How to Teach a Novel

Animated History of the English Language

2011-07-04T10:33:00.001-04:00

Check out the very informative and funny History of the English Language in Ten Animated Minutes, posted at Open Culture.

Great intro to the subject of how the English language continues to evolve and "borrow" words from other languages.

Transitional Novels: The Best of Both Worlds

2011-04-22T16:09:00.000-04:00

New blog follower Maddie recently contacted me to say this:

You need another blog. I enjoy Teach with Picture Books and also your novel blog, but I've got a number of students who fall between these two categories. They want to read novels (always the ones being made into movies) but their skills aren't equal to the task. What would you recommend?

To begin with, I recommended that Maddie write that blog! She seems to know a niche group that needs to be reached. But my other recommendation to her was to get a hold of some transitional novels.

In a June, 2009 post on transitional books at my Teach with Picture Books site, I said:

It's not a bad place to be: stuck between the vast and varied worlds of the picture books and the worlds of the novel. That's where many children find themselves at age eight (give or take), when they're trying to make the independent reading leap from picture books to more difficult chapter books. Is the language in chapter books that much more complex? Not necessarily. But gone are the beautiful contextual clues provided by picture books' illustrations. Fortunately for these readers, we have what can be called transitional books.

I recommended Lincoln and His Boys by Rosemary Wells as an example; Fatty Legs: A True Story by Christy Jordan-Fenton (see my post) would also satisfy the requirements of this category.

Let me now share a few more books that I highly recommend for getting this group of students excited about reading, and moving toward more full-length, sophisticated novels.

The Memory Bank by Carolyn Coman and Rob Shepperson is a cool hybrid for the age 8 and up group; like The Invention of Hugo Cabret, it's equal parts text and illustration. Note that I didn't say it's illustrated. That's because a good deal of the story is told only through pictures, and it's up to the reader to make sense of what those images tell.

Inside spread from The Memory Bank.

The narration follows Hope, whose mother and father have abandoned Honey, Hope's little sister, on the side of the road. "I've told you a thousand times," Father said, "No laughing." And as the tires squeal, leaving Honey in a cyclone of dust, Father warns Hope, "Forget her." But of course Hope can't, and when a mysterious visitor invites her to leave home, Hope feels that somehow this new adventure might lead her back to her sister.

Meanwhile, Honey's story is told entirely through pictures. We're given quite detailed events, but still... What's going on? The fact is, the World Wide Memory Bank and the Clean Slate Gang are at war, and somehow Honey and Hope are stuck in the middle! The two surreal, parallel stories eventually collide in a surprising and satisfying turn of events.

Me and Rolly Maloo is at first glance just another easy-reader novel, but author Janet S. Wong and illustrator Elizabeth Butler combine traditional chapters and paragraphs with graphic-novel conventions such as frames and speech bubbles, which place the reader more immediately into the action.

What's the action? A moral dilemma, really. When popular Rolly Maloo asks Jenna's help to cheat on a math test, what is Jenna to do? This book provides students with a multiple-perspective look at a common problem, while introducing them to internal and external conflicts. What should you do when the act itself is so simple, yet goes against everything in which you believe?
Me and Rolly Maloo provides several wonderful models for writing which students could try out for themselves. Identify a character in another novel who is also facing a difficult situation. Then, choose one of the portions of Me and Rolly Maloo to read aloud, pointing out that Jenna (or another character) is always careful to weigh all options before choosing a plan of action. That being said, however, is she always honest with herself? How does she sometimes twist facts to choose one option over another? Or, show one of the novel's many interactions between characters via a series of emails, phone calls, letters, or texts.

For those interested in transitional nonfiction chapter books, Usborne publishes a series of Books for Young Readers, which are written at Lexile ranges ranging from 800 to 1000. I'm in no way an expert on this, but by identifying the levels of some books I know, it gives me an idea of the reading difficulty. Ramona Quimby, Age 8, for example, is Lexile Level 860; the slightly higher levels of nonfiction titles are due to the inclusion of proper nouns of places, people, and historical events.

The books are perfect for this group of readers, since they're in a smaller (6 x 8 inches) hardcover format. The text is reader appropriate, not just in skill level but in approach to topic as well. The Holocaust by Susanna Davidson, for example, is one of the most complete, yet age-suitable, titles I've seen on the topic, and I've even made plans to incorporate it into my curriculum when reading The Devil's Arithmetic with my sixth graders. It not only provides much-needed background knowledge to read about this horrific time, but it also leads readers to want to learn more.

Other nonfiction titles in that series include The Story of Spying, Gladiators, The Story of Pirates, The Story of Slavery, and Vietnam. Another terrific title for hard-to-teach topics is The Story of Islam, which provides key understandings into a religion which is making history even today. Every volume contains full color pictures on every page, plus important nonfiction conventions such as captions, table of contents, index, and Internet links. At about seven or eight bucks a book (hardcover!), these can easily supplement any fourth through seventh grade curriculum.

Readers will also enjoy Usborne's Young Readers library of biographies. As a teacher and parent, I've always noticed a pretty huge void between biographies for young readers and those for middle and high schoolers. Students would typically need to make a big leap, of a couple grade level equivalents, to "read up." But titles such as Anne Frank, Florence Nightingale, Marie Antoinette, Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, and Martin Luther King, Jr. bridge this gap, offering readers enticing anecdotes and facts at an independent reading level of Lexile 700-900.

I'm really impressed with the quality and readability of Usborne Books, but until just recently I mistakenly thought that they could only be purchased through the random Tupperware-like parties. But you can purchase them through Amazon and many independent Internet sellers. Scholastic Book Clubs have also begin carrying some titles in their monthly offerings. If you're an online seller of Usborne books, feel free to make a comment below and leave us your link.

Discussing Character Traits in The Outsiders

2011-04-15T20:28:00.000-04:00

If you teach The Outsiders as a class novel, here's an activity guaranteed to spark discussion, while focusing students on a deeper understanding of character traits.

The resource I'm providing is a Whom Would You Choose? chart which require students to select which of the Greasers they would choose to take on a double date, back them up in a fight, teach them to drive, and so on. While at first glance it seem to be opinion based, students soon discover that they need real reasons for their choices.

The chart relies heavily upon Chapters One and the beginning of Chapter Two of the novel, and accomplishes three goals at once. The chart

forces students to truly understand and differentiate between the traits of the seven boys,
requires students to reread the chapter in order to supply supporting evidence for their choices, and

illustrates to students that the boys, while experiencing a collective identity through their affiliation with each other as Greasers, are in truth individuals with unique strengths and weaknesses.

Before handing students the chart, I had them create a simple quadrant charts in their notebooks for each of the seven boys. Under the headings Looks Like, Sounds Like, Acts Like, and People Say, students created bulleted lists from the information provided in Chapter 1.
As students began to fill out the Whom Would You Choose Chart, they used both the book and their notes to make selections. (The blank line on the chart, by the way, was for students to ad a category of their own). When sharing time came, I read each category, named the boys in turn, and had students vote by a show of hands. The real learning experience (and the fun!) came as students tried to explain their choices.

A similar chart could be created for any novel containing a large number of characters which could be easily confused.

See my Teaching Reading and Language Arts wiki for the Whom Would You Choose Chart, plus lots of other useful resources.

Born to Write: What Students Can Learn through Author Study

2011-04-10T23:54:00.000-04:00

How can studying an author create a better understanding and enjoyment of a novel?

In a previous post on Gary Paulsen: Living Literary Legend, I mentioned how that author's life experiences brought real authenticity to his earlier work, and how relentless research habits informed his later historical novels such as Woods Runner. Likewise, in The Most Misunderstood Advice for Young Writers, I passed along an interview with Laurie Halse Anderson in which she discussed her hands-on research for Forge. Both of these discussions make a solid argument for investigating authors and the ways in which they work.

Additionally, literacy coach Laura Kump (aka The Reading Lady) has this to say:

Author Studies are a powerful teaching tool. There is no better way to turn kids on to reading than to build a community joined by a great book. The goal of an author study is to make a connection between a book and an author's life. This shows children that authors are real people, develops motivation to seek out other work by the same author, and hopefully inspires children to write.

Reading Rockets provides their own 10 Reasons to Do an Author Study, and I've shared a few of my own below.

Teachers should engage students in author studies

to develop basic knowledge of an author's education, experiences, and cultural background;
to determine how these variables have influenced the author's writing;
to hear what the author has to say about writing in general, and his/her own writing habits in particular;
to discover those writers who influenced the author;
to begin identifying the author's style and patterns in writing;
to begin identifying the author's purpose through their choice of genre(s);
to use the author's work as mentor texts for improving student writing;
to create a common literary experience in order to discuss reading and writing from a shared perspective.

One book I'd recommend for a fascinating look into the lives of popular authors is Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors by Charis Cotter. Through this book, the reader is given a glimpse into the formative years of writers Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), Clive Staples Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia), Elwyn Brooks White (Stuart Little), Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time), Philip Pullman (The Golden Compass), and Christopher Paul Curtis (Bud, Not Buddy).

Madeleine L'Engle, for example, experienced frustration and failure in school as a child. She did poorly in academics, and a physical condition which caused one leg to be shorter than another caused the other girls to call her "cripple" during gym class.

As shared in Born to Write, her one escape was through the pages of her own stories:

At the top of the page was the title of the story she was writing: "The Strange Adventures of Annabelle Rose." Last night she had left Annabelle in a dreadful fix, tied up to a tree in the middle of a forest, surrounded by desperate bandits. Today she had to find a way for Annabelle to get loose, defeat the bandits, and release the king from their terrible clutches. Her fearless heroine had long, curly, dark hair and flashing black eyes. She was strong and smart and there was no bandit on earth who could keep Annabelle Rose tied up for long.

A small smile turned up the corners of Madeleine's mouth as she began to write. School, Miss Hathaway, her distant parents, and even New York City all vanished as she entered her secret world. Day after day she sat at her desk, writing stories and drawing pictures. Her heroines moved gracefully through their adventures, their two legs the same so they didn't limp. They conquered all obstacles and gathered loving friends and admirers around them. This was the real world. School and Miss Hathaway and the silent apartment were just shadows of an unpleasant dream.

The other author biographies are equal parts tragedy and triumph, and definitely worth the read. If it sounds like a book you'd enjoy sharing with your own students, be sure to enter the giveaway at the bottom of this post.

Author Study Resources Online

At Kids on the Net, famous authors offer their Advice to Young Authors and Illustrators. If you're interested in giving your students expert advice on writing, this a great place to start. This site offers many other resources for students and teachers, including How to Write a Book Review (with the option to send it in, as well). Check out the benefits of student-created book reviews in a previous post.
Writing Fix Author Studies features lesson plans on individual picture books by popular authors. If you're seeking inspiration for choice of an author, this would be the first place to look.
Reading Rockets offers an Author Study Toolkit, free to browse at the site, or download in a single pdf. I also love their author interview videos, which give students an up-close look at some of their favorite writers.
Scholastic features a list of authors available for author visits; there you can also access tips on How to Plan an Author Visit.
Kathleen Crane provides a nice pdf download on Author Studies which includes activities across the curriculum, all-purpose author activities, and a model study on Verna Aardema (author of Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears).
Author Alma Flor Ada describes how an author's study can be turned into an interactive, virtual event, utilizing the author's interviews and tapes.
Teaching Books.Net is a must-see site that requires a paid subscription, but can be previewed for free on a trial basis. I absolutely recommend it if you're serious about author studies!
alphabetical list of authors at Kidsread.com, and another list of Authors and Illustrators on the Web. While dozens of these lists exist on the Internet, I'd recommend choosing your author and searching directly by name, since many of these lists contain outdated links.
Random House Children's Books also has a regularly-updated listing at their Teachers at Random site. Also at that site, ClassroomCast, which features well-produced video segments with authors such as Eileen and Jerry Spinelli, Louis Sachar, Jennifer and Matt Holme (of Babymouse fame), and Mary Pope Osborne. Why would you not check out this site?

Interested in winning a copy of Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors? Simply become a follower of this blog (see the two simple methods in the upper left corner) and then fill in the short form below. Contest closes Wednesday 4/13 at 12 midnight EST. Good luck!

<p>Loading...</p>

Five Great Sites for Making Poetry Happen

2011-04-07T22:30:00.002-04:00

What's the connection between 18th century Japanese poetry, S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, and rock band Linkin Park?

I recently blogged about Teachers' Domain at my Teaching that Sticks site. In observation of Poetry Month, teachers in grades 6 through 12 can take advantage of some excellent resources and teaching ideas utilizing the 37 online video excerpts from public television's Poetry Everywhere series.

In the following video segment, for example, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass shares a translation of haiku by the 18th century Japanese poet, Kubayashi Issa. These "vivid, specific, and often funny perceptions of everyday experiences" provide students with concrete examples of how poetry can be both simple and entertaining. The Teachers' Domain site includes a background essay and content-aligned lesson plans.

If you're seeking additional poetry resources for middle grades and above, here are a few I'd recommend:

Favorite Poem Project This site, subtitled "Americans Reading Poems They Love," is built upon the pretty cool idea of allowing average Americans to share their favorite poems. You'll need to visit the site to see how it came about, but I like the idea a lot since it can be implemented so easily in the classroom using the lesson plans and suggestions provided at the site.

One of my personal favorite poems is shared by this guy:

Poetry 180 Subtitled "A Poem a Day for American High Schools," this site shares 180 full-length poems and sharing suggestions, but it seems that you'll need to do the legwork to make them work in your classroom.

Elements of Literature This collection of free teaching materials provided by Holt, Rinehart and Winston includes a number of writing response ideas in printable pdf format. While the poems themselves do not appear on the resources, they're mostly in the public domain and freely available on the Internet or in printed collections. I would never suggest you break any laws.

Poet's Paradise In this "Collection of Helpful Resources" you'll find web sites of poets, poetry forms, poetry collections, poetic terms glossaries, and more.

