapper on a blog that I follow. As it turns out, this is an awesome site and everyone should be thinking about whether or not it is something that can be used in the classroom setting.

I have not yet finished my project for the grad class, but you can view this work in progress if you'd like. I plan to add-in some text to explain the pictures and the intersecting circles. I'm also going to try to add some music to this. I can't wait to experiment with it. I've also been thinking of ways to incorporate it into my teaching. So far, I've thought of several character and vocabulary mapping ideas. I think that there are multiple ways that this technology could be used in a wide array of content areas.

More importantly, this tool is an easy way to escalate the critical thinking levels in your classroom. The conceptual framework developed by students and the huge amounts of choice in design and delivery will ensure that students are using higher level thinking skills. I look forward to playing with this more and thinking about ways that I could use this in my classroom. Please let me know if you think of anything interesting or if you try this out in your classroom.

What To Do With Inappropriate Posts

2009-12-13T06:14:00.000-08:00

For the first time, I had a student who wrote something that was very inappropriate in a blog post. I've used blogging with students for about a year now, and was very surprised that this student decided to use this platform to discuss such private information. The post was not mean or anything, it simply disclosed all kinds of personal information about her life and her family. As I read it, I had to decide just how I would deal with this issue.

I did not want to come down so hard on this student that she felt discouraged from sharing her story with others. I needed her to understand that her student blog that is connected to other students and to the world through my classroom blog is not the appropriate place to post her inner most feelings about her childhood. As I read her post, it occurred to me that her writing felt like something I would read on myspace. Almost all of my students have some sort of social networking account; I did not realize that they would confuse the public and private sphere so drastically.

This was a learning experience for me. I now plan to talk openly with my students about the identity they create when they write online. I don't think that many students understand that what they write online will follow them for the rest of their lives. Some students seem to have an awareness of this fact but many do not. I know now that I need to talk with them about their online persona and the different types of writing that they'll post online and what's appropriate where.

Luckily, this student was completely understanding of the fact that her post was not appropriate for our classroom blog. I hope that she still feels like she can use her words to let out her frustrations and fears. Part of me wants to give her an old fashioned pen-and-paper journal as a place to record and collect her thoughts. Another part of me, though, is excited that she wrote pages and pages of what amounted to a good start to a personal memoir, à la Jeanette Walls or Tobias Wolff.

Whatever comes of this for the student, I know that I need to think about backing up the train, so to speak, and starting the new year with a lesson on blogging without sharing personal information to the entire universe. After all, once your persona is out there, it's almost impossible to go back and recreate your online self.

Vote for Your Favorite Edublogs!

2009-12-11T15:38:00.000-08:00

The Edublog Awards are awesome. Many of my most treasured, reliable sources for edu-information have won these awards or have been nominated. Express your opinion by December 16th and help the people at Edublog decide which blogs are the best! There are all kinds of interesting categories and there are lots of great sites to find and follow from their lists, no matter what you teach. Have fun exploring and expressing yourself!

Bloggers Unite!

2009-12-10T06:46:00.000-08:00

Recently, I came across a website called Bloggers Unite. The purpose of this site is to gather together bloggers who are interested in supporting any number of international events, like International AIDS Day, Human Rights Day, and International Animal Rights Day. I stumbled across this site as I was looking for information on International AIDS Day in conjunction with a lesson I was planning. Though I was not able to use this site with students for this event, there is serious potential to have students choose events or cause that they have some sort of belief or passion for and to support that interest by blogging.

All of my students have blogs that we use on a regular basis. The challenge in using this platform with students, I believe, is to make it as relevant and real as possible. If students are burdened with artificial tasks on their blogs, their blog space will not become the reflective, representative place that it has the potential to be. I think that there is enormous promise in sites like bloggers unite to allow students a safe entry into the realm of editorial writing. Students can choose a cause that they read about on this site, blog about it, maybe research it a little to gain extra facts, and then upload one of the badges provided to show their support of that particular event. This is an easy way to get students connected to international issues and to allow them to develop their sense of global citizenship.

Another way to use this site is to connect one of the events to whatever unit you're teaching at the time that the event occurs. For instance, I plan to use this site to get students blogging about International Human Rights Day in conjunction with A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. There are definitely instances of human rights abuses discussed in this memoir and my students are feeling the impact of those abuses through Beah's powerful use of language and imagery. Though my students are far removed from the setting of Beah's memoir, they can definitely use their online presence to support an increased awareness of this cause.

500th Post

2009-12-09T06:19:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that I just wrote the 500th post for my classroom blog. This is the third school year that I've used a blogging platform to communicate to students, parents, colleagues, and unnamed others around the world. Also, this blog has turned into a tool to help lead instruction during class rather than a mere one-sided report-out spot.

I feel like this blog is one of the best representations of what it is like to be a student in my classroom. I try to make learning an exciting, interactive, intelligent enterprise. I hope that the blog shows this passion for teaching and learning.

So, hurray for me and for my students and all of those people who've enjoyed this blog in the past. I hope to keep this going and can't wait to to write my next post!

K12 Online Conference 2009

2009-12-07T06:08:00.000-08:00

The theme of this year's K12 Online Conference is "Bridging the Divide". I can't think of a better title to capture the fact that there exists a huge divide in access to and information about how to effectively use technology in the 21st century classroom. As part of this free and user-friendly conference, you can listen to and participate in a huge variety of topics. Some topics are more content specific, but others are more about education in general.

This conference runs for two weeks in December (the 7th-11th and the 14th-17th), but don't fret if you miss any of the sessions. You can listen to any of the sessions after they're completed. In fact, you can also listen to sessions from previous years from the K12 Online website.

Please find the teaser video for session about Digital Writer's Workshop with Jackie Gerstein at the top of this post.

The Largest Professional Development Community Ever!

2009-12-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

For about nine months, I've belonged to an online community of English teachers called the English Companion Ning. On this ning, you can choose from a wide variety of groups that are labeled according to the theme or subject that is talked about on the group's page. I belong to a wide variety of groups, from Shakespeare to creative writing to blogging teachers. I've even started my own group, which is a book club focused on Young Adult Literature.

This has been one of the best collaborative experiences I've ever had as an educator. I've engaged in a variety of conversations, shared ideas, shared documents, and met new educator colleagues from across the country as a result of joining this community. There's an awesome book club where the authors of each month's selection actually participate in the online conversations. It's amazing and I can't say enough about it!