Fooling with Words with Bill Moyers If you're counting, yes, this makes it six sites, not five. But I snuck this one in after posting since I like it so much. Lesson plans focus on understanding modern poets and how they "fool with words," in order to encourage students to do the same.

But Keith, what does have poetry have to do with teaching a novel?

A whole lot, but most importantly: poetry can introduce, reinforce, and extend a novel's theme.

When introducing The Outsiders recently, I wanted to engage my students in a discussion of affiliation, one of the many themes at the heart of that novel.

After discussing some overt ways that one might show affiliation with a particular group, we read aloud and discussed a poem together. Some of the lines from that poem included:

I was confused
And I let it all out to find
That I'm not the only person with these things in mind...

I wanna heal, I wanna feel
Like I'm close to something real
I wanna find something I've wanted all along
Somewhere I belong.

What did the poet discover when he finally let his thoughts out? (He wasn't the only one who was confused, or hollow, or alone). Was it really a somewhere, a place, that the poet sought? (No, he was looking for a group of people who would accept him).

By now one or two students realized that the "poem" was in fact a Linkin Park song titled Somewhere I Belong (lyrics here, and a million other places as well). We decided that if these guys were truly wrestling with their feelings of loneliness and confusion, they probably weren't working it out with a school guidance counselor. They were more likely jamming in their garage after school, finding affiliation with a bunch of other guys who also felt misunderstood and alone.

The cool thing is, the back cover of the novel used many of the same words as the song itself, and these same ideas were voiced by the novel's narrator, Ponyboy, in the very first chapter.

The official video appears below, and is safe for school, as are the song's lyrics.

For Those Who Can't Wait: Hunger Games, The Movie

2011-04-06T20:57:00.000-04:00

Fans of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy are all abuzz with some recent announcements regarding casting the leading roles for the movie. Bu while we wait for the real thing, here's a pretty cool Hunger Games excerpt made by some die-hard fans.

Hollywood Reporter explains:

There's a bunch of guys at this Utah-based production company that are fans of Suzanne Collins’ humongously popular Hunger Games book series and took it upon themselves to create this short, mainly as a way to give some actors they know some attention.

This is not a bunch of kids (or certain adults) who take a camera into the backwoods. These guys, led by director John Lyde, have made a very impressive and, not to get all pansy on you, moving fan film.

Teach Your Students to FLIRT

2011-04-02T13:39:00.001-04:00

While I'm not a fan of formulaic writing, I'd argue that many students need simple, easy-to-recall structures to assist them with the writing process. One of the simplest, yet most effective, Mnemonic devices I'd recommend is FLIRT.

FLIRT is an acronym which reminds students to create sentence variety:

First Word of each sentence is different.
Lengths of sentences vary.
Inversion is used for variety.
Repetition is either avoided, or used for a purpose.
Types of Sentences vary.

Check out the following excerpt from I See London, an opinion piece written by Tracey Lloyd for the NY Times Complaint Box Series (a treasure trove of persuasive writing pieces!). Note that the author skillfully employs all five of the above tips while expressing her disdain for the recent fad of wearing sagging pants (be sure to click on the link above to read it all):

Flint, Michigan has defined not only what's decent,
but also what's disorderly and downright indecent.

And you think high heels are impractical? Try walking in some low-slung slacks. You must adopt a waddle to keep the pants from dropping completely and must always keep a hand free to hike them up. Then there is the need to buy ever-longer shirts to cover your rear end — shirts that apparently don’t exist, since I can see your underpants!

Nor are sagging pants the only sartorial choice that makes me cringe. Take rompers, or shortalls. They offer the ease of a dress with the comfort of shorts, and I’m for convenience. But when adults start wearing clothes that I’ve been buying for people’s babies, something is wrong. As for wearing a very adult thong with a short skirt: Do you really want to sit your bare derrière on a subway seat? Granny panties may not be that sexy, but neither is a visit to the urologist.

Did Tracey Lloyd consult my checklist? No. She most likely is an experienced writer with an ear for good writing and a willingness to revise.

So to give my students a fighting chance, I emphasize FLIRT and provide them with plenty of excellent writing models (although perhaps not the one cited above!).

First Word of Each Sentence is Different

It's not uncommon for egocentric students to write about their own experiences with "I" leading every sentence. Students fixated upon a topic, such as snakes, may similarly begin every sentence with that word.

The Fix: Require students to read aloud or list the first word of every sentence. Teach ways to restate ideas by using synonyms, additional phrases or clauses, or inversion of existing words.

Before: The great horned owl hunts small animals that live on the forest floor. The great horned owl uses its talons to catch them.

After: Strong, sharp talons allow the great horned owl to capture small animals that live on the forest floor.

Lengths of Sentences Vary

Sentences of the same length, appearing over and over, give writing a sing-song rhythm which is apt to lull the reader to sleep.

The Fix: Use coordinate conjunctions and subordinate clauses to combine short sentences.

Before: The park is used by many people in the community. Some people just don't clean up when they're done.

After: The park is used by many people in the community; however, some users neglect to clean up when they leave. Is that fair to everyone?

Inversion is Used for Variety

Beginning writers tend to place the sentence stem first, adding details later:

We heard a loud crash sometime after midnight.
Lenny waited in the outfield eagerly with his feet spread apart and his hands on his knees.
Susette had no interest in the suitors like her sisters.

The Fix: Phrases and clauses within sentences can be moved to increase sentence variety and interest.

Sometime after midnight, a loud crash knocked us from our beds.
Feet spread apart, hands on his knees, Lenny eagerly waited in the outfield.
Unlike her sisters, Susette had no interest in the suitors.

Repetition is Either Avoided, or Used for a Purpose

Students need to see examples of writing that avoids repetition, and writing that purposely employs it. For the most part, Tracey Llloyd's opinion piece avoided repetition. Not here how it's used for effect:

Unlike the homes of readers, the homes of these students had no literary materials in sight. No magazines. No books. No newspapers. Without exception, however, every one of these homes contained a television.

The Fix: Help students discern between repetition and redundancy.

Types of Sentences Vary

Check out Tracey Lloyd's first paragraph again, and note that she employs four sentence types; in the second paragraph, she employs three.

Another place to find excellent examples of variety in sentence types is advertising. In a legendary Charles Atlas bodybuilding ad, for example, we read:

Take a good honest look at yourself! Are you proud of your body - or are you just satisfied to go through life being just "half the man" you could be? No matter how ashamed you are of your present physical condition - or how old or young you are - the "sleeping" muscles already present in your body can turn you into a real HE-MAN. I know - because I was once a skinny, scrawny 97-pound half-alive weakling.

Was this ad copy successful in selling a product? Yes, to the tune of millions! Good writing sells products as well as ideas.

The Fix: Provide students with boring paragraphs containing only statements, and challenge them to rewrite those paragraphs using the four sentence types.

So is FLIRT complete? No. Word choice is noticebly absent. But for beginning writers, this is a fine list for self-checking writing at a very basic level.

Do you have a repertoire of similar acronyms or Mnemonic devices to help your students with writing or reading? We'd love to hear them!

Word of Mouth Gets Kids Reading

2011-03-27T18:42:00.001-04:00

How Can Student Created Book Reviews Promote Reading?

This should be the post where I tell you about Troy High, an intriguing and inventive novel which sets the Trojan War in a modern American high school. But I can't. I haven't read it.

In fact, I haven't even seen Troy High since a student purchased it for our classroom at a Scholastic book fair three weeks ago. Claudia borrowed it and then gave it to Emily, who passed it on to the other Claudia, who will then pass it on to Kiersten. But Angelica promised to bring in her copy for her other classmates to borrow, so there's a chance I might get to read it sometime before June. That is, unless, it begins to circulate among the other two sections of my sixth grade classes. Shana Norris, consider your book a big hit with middle schoolers!

And it's not just a girl thing, either. The boys have been swapping graphic novels like crazy, especially with the upcoming visit of Amulet author Kazu Kibuishi to our school.

The point is, word of mouth "sells" books, especially among middle and high school students. If peer recommendations are such powerful motivators, then we as teachers should take advantage of them, especially if they'll encourage our students to read.

Student Book Review Sites

Below I've described some sites where students can read book reviews by kids their age, and submit theirs as well.

Scholastic's Share What You're Reading site not only provides students with opportunities to read and write reviews, but also features How to Write a Book Review with Rodman Philbrick. Book reviews are separated by genre (classics, nonfiction, myths, fantasy and science fiction, etc.) and also grade level (K-12). Please note, however, that Scholastic quite clearly notes on their submission form that due to the large number of submissions they receive, they cannot publish all reviews.

Spaghetti Book Club has been around for years, and continues to boast a huge collection of student written reviews, alphabetized by title. Students can also locate books by author's name, which they can do, of course, just as easily on Amazon or any online library catalog, but this site then offers other students' perspectives on books by that author. If you choose to participate as a class, you can group your students' reviews together (see a random class), which provides easy reference for students and parents. Please note, however, that Spaghetti Book Club, unlike Share What You're Reading, is a for-pay site which works with schools, providing a curriculum which leads to the publishing of student reviews.

And that's it. I'm stopping there. The fact is, I spent hours checking out sites featuring book reviews by students, and all have at least one constraint that will keep all of your students from sharing reviews.

So let me now share the best option: Create Your Own Book Review Site.

Don't let that idea scare you off. You could easily use a blog, wiki, or a student-oriented social media site to publish student reviews. Advantages: these sites are free, these sites are as public or as private as you choose, you control the format and content, and all students get their reviews posted. Disadvantages: Just a little bit more work for you.

Creating Your Own Review Sites

I'm a big fan of PBWorks, a wiki provider. My sixty-five Reading/LA students store much of their digital work in a single class wiki which we call our WikiWorkspace. This allows students to easily access their own work from one location, and read and comment upon their classmates' work as well. Visitors can read what's posted, but are prevented from commenting or editing. So far we've got over one thousand pages and images stored there (including Prezis and videos), and yet we've used just this much of our allotted free space:

On a separate wiki called Monsters Inked, we posted stories in which we collaborated with second graders. Both of these examples illustrate the simplicity of the site. Classroom accounts are free, student accounts are password protected, and the teacher sees all. The site allows embedding of many digital formats, so book reviews need not be static, text-only affairs. Students could easily choose to create book reviews in Photo Story or video format, both of which can be embedded here. (For Photo Story inspiration, check out Mark Geary's article on that topic).

Wikispaces is another wiki provider which I've used in collaboration with other educators, but never in my own classroom. This sample review page shows how a template might be created for a book review which incorporates multimedia.

The following video shows you the collaborative nature of any wiki, regardless of the provider.

Edmodo is a closed, social media site for students. I've used that as well, and highly recommend it. You can read what I had to say about Edmodo at my Teaching that Sticks site, both before and after implementing. This site could easily accommodate student book reviews, and offer peers the opportunity to comment as well.

My class has recently used Collaborize Classroom. Collaborize allows students more opportunity to create original content than Edmodo. Students can post book reviews which include opportunities for peers to vote, suggest and vote, or simply comment. I've also blogged in the past how Collaborize can help teachers fuel classroom discussions. The video below provides a basic overview of the site's features.

Let it be known, my class hasn't created book reviews. Yet. But like reading Troy High, it's something on my To Do List, and something I think I'll enjoy. (Shana Norris, if you're reading this, my students request that you please write a follow-up soon!).

What are your experiences with creating student book reviews? What application or program would you recommend? How are completed projects shared with peers? And most importantly, what else are you doing in and out of your classroom to take advantage of the power of word of mouth to get students reading?

For those of you here for Crazy-for-Books Blog Hop, the question is "Since today is April Fool's Day in the USA, what is the best prank you have ever played on someone OR that someone has played on you?" Well, I'm home today with a sick child, and my sixth graders will never believe that I'm actually not coming to school. I can imagine them watching the door all period long, waiting for me to pop in.

The Value of a Lousy Movie Adaptation

2011-03-26T12:34:00.000-04:00

Image Courtesy of http://granadamovieposters.com/.

I showed my students a 1960 movie adaptation of Island of the Blue Dolphins. In the style of its time, the film was overacted and melodramatic. It also cut several key scenes of the book which would have required special effects; we therefore do not see the battle of the sea elephants, the destructive forces of the tsunami, nor Karana's conflict with a deadly octopus.

Afterward, I challenged my students to write a persuasive letter to a movie production company, suggesting a remake of the movie. They attacked the assignment with gusto since they had loved the book, but disliked the movie. They even took the assignment a bit further, recommending directors, actors, and even locales.

If you can juxtapose two such elements, you'll give students ample fuel for writing passionately. Pair your original book with a movie, poem, television, graphic novel, or abridged novel version.

Here's a note-taking guide you might find useful for viewing a movie. I typically have students create two columns on the back of that sheet which read What They Added In and What They Took Out. Students can also use this Google Drawing doc Persuasive Essay Map for prewriting their letter.

If you've ever had your students compare and contrast two versions of a novel in this way, we'd love to hear your ideas.

Not Schoolhouse Rock; But Even Cooler

2011-03-20T21:29:00.001-04:00

I feel like I'm once again the last one to arrive at the party, but if you haven't seen videos by the History Teachers on YouTube, then you're in for a real treat. The History Teachers are two actual, live teachers from Hawaii who create parody videos about history and literature using popular music.

But Keith, my school blocks YouTube!

While I'm not advocating anything illegal, I do know that Zamzar allows you to save videos in several media formats. If that doesn't work for you, try Google for some alternatives, since I know methods do exist. But again, if it's illegal or against your school's policy, then I am not advocating it!

So have a look at just three of the dozens of clever videos they've created. While the History Teachers don't have a website (that I know of), you can friend them on Facebook to keep up to date with their latest creations.