This ning turns one today. It was created on December 5th, 2008. If you're interested in joining, all you need to do is create an account right from the main page. You can participate as little or as often as you like and it's absolutely free! A great deal no matter how you look at it. As author/ teacher/ creator of this extraordinary site, Jim Burke, would say, "See you on the ning"!

A Novel Idea: One Book For All

2009-11-30T07:03:00.000-08:00

How do we promote literacy for all students and all teachers across ability levels and across content areas? One high school in New Jersey has found a model that has reached about 80% of its students and has engaged most of its teachers. As far as literacy initiatives go, this seems to be a successful venture. What did they do? They created a "One Book, One School" model where all students and all teachers are responsible for reading and talking about the same book.

I think that this is an awesome idea. I would worry about the funding of this project, but it seems that if enough players are invested, then this type of initiative could have some success. I remember that when I attended the University of Maine at Farmington for my undergraduate degree there was a "One Book, One Campus" program where students and faculty were encouraged to use and talk about one title per year. I don't know if this initiative was successful or not, but they seem to have a similar program going on now. Its name has changed, but it seems to have the same flavor as the original program.

Even if funding did not exist to buy enough books for every student to have a single copy, there could be an initiative to include as many people as possible lending library situation. There is even room to extend this initiative past the walls of the high school and to seek to include community members and younger students. This just might be a grant project in the making!

Books for Boys

2009-11-28T05:28:00.000-08:00

One of the greatest challenges I face in teaching is finding good reads that male students can get excited about. Every young adult book I read feels like a bit of a search for a good plot, characters, and that extra little je ne sais quoi that will make the read a good read for the guys in my classroom.

Whether this sounds sexist or not, I don't know. When I'm selected reads that are going to be read by the whole class, I know that I need to make sure that the book will appeal to my male readers. In most of my classes, there are more guys than girls. Girls seem to be okay reading a book no matter who the main characters are or the plot. Male students, not so much. I also find that girls are better at supplementing their reading and will read more free reading titles if they're not as interested in our whole class book. It can be a struggle to get my male students into a pattern of keeping a free reading book.

Luckily, I stumbled across a site devoted to guys and what guys read. It's appropriately titled GUYS READ and offers a lot of information about books for guys of all ages, and even offers books for young boys. This site offers a wealth of information and seems like it could be helpful to both male and female teachers. I had a great time looking around this site and plan to use it when I think about purchasing good boy-approved titles this coming year.

National Day of Listening

2009-11-24T16:51:00.001-08:00

Please remember that this coming Friday is the National Day of Listening. In preparation for this important day, my practicum teacher and I have planned a project for our students to complete. The project is going to be titled "Rural Life 101" and will hopefully show viewers what it is like to grow up and live in Western Maine. This idea is based on the Ghetto Life 101 documentary that our students have been listening to in preparation for the novel Monster by Walter Dean Myers.

This celebration is nicely placed on the calendar because it falls right over Thanksgiving vacation. I plan to take some time to interview my father, a man that I deeply admire and respect. I hope to save this interview and share it with future generations. There is no substitute for the sound of a loved one's voice when you haven't seen them in a long time, and I see my father very rarely. I just know that I'll listen to this recording whenever I miss him!

Maybe there is someone in your life that you could interview. Maybe there's a way that you could adapt this project to use with your students. Even if they're not able to participate in the project this holiday week, there is may be some great interview opportunities in the upcoming weeks.

Book Review: Teaching With Fire

2009-11-17T04:17:00.000-08:00

I've had the book Teaching With Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach by Sam Intrator and Megan Scribner on my amazon wishlist for some time now. I've passed this title over several times in favor of other collections of poems. Recently, I decided to go and clean up my wishlist. I bought some titles used for great prices and others I eliminated completely. I am happy to report that this title made the cut and landed in my mailbox just yesterday.

In this collection, selected poems are paired with an explanation written by the teachers who've chosen the poem. They explain why they selected the poem and how it represents their teaching or affected their teaching. This collection of poetry is as diverse as the nation of students we teach. There are selections from William Carlos Williams, Mary Oliver, Walt Whitman, Anne Sexton, Langston Hughes, Margaret Walker, and there are even a couple of Gary Snyder poems. And there's more. And, it all somehow comes together to form a powerful body of work.

I am planning to give this book to my practicum teacher as a thank you gift for working with my students. I've come across nothing better to help inspire a future or practicing teacher to include more poetry in lesson planning. Of course, right after I decided that my practicum teacher would love this book, I had to go online and order another copy of this collection for myself!

The LEARN Act

2009-11-11T07:27:00.000-08:00

There's a new bill before the United States House and Senate. This bill was written by six organizations who are dedicated to providing literacy instruction for all learners. This coalition consists of: the Alliance for Excellent Education, the International Reading Association (IRA), the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Middle School Association, and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

I recently learned of this bill from the NCTE website. Here is a link to the NCTE site where you can read the PDF documents related to this initiative.

This news is pretty exciting. I've read the NCTE document and most of the Senate proposal. I am excited by the possibilities for funding state and nation-wide literacy programs. Finally, it seems as though the need for a national focus on literacy will be heard. Write your state senators to ask them to help support literacy instruction in our public schools!

There's a Poet in the House

2009-11-05T04:34:00.000-08:00

Apparently, President Obama is a fan of poetry. I am not surprised by this, as I have always been moved by his use of language in his speeches and his books. I don't know if this is a new idea or not, but President Obama has joined forces with several colleges to promote poetry. He even hosted a night of spoken-word poetry at the White House this past May.

President Obama has further celebrated the arts by declaring this past October National Arts and Humanities Month. Lady Obama has extended this campaign into November by hosting a series of music performances featuring talented young artists.

Here is a sample of the amazing poetry that the Obamas showcased this past May:

Getting the GIST of Tough Reading Materials

2009-11-03T07:37:00.000-08:00

I love using the GIST with students because we can take all kinds of information and condense it rather quickly. Also, we can take reading materials that are difficult and work to create understanding as a group.

I recently used this strategy with a group of juniors who are moving into an immigration unit where we'll study Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier as our primary text. This text is going to challenge a lot of the readers in my classroom because it is a more adult read than some are sued to. Also, the setting of the text is totally unfamiliar to this audience. Most of my students had no idea where Sierra Leone is located. Knowing that I needed to create a basic understanding of the issues and conflicts that are taking place in Sierra Leone before we read, I used the GIST to discuss a variety of issues with students.