The French Revolution ("Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga)

The Canterbury Tales ("California Dreamin" by the Mamas and the Papas)

The Odyssey ("Across the Universe" by the Beatles)

Sung from the point of view of Penelope, Telemachus, and Odysseus. Clips from the 1997 TV version with Armand Assante as Odysseus, Greta Scacchi as Penelope, and Alan Stenson as Telemachus. Vanessa Williams is Calypso and Bernadette Peters as Circe and Isabella Rossellini as Athena.

These videos would be a great introduction for many of the novels we teach, and might even inspire students to create their own songs. Extra credit, anyone?

SMART Reading Assessment Activities

2011-03-12T20:01:00.002-05:00

For Hunger Game readers still seeking more
dystopian sci-fi, check out the recommendations
at the end of this post.

In addition to the comments I receive here at How to Teach a Novel, I also receive many emails seeking practical, how-to advice on how to authentically assess student learning, while effectively managing student assignments.

One terrific resource I've found is this list of SMART Free Reading Activities compiled by Jeremy Glazer. Jeremy has devised not only a list of activities, but also a scoring plan that motivates students to attempt more challenging assignments. I've uploaded the activities in both Word doc and pdf format (scroll to bottom of the page at this link) to my Teaching Reading and Language Arts wiki so that you can easily modify the plan Jeremy created. If you're anything like me, you need to personally tweak even the best ideas to make them your own.

In speaking about the plan, Jeremy says:

This assignment becomes as much about learning to pace yourself as anything else. Students often struggle the first few marking periods because they put things off, but ultimately they learn to plan ahead, particularly if you are consistent. I was very, very strict about only accepting one assignment per week. Students often begged for mercy because of one disaster or another, but I would gently explain to them that this assignment was about an accumulation and no one week mattered that much. If they waited until the end and then had computer problems, etc., then there was a lesson to be learned about waiting until the end.

I would, however, make copies of a chart for them to keep in their folders when I passed the work back each week (that's the other part of it - you have to stay on top of the grading if you expect them to stay on top of their progress) so they could record their status. Grading was pretty minimal, though. I would make copies of the rubric on 1/4 sheet of paper strips, circle one of the numbers, write a one sentence comment and then staple that on to their assignment and hand it back. It "only" took a few hours per week.

Jeremy Glazer presently works in The Good Government Initiative, a program to train elected officials, and intermittently teaches as an adjunct at a community college. If you dig these activities, or have additional questions, drop Jeremy a line.

About The Maze Runner: A couple of teachers have emailed me and asked what I recommend for students who have plowed through The Hunger Games Trilogy and are still hot for more science fiction. I recommend The Maze Runner trilogy (The Scorch Trials is book two in the trilogy), Incarceron(Sapphique picks up where this book leaves off), and Leviathan (followed up with Behemoth).

Until Hunger Games I'll admit I wasn't a fan of series, but I have to admit I like how these dystopian books get kids hooked on reading. I'm totally open for other reading suggestions as well!

The Most Misunderstood Advice for Young Writers

2011-03-06T20:27:00.001-05:00

"Write what you know."

Young writers hear this adage often from well-meaning teachers.

But while their intentions are good, adults fail to mention to students that often countless hours of research may be needed to inform good writing, whether that writing be nonfiction, historical fiction, or science fiction.

Author Chris Barton recently tweeted about a Hornbook essay by Laurie Halse Anderson wherein Anderson describes the research undertaken to write her Revolutionary War-era novel Forge. In Tasting the Past, Anderson shares how she literally placed herself into primitive conditions in order to experience first-hand the physical hardships of the troops at Valley Forge. She concludes that essay with:

Is it possible to write historical fiction based only on the reading of primary sources? Of course it is. But for me, walking in the footsteps of people from the past adds vibrancy to their words. It’s one thing to read about a fire, quite another to smell the smoke and hear the wood pop and sizzle.

Doesn't sound like writing what you know.

Or does it?

Is it possible that "write what you know" is actually legitimate, yet entirely misunderstood, advice? Maybe those who first shared that adage meant to say, "Know it, by first finding it and experiencing it, and then write it."

I enjoyed the once-in-a-lifetime honor of hearing Jane Yolen speak about her classic The Devil's Arithmetic. She described how she became so immersed in research on the Holocaust that she suffered nightmares; she truly experienced the time travel effect portrayed in the novel. (Yolen added that while many deride the use of time travel in fiction, it's a device that effectively serves to place children into the shoes of those who lived in the past. I agree whole-heartedly).

Yet I'm still not comfortable saying, "Write what you know," as I feel I'm limiting students to rather pedestrian topics. But I might start saying, "If you don't know it, don't write it. Not yet. Not until you've researched it, digested it, perhaps even lived it."

That probably won't fit on a bumper sticker quite as nicely, but it seems to make sense.

So what does this mean to us as teachers of reading and writing?

1) We should encourage reading in a wide variety of genres. This will allow students to "write what they know," with some confidence that they actually know something!

Recently, for example, I assigned students a persuasive writing prompt. Not the usual "students should wear uniforms" bit, but a topic that instead required some research. Each student was assigned a predator, and told it was their job to convince the directors of the Hunters of the Wild Lands (HOWL) Museum that this particular animal deserved recognition in one of the museum's exhibits.

The project involved a good deal of fact finding, since students didn't readily know the characteristics or habits of the sixty-three separate hunters assigned. They soon discovered that sorting interesting facts from relevant facts was a challenge, as was dealing with conflicting information from various websites.

In the end, every student agreed that this was some of their best writing, since it was supported by facts rather than opinions.

2) We should engage students in author studies. Many authors led fascinating lives that informed and inspired their writing. Could Gary Paulsen had written Dogsong or Hatchet as convincingly had he not experienced dog sledding and outdoor survival for himself?

Other authors provide models for students through their research habits. Lois Lowry, for example, spent untold hours researching the Holocaust to write Number the Stars. According the Glencoe Literature Library Study Guide for Number the Stars, Lowry's editor mentioned that the author made too many references to the Nazi's shining black boots in her narrative. Lowry considered removing some of the references until, just soon after, she met a Dutch woman who had lost her mother to the Nazis. "The woman, just a toddler at the time of the Holocaust, remembered only one detail about the soldiers who took her mother away—their boots."

Lowry insisted on keeping the passages, stating:

If any reviewer should call attention to the overuse of that image—none ever has—I would simply tell them that those high shiny boots had trampled on several million childhoods and I was sorry I hadn’t had several million more pages on which to mention that.

3) We should do our own homework when it comes to research. When teaching the Holocaust, I'm often asked by students, "But why didn't the Jews resist? Why didn't they fight back?" The books themselves provide many explanations. Many Jews didn't resist because at first they believed they were simply being relocated. Others felt that if they cooperated, they would be treated fairly and humanely. Some dared not resist for the harm it would bring their loved ones. They felt that if they could withstand each horrific step along the way, they could survive. Still others simply feared the Nazi uniforms and guns.

Just when students seem satisfied with these explanations, they're surprised to hear me say, "But some did resist." I then share some stories from Ann Byers Courageous Teen Resisters: Primary Sources from the Holocaust. This title, one of four from Enslow Publisher's True Stories of Teens in the Holocaust series, describes how individuals and groups fought back, sometimes subtly, sometimes violently, but always at great risk to themselves and their loved ones. Students are amazed to learn that children their age took action in the face of certain death.

4) We should supplement our content area instruction with nonfiction reading selections. I vividly recall a fourth grade social studies text which encouraged students to "Write a journal entry of a soldier at Valley Forge. Describe the hardships you've endured." Unfortunately, the textbook itself had provided just one paragraph on this topic! How often do we similarly ask students to harvest ideas from their minds, when we haven't given them opportunity to sow the seeds?

Do you know of an author who has truly "lived" their writing? How do you push your students to write beyond what they know? What opportunities do you allow for students to write about their own feelings and experiences, about those things that make them unique? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Using MultiGenre and Media Mashups

2011-02-27T10:08:00.001-05:00

When teaching a novel, I love to integrate other genres and pop media to help students see that literature is a reflection of the entire human experience, not simply a part of it. If you're seeking a way to include film, poetry, music, and graphic novels into your teaching, then take a minute to check out the teaching resources at Read Me.

Read Me Resources is a suite of lesson plans developed by the National Schools Partnership. Student activity sheets and teaching guides compose the following modules:

This is Me (blogging for self-expression);
Sport and Me (exploring sports web sites and media texts in order to understand and replicate their structures);
Music in Me (analyzing lyrics, featuring Tupac Shakur's Dear Mama);
Love 4 Me (comparing and contrasting different types of love through multiple genres, with a focus upon Rome and Juliet);
Film and Me (studying the common structures of trailers and titles); and
Graphics 4 Me (learning how components of the graphic novel genre compare to those of traditional fiction; supported by Comic Master, a separate graphic novel creator application).

The screen shots below illustrate some of the pages and views. Check the sites for yourself and see if you can't use or adapt the lesson plans for your own classroom.

From Music in Me, an analysis of Tupac's Dear Mama.

A lesson plan from the Teaching Guide for Graphics 4 Me.

The workspace for Comic Master.

Notable Sentences...for Imitation and Creation

2011-02-13T10:46:00.002-05:00

I preach great writing all day long, but it's great to stumble onto it when you're reading a classroom novel with students.

In Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins, for example, we read a description of a tsunami pounding the island of San Nicolas. As one wave recedes and a larger wave advances, we read this description:

Like two giants they crashed against each other. They rose high in the air, bending first one way and then the other. There was a roar as if great spears were breaking in battle and in the red light of the sun the spray that flew around them looked like blood.

Slowly the second wave forced the first one backward, rolled slowly over it, and then as the victor drags the vanquished, moved in toward the island.

The wave struck the cliff. It sent long tongues streaming around me so that I could neither see nor hear. The tongues of water licked into all the crevices, dragged at my hand and at my bare feet gripping the ledge. They rose high above me on the face of the rock, up and up, and then spent themselves against the sky and fell back, hissing past me to join the water rushing on toward the cove.

What's interesting to me is that in the first two paragraphs of this selection from Chapter 27, weather is described in terms of giant warriors locked in combat. How many of us have read war novels where the armies and the conflicts were described in terms of fierce storms? Why are these two phenomena so often metaphorically linked?

In addition to the metaphors, of course, we also have the somewhat serpentine alliteration and onomatopoeia of the third paragraph, suggesting that the wave itself has morphed into a new entity, more fitting for the hunt for prey. Wouldn't you love to have descriptions like that right at your fingertips? I know I've got a bunch of examples highlighted and underlined in different texts, but I like to present students with some new exemplars as well. That action alone often prompts my students to ask to read the book from which the figurative language was selected.

Enter the Great Sentences blog. Created in truly old-school blog style, this wonderful site features a collaborative effort to collect and categorize great sentence examples from real literature. Subtitled "Notable Sentences... for Imitation and Creation," this site allows visitors to post their submissions to the site as comments. The Metaphor link, for example, has 77 comments (including the one I just added!).

According to creator Lauren Wolter:

This blog is a resource for teachers who wish to view grammar as something to be explored and not just corrected. Sometimes even teachers who want to set aside tired, old daily language practices have trouble doing so due to the seeming abundance of those deplorable, error-filled sentences and the apparent lack of stimulating, "explore-able" model sentences. As you read adult, young adult, and children's books, please share the noteworthy sentences you find, so that we may build a useful resource together.

How to use this site?

To find great examples for yourself, not only of figurative language, but even parts of speech used beautifully in literature.
To allow your students a web-interaction experience, as they post their own discoveries in language.
To turn your students on to new books. Several examples, I noticed, are from Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, one of my daughter's favorite books. Another student may not know that book, but would be led to read it because of the beautiful sentences posted here.

Check the site out, and add to the wealth!

Game Day: Meet the People Who Make It Happen

2011-02-09T22:02:00.004-05:00

I am not a sports fanatic, not by any measure. But there's one sports statistic I know by heart:

Less than one percent of high school athletes go pro.

I don't mean to be a buzz kill, nor do I mean to discourage participation in sports. My own daughters are avid athletes in several sports, and you can't argue with the physical, emotional, and social benefits of organized recreation.

But what hope is there for the 99% of those students who love sports, continue to play them through high school and even college, but don't make the cut for the pros? And what of those students who have an interest in sports, but never had the talent or opportunity or desire to play?

Those questions are answered compellingly in Game Day: Meet the People Who Make It Happen, by Kevin Sylvester. This Annick Press title spotlights twenty sports related careers by profiling professionals in the fields of auto mechanics, journalism, music, medicine, choreography, and more.

Scott Lowell, for example, is a doping control officer for the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). To state his role more clearly, Scott keeps sports clean by watching by watching athletes pee. In his own words:

I have a list of athletes who live or train near my house. I get a note via our secure website saying, "You have two days to test a particular athlete," and I have to track them down and get them to provide a sample for me...

It can be tough for them. Sometimes I knock at their door at five in the morning and they have to give a sample for me. Sometimes I show up at their training site and they have just been working out for two hours. It's not easy to pee when you're dehydrated and exhausted.

Patrick Reynolds was a stock car racer until his passion for engines and performance took him from behind the wheel to under the hood of some of the fastest cars in America. When his money ran out and his own driving career was put on hold, Patrick decided to take his experience and knowledge of engines and find work as a race car mechanic. But he soon discovered it wasn't easy:

I knocked on every garage door, resume in hand. It helped that I had been a driver, and they could tell that I knew what I was talking about, but there was a lot of competition. This was the big time...

I had common sense and experience, but I really could have used a better understanding of geometry. So many of the newer crew members have a degree in engineering or computers, and that's how they are finding their way into the modern NASCAR world. It gets the doors opened for them ahead of guys like me.

Game Day blends narratives, interview segments, photos, and informational text boxes to create a reading experience that is equal parts instructional and entertaining. You can get a sense of its format from this sample page about horse trainer Ian Black.

I can see this chapter book being used in a number of ways:

As pure pleasure reading, for students who are interested in exploring the wide range of sports occupations;
As a read-aloud, for teachers to incorporate career awareness into reading, math, social studies, and science classes;
As a nonfiction classroom text, for vocational students whose reading interests may lean more toward fact than fantasy;
As a transitional text, for students who tend to skim rather than read in depth (skimming leads to more careful reading when the topic interests the reader); and
As a an entertaining, inspiring, and informative pick-me-up-and-just-read-me-now title.

Do the twenty people profiled in Game Day earn the same six- or seven-figure salaries as the athletes they work with? No. But there's more reward than money, as pointed out by journalist Mary Ormsby:

I have often thought about quitting sports reporting altogether, but then I'll see a young person shooting for the moon, trying to achieve something. In our world it's amazing to see young people with hope and excitement for life. I get a little teary-eyed sometimes. Then I know it's a privilege to do what I do.

Athletes aren't the only ones with a passion for the game.

Book Drum: Going Beyond the Page

2011-01-29T16:22:00.002-05:00

Book Drum is "the perfect companion to the books we love, bringing them to life with immersive pictures, videos, maps and music." In other words, Book Drum provides multimedia annotations to many the novels you know and love, and some you may not know and love (yet).

Each book's Profile consists of:

Bookmarks: page-by-page commentary and illustration of the text;
Setting: description and illustration of the main places or themes of the book;
Glossary: foreign, invented and tricky words deciphered;
Summary: objective synopsis of the book;
Review: subjective analysis and evaluation of the book; and
Author: biographical information, interview videos, links and photos.

At the site you'll find classics including David Copperfield, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Frankenstein, Don Quixote, The Handmaid's Tale, The Catcher in the Rye, The Bell Jar, The Road, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and many more. You'll also find picture books and a few favorites from children's literature. The best part about this site? It's always growing.

What readers may find most interesting is the Bookmarks. They often confirm a conclusion a reader has already drawn, as in these examples from The Road:

At other times, the Bookmarks provide additional information which, though tangential to the storyline, in nonetheless interesting, as in the case of the game of Buzkashi, mentioned in The Kite Runner:

The obvious use of this site is a resource for teachers and students to access background knowledge for a book they're presently studying.

However, I can also see students creating their own Book Drum projects informally, using Google Docs or a similar collaborative tool. Google Docs or a wiki would allow pairs or groups of students to work on the same novel by assigning each member a set number of pages or chapters. An alternative to a full would be to use the same process with shorter literature selections: short stories, interviews, current event articles, poems, lyrics.

I have to admit, I like this site. I found myself not only checking out notes on books I had read, but also investigating books I hadn't even heard of. While some of the formatting at times seems a bit clunky (because of oddly sized graphics versus the text boxes), the research and notes seem pretty solid.

Have a thought on using this resource? Can you think of another way for students to create a similar product in order to dissect what they're reading? Leave a comment below.

The Dark Side of YA Literature

2011-01-23T21:31:00.000-05:00

No, it's not your imagination.

YA (Young Adult) Literature is growing increasingly dark in subject matter.

In case you missed it, check out the New Times Opinion Page on The Dark Side of Young Adult Fiction.

Hey, at least kids are reading something.

At the same time, however, think of the novels you're reading in class with your students. How many of them aren't in some way fixated on death or loss?

I blogged on that whole issue a few months ago; I guess the NY Times couldn't reach me for comment.

How Do You Encourage Students to Read Assigned Selections at Home?

2011-01-22T12:16:00.004-05:00

In a previous post titled Stirring the Pot: Fueling Discussion in Reading Class, I mentioned that I'd share some ideas for ensuring that all students read assigned chapters for homework. In truth I have several methods that will increase the probability that all students will read the assigned selection. Unfortunately, you and I know that no method will guarantee it (but I certainly welcome your ideas!).

Testmoz: Simple Online Assessment

My number one strategy these days is to individually assess students online using Testmoz. If your students have one-to-one access to computers in the classroom, this might be for you.

Test Moz is a simple-to-create, simple-to-use, online assessment application. You can create interactive, self-checking quizzes in several formats (multiple choice, true/false, check boxes, and type in boxes). Detailed reports tell you who took the test, how long it took them, which questions they answered correctly, and their overall percentage score. A separate grid of corrects/incorrects also visually reveals whether one question was missed an inordinate number of times versus another.

Before we move on, take a sample quiz. You'll get a feel for the format and the ease of use.

In my own class, I typically use this tool to assess student understanding of a chapter assigned the night before. With every student on a computer, it's quick and easy. It also provides a permanent, printable record of the test.

If you don't have one-to-one computers in the class, students can complete the assessments at home. But won't they be able to look back at the reading selection and cheat? If your goal is to ensure that students read the selection, then is "looking back at the text" really a big issue? When I create quizzes with Testmoz, they're so text-specific that even a student who gets a peek at the assessment before class will still need to know the reading passage to score well.

You can also use this assessment tool in conjunction with any online reading selection. Have students open the target reading selection in one window, and the Test Moz quiz in another. With the windows side by side, students can answer questions about the reading selection as they read.
Need some reading or viewing materials? I like the online news articles at Scholastic News for younger students, and the current events articles chosen specifically for learners at The New York Times. You can also learn about and access images from the NY Times photo prompt site. Or, simply search for a daily, student-friendly article (such as this one on the Attack on Pearl Harbor) and create a quick five question quiz for a warm-up.

I will warn you, however, to RECORD your test number and your passwords carefully! There is no way to retrieve either from the site once you've created a test!

Google Docs

If you need another assessment tool that provides students with a more open-space writing environment, I'd recommend using a Google Form to collect student responses. Google Forms allow you to solicit answers of all lengths and types, and then organizes all student responses nicely into a spreadsheet. Writing prompts from the NY Times Learning Network would work nicely for this approach (the linked article about pet peeves will really get your middle schoolers writing!).

Google Forms can also be used with video prompts, such as those offered at TeachHub. Check out some lesson plans and ideas for this approach at a previous post on video writing prompts.

Other Quiz Generators

If you like Testmoz but want to see what else is out there, check out this link listing online quiz generators. You might find one there that better serves your purposes. Zoho Challenge is another you might want to check out; while it's a pay application, it does offer more bells and whistles than your typical free program.

Online Discussions

For online discussions, I'd recommend the new Collaborize Classroom site, which is a social media tool designed for specifically for education. You can read more about it in my previous post on Stirring Up Discussions. This free online portal allows students to vote on ideas, post their own, engage in online discussions, and share many types of digital media. Requiring students to respond to prompts at home eliminates the need for accessing computers at school. By asking for responses to be supported by text evidence, you're increasing the likelihood that students will read the assigned selections.

Character Dialogues

One method I used in third and fourth grade, and a bit last year in sixth, required students to take on the persona of a character from the book and converse with another.

When students Because of Winn Dixie they didn't seem to mind that young Opal is permitted unlimited freedom to go where she wants, and to spend time with whomever she chooses. She disappears for hours at a time, unaccountable to anyone (not a mistake by the author, mind you, but a necessary element of the relationship between Opal and her father, the Preacher).

In one dialogue exercise, some students are presented with this scenario:

You are Sweetie Pie's mother. You're concerned that your young daughter has been spending too much time with the Preacher's daughter Opal. It seems to you that Opal not only roams unsupervised, but also befriends the "less desirables" in the community. On top of that, Sweetie Pie has been telling you some far-fetched stories about what happens at Gertrude's Pet Shop. You confront the Preacher with your concerns.

Students know that they'll need to not only read through tonight's assignment to get "ammunition," but also skim through previous chapters for examples to include in their dialogue.

The dialogues are unscripted, and the flow is entirely dependent on the two actors. The student who plays the part of the Preacher is likewise prompted with details, but his perspective Opal's activities is naturally different. The fun of this particular exercise is its unpredictability; halfway through one such dialogue in our classroom, "Mom" called up her daughter Sweetie Pie from the audience, and the unsuspecting Sweetie Pie had to immediately fall into character! Not to be outdone, Preacher called up his daughter, Opal, to explain her side. (By the way, all of this was done in Southern accents to match the story's setting).

Students quickly learned they would need to read assigned chapters each night or be ill prepared to engage their peers the next day.

What methods have you used to encourage your students to complete reading assignments?

Promoting Literature with Technology

2011-01-12T14:28:00.001-05:00

Sometimes on my blogs I write incredibly long, involved posts.

Other times I just say, "Hey, here's something cool! Let's go get it."

So go get this terrific list of Ways to Promote Young Adult Literature Using Technology over at edTech VISION. I love these clever ways to get students excited about reading, while at the same time incorporating technology in a meaningful way.

Here's the first idea:

1. READ Posters: Following the format of READ posters create by the American Library Association, take photos of staff members and students dressed in costumes holding a companion book. Add the words READ and a quote. Use free editing software (GIMP, Open office, Picasa, Big Huge Labs, Aviary) to make the posters. You can also use ALA’s READ generator.

Let me know what you try out, and share your own ideas as well!

Stirring the Pot! Fueling Discussion in Reading Class

2011-01-04T21:58:00.005-05:00

How do you encourage everyone to participate in classroom discussion?

That's a great question, and one that I'm commonly asked.

I'm still trying to figure it out for myself, but I've got a few thoughts.

The Recipe Calls for Stone Soup

Most of us recall the classic book Stone Soup. Three hungry travelers, turned away at every door in a small village, devise a plan to trick the unsuspecting townspeople. Speaking fondly of delicious stone soup, the travelers sigh in dismay at their inability to create it; after all, they're missing a few key ingredients. In their desire to sample this delicious soup, the villagers enthusiastically agree to contribute the needed ingredients, and in the end all enjoy a stew created through both collaboration and cunning.

A good classroom discussion consists of similar elements: a plan to make it happen, and students eager to bring something to the table.

Don't Come Empty Handed

Translation: Every student must read beforehand, and come prepared to share.
After all, it's key that students have a common background from which to draw during a classroom discussion. Keep in mind, however, that what they read at home the night before need not be the novel itself, but instead a nonfiction piece, poem, or other literary artifact that in some way relates to the novel.

When reading Island of the Blue Dolphins or Call of the Wild, for example, it's critical that students understand pack behavior, especially the role of the alpha. With that in mind, I would have students read a nonfiction article on that topic, and prepare to discuss the key points the next day.

(By the way, I'll talk more getting students to read beforehand in the next post and describe how I make it happen).

Drop a Pebble in the Pot

Translation: Get the thinking started.
When students turn up the next day, they'll expect to discuss what they've read. Don't disappoint them. From the second they walk in, present students with a question or task that puts the knowledge into action.

In response to the wolf selection, for example, students might find these questions awaiting them the next day:

Does every pack need an alpha? Why or why not?
Is a pack only as strong as its leader?
Think of a book or movie you know well in which you can identify pack behavior.

My students are likely to name movies such as Lion King and books such as Holes and The Outsiders in response to that last prompt; older students, however, might point out stories where vicious pack behavior exists on an emotional rather than a physical level.

By Drop a Pebble in the Pot, then, I mean to get the thinking started. As time goes on, students will become accustomed to this practice of jotting quick reflections into a notebook in preparation for the coming discussion; older students will, in fact, even provide their own ideas for questions to get everyone talking.

Soup of the Day

Translation: Know what you're serving up.
In every case, have an objective in mind before the discussion begins. What's to be taken away from from the dialogue? Theme, character development, literary motif, motive, metaphor? In many cases, it's a discussion of what do the individual words on the page say when they're put together in this way? In other cases, it's a matter of how did the author do that with words, and what can we as writers learn from it?

Portion It Out

Translation: Ensure that everyone participates.
In my class, I have a deck of name cards color coded to each section I teach. When discussion is either too heated or too complacent, out come the cards. When everyone needs to throw in a quick share, out come the cards. When it's time to hear some jotted-down responses, but time won't allow hearing them all, out come the cards. It's simply too easy to unconsciously play favorites when you're pressed for time and the same hands are waving in the air.

Table Manners

Translation: Define and enforce rules for discussion.
The passion of a heated argument is no excuse for disrespecting others. Early on, implement a policy of acceptable behavior for classroom discussions (the Collaborize Classroom site, mentioned below, has an online student conduct code in its Teacher Resources section which can be tweaked to serve this purpose).

To Go Menu

Translation: Keep the conversation going.
Sometimes, there's a lot more to be said! And students want to continue the conversation beyond the confines of the class. In this case, a class wiki, blog, or social media environment would serve you well.

In the past I've written about Edmodo, which I described as "a ning for students." It serves as a secure social media site for upper elementary and middle school students, and I still dig it even now.

Recently, however, my students have been using a social media site called Collaborize Classroom. Like Edmodo, it's private and secure, yet the teacher can see all interactions. Unlike Edmodo, it allows more content creation possibilities for students, more sophisticated response modules, and an easier user interface.

You can get a pretty good idea of its form and function from this recent video (and check out their multimedia page if you want to see more).

What I love about Collaborize Classroom is that they provide a number of excellent pdfs for teachers to use the site productively, including Do's and Don'ts of Student Forums, The Art of Asking Questions, Creative Writing Prompts, Examples of Sentence Starters, and Icebreakers. If you've read this far, then one resource you need to check out right now is Eight Intriguing Strategies to Continue the Discussion. This is a document directed at the student, designed to teach ways to keep the conversation going. Definitely needed for some of our more morose teens!

And know this: the folks who designed Collaborize Classroom aren't done yet. They absolutely welcome any feedback which will help to make this tool an indispensable resource for the classroom.

Long Live the Printed Word

2010-12-25T00:25:00.002-05:00

This email I recently received may be the merriest holiday gift of all to would-be writers. As a lover of printed books, I find it quite encouraging as well.

Dear writers, dreamers, and artists,

The market is saturated. Picture books are dead. Publishing is for optimistic fools.
And yet... There are still stories to be told. And we know how to do it.