This activity took most of one class, bit has proven to be a valuable tool in creating a large pool of knowledge about the issues facing Sierra Leone right now. All of our news sources are current and we discussed a variety of issues, from rape to agriculture, all within the space of an hour and a half of class time. There is no way that my students would have been able to enter this text without knowing anything about Sierra Leone.

Here's a link to my classroom blog post about the use of this strategy in connection with this text.

NaNoWriMo is Here!

2009-11-01T04:54:00.001-08:00

NaNoWriMo is the abbreviation for the National Novel Writing Month. This is designed to get those of us who've always wanted to write a novel to actually do so. In a month!

If you sign up with NaNoWriMo on their page, you can add-in your words to your novel every day in November. If you get over 50,000, you'll receive a "winner" badge. A surprising number of these books have actually been published, too, so you may also have a shot!

For my students, the important idea here is that November is an awesome time of the year to be writing. I hope to urge them to join this challenge, but even if they are unable to meet the 50,000 words, I know that seeing thousands of people around the globe engaged in writing will be a huge inspiration for them. I know that some of my students do not feel connected to the world at large, and this is one simple way for me to get them to think globally.

Anticipation Guides

2009-10-30T07:18:00.000-07:00

I've used anticipation guides for two of the texts I teach. One is Arthur Miller's The Crucible. I chose to use an anticipation guide before reading and acting out this play with students because I wanted them to have some common ground with the characters in the play. Because this play is set so far in the past, I wanted to make sure that its basic issues and themes did not get lost in the translation from the world of the Puritans to our modern American culture. I used this strategy in conjunction with a Think-Pair-Share. This pairing worked quite well and prompted good conversation. We looked at these questions later in our reading and answered the same questions again from the point of view of the main characters. It was valuable to hear students' reflections on the similarities and differences between their opinions and the choices and opinions of the main characters.

I used this same strategy to lead into Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. I decided on this activity to start the book because there are several controversial issues presented in the text and I wanted students to be prepared. I used this strategy with senior students, and their discussion was so heated during our first conversation that I decided to revise my plan and break our discussion into more than one class. Luckily, a weekend and an outdoor discussion activity cooled the opinions of the more upset students.

National Day of Listening

2009-10-26T15:39:00.001-07:00

One of the hardest areas of literacy to assess, in my opinion, is listening. How can an instructor tell when students are lacking or excelling in this area of literacy? Over the years, I have tried to incorporate opportunities for students to flex their listening muscles. This year, I'm going to ask my students (and myself) to participate in the National Day of Listening, which will be held on November 28th, 2009.

At first, I was dismayed that this day falls during our Thanksgiving break. After some thought about how I would ask students to choose and record an interview, though, I feel like this is the best possible time of the year to ask for an interview. Traditionally, this is a time when families come together and talk. There is no other holiday like Thanksgiving that allows for talking and listening. Even students whose families do not have a Thanksgiving celebration will have a few days off from school to seek out a potential interviewee.

As for material, there are some stock questions available at the National Day of Listening site. There are also some sample interviews and some powerful photos to go along with the stories. This site is powerful in its simplicity. I am totally inspired to hear the interviews students bring in and to listen to the people who surround my students' lives. I am also excited to use this assignment as an opportunity to record one of the most influential people in my life, my grandmother. Check back after Thanksgiving to see how this exercise in listening worked out in my classroom.

Think-Pair-Share Poetry

2009-10-23T16:14:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot with poetry this year. I have made a commitment to myself and my students that we will engage with poetry on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. I have always used poetry in my classrooms, but never to the extent that I have this year.

One literacy or thinking strategy that seems to work well with poetry is the Think-Pair-Share. I like this model because students still have some alone time with a poem, we still read it aloud and silently, they get to work in pairs, and we talk about the poem as a whole group. With this model, students can talk about the poem in a variety of ways and hear about others' interpretations and interactions with poem.

I recently tried this strategy with freshmen. I read the poem aloud for the group. As I read, they were responsible for highlighting the interesting structural and word choices they found. After this, they had a few silent minutes to explain why they highlighted those sections/ words/ lines in the margins of the paper. After this, students broke into pairs and explained their choices to their peers. In the end, I heard from all students and created a larger web of their comments on the whiteboard.

I feel like today's poem analysis activity was a success. Students sometimes had a hard time listening to one another, but this is something that we need to work on anyway. I will definitely try this strategy again with other students and with this same group. I liked the way that this strategy allowed for a variety of interactions over a single poem. We did not quite finish our work in one class period, but we can always pick up where we left off!

2009-10-18T06:24:00.000-07:00

At this year's Model Schools Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, I was lucky enough to listen to a presentation by Dr. Susan Szachowicz, principal of Brockton High School. I attended this session because I'd heard from others that this school has triumphed despite some serious obstacles and that everyone who left the session did so with tears in their eyes.

I, too, left with some tears, but also with a whole new courage to go back to my school and persuade coworkers, students, parents, and the community that it they can do it, so can we. I was reminded of this resolve when I read a recent Boston Globe article touting the successes that have been achieved at Brockton High. This article focuses on the amazing turnaround in MCAS standardized test scores of Brockton High's students and the intense focus on literacy at Brockton High.

When I saw Dr. Szachowicz, I was impressed with her "Boxer" attitude. (The school mascot is a boxer.) She came off as a no-nonsense, hard-lined professional who cares immensely about creating an environment where students feel supported and encouraged to overcome the poverty and hopelessness that surrounds their community. In our session, she described her vision for her school and how she drove out negative teachers who refused to work with her to achieve the high goals she set for her students and her staff. If a teacher disagreed with her about including direct literacy instruction in their classes, they were going to be looking for another job. If a staff member did not believe that Brockton High students could and should achieve high standards, they needed to go elsewhere.

This attitude may seem extreme, but it has turned a "failing" school into one of the greatest success stories in Massachusetts. Dr, Szachowicz really made me think about those colleagues and students I've heard who do not believe that our rural population is capable or willing to reach for high standards and to make literacy a priority in our community. We have to drive out these negative thoughts and feelings. If Brockton High, with a population of over 4,5oo students, can work together to create a small-campus vibe, then surely we can work to instill that same feeling of community and positivity in our rural population.

Kudos to the teachers, administration, students, and community of Brockton, Massachusetts, for exemplifying what is possible, rather than perpetuating a downward spiral of impossible.