In the coming year, we’ll be publishing The Forest of Ancestors, an outstanding series of chapter books with a fantasy twist that makes history personal. And we’re getting great early feedback on our upcoming Wormholes series that features parallel universes and bizarre new worlds.

As we approach 2011, I am preparing my list for 2013. I’ll be looking at fiction and non-fiction titles for children of all ages. I would love to hear from you as I consider new series concepts, titles, and submissions.

What stories do our kids need to read? What amazing adventures can we take them on? What wild people can we introduce them to?

So what’s your big dream? What book do you wish you could have read when you were small and full of wonder? How can we work together?

In January I’ll be reviewing concepts and writing samples, so if you have a piece you’ve been working on and would like feedback, now is the time. If an idea has been brewing for a bit and you’re ready to share it, I would love to hear from you.

Thank you!
Can’t wait to hear all your brilliant ideas!

Heidi

PS
Please share this message with anyone who may be interested.

--
Heidi Kellenberger
Editor
Fiction and Trade
Teacher Created Materials
5301 Oceanus Dr.
Huntington Beach, CA 92649
hkellenberger@tcmpub.com
http://www.tcmpub.com

Alternative Assessments for Reading Comprehension

2010-05-21T22:59:00.001-04:00

Joe Bower wrote a nice post on an Alternative to Traditional Multiple Choice Reading Comprehension Exams at his For the Love of Learning blog. If you're a teacher in any way responsible for assessing student reading comprehension, read on!

In his post, Bower provides a simple diagram illustrating the recursive relationship of Reading, Questioning, and Thinking. But too often our students' take on assigned reading is that they will read the assigned text, and we (the teachers) will assume the role of interrogators, firing a barrage of questions to evaluate comprehension.

Bower says questioning is, in fact, important, but it's the self-questioning function of the reader that makes the difference. Students must read with "mindfulness." That's because "Questioning brings on an acute need for more reading, which causes more questioning, requiring more thinking."

And as far as assessing reading is concerned? Joe says

I provide reading excerpts with zero questions because I ask my students to read and show their thinking. I double space the text and remove the left-hand margin almost entirely so that I can double or triple the right hand margin. This provides students with the space they need to show their thinking.

And to support this effectiveness of that strategy, he provides some pretty convincing student samples.

So if you haven't jumped over to Joe's site, do so now. He's got some original thoughts on grading and testing which are worth a read, and might even influence your own classroom practice.

If you're looking for a professional resource which might help you "make the jump" to connecting reading with metacognitive written responses, I recommend Nonfiction Mentor Texts: Teaching Informational Writing Through Children's Literature, K-8, by Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli (Stenhouse). Using the strategies in this book, students become much more conscious of their own thoughts as they read, and the authors provide many excellent resources to serve as starting points for these approaches.

Propaganda: Powers of Persuasion

2010-05-17T22:35:00.001-04:00

I recently posted about Admongo, an excellent collaboration between the FTC and Scholastic, aimed at helping students understand the techniques of persuasion used in everyday advertising. I also posted about real-life uses for persuasive writing and persuasive writing using picture books.

But when does persuasion become propaganda? Is it only when the "other guy" does it? For teachers who want to teach the power of persuasion, propaganda can't be ignored. The fact is, propaganda runs both ways. Americans have been guilty of it since before our nation was born, thanks to the creativity of Paul Revere (see his Boston Massacre) and Benjamin Franklin (his handiwork pictured here).

Will it surprise you to discover that one of America's most beloved children's picture book writers was decried as a propagandist? Theodor Seuss Geisel, also fondly and widely known as Dr. Seuss, was in fact a political cartoonist for a New York newspaper called PM. According to the online World War II Database:

it’s clear that he was concerned about Germany's aggressive military actions in Europe, his countrymen's isolationist leanings, and after the Pearl Harbor attack, his country's continued internal bickering about the best way to fight the war.

Contrary to what we often see on the big screen, a large portion of America felt that our nation had no place in "Europe's war." America's apathy, and the isolationist philosophy of an organization called America First, are attacked in a Geisel cartoon of October 1, 1941. The caption read, "...and the Wolf chewed up the children and spit out their bones... But those were Foreign Children and it really didn't matter."

Anyone recall what happened in a little place called Pearl Harbor just two months later?

If you take a look at the whole collection of Geisel's political cartoons, they are pure Seuss, through and through. But some observers would say they're also racist and biased. Is that part of the propaganda, or just a symptom of the country's ills at the time? Was Geisel as guilty as Nazi propagandists? Or was he simply pushing every button he could think of to get Americans to pull their heads out of the sand?

Quoted in the PBS Independent Lens production The Political Dr. Seuss, Geisel had this to say about the wartime drawings:

When I look at them now, they're hurriedly and embarrassing badly drawn. And they're full of many snap judgments that every political cartoonist has to make between the time he hears the news at nine AM and sends his drawings to press at five PM. The one thing I do like about them, however, is their honesty and their frantic fervor. I believed the U.S.A. would go down the drain if we listened to the America-first-isms of Charles Lindbergh and Senators Wheeler and Nye. And the rotten rot that the Fascist priest Father Coughlin was spewing out on radio. I, probably, was intemperate in my attacks on them. But they almost disarmed this country at the time it was obviously about to be destroyed.

Racial stereotypes weren't uncommon in pro-war American cartoons. Cartoons created at the time picture the enemy nations of Nazi Germany, Japan, and Italy as either unrepentant monsters or stereotypical buffoons. Der Fuehrer's Face and Hitler's Children: Education for Death (both are embedded below) are prime examples. Is such racism allowable and excusable in a time of war in order to raise war bonds, enlistments, and a country's morale? Or was it again, simply a mirror of society?

An equally odd footnote to history involves another of America's favorite sons, Walt Disney. An ardent military hard-liner and a lover of aircraft, Disney had eagerly read Alexander de Seversky's Victory Through Air Power, a best seller which pitched long-range aircraft as the future of warfare. In an effort to sway the U.S. military itself, Disney poured the finances and efforts of his own studios into an animated version of the book which, while not a box office smash, provided convincing arguments for the government to reconsider its reliance on sea and land warfare. The 1943 animated feature's climax showed "Alaska-based animated superbombers wreak Disneyesque destruction on Tokyo," an eerie premonition of what would befall Japan two years later. Propaganda, or persuasion? (View a short portion of the feature length animation below).

Personally, I would spend a good deal of time discussing subtler persuasion techniques before delving into propaganda, which so often forces its point through fear, racism, stereotype, and phobia. But if you're working with older students on a unit dealing with World War I or II, or almost any "hot topic" since then, it's a study worth your while. Below are a few sites I'd recommend; please feel free to suggest others.

Recommended Sites:

German Propaganda in World War I
A Collection of Nazi Propaganda (with commentary) from BBC
Propaganda: A Weapon of War (with emphasis on difference between white and black propaganda)
Powers of Persuasion (includes a printable worksheet) from the National Archives
Propaganda Critic (great applied study of the techniques commonly used)
Propaganda Techniques in Literature and Online Political Ads (with printables) from ReadWriteThink
Bodies and Pageantry (a Canadian look at the Nazi propaganda of the 1936 Olympics; includes some interesting posters as reference sources)
Propaganda Techniques on Hate Sites
Propaganda Techniques (from Mr.Donn.org; geared toward students with many examples)

Stereotype and Fear in World War II Era Cartoons:

Der Fuehrer's Face

Hitler's Children: Education for Death

Sustained Silent Reading: On the Verge of Extinction?

2010-05-05T10:40:00.000-04:00

At TWRCtank.com (“TWRC” rhymes with “work” and stands for think, wonder, reflect and connect), Julie Peterson has posted some excellent notes and reflections on Silent Reading which she gleaned from the International Reading Association’s 55th Annual Convention in Chicago.

She also goes a bit into the idea of stamina in reading, which I took a shot at a few weeks ago here.

Check out Julie's whole article; definitely worth a read! Also be sure to see some of her earlier posts for some real gems in the areas of reading and instruction. You can also follow her on Twitter.

Convince Me: Real-Life Uses for Persuasive Writing

2010-04-30T22:58:00.002-04:00

We engage in negotiations all day long:

convincing ourselves to eat that healthy cereal instead of that frosted donut,
assuring our teenage daughter that her shirt was not shrunk in the dryer and that, yes, it looks fine;
convincing our six year-old that she still remembers how to tie her own shoes since yesterday and doesn't need help;
imploring the stranger in the car at the intersection to let us cut in;
assuring a parent via email that yes, we do know what we're doing;
guaranteeing an administrator that a professional release day will, in fact, improve our teaching practice, and
convincing students that their best efforts will produce better results.

Persuasion is a life skill. At the same time, however, it is too often taught and tested as a formalized, discrete, and isolated exercise. For that reason, students fail to realize the importance and pervasiveness of persuasion in their own lives.

The following video, produced by Education with Vision, helps students understand some of the key aspects a persuasive argument, along with some real-life examples.

Looking for some simple yet effective extensions? Check out So What's Your Point? over at Teach with Picture Books. You'll find some great online resources for students at all grade levels to practice persuasive writing.

If you're looking for a ready desk reference, Nonfiction Craft Lessons by JoAnn Portalupi and Ralph Fletcher (Stenhouse) and Writing to Persuade: Minilessons to Help Students Plan, Draft, and Revise, Grades 3-8 by Karen Caine (Heinemann) are two titles that I use and recommend.

Have other resources to suggest? Leave a comment below or email me. Would love to hear from you!

The Shape of Story

2010-04-23T18:22:00.000-04:00

Whether trying to understand the plot structure of a story they've read, or trying to write a story for themselves, students will be greatly helped by an understanding of basic narrative structure.

For a few years on the Web I saw this article titled "How a Story is Shaped" resurface time and time again, and with good reason. It's a succinct and accurate analysis of typical Western narrative (Western Hemisphere, mind you, not Western as in John Wayne or Clint Eastwood). Author Lynn Maupin Webb describes how stories as disparate as Snow White, Romeo and Juliet, ET, Indiana Jones, and Pulp Fiction rely upon common elements for narrative flow.

If you're a teacher who feels that your students' stories are often rambling and pointless excursions, it may be time to provide them with a proper scaffold. Once they see for themselves that many effective stories share this pattern, their own attempts will be more purposeful and satisfying.

Video Writing Prompts

2010-04-21T17:05:00.000-04:00

Tis the season to be practicing writing, if the number of emails I've received recently is any indication.

I have to admit I've moved from the relatively generic, random prompts to those more directly related to my instructional content. Over at Teach with Picture Books I described a persuasive essay prompt (about midway down that post) which creates a real moral dilemma for students; these are the types of starters that usually get great results.

Just today in class I presented my students with "Should sixth graders read books about the Holocaust?" following our unit on The Devil's Arithmetic. Prior to writing time, students were asked to argue for and against that position, and we heard lots of compelling ideas. Some students, in fact, who felt strongly one way before the discussion chose to write from the opposing viewpoint once we began our drafts.

Unfortunately, reality and history tell us that the writing assessments demanded of our students each spring are rarely connected to the themes and topic they've studied throughout the year. That's why it's important to have students practice with truly "random" prompts.

One great source I've discovered is TeachHub's Video Writing Prompts. These prompts incorporate one thing students love (video) with fairly open-ended prompts (written for four grade levels: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12). Even if you're not crazy about the writing task provided, the videos themselves offer great raw inspiration for a number of response options.

One of my favorites is the Softball Player Carried Around Bases by Opponents (I think my first writing task would be for students to give it a better title!).

Even here, however, a teacher might choose to use an alternative version of the same event (this time, a news feature) for a different writing purpose.

Now, I have to admit, I'm a real softie, and even watching that for the fourth time, I still get teary-eyed. But why? What was added to the storytelling that increased the emotional impact of the second video? (And by the way, I would cut out the buzz kill commentator at the end. Seriously. Stop the video before that guy ruins it for your students).

If you can't access YouTube in your school, you might be interested to know that the free and easy web site Zamzar allows you to download videos from online and save them to a number of formats including wmv, which can be played by Windows Movie Viewer, available on most computers. (I'm not a lawyer so I can't attest to the legality of downloading every video in this way. I'm just saying I know that it's possible).

The Connection Between Content and Reading Comprehension

2010-04-16T22:00:00.004-04:00

I'm a big fan of UVA cognitive scientist Daniel T. Willingham (I have all his trading cards and posters), and in a previous post at Teach with Picture Books I linked to his fabulous piece on The Privileged Status of Story (check it out; definitely worth a read).

So I was pretty stoked when I found a link to Willingham's video Teaching Content is Teaching Reading at Julie Niles Petersen's TWRCTank site (TWRC rhymes with “work” and stands for think, wonder, reflect, and connect).

Using some simple yet effective examples and statistics, Willingham shows that background knowledge is really key to raising comprehension.

If that's not enough evidence for you, E.D. Hirsch came to pretty much the same conclusion regarding content knowledge, as expressed in his N.Y. Times Op/Ed piece Reading Test Dummies (and he uses the same example of students with baseball knowledge which Willingham mentions in the video). While I don't always agree with every little thing Hirsch has to say, I'd still be shoulder to shoulder with him when it comes time to choose sides.

So what does this have to do with teaching novels?

It seems to support the practice of providing students with some foundational knowledge of a novel's historical period, genre attributes, author, and themes.

Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed, for example, takes place in Warsaw's newly built Jewish ghetto. The Nazis have restricted Polish Jews to a walled section of the city where they're forced to live, work, and survive by any means. Young Misha, already an experienced thief and scrounger, struggles to find an identity in a world in which he's known by many names: Stopthief, Jew, Gypsy, Runt.

While students could read this novel "cold," with little or no prior understanding of the Holocaust, I think some background knowledge of the ghetto's social complexities would really add to the story's plot, as well as help to explain many of the characters' actions and reactions to the story's events.

For this particular novel I'd recommend Children in the Ghetto, an interactive site which describes itself as

"...A website about children, written for children. It portrays life during the Holocaust from the viewpoint of children who lived in the ghetto, while attempting to make the complex experience of life in the ghetto as accessible as possible to today’s children.

Along with the description of the hardships of ghetto life, it also presents the courage, steadfastness and creativity involved in the children’s lives. One of the most important messages to be learned is that despite the hardships, there were those who struggled to maintain humanitarian and philanthropic values, care for one another, and continue a cultural and spiritual life."

By examining artifacts, writings, and first hand interviews, students gain an understanding of the "anything-to-survive" mentality which the ghetto created and demanded of its inhabitants. Students can either explore freely, taking advantage of the interactive elements, or additionally respond in writing using the printable handouts (I downloaded the handouts, available in Word format, and tweaked them according to my students' strengths and needs).

Once they've completed this exercise, students will have a mental bank of sites, sounds, stories, and symbols from which to draw upon, greatly increasing their understanding and appreciation of the novel.

Other ways to build background knowledge? Primary accounts, guest speakers, articles, web sites, picture books, video clips, personal stories, artifacts, field trips, and images. Better yet, ask the students to become the researchers. What materials can they find to construct their own knowledge?

Reading Comprehension and Mind Theory

2010-04-15T11:09:00.001-04:00

Katharine Beals, PhD, author of Raising a Left-Brain Child in a Right-Brain World: Strategies for Helping Bright, Quirky, Socially Awkward Children to Thrive at Home and at School, posted a great write-up of a recent New York Times feature on Reading Comprehension and Theory of Mind.

The source article says that

Literature, like other fields including history and political science, has looked to the technology of brain imaging and the principles of evolution to provide empirical evidence for unprovable theories.

That's good news, since too often our grade level peers will argue that their subjects are more difficult to teach since they deal in hard, provable facts; literature, they argue, is fuzzy and subjective by nature and instruction and assessment of it is hit-and-miss at best. I tend to argue 1) that's not true, and 2) if it were, doesn't that make teaching literature that much more difficult?

If you, like me, are constantly trying to juggle the variables involved with reading comprehension, you might find that post (and the author's book) will challenge and broaden your thinking on the topic.

Breaking All the Rules of Writing

2010-04-09T23:02:00.000-04:00

In a recent post at my Teach with Picture Books blog, I mentioned the success my sixth graders had experienced with short story writing using a selected picture book as a mentor text. The fact is, our students can learn an awful lot about improving their writing by studying how the "real writers" (that is, the published writers) get the job done.

So my students never cease to be amazed when real writers break the rules of writing! Students, after all, are indoctrinated for years in the do's and do not's of writing. Then along comes a fantastic author like Andrew Clements who just ignores those rules and with great results. For example, check out these three paragraphs which end Chapter Two of Clements' upper elementary/middle grade novel Extra Credit. Sixth-grader Abby Carson, a passionate climber, reflects upon the one section of her school's rock wall which she's been unable to conquer after six attempts:

She gave it her full attention for two reasons. First, she wanted to make a better climb next time - a perfect climb. And second, thinking about the wall was much more fun than dreading all the math and science and reading and social studies she was going to have to endure for the next six hours. After first period gym class, Abby felt like the rest of the school day was zero fun - like a winter with no snow. Or a summer without sunshine. And these days, she was under a ton of extra pressure.

Because the truth was, Abby had never been a very good student. And during the first half of sixth grade, her academic problems had gone from bad to worse.

And then, about two weeks ago in February, her problems had moved beyond worse - all the way to rotten.

Incomplete sentences? Beginning sentences with And? Using hyphens instead of punctuation? Using "and" multiple times in a list, rather than commas? What about sentence variety? How many sentences can you possibly begin with And?

The fact is, Clements is a fabulous author. Earlier titles such as Frindle, The Janitor's Boy, The Landry News, The Report Card, and A Week in the Woods are student favorites. Extra Credit continues in the tradition of those books, offering up well-rounded, believable characters whose trials and triumphs are entirely engrossing. And although this book extends far beyond the simpler plots of his earlier titles, it's still Andrew Clements' style of writing that makes this story so accessible to students.

So if I were to ask a student in my sixth grade, "So what's up with his writing? Didn't the author ever go to school?" the answer I'd likely receive is this: "He writes the way that kids think." Which is absolutely correct, and helps to forgive all the sacred rules of writing that he breaks.

But Keith, can we really allow students to do the same? Well, read any magazine or newspaper article in which writers are expressing their opinions or straying just a bit from the facts, and you'll find the same style of writing. It's conversational. It grips the reader. Clements' writing in the above paragraph helps the writing gain momentum, and the reader is captured right up to the cliff-hanging moments of the chapter's end.

So yes, I think students can, and should, write like this. But it's our obligation as teachers to help them understand when their purpose and audience is right for this no-holds-barred style of writing. And that, of course, is another lesson altogether.

The #1 Skill for Reading Comprehension

2010-04-03T21:40:00.002-04:00

I'm often asked, "What do you feel is the most important reading comprehension skill?" If I'm asked this in a workshop, I typically direct the question back to my audience, and participants are eager to share their thoughts. Rarely, though, do I hear what I feel is my answer to that question. I'll get to it, I promise.

What I often hear is teachers talking about the importance of preteaching vocabulary. Their argument: if students don't understand terms specific to the historical fiction novel (or the fantasy novel, or the mystery, etc.) then they're apt to be distracted from the story's plot.

Other teachers recommend providing students with graphic organizers so that they can sort characters, plot events, and otherwise order important "literary stuff" as they read.

I have a problem with both of these strategies. They simply aren't strategies which "real readers" use. How many of us are pretaught vocabulary before we crack open a new novel? Think of the most recent New York Times bestseller you read. Did you use a graphic organizer to parse its elements as you read? I don't think so. Neither of those strategies is employed in authentic reading. Do those strategies ever have a place in literature study? Absolutely. But on my list, they won't even make the top ten. (Note to self: create a list).

So what's the one strategy I so highly recommend? The Read On strategy. It is both the simplest to understand and the most difficult to put into place, since it requires a high level of trust. A student must trust in his/her own abilities as a reader, and a student must trust the author's ability to pull the pieces of the story puzzle together.

In its absolute simplest form, the Read On strategy helps when a student encounters an author's use of appositives. An appositive is a noun, noun phrase, or series of nouns used to define or rename another noun, noun phrase, or pronoun.

For example, in Pegi Deitz Shea's picture book biography Patience Wright: America's First Sculptor and Revolutionary Spy, the author writes, "To create life-size figures, Patience used wire, string, papier mache, and wood to make the armature, or frame, for the trunk and limbs." The reader knows, after reading just two words more, the meaning of the word armature. Only a rare student would throw up her hands in frustration mid-sentence to declare they didn't know this word's meaning. And yet, we still need to teach this.

Typically, however, clarifying bits of information aren't so readily available. The reader may need to read on for paragraphs, pages, even chapters to find the missing pieces. In Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic, for example, my sixth graders read the following passage:

Gitl looked up and stared at Hannah. Putting her hands on her hips, barely covering the garish flowers on the red print dress, she smiled mockingly.

When I asked my student to define the word garish, they had many sugestions, but none that could be confirmed by the limited context clues of the passage. A student suggested the Read On strategy.

Sure enough, in the following chapter, we found this sentence:

Gitl was bending over one of the lowest shelves. Hannah recognized her by the awful print dress.

Instantly students were able to define the word, or at least the sense of the word. Trust in this strategy had let them do what "real readers" do when faced with a similar situation.

The Read On strategy applies to entire books, particularly those which create an entirely original world, a derivation of our own but differing in hundreds of minute ways. In the futuristic Fever Crumb, for example, our trust in the Read On strategy is tested by the title itself. What is a Fever Crumb?

Fever Crumb, it turns out, is an extraordinarily different girl, discovered as a tiny orphan and apprenticed into the male-only Order of Engineers. Her struggle to fit in is further complicated when she's chosen to assist an obscure archaeologist whose incredible discovery may be the key to uncovering Fever's true identity.

Author Philip Reeve (whom many know from Here Lies Arthur) writes with spectacular detail, clarity, and power. It is his very carefully crafted descriptions of a new London, centuries in the future, which allow us to inhabit it and live it and breathe it. Not since Hunger Games and, many years before, Harry Potter, have I been so totally immersed in a new world that does not ask disbelief to be suspended; it instead creates a new belief in an alternative reality. These books ask the reader to go along for the ride, with the many mysteries of characters, setting, and terminology revealed only over time. Those students who naturally know to read on can make the leap of faith; others must be taught the strategy directly. It's a simple thing to do.

After all, what good is a strategy if it can't be transferred to real-life reading?

87 Free Web 2.0 Projects

2010-04-03T10:02:00.002-04:00

Peter Pappas over at Copy/Paste has the best blog description ever: Dedicated to Relinquishing Responsibility for Learning to the Students.

He also has a pretty cool resource posted in the form of British educator Terry Freedman's free downloadable book The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book, a compilation of lessons from ninety-four educators around the world.

In Peter Pappas's own words:

The book is organized by grade level and has curated links to all the web resources utilized. Each project includes a teacher-friendly "how to" with benefits, challenges, management tips, sample screen shots / links and learning outcomes. Terry's project is a great example of how the internet can be harnessed to share and collaborate. Who knows, the projects might even inspire your students to collaborate with their peers on their own book!

What does this have to do with teaching novels, you ask? If you teach writing or responding to literature, this resource will provide you with dozens of way to allow students to integrate technology to communicate their ideas. By taking advantage of free, widely available technologies, you can encourage your most reluctant writers while allowing your more gifted students to stretch their limits.

Another fab post over at Copy/Paste is 18 Literacy Strategies for Struggling Readers - Defining, Summarizing and Comparing. This post includes a downloadable pdf Strategies for Stuggling Readers which is an awesome reference for teachers at any grade level.

If you're on Twitter, you should also consider following Peter Pappas and Terry Freedman.

The Importance of Lingering Over Chapter Books

2010-03-31T18:55:00.000-04:00

I love picture books. You need to know that about me. Yes, I teach sixth grade, and yes, I use novels as the primary vehicle for teaching reading in the classroom. But I love picture books as well, and use them whenever I can for a number of purposes (see my list of thirteen reasons you should be using picture books).

But we as teachers need students to read longer texts as well. Peter Brunn, the Director of Professional Development at the non-profit Developmental Studies Center (DSC) in Oakland, California, makes that point clear in a recent blog post.

He shares that he and his daughter have been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory before bedtime each evening. He doesn't think much about it until she brings up the story at breakfast one morning:

"You know daddy," she said, "he's got to find that ticket."

"Huh?" I said in a groggy, pre-coffee voice. "Why in the world do you think that?"

"I mean," she replied, "What's the point of writing the book if he does not find the ticket? I just wonder how it will happen. Charlie's family does not have money to go and buy more chocolate for him. But he's got to find that ticket. What is he going to do?"

This reminds me of the critical role that reading longer books plays in children's literacy. Over the days we have been reading this book, Karina has been developing her own very particular line of thought about the book. Each chapter tests that theory and adds to or changes it. She knows because of the buildup of the first few chapters, the title, and her experience with other texts that Charlie will somehow find the ticket. What I find important and interesting is how the story lingers in her mind in between readings. As a parent, it is a fantastic way to bring my family closer together at the end of each day. As a teacher, I know that this is critical skill my students need to develop.

Are we as teachers "lingering" with our students? I know of some sixth grade teachers who "cover" (their words, not mine) nine or ten novels in a school year. Really? Along with grammar, mechanics, usage, writing, spelling, tech and current events integration, and vocabulary development you can complete ten novels?

As I've said in my workshops, that approach to reading is like roller skating through the Museum of Modern Art. I guess you see everything, but have you really seen anything at all?

(Although Peter blogs even less frequently than me, you can check him out and give some encouragement).

Image via Old Picture of the Day blog.

Real Writers ONLY Need Apply

2010-03-28T10:28:00.000-04:00

I recently caught up with an old friend over coffee. At one point during our conversation she asked if I had continued with any writing after college. I mentioned that I wrote three blogs and did some spec work for publishers for online pieces.

When I asked, in turn, if she had continued with creative writing, she responded that she was about to publish her first book of short stories. "Without my writing group," she enthused, "I never would have had the drive to actually finish it."

"Sounds like a pretty awesome group," I responded. "I should join you guys."

"Well," she hesitated, "we're a group of serious writers."

"I'm a serious writer."

"You're writing on the Internet," she replied, as if I were missing an obvious point of consideration. "Anyone can do that."

"Can't anyone do what you're doing? Aren't most of you working on computers?"

"Yes, but we're passionate about what we write."

"Well, you obviously haven't read many blogs, because we can be pretty passionate as well."

"It's not the same," she said lamely, her brow now furrowing.

"Well, unlike some of your real writers, I have an audience for my writing. I also think some of the stuff I write actually moves people to action. And for some of the work I do for publishers, off the blogs, I actually get paid. So how am I not a real writer?"

"You are, but you're not a serious writer. There's a difference that you just don't understand."

On that single point we agreed.

The takeaway from that conversation? Any writing that we can get students to do should be considered real writing. Narratives, persuasive essays, and multi-page reports shouldn't be our only measure of their abilities and passion.

When I asked students to express their feelings about a live performance of Romeo and Juliet, for example, students responded via Edmodo, our closed social media community. The same students who would have grudgingly eked out just one or two sentences in writing typed out huge paragraphs expressing their opinions on the acting, the language, and play's abrupt ending (it ran over time, so the last scene had to be cut). Any one of these short samples was as truly passionate, well written, and skills-representative as anything else they had ever written. Most importantly, however, the writing served a purpose, as real writing should.

But don't take my word for it; I am, after all, not a serious writer.