Is a Down Economy Good for Literacy?

2009-10-16T15:57:00.001-07:00

Though the article and interview entitled "The Triumph of Readers" with author Anne Patchett is a bit dated, it raises some interesting connections between the downturn in the economy and the upturn in those who're choosing to read more often. Patchett is the author of several novels and also serves on the board of her local library in Nashville. According to her article, readership and library use is on the raise. Could this be related to the fact that entertainment has become so expensive? Maybe it's because we're looking to escape the realities of a declining economy?

Whatever the reason, it's important to remember to encourage donations of money and books to our local literacy organizations and libraries. We cannot use this time of financial distress to leave our most precious and precarious institutions to crumble. If we want our communities to thrive despite the lack of resources they normally enjoy, we need to do our part to help out. I know that our school library has already spent their entire budget for the year. They have new books, but will not have any more titles until next fall. Any of the new, exciting titles that may entice a reluctant reader to spend time reading will have to wait. This is a sad fact.

I know that I have seen a rise in the amount of reading that my students are doing. I have been so thrilled to see them enjoying SSR time and choosing a huge variety of reading material. I know that I need to keep them going with fresh, current reads and am willing to sacrifice the cost of a couple of Young Adult titles per month to maintain this pro-reading trend. Plus, there's nothing more exciting for me than to know that my students have a whole range of titles and genres to choose from.

Sadly, I have read more bad news than good in the last year or so. Thanks to Anne Patchett for this fresh look at the potential benefits to this horrible economy!

Using Manipulatives in Critical Thinking Exercises

2009-10-13T05:04:00.000-07:00

It seems that the more I want to learn "best practice" for teaching high school, the more I know I need to look back and see what elementary teachers are doing on a regular basis. The tried-and-true high school methods I've been using for the past few years are beginning to feel a bit tired. I need to implement some new, fresh ways of getting to what my students are really thinking.

Enter manipulatives. After listening to a colleague gush about a Lego workshop she attended while we were in Atlanta, I knew that I needed some Legos for my high school English classroom. Fast. What she was saying about young students and critical thinking made total sense. When children create abstract or even representative art, they need to explain it for an audience. Too often, we think that older students cannot or should not perform the tasks that younger kids participate in on a regular basis. We feel like kids will laugh at us if we suggest that they use Legos to express their thoughts or feelings. Well, we are wrong. There is something eternally hip and deep about using abstract objects and shapes to express thoughts and emotions.

Now, I have yet to use actual Legos with students. I do have them, though. I plan to incorporate the use of these Legos into some of our work around poetry. Out of sheer curiosity, I did, though, break out some M&M's the other day and ask my sophomores to rate their experiences with SSR. A lot of students shaped their candies into smiley faces, but some made some pretty abstract representations of how they're feeling about SSR. The beauty of this activity is that students needed to be able to explain their thought process behind their creation, whether it was abstract or not. I feel like we had a deeper conversation than if I had just asked them their thoughts and feelings about SSR.

I plan to go bigger and deeper with this type of manipulative activity. My sophomore students definitely showed me that there is nothing childish about taking some representational objects and using them to express yourself, especially if you get to eat the final product!

Book Review: A Surge of Language

2009-10-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

During my student teaching, I was lucky enough to work with Baron Wormser for a couple of weeks. He had been invited to come and hold poetry writing workshops and I signed my classes up for every single one of them. Truly, it was an invaluable experience. I learned so much about poetry and about bringing poems out of students in those sessions.

I have read some of Wormser's poetry and a book on teaching poetry before, but I have never read a book like A Surge of Language: Teaching Poetry Day By Day. For this book, Baron Wormser and David Cappella created a fictional teacher, Mr. P. This book is written as if it were Mr. P.'s teaching journal. He reflects about how is day went, what poems were read in class, which students responded to the words and lines of the poems, and what he learned from his day.

The main message that I received from this captivating read is that poetry needs to have a place of importance in our curricula. We cannot include a poem here and there or "do" that poetry unit once per year and call it good. Because of this book, I've started a new practice of having students copy a poem down from dictation every Friday. I call this new practice Poetry Fridays.

At first, I did not think that students would be at all enthusiastic about copying down a poem from dictation. I did not anticipate that they would engage in this process, but I was completely wrong. Certainly, some students groan when I remind them that every Friday is Poetry Friday. This is not a cure-all for normal teen behavior, but it is a way to get students talking about words, word choice, punctuation, structure, imagery, and a whole variety of poets.

One way that my new practice differs from A Surge of Langauge is that I am choosing poems based on what we're already reading and talking about in class. I want students to make leaps in their thinking by connecting the words of a poet like Anne Sexton to Ophelia's situation Hamlet or relating the reclusive life of Emily Dickinson to the main character in Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak. I do not want to interrupt their engagement with our main text by stuffing in poems that have no relationship with the literature we're reading in class. I want to deepen their critical thinking skills and have lots of conversations where we make connections between seemingly disconnected writings.

I highly recommend this book for any teacher who's interested in making language a priority in the classroom. There are many, many more ideas contained in this book than I've listed here. This is a highly engaging and thought-filled read. I look forward to reading more selections from these talented authors.

Connecting With Nonfiction Presentation

2009-10-06T06:37:00.000-07:00

Though I had some conflicting commitments and could not listen to the live version of this webcast, I had some extra time this morning to hear the entire broadcast of the School Library Journal's Connecting with Nonfiction: Techniques and Title Tips for Young Readers and Teens.

In this hour-long presentation, I learned of a variety of new nonfiction titles. This webcast included some pictures of book covers as they were being presented. A couple of the presenters collected a variety of sound resources about a single topic or figure (space exploration and Abraham Lincoln are two examples) and other books were presented alone. I love that the presenters included a variety of children's books, but did not see a lot that older teens would be interested in reading. At the end, the main presenter did say that they were planning a segment for teens. I'll be the first in line for that one!

The reason I'm posting about this webcast is that it there are a variety of informative presentations such as these available for teachers use. This presentation was only an hour long, but at the end I was able to download a certificate of attendance. I could easily use this experience toward CEU's or certification in my district. Also, I learned a lot in short period of time, all while sitting on my couch and drinking my morning coffee!

Here are some of the books I wish-listed as a result of this presentation:

Thanks to the School Library Journal for this opportunity!