Why Students Can't Read Novels

2010-03-21T09:21:00.002-04:00

No typo on that title. It's not "Why Students Don't Read Novels," it's "Why Students Can't Read Novels."

The answer? Large blocks of uninterrupted text.

In a web article from the olden days of 1997, Jakob Nielsen answers the question of How Do People Read on the Web? by responding:

They don't.

People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word. (Update: a newer study found that users read email newsletters even more abruptly than they read websites.)

Likewise, many magazines have given up on paragraphs, choosing line breaks over indentation, and relying more upon bulleted lists, Top Ten lists, and text boxes to deliver content to readers.

In an amusing yet painfully truthful article titled Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text, the Onion pokes fun at this phenomenon:

WASHINGTON—Unable to rest their eyes on a colorful photograph or boldface heading that could be easily skimmed and forgotten about, Americans collectively recoiled Monday when confronted with a solid block of uninterrupted text.

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

"Why won't it just tell me what it's about?" said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. "There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I've looked everywhere—there's nothing here but words."

While we can't rewrite the classics (although we do, I suppose), we might consider what effects these prevailing habits are having upon our students and their comprehension levels. We might also ask ourselves, What can we as teachers do to respond to this challenge?

I'm totally open to suggestions.

(image from The Onion)

Book Trailers: An Update and a How-To

2010-03-14T10:08:00.000-04:00

Back in January I wrote a post at my Teach with Picture Books site, mentioning Mark Geary's excellent and growing collection of book trailers (aka book previews in video format). Mark recently checked in to give an update, saying:

Thanks for the mention, Keith! We do have an adolescent section here. We are now up over a thousand booktrailers, and growing. For the most part, our trailers are made using photostory 3, as it is quick, easy, and free, all good combinations for busy educators. I also wrote a short article on How to Make Booktrailers.

Some consideration needs to be given as to where the booktrailers should be posted. I do not recommend YouTube, as that is blocked in most schools, so even when you post there, the viewing opportunities are limited. Teachers and authors are welcome to send booktrailers to me, for inclusion on my site, or they may want to consider SchoolTube (like YouTube, only moderated for content). Another choice may be doing a video commentary on the book, and uploading to that books site on Amazon.com.

I went over and checked out Mark's tutorial, and while I am familiar with photostory, I can see that his steps will be easily understood by even a novice user. And as far as the adolescent lit collection, tons of great books are features there including Speak, The Westing Game, The Outsiders, The Face on the Milk Carton, Hatchet, and A Walk to Remember.

So thanks for the tips, Mark! A book trailer is an excellent alternative to the traditional book report, and by increasing the size and breadth of a student's audience, it becomes even more motivating.

For some more ways to use book trailers, plus some additional links, be sure to check out the most recent link on the topic, YA Book Trailers, plus the original article on the topic: The Power of the Preview.

Doing What Works

2010-03-08T20:41:00.000-05:00

First, the good news: I have a follower! Woo-Hoo! Sounds kind of silly after nearly a year of blogging, but understand that I recently moved How to Teach Novel from WordPress to here at Blogger. In doing so I kept my posts, but unfortunately lost my comments, my followers, and my Google rank. But as they say in sports, this is a rebuilding year! So join the fan club! Follow me! Pity follows are gratefully accepted.

Second, the equally good news. I discovered a pretty cool resource, courtesy of our tax dollars, called Doing What Works: Research Based Education Practices Online. Now some of you, knowing that this site comes from the government, might be laughing uncontrollably at the title, but trust me, there's some really good stuff here.

Doing What Works is a site that synthesizes educational research with actual classroom practice. Of prime importance to us are the resources provided for Adolescent Literacy. Four recommended practices are featured: Vocabulary Instruction, Comprehension Strategies, Engaging Text Discussion, and Intensive Intervention.

Each of these four practices is in turn broken down into Practice Summary, Learn What Works, See How It Works, and Do What Works:

Practice Summary provides a one-paragraph synopsis of what the teacher will achieve through this practice, plus a Multimedia Overview.
Learn What Works includes video segments of experts discussing the practice, as well as Key Concepts (in real language, not jargon), Research Evidence, and Related Links.
See How It Works allows you to be a fly on the classroom wall through teacher-narrated Presentations illustrating the practice in action. Sample Materials are provided in pdf format for downloading.
Do What Works contains both Ideas for Action and Tools and Templates, designed to help teachers and administrators implement the practices immediately.

For even the most experienced teachers, this site offers a reminder of the basic practices essential to literacy instruction. For beginners, it's an excellent introduction and primer for making literacy work in the classroom by implementing direct and systematic instruction. This site is the "science" of teaching; the "art" is left up to us.

Looking for a terrific text as a desk reference for this site? The English Teacher's Companion is strongly recommended for its straight-forward advice on instruction, organization, and growing in the profession. The Doing What Works site recommends author Jim Burke's web site as well.

Gary Paulsen: Living Literary Legend

2010-03-05T17:08:00.000-05:00

Okay, I have to admit it: I have a new hero. That hero is Newbery Award winning author Gary Paulsen.

Most of us know Gary Paulsen from his classics Dogsong and Hatchet, or perhaps his newer titles Lawn Boy and Notes from the Dog. From reading briefly about him, I know that he was, and is, a real rough-and-tumble, outdoorsy kind of guy, who has lived firsthand many of his character's adventures. (Think a G-rated version of Hemingway). As a kid who was raised on camping and fishing, I felt a real kinship.

But when I read a recent interview with Gary about his new novel Woods Runner, I was totally won over. His perspective on how the American Revolution is trivialized echoes everything I've ever said in my numerous posts about the American Revolution at my Teach with Picture Books site. Paulsen feels that the common soldiers of the Revolution are rarely given their due respect; like me, he also marvels that they were able to survive the arduous years of that conflict.

After reading that interview, I can't wait to get my hands on Woods Runner! I can see amazing correlations to other books and subject areas through topic, theme, and genre.

Read more about the book, read an excerpt, download an author study guide, check out his upcoming multi-city tour, and print out a poster. I think the more you investigate, the more you'll discover that an author like Paulsen is a great way to get your students (especially your boys) into good books.

Reading Strategies Archive

2010-03-03T22:18:00.000-05:00

At the Florida Online Reading Professional Development site you'll find an excellent archive of Reading Strategies of the Month. If you're looking for ways to put thinking into action, this site is worth a visit.

In addition to some familiar strategies such as Literature Circles, Word Walls, and Anticipation Guides, you'll find some less well-known approaches including Six Hat Thinking, Prediction Wheel, and the INSERT Strategy. Not only are the reading strategies described in detail, but the site also provides research findings, a rationale for each, pdf templates and examples, and links to external sites.

The Rationale for the SCAMPER strategy, for example, begins:

Looking for a new spin on an old idea?

Trying to figure out how to solve a problem by working smarter not harder?
Then the SCAMPER strategy may be the answer you are looking for to spark your own creativity, and the creativity of your students.

SCAMPER is a mnemonic acronym that provides a structured way to assist students and teachers with understanding creative problem solving and developing extension-building activities based on prior ideas and processes (Hale-Evans, 2006). First proposed by Alex Osborne in 1953, this thinking strategy was further developed by Bob Eberle and noted in his 1971 book, SCAMPER: Games for Imagination Development. Eberle states that much as the word scamper suggests “running playfully about as a child”, the strategy SCAMPER may also evoke the need “to run playfully about in one’s mind in search of ideas” (Eberle, 1984).

Why is creative problem solving useful to teach? Assisting ourselves and our students to be creative and critical thinkers are key goals of any teacher or school. Yet, you may ask, why is SCAMPER so useful? Creative problem solving strategies involve “a system, a method, a plan for dealing with perplexing situations” (Erberle, 1984). The SCAMPER technique offers a systematic and practical way to stimulate divergent thinking, imagination, originality, and intuition while scaffolding students’ creative thinking for independent use on other tasks and assignments. (Glenn, 1997)

While there, also check out the database of articles and online sources; some terrific stuff there if you enter just a couple terms for searching.

If you're looking for a ready desk reference on the topic of reading strategies, I highly recommend Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement, by Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis.

You'll find lots of practical, concrete ideas to implement, no matter what your level of expertise or experience in teaching reading.

The Case for Slow Reading

2010-02-26T09:51:00.001-05:00

I recently participated in a dialogue with fellow middle school teachers from an adjoining district, and naturally the conversation came around to novels. When we compared the number of novels taught in each school, our colleagues were teaching nine to ten a year versus our four! While I admit that four seems too few, that number also allows us time to read many other types of reading: picture books, drama, articles, periodicals, online material, and our own writing. Ten books a year? That's like roller skating through the Louvre and contending that you had "learned art."

My twitter colleague Kevin D. Washburn (kdwashburn) shared a recent Educational Leadership article titled The Case for Slow Reading. Author Thomas Newkirk, Professor of English at the University of New Hampshire, is also the author of Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones: Six Literacy Principles Worth Fighting For.

Newkirk provides some background in how we've come to accept what he calls the The High-Speed Reading Blur, and then offers some simple ways that teachers can slow down the process to increase the effectiveness of reading, while more personally and meaningfully engaging the learner.

One aspect of careful reading he mentions, for example, is attending to beginnings. Newkirk explains:

Writers often struggle with their beginnings because they are making so many commitments; they are establishing a voice, narrator, and point of view that are right for what will follow. These openings often suggest a conflict. They raise a question, pose a problem, create an "itch to be scratched." Readers need to be just as deliberate and not rush through these carefully constructed beginnings. As teachers, we can model this slowness.

In other words, if we're to assist our students in their own writing (which is often begun so poorly it can only end that way), then we must help them use excellent literature as writing models, or mentor texts.

Consider the beginning of this children's classic:

“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.

“Out to the hoghouse,” replied her mother. “Some pigs were born last night.”

The author plunges us into the action. No character introductions, no scene dressing; instead, we're left to piece that together for ourselves. Instead, we wonder along with Fern, Where is Papa going with the ax? (And ten points off if you can't name that book!).

Or consider the beginning of Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle:

“Not every thirteen-year-old girl is accused of murder, brought to trial, and found guilty. But I was such a girl, and my story is worth relating even if it did happen years ago.”

My boys, who typically wouldn't be caught dead reading, and caring about, a female protagonist, are instantly riveted. Who'd she kill? Why'd she do it? What happened to her? Later writing attempts often incorporate a form of this direct address to the reader, which helps students cut to the chase of why should the reader care about what happens to the character in this story?

A third example of a story beginning I often share as a writer's model in Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli:

“They say (he) was born in a dump. They say his stomach was a cereal box and his heart was a sofa spring. They say he kept an eight-inch cockroach on a leash and that rats stood guard over him while he slept…They say.”

That novel's beginning echoes the boasts of the tall tale tradition, and instantly alerts the reader that this Maniac Magee is a "larger than life" character. More importantly, this beginning cautions the reader that not all of what is shared is to be taken as truth. Again, once writers are shown the craft behind story beginnings, their own writing improves almost immediately, as they force themselves to think of the heart of the story.

I highly recommend you check out the article and apply Newkirk's suggestions to your own instruction. Need more ideas? Get your hands on Newkirk's Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones: Six Literacy Principles Worth Fighting For, published by Heinemann. Lots of practical ideas to put theory and research into action.

I also recommend that you visit Kevin D, Washburn's excellent Clerestory Learning site. Lots of great resources to be found there (I particularly like his explanations of how the brain works). Washburn's own Architecture of Learning: Designing Instruction for the Learning Brain (coming out soon!) looks like another must-read as well.

Alternative Assessments

2010-02-25T23:59:00.002-05:00

This is one of those posts where I simply point and say, "I saw something cool! Let's go get it."

A friend at Twitter (PageTurnersBlog, well worth following) retweeted that a post at Novel Novice features one YA Lit teacher's alternative assessments as a download. A couple cool ideas I hadn't thought of!

It's nice to share good stuff!

Banned Books Beg to Be Read!

2010-02-25T23:56:00.006-05:00

September 25−October 2, 2010 is Banned Books Week. No, my calendar isn't broken, but I figure, what wait?

In my opinion, there's no time like the present to thumb your nose at someone else's supposed authority over your intellectual freedoms. Check out Amazon's helpful compilation of banned books. You'll be surprised what's there! It's actually a pretty decent list of must-reads.

Pretty amazing how easily some people can be led to self-righteous, passionate outrage over literary expression. I guess they don't get out much.

Grammar Book Give-Away

2010-02-19T23:52:00.008-05:00

I saw some interest in my post a week ago on Maupin House's Giggles in the Middle: Caught Ya! Grammar with a Giggle for Middle School. Seems a lot of teachers have been struggling with the "how to teach grammar" and even the "should I teach grammar?" issues.

Maupin House just announced that they'll give a copy of Giggles in the Middle: Caught Ya! Grammar with a Giggle for Middle School to one lucky winner. Just visit their site to see how to enter (so many ways to win!).

But Keith, I already bought the book! You said to! Well, in that case, Maupin House has generously agreed to let the winner choose any other book from their wide array of original titles for teachers. I'm thinking of grabbing a copy of Amazing Hands-on Literature Projects for Secondary Students and Razzle Dazzle Writing for myself .

All entries must be entered by Thursday, February 25th at 11:59 pm EST.

Good luck, folks!

YA Book Trailers

2010-02-18T23:50:00.005-05:00

Arapahoe Libraries has posted a nice collection of YA (young adult) book trailers. I've posted on trailers before, describing how they can get students excited about new book titles in the same way that movie trailers get us psyched about new films.

Some of my faves featured there? The Book Thief by by Markus Zusak, The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy by Barry Lyga, Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, and The Batboy by Mike Lupica.

Check out the trailers, read the books, bring them into the classroom!

If you need some additional ideas for how to use book trailers, check out my suggestions in the latter half of this post from my Teach with Picture Books blog.

If you're seeking a terrific book extension project for students, have them create their own trailers. Whether live action or still image, putting pictures to words requires a number of critical thinking skills. Need a platform for that? Check out the Fifty Digital Storytelling Tools listed at CogDogRoo.