ProLiteracy

2009-10-03T15:55:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, a friend mentioned that she was planning to attend some training sessions to become a Literacy Volunteer. I've always wanted to become more involved in the Literacy Volunteers, so I tagged along. I've just finished my second session (of three) of training and am loving the experience. I've learned so much about working with adults and teen who are not functionally literate.

I guess that I've never really thought about what it would mean to be completely illiterate. A woman who led some parts of my training today spoke with great emotion about the process she undertook in learning to read and write. She was very crafty before she learned to read. She would almost trick people into helping her so that she would not have to admit that she couldn't perform tasks that most of us take for granted every day.

In one powerful demonstration, she asked us to pretend that we could not read. She then took a bottle of yellow household cleaner and placed it next to a container of cooking oil. The bottles clearly resembled each other. How would a person who could not read tell the difference between the two when shopping? After this lesson, I realized that the entire world would become a confusing and stress-inducing place. How would you take a trip to a place you've never been if you couldn't read street signs? How would you pick out a birthday card for your child? How would you fill out the forms at the doctor's office? Questions like these have been queuing in my brain every night since beginning this training. I am amazed at the strength and courage of those who cannot read and write fluently.

Though this training has taken away from some free time that I might have otherwise spent doing a whole host of other activities, I feel like none of this time has been wasted. If you'd like more information about this international organization, check out the ProLiteracy site.

Book Review: Redefining Literacy 2.0

2009-09-29T04:13:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed with the first part of David Warlick's Redefining Literacy 2.0. I felt like it was moving a little slowly, and explaining too much about technology. Just as I was about to lose interest, though, I found his last three or four chapters. Now, I feel like a fanatic about this book.

In this text, there are so many great statements, ideas, and links that I have basically saturated the last half of it with highlighter ink. I love the format of the book throughout. It's simple, easy to read, and Warlick provides a little boxed-off area at the bottom of pages where he's talked about links to give a little recap of those links in list form. The text is clean and straightforward, which adds to its usability.

More importantly, Warlick's philosophy about the necessity of combining/ implementing literacy and technology education in our classrooms is direct and it makes sense. He brings together current research and marries that knowledge with great strategies and ideas for integrating technology to enhance students' literacy.

I also loved that at the end of each chapter, Warlick provides a list of implications for a variety of audiences. He has lists of steps and considerations that directors of technology, principals, media specialists, school tech facilitators, teachers, students, and parents should be thinking about and implementing in schools.

I highly recommend this text as a resource for any teacher, parent, or tech staff who is interested in thinking about where literacy is headed in the 21st century.

Word Teasers SAT Vocabulary Game

2009-09-26T05:08:00.000-07:00

This summer, I had the wonderful experience of having a little extra cash to spend on items for my classroom. I wanted to purchase some materials that would enhance my teaching and offer my students to play with language. One such purchase is an SAT vocabulary game called Word Teasers. I found it somewhere online and was able to purchase it through amazon.

What I immediately loved about this game is that it does not give silly sentences that have no relevance to teens' lives. It asks questions that engage students. The questions, as I found when I first used this with some senior girls, also allow students to make personal connections between their real lives and SAT words. It was pretty amazing. For instance, a question like "name a characteristic of a friend who you venerate" sparked an awesome conversation about what it is that we admire and are potentially jealous of in our friends.

I also love that the definition and pronunciation key are right on the back of the card. There's no fumbling around and feeling stupid if you don't know how to pronounce or define a word; simply turn it over and read from the card. This way, the questions are at the forefront and the potentially unfamiliar words are easily used right away.

I love this game for all of the great conversations it has started and for the powerful words my students are using since playing it.

Teach Handwriting or Technology or Both?

2009-09-24T04:25:00.000-07:00

I have been a bit stunned by the repeated conversations and articles I've seen over the past year or so concerning student handwriting, or penmanship. I've read articles where teachers and parents are lamenting the fact that their students cannot write using cursive handwriting. I know from experience in proctoring the SAT's every year that I need provide the cursive alphabet on the board so that students can figure out how to write their required "oath" in cursive.

To me, though, this is a minor inconvenience. I don't really get the point of spending too much time honing children's ability to write in a way that can be pretty cumbersome and frustrating, especially given the fact that they may never need to write for an employer or professor using cursive penmanship. I would much rather spend time teaching students how to navigate the internet and use applications on their laptops. I feel like these are the skills that my students need for their future employment and learning.

Click here for the article that inspired this rant. I found some of the support for teaching penmanship pretty weak, including the perennial: What if you were stranded on a deserted island without electricity? Seriously, folks! Just because students' cursive penmanship is not stellar does not mean that they will not be able to take a stick and carve the word HELP! into a sandy beach!

Book Review: I Carry It Everywhere

2009-09-20T05:57:00.000-07:00

Recently, I had the pleasure of needing to spend a little of my budget at a local book store. I found a bunch of YA lit titles right off the bat, and was feeling pretty satisfied with my finds. Then I noticed a small, square book tucked in a corner bookshelf. On the front was a picture of a girl holding a sign that read I Carry It Everywhere: 50 Teenagers on What Really Matters. Immediately, I skimmed through the book and that it was a collection of short narratives mixed with photos of teens either holding signs or standing next to chalk boards that offered a simple personal belief statement.

I just finished reading this collection this morning. It was amazing. As it turns out, this collection is an effort from the Telling Room, an organization from Portland, Maine. The voices included in this collection include many immigrant voices and some homegrown ones. Some of the stories will break your heart and others will inspire you. The text is well-written and the images are spread throughout the collection.

I am excited by the format of this text and hope to use the ideas contained in this collection to form some creative writing assignments. There is nothing more powerful, I think, for students who're unsure of their voice than to see that other teens just like them are in print. It is also important for teens to read the words of peers from the same area of the country, I think. I know that some of my teenage students feel invisible living in rural Maine. Maybe if they have more opportunities to see peers who've spoken and written about their lives, they'll be more confident in doing so themselves.

This is a great, fast read and will inspire many great creative writing assignments. You can order a copy of this book (or other collections by the same organization) through Longfellow Books.

Contrary to (Seemingly) Popular Belief

2009-09-17T12:51:00.000-07:00

Everywhere I go, I hear that students today are less literate than students of previous decades. I read that students are not writing letters, not buying books, making more spelling mistakes, are unable to pass standardized tests, and are just plain not as functionally literate as their forefathers.

And then I read articles like this. New evidence suggests what most classroom teachers who use technology with their students know. Kids are writing more than ever and are getting better and better at targeting specific audiences in their writing. Yes, this evidence takes into account the number of blog posts, tweets, and facebook updates students type, but isn't that writing? And, isn't it pretty amazing to think that those short blurbs can illicit any number of responses from a sometimes huge audience? Powerful stuff when you think about it.

I know that I spent most of my teen years glued to a telephone. Landline, not cell phone. I talked and talked until my father literally literally unplugged my phone from the jack and locked it in his file cabinet. But, after my phone was gone I did not start writing.

For one, the internet was basically nonexistent until after I graduated from high school. Cell phones were not common until I was in my early twenties. Texting was not common until a few years ago. Blogging was not common and not as connected as it is now. There were just not as many opportunities for me to express myself with the written (or typed, more like) word as there are for today's teens.

So, as a teacher, my response to those who complain about the spelling, grammar, and literacy of today's teens has to be something along the lines of "whaaa?". Spend any amount of time with an actual teenager and you'll see writing happening all day long.

Should Students Choose Reading Selections?

2009-09-15T04:12:00.001-07:00

A recent New York Times article gushes about the success of several teachers who've allowed students to have more (and in some cases total) choice over the reading selections for the year. Teachers who were interviewed for this article talked about increased student interest and interaction with their self-selected texts. Author Nancie Atwell's classroom is a focal point of the last part of the article. Her room is described as overflowing with books and readers. Some critics weigh in with fears that no one will read the great classics if they're no longer assigned in class.

Basically, I feel like this article goes back to two perennial English teacher issues: How much, if any, of the canon needs to be taught and what happens when we shift control and choice from the whole sage-on-the-stage to guide-on-the-side?

I know that I struggle with the first question. I feel like I have enjoyed many of the classics I've read and I've had some good experiences in teaching them to students. More and more, though, I've had better experiences and more amazing discussion with groups of students around well-written, high interest young adult titles. I've worked really, really hard to keep up with current YA titles so that I am able to match students with books that will interest them. I've tried to remember back to my early reading experiences and what it was that catapulted me into the realm of book addict. I tried to remember any of the titles I read in middle or high school and have found that I only remember two that I read as part of a whole-class unit: Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. No wonder I am a bit obsessed with teaching Shakespeare!

What I do remember about my high school reading is that I read books recommended to me by my peers. We passed books back and forth almost as if we were sharing secrets. I read lots of Jack Kerouac, I read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and weird selections like The Taking of Patty Hearst. I did not read any of the canon besides those two Shakespeare plays, but I've managed to read a lot of it in the past ten years or so. I began to read the classics in college and for fun on school vacations. I enjoy them now, but I don't know that they would've made me the reader that I am today if I had been forced to read them in high school before I was ready.

As for the sage versus guide issue, I do feel that it's important to allow students to engage in their own selections and to make choices based on their interests. I know that boys and girls have different interests and the same titles may not appeal to both. I am also amazed sometimes by the books they actually choose to read. Some are much more heady than I would assign in class. Others choose light fare, but I sometimes do too!

This was an interesting article to read. I feel like it gives some credence to the choices I've made this year in terms of the amount of time I've dedicated to SSR and reading circles. It also justifies the amount of personal funds I've spent on creating a little classroom library for my students. Keeping kids in books is not cheap, but I can't resist those new YA titles when they come out. I guess that's the book addict in me!

Interesting Story

2009-09-12T06:18:00.000-07:00

As I was driving to work yesterday morning, I heard a story from NPR that made me think about the politics of students' behavior. I've been thinking about this story ever since, and it's making tons on sense. I've been thinking a lot lately about transforming the culture of my classroom. I feel like I have always tried to maintain a classroom climate that is positive and respectful, but I'm hoping for more this year.

Here's what I want:

-I want a classroom full of students who read ALL the time. I want my classroom to be a place where students are talking about books, poetry, magazine articles, comics, etc. ALL of the time.

-I want my classroom to be a place where students can talk about their perceptions and feelings about their world. I want to talk about reality.

-I want to make poetry a focal point of my lesson planning and teaching.

-I want us to be surrounded by words and to never take lightly the power that a single word can carry.

-I want us to write, write, write until our fingers are inflamed!

Maybe some of this won't happen. Maybe some students won't want to write, write, write and will still talk about their weekend plans when I trying to bring the class to order. Maybe some students will groan when I announce that it's Poetry Friday. At the very least, I'm going to keep these "wants" of mine upfront and center when I'm thinking about my students and my teaching. I'll let you know how this all shakes out!

Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones: Six Literacy Principles Worth Fighting For by Thomas Newkirk

2009-09-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that it took me longer to read this book than I had anticipated. I don't know whether it was the fact that summer finally decided to appear in late July or the slow start to this text, but I did not plow through it with the same gusto as other selections that I finished long ago. Now that I've read the entire book, I can say that there are enough nuggets of wisdom and common sense to make this book a worthwhile read.

What I liked most about this book were the end sections. This is where the author, Thomas Newkirk, talks about the promised "Six Literacy Principles" from the subtitle. These principles are explained in great depth through a combination of personal stories from Newkirk's high school and college teaching experience and a good deal of evidence from research. The six principles are:

-Balance the basics
-Expressive Writing
-Popular culture as a literacy tool
-Literacy and pleasure
-Uncluttering the curriculum
-Finding a language for difficulty

All of these areas are explained in great depth. I found the chapters on popular culture and pleasure the most interesting and full of great points. The one issue that I have with this text is that it seems to end abruptly, without much of a conclusion that ties the whole together. Newkirk ends with a section on free reading, which could have been either developed more fully or a seventh principle, in my opinion. I was looking forward to this section the most, but it was only a few pages. In some ways, this felt a little rushed to me and I couldn't help but wonder why it did not go on longer or have any sort of conclusion.

I would not say that reading this text was time or money wasted. I would definitely read another title by the same author and I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next.

The Freedom Writers Diary Teacher's Guide

2009-09-07T05:27:00.000-07:00

Though I bought this last year sometime, I never really had the chance to look at it until this year. I had a bit of an emergency at the beginning of this school year where the study skills classes I teach are concerned. I've taught study skills for five years now, every other day, no problem. Until now.

Not that what I have going on with the new version of study skills is exactly a problem. It's more like a challenge. For the first time, I've started teaching study skills every day for forty minutes twice in a period. So, the students I have for the first part of the period leave half way through and go to a math class and then I get kids who've just had math for forty minutes. All in all, I see about thirty students for first period every day.

This is where The Freedom Writers Diary Teacher's Guide by Erin Gruwell has come in handy. I needed to revamp this course anyway, because it was becoming a bit boring, for me and for students. I needed some creative, thoughtful activities that could be easily completed in forty minutes and that would still have the same reflective, goal-oriented qualities as the ones I've always taught. Also, since we do not yet have any laptops in our classroom because they're all being imaged, I need to have activities that do not require technology.

I like that each of the activities in this text comes with a good description of how it should be carried out, thoughtful quotations from students and teachers who've completed the activity, and blank reproducibles for easy photocopying or to use as examples for students. I'm not much of a photocopy-reproducible-type of teacher, but I am feeling some anxiety about the new set-up of this course and it's been comforting for me to have some back up, should I need it. Also, I have been excited by the products that kids have come up with. They're more than jsut busy work; students have poured a lot of thought and energy into their creation.

Thanks to this resource, we're off to a good start in what could've been a pretty crazy situation.

The First Days of School by Harry & Rosemary Wong

2009-09-02T16:11:00.000-07:00

I was super excited to read this book after I saw Dr. Harry Wong present at this year's Model Schools Conference in Atlanta. Dr. Wong was so passionate, so like a rock star that I found myself running, not walking, to buy this book when it was over.

It's not that I'm disappointed in the book, but it does seem a little more appropriate for a beginning or novice teacher. I found myself thinking that this book would be perfect as a present for a student teacher or as a text to use when mentoring a new hire. Certainly, I found some good ideas within this text, like how to structure the first day of school to ease student stress and to set up routines.

All in all, I would totally recommend seeing Dr. Wong at a conference, but this text can be skipped if you feel like classroom management and your room set-up are not an issue for you. If you feel like having a refresher on either of these topics, then this might be a good read.

Multiple Profiles on Facebook

2009-08-30T07:22:00.001-07:00

An interesting post on the Teach Paperless blog made me think about the way that teens create and recreate their identities when they use social networking sites like facebook. On Teach Paperless, there's a discussion going about teens and college students who establish more than one account so that they can create a public persona while also keeping other aspects of their lives private.

I feel like this is a huge step forward for teens and college students. The notion that you can keep the antics and enjoyments of your private life mixed with information about your career or education is a short-sighted one. I know that I am super careful about what I say and write on my facebook because I have such a wide variety of contacts as "friends". If I write an inside joke or allude to something that seems unsavory, who knows how it could be construed?

This is something I am definitely going to keep in mind for this fall. Once my students get their laptops (yay for 1:1), I am going to ask them to create new student accounts on facebook. This way, we can use some of the amazing features of facebook without the hassle of trying to keep our personal and private lives separate. That said, I still want to have some discussions with students about keeping all of their online writing and photos appropriate for potential employers and colleagues. We still have a long, long way to go before teens, college students, and even some adults understand that pictures of serious partying are not okay, ever.

Bloggers are Writers for Real

2009-08-26T08:39:00.000-07:00

If there is anything that I learned from seeing the movie Julie and Julia, it is not how to make the perfect hollandaise sauce, but that blogging is powerful and that bloggers are authors.

Early on in the film, Julie is struggling with the fact that she never finished her novel and that she is not the writer she planned on becoming. She laments over and over that she never became a "real" author, until her ever-patient-in-the-face-of-whining husband suggests that she start a blog. Of course, this story starts in 2002, which is long before the term "blog" was recognized as an actual word. The notion that bloggers are writers was a new idea for Julie then, and it probably is for many, many Americans still.

Since I started blogging with and for students, I have heard several remarks that basically boil down to this: students are not learning to write for real any more and they are just playing online when you assign blogging projects. I would like to point out that I think students are writing more now than I ever did when I was in high school. I never went home and chatted with friends using a computer. I never corresponded with the public (or the entire globe) through any of the writings I completed in high school. When I turned in a piece of writing, the teacher was probably going to be the only person to ever see it. End of story.

Now, students have the ability and the want to communicate their ideas and findings with the outside world on a regular basis. Most are engaging in social networking daily. They have instant feedback and regular feedback on their thoughts and ideas when they update their status on facebook; shouldn't we give them the same opportunity for regular interaction and feedback from a global audience in our classrooms?

As for Julie of Julie and Julia, I think that we all know how that turned out. Blogging led to public interest, which led to interviews and a book deal. Now there's a movie and Julie is probably feeling very comfortable with the idea that she, a blogger extraordinaire, is actually a writer. For real.

* * *

Further evidence of a writing revolution can be found in this article from Wired magazine.

Facebook as a Tool for Learning

2009-08-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

When I first started using facebook, I was very literal about the word "friends" and had little understanding why all of these people who I barely knew would consider "adding" me as a "friend". Over time, and through some conversations with students, I started to understand that "friends" on facebook can be mere acquaintances and that the more "friends" you have, the more social connections you have.

At first, I did not accept students as "friends". I told students who had requested me that we could become "friends" once they graduated from high school. After a while, though, I started to see the benefits in adding my students to my circle of friends. Some students moved away and I lost touch with them, others dropped out and I had no way of contacting them. Once I started to accept friend requests from students, I was able to engage in meaningful, rich conversations through the messaging and chat features on facebook. I've had students who've clarified homework expectations using facebook as a mode of communication and I've had students who've conversed about characters and plot lines that I've not assigned for reading. In short, I had actual conversations about books with students that were not required or graded and that happened in students' free time. Isn't this something that should be encouraged?

This year, I'm going to find ways to utilize facebook in my teaching. I am not completely sure how I am going to do this and I am definitely accepting suggestions. I am finding this technology more and more exciting and less intimidating than before I started to use it on a regular basis. I feel like students will be more engaged in their learning if I use a mode of communication that is comfortable, accessible, and is something they already use on a daily basis.

Here are some of the facebook applications that I plan to use:

Notes: Notes could be very, very cool for classroom use. I love that students can tag one another and get responses to questions. I love that I could create discussion questions and tag students who can then answers questions and add to the discussion by tagging others.

Visual Bookshelf: I am excited by the possibility of students sharing their independent, or free reads with one another through their virtual bookshelves. I have a circle of friends who read and share reviews of books through this application. This could put a whole new, cool spin on the traditional "book talk" routine.

Photos: It can be challenging for students to share photos in class. I anticipate using photography more and more in my teaching, and I hope to utilize this facebook feature more in the future. I also love that we can tag photos for sharing. This way, discussions and group work could become much more efficient.

Here's a link to another list of ideas for integrating facebook applications into the school setting.

2009-08-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

Because I so thoroughly enjoyed Kelly Gallagher's Readicide, I decided to try out another of his titles. I found Reading Reasons: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle and High School available online for a great price and with good reviews, so I ordered it.

After having read Readicide so recently, I recognized some of the same arguments and ideas in Reading Reasons. I did not find this repetition annoying; rather, I felt like going back and rereading Readicide.

The main difference between Readicide and Reading Reasons is the inclusion of many practical strategies and lesson ideas in the latter. Where Readicide seeks to rally, Reading Reasons is more a collection of time-tested ideas and lessons that have inspired students to become more involved in their reading. I definitely found Reading Reasons to be a great resource and I look forward to implementing some of the suggestions I read about this fall.

After having read two titles by Gallagher, I am eagerly awaiting his next endeavor and will probably continue to read other titles he's penned in the past.

Interesting Article

2009-07-08T04:21:00.000-07:00

I am tired of fighting with students about their use of cell phones during school hours. I used to feel slighted or offended when a student would pull out his or her cell during class, but then I started to look at my own habits as a graduate student.

Even during the most engaging discussions, I have my laptop open with my email and social networking sites up and running. I keep my cell phone next to me on vibrate. I have conducted several conversations via email or on a sort of IM platform with students and parents, all while listening and adding to the work going on around me. And, I am not alone when I do this. Does this make me a bad or disrespectful student? Does the quality of my work suffer? I feel like I am more focused because I am not wondering what's happening in all of the other arenas of my life. I am able to finish conversations and work that are abandoned when I leave school and head to the university. I feel like I am more content and focused because I am able to take care of my needs and participate in class.

I'm beginning to feel like we need to see cell phones as the tools that they are and use students' interest and adeptness with them to further engage them in our lessons. I am looking for ways add them into my teaching.

The article "Cell Phones Used to Deliver Course Content" provides some ideas about what's being done with cell phones at the college level.

2009-06-21T08:04:00.000-07:00

Articles that support using technology in the classroom:

Tweeting Your Way to Better Grades by Zach Miners

Job Seekers Find New Rules Of Recruitment by Yuki Noguchi

Book Review: Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy

2009-06-15T07:47:00.001-07:00

I've kept a personal blog for about ten years now. I keep this blog as a sort of journal and a way to keep in touch with friends and family with whom I would otherwise not have as much contact. I've found this space to be a creative outlet and a great tool for communication and creative writing.

About a year and a half ago, I decided to create a blog for my students. I figured that I could reach out to parents with this blog and have a sort of reflective space where I could write what we accomplished in class for those who were absent and for my future planning. What I found is that students at first hated going to the blog because they wanted me to retell them what happened in class. As I got more and more into the routine of keeping a blog and using it as a tool to lead instruction, students used it more and more as well. Now, I don't even have to tell my absent students where to go to find out what they missed. In fact, if I forget or do not have time to post, I am chastised by my students. Also, several parents tune in on a regular basis to see what their kids are doing in class.

I've been using this tool without much of a firm philosophy about why I needed to do it. So, when I found Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy: The Next Powerful Step in 21st-Century Learning, I couldn't wait to read it.

I truly enjoyed reading this text because it has definitely helped me to firm-up my philosophical reasonings for blogging for (and now with) my students. I have truthfully seen a shift in student interest and attention whenever I mention that we're going to complete an assignment using their blogs. I've also heard from other faculty that my students talk with their peers about blogging in my class. I feel like this buzz creates a sort of pride and excitement for students who might otherwise be turned off from the traditional worksheet and notes approach to teaching.

Not that this is going to be the sure-all in motivating disinterested students! I know that there will be and are students who would rather write than type, who are uncomfortable using technology, and who cannot handle the freedom that using a blog allows. I've dealt with this in several situations, but I still feel like the benefits outweigh the minuses.

The book definitely addresses the fact that there are some dangers in using blogs with students. The author, Diane Penrod, talks about cyberbullying as well as online predators. In addition to providing warnings, though, the author cites a lot of research about how technology and gender and ethnicity play into the blogging interests and ability of students. She also addresses at-risk students in great detail.

In sum, I truly feel like blogs are going to be an essential part of a lot of students' lives. And, even if blogs disappear tomorrow and are replaced by another format or forum for online journaling and conversation, the skills and literacies gained in practicing with a classroom blog cannot be ignored. I feel like using the blogs has allowed my students a bite of reality and a vision for the types of writing they might actually want to do after high school. Internet communication and collaboration is not a fad; we need to update our practices to expose students to real avenues for personal expression.

Great read!

Book Review: Reading Reminders

2009-06-13T13:56:00.000-07:00

I cannot say that I completely read all of Jim Burke's Reading Reminders: Tools, Tips, and Techniques because that would be a lie. I have, though, had it checked out from the library for a coupla months and have been flipping through it here and there. It is now due to go back to the library, so I'm going to record my thoughts about it before I forget what I did manage to read.

The fact that I did not read this text in its entirety is not a reflection on the book but on my crazy/ busy schedule and the amount of other texts I've been reading. I would like to attempt this book again, but I actually don't know that it requires a thorough reading. The book is set up into very short, straightforward tips and explanations about a variety of strategies and techniques.

Because of its skimable (not a word, but I like it) set up, I was able to find some really cool, student-centered, artistic ideas that I will definitely use next year. In particular, there are some promising graphic organizers that I plan to use in several of the classes I teach. I try not to use too many graphic organizers, because I feel like kids tend to get bombarded with them and they're not always that effective. The ones I found in this text seemed to truly organize thought and encourage deep thought. I liked that Burke included tons of students samples in this book. I look for student samples because I think that real samples often show me more about how I could use a potential strategy than do the instructions offered by the author.

Though this text is getting somewhat dated (published in 2000), most of the ideas are fresh and relevant. Those that seem dated could easily be updated by adding-in new technologies. Really, this text seems user-friendly and timeless in its quality and understanding of the process of teaching and learning. Also, the ideas in this text could translate easily to content areas other than English. I look forward to finding more texts by this author.