Grammar Instruction Made Easier

2010-02-13T23:45:00.002-05:00

Want to start a fist fight among middle and high school teachers? Ask them how you should teach grammar. Don't believe me? That was the topic of a recent conversation at the English Companion Ning. It runs for over five pages! Even after reading what so many experienced and intelligent educators had to say, I have to admit, I'm still confused.

But I did chime in. The first paragraph of my response read as follows:

Most recently I've taught grammar in context of real literature, but then I began to realize that not only was I missing some key concepts, but some students by their learning natures were not seeing connections. I really needed a program that was more systematic, recursive, and explicit. Wow. I didn't realize that was what I needed until I just typed it. (Lesson to be learned: writing can create thinking, as well as vice versa).

A colleague warned me that I should be careful what I wished for, since I probably didn't want a program that was systematic, recursive, and explicit. But, oddly enough, that's what I do want, and that's what I feel is needed.

Unlike reading, which is open to many interpretations, grammar actually functions by certain rules. Some of those rules must be understood before others (hence my emphasis upon systematic). I also know from years when I looped (from third to fourth), and more recently when I taught my former fourth graders as sixth graders, grammar rules are often forgotten, or need to be retaught in context of more difficult literary contexts (hence the recursiveness). And yes, I feel that grammar needs to be explicit. In the same way that mathematicians share a universally understood vocabulary, so should readers and writers. When discussing a piece of writing, for example, even a third grader should know what is meant by "the writer's use of specific adverbs."

So how can we teach grammar in a way that is not only systematic, recursive, and explicit, but also creative and engaging? Jane Bell Kiester seems to offer one solution in her Giggles in the Middle: Caught Ya! Grammar with a Giggle for Middle School. Using daily correction exercises, middle school students can dramatically improve their knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, and writing structure.

But how are these daily exercises different from other types of daily corrections? First of all, Giggles in the Middle is one continuous story, which helps to increase student engagement while providing meaningful context. Secondly, the exercises focus not only on grammar but also vocabulary development. A third difference is that this program integrates creative, original writing, with a new Writing Idea offered every three to four days.

In the Caught Ya approach Kiester offers a lot of teaching tips, having used and tweaked this program in her own class for many years. She also discusses a number of variations to the approach which teachers might want to adopt, depending upon their individual preferences and student populations. In all cases, however, emphasis is upon students understanding not only what is wrong, but why (see this sample student Caught Ya).

The book includes enough Caught Yas for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Each day's passage is presented with errors, corrections, and explanations of those corrections. Teachers with limited knowledge of grammar will find all the information they need to teach the lesson with confidence. The books also includes "almost midterm" and final exam tests, should a teacher choose to conduct summative assessments.

What I like best of all is that all exercises are included on an enclosed CD. For teachers who routinely use interactive whiteboards, or for those who need to print out exercises for absent or special needs students, the CD is a real timesaver.

If you're looking for a grammar solution that delivers results, I suggest you check out Giggles in the Middle: Caught Ya! Grammar with a Giggle for Middle School or, for the high school crowd, Chortling Bard: Caught'ya! Grammar with a Giggle for High School. Need more convincing? Read more about the Caught Yas and also see what students and teachers have to say over at Maupin House.

Web 2.0 Classroom Conversations

2010-02-07T23:42:00.005-05:00

If your students are anything like mine, they love getting into heated conversations over ideas from their novels and related readings. Being typical sixth graders, all students have an opinion to express and a story to share. What I wanted to find was a way for that conversation to continue beyond the classroom; many times I needed to cut it short when students were just getting started!

Having had a lot of experience with Ning, I thought that would be the perfect vehicle. The problem is, Ning, like Facebook, requires that users be 13 years old. I couldn't knowingly ignore this. So after searching around for a similar online experience, I finally chose Edmodo.

Edmodo is a closed, private community which looks and acts like a Facebook/Twitter hybrid. It allows for threaded discussions, polls, video uploading, and discussion groups. It totally fit the bill. Read more about why I chose Edmodo (over at my Teaching that Sticks blog) and find out how I felt about the choice after five days. Then decide for yourself is this tool is right for your class.

How to Teach a Novel

2010-02-04T14:45:00.002-05:00

You may have previously visited How to Teach a Novel hosted at Wordpress.com. While my Teach with Picture Books and Teaching that Sticks blogs are hosted here at Blogger, I decided to give the Wordpress platform a test drive for my third blog.

News is, I am not really happy with Wordpress, and I'm presently transferring all my old posts to here. I'm bummed, though, since I'm losing all my comments (and my Google page rank) in the process, but I guess that can be built up again.

If you're a really kind person with just five minutes to spare, I'd really appreciate it if you would read some random post (they're all brilliant) and leave a comment. This will help bring my page back to the top, so that teachers who search for these resources will be able to find them.

If you're interested in the steps a teacher can take to successfully incorporate novels into the classroom, you may also want to check out my Teaching with Novels lens at Squidoo.com. There you'll find the process described in ten steps. While not easy steps, they're clear and adaptable to almost any age and ability level.

At Squidoo you can also find additional lenses including Interactive Online Writing Tools, Interactive Resources for Reading Comprehension, Interactive Math Sites, and Strategies for Effective Behavior Management.

If you're a Dan Pink fan, you'll find a lens describing how teachers can incorporate ideas from his best-selling book A Whole New Mind. For fans of Chip and Dan Heath, I've also broken down the ideas from Made to Stick into practical applications and strategies for use in the classroom.

How to Teach a Novel: The Workshop

2010-02-02T23:40:00.006-05:00

If you're in Central New Jersey in late February with absolutely nothing to do, you might consider joining me for my How to Teach a Novel Workshop.

This free workshop, sponsored by New Jersey ASCD, will be held from 4:00 to 5:30 at Bedminster School in Bedminster, NJ. More details are available via this brochure.

In addition to being free, the event will include refreshments and door prizes, plus credit hours to those who need them. Come join us for a great time!

See a list of my other public events for the remainder of this school year.

Note: Donut pictured here is for illustrative purposes only. Your refreshment experience may vary.

There's a Word for That

2010-01-30T23:37:00.005-05:00

One thing students don't realize (until you point it out to them) is that language isn't static. Like any other discipline, it continues to evolve. One case in point is the July 2009 announcement from Merriam-Webster regarding the addition of new words to its dictionary:

Hardworking word-lovers everywhere can now learn the meaning of the word staycation ("a vacation spent at home or nearby") along with nearly 100 other new words and senses added to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. America's best-selling dictionary offers its new 2009 entries in its updated print edition and online at Merriam-Webster.com."Our language evolves in many ways," said John Morse, president and publisher of Merriam-Webster Inc. "As we've seen from our Open Dictionary feature on Merriam-Webster.com, people enjoy blending existing words, like combining 'stay' and 'vacation' to make staycation. Staycation is a good example of a word meeting a need and establishing itself in the language very quickly. Our earliest record of use is from 2005, but it seems to have exploded into popular use in 2007."

"Another example of this kind of creative wordplay from this year's list," said Morse, "is frenemy: one who pretends to be a friend but is actually an enemy. But, in addition to these 'portmanteau words,' we have added new words from more predictable categories, like science, health, technology, and popular culture, which have also seen widespread use across a variety of publications."

Many of the new words reflect the importance of the environment (carbon footprint, green-collar), government activities (earmark, waterboarding), health and medicine (cardioprotective, locavore, naproxen, neuroprotective), pop culture (docusoap, fan fiction, flash mob, reggaeton), and online activities (sock puppet, vlog, webisode). Other words added include haram, memory foam, missalette, and zip line.

What Merriam-Webster fails to admit is that our language changes daily, and new words don't wait to be officially recognized. So rather than accessing the Merriam-Webster online dictionary for new terms, word-lovers are better served by sites such as Wordspy and Urban Dictionary.

Wordspy takes on a recent word such as vegangelical and not only defines and parses it (n. An extremely zealous vegan who is eager to make other people believe in and convert to veganism; blend of vegan and evangelical) but also traces it to its earliest citation (in this case, to the blog The Smoking Vegans in 2005).

Wordspy is a fun site to browse, and readers are welcome to comment on entries and suggest new words as well. Its biggest strength is that it offers citations for all the words it lists. But the question must be asked, "Just because someone uses a word, does it become a word?" To put it another way, "Are all neologisms created equal?" Sure, Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss, and Lewis Carroll coined words all the time, but do the rest of us carry enough clout to do the same?

Enter Urban Dictionary. Users enter words they've created or recently heard, and readers vote the words up or down. Rather than attempting to ajudicate, Urban Dictionary simply allows other users to enter their competing definitions for those same terms or phrases. Often you'll find that multiple readers submit similar definitions, and even provide the sources for you to confirm the facts. "The time," for example, is submitted by two readers who cite its origin in Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Both agree that "the time" is a euphemism for intercourse.

Urban Dictionary is fun to read for its spirited arguments. I also discovered that the tags attached to each word keep me reading from one word to another. While teachers will appreciate that some readers actually try to spread knowledge about our language (see the posts about Catch-22), you should be warned that some submitters use language that is inappropriate for children, and for this reason Urban Dictionary is likely blocked in your school.

A third site for neologisms is Buzz Whack. While the words listed here are clever and even familiar, this site lacks the interaction and attempt at scholarship found in the previous two. But it's worth a look, and you might even find a resaon to like it.

How can teachers make use of these sites? Certainly as add-on dictionaries. But I'd say just alerting students to neologisms will make them more aware of the fact that these words are springing up all around them in an attempt to name new phenomena (sexting is one such unfortunate term which needed to be coined). Students can collect and share these, and even be challenged to create their own (an easy task if they choose to create portmanteaus, ala Lewis Carroll).

Reading Strategies: A How-To for Teachers

2010-01-20T23:35:00.006-05:00

At Thinkport you'll find a pretty awesome series of online guides, videos, and tutorials aimed at making you a more effective teacher of reading strategies. What's most amazing is that this site is actually aimed at middle school teachers, that oft-forgotten cadre of souls wedged between elementary and high school.

So what's Thinkport? From the site:

Thinkport is the product of an on-going partnership between Maryland Public Television (MPT) and Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education (CTE), two of the most trusted names in Maryland education.

Thinkport aims to help teachers teach more effectively, inspire students to learn, build bridges between schools and homes, and fulfill Maryland Content Standards for education. We're focused on harnessing technology in the service of education.

Well, I'm not from Maryland, but I absolutely love the Reading Strategies resources offered here. You first investigate discrete reading strategies through videos, interviews, and examples, and you're then given printable aids to help incorporate those strategies in your classroom.

You then see these strategies in action, assisted by a teacher's guide.

Finally, you see how reading skills can best be implemented using a number of online virtual field trips available from this site. Although many relate specifically to Maryland's history, others can absolutely be used by anyone.

Lots to see here for both novices and pros!

(Go to this blog's original home at Wordpress to read two comments on this post).

The Wind Beneath Their Wings

2010-01-16T21:54:00.002-05:00

My corny and equally enigmatic title is meant to point out that even our most creative and original thinkers were in some way influenced by the work of others. How was Columbus influenced by the Bible? Who were Stephen King's muses? In what way are Britney Spears and Alfred Hitchcock artistically connected?

Infloox is a website which attempts to show how influential people were influenced. While it's still very much in its beta stage, you can see from its How It All Works page that the site relies upon reader contributions to connect influential people and works to the not only their influences, but to whom or what they've influenced.

So we learn that John F. Kennedy was influenced by Winston Churchill, alledgedly reading every word that the British Prime Minister had ever written (click on the detail link beside a person's name to see the connection, versus a a new topic window for that person). Okay, that one's not shocking.

But in another example, we learn that Beowulf was read by Tolkien, who was a close friend and University of Oxford colleague of C.S. Lewis, who in turn was an influence upon Sarah Palin. So ultimately Sarah Palin's thinking is descended from an ill-smelling, obnoxious monster of the cold North whose fame came from eating men alive. Insert your own joke here.

Most influences are credited to their sources, and some are additionally linked to forums. The sources aren't always easily checked, however, so I wouldn't hang the hat of your dissertation on this site alone. When I tried to investigate both references to Treasure Island's influence upon Steven Spielberg, for example, neither would yield a result. Others did, however, pan out.

So how to use this site?

First of all, it's amusing to browse. Each page offers some browsing suggestions in a side bar to the right, and I found myself frittering away a surprising amount of time linking from one person and idea to the next.
Secondly, if you're teaching any of these same famous persons, you might find a kernel of insight here to be explored in more depth. I taught The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for many years, so I knew of the Tolkien/Lewis connection, and I'd read quite a bit about their dialogues concerning their respective series (Lord of the Rings and Narnia). But this may be news to another teacher. C.S. Lewis was additionally influential to J.K.Rowling, and careful readers can pick up on specifics. The four Pevensie children, for example, are poster children for the four houses of Hogwarts; in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe they not only take on the charcteristics of the houses' symbolic animals, but at some point in the novel they are each overtly linked to those animals. For those who teach this novel, check out the related note-taking chart.
Third, you might like your students to discuss why certain people in history may have been so influenced by one of their predecessors. For example, which single famous person influenced Cervantes, Einstein, Columbus, Napoleon, and Kissinger?

So check out Infloox and also take a gander at their blog. I'd love to hear your own thoughts for ways to use this site! (go to this blog's original home at Wordpress to read the six comments on this post).

Diagnosing and Responding to Student Writing

2010-01-11T21:51:00.006-05:00

From the Dartmouth Writing Program at Dartmouth College, some great thoughts on Diagnosing and Responding to Student Writing.

By no means is this is a stylish, high tech site, but if you look further into some of the links at the top, you'll find even more great advice on assessing student writing.

Need more on the topic? Check out the great Stenhouse title What Student Writing Teaches Us by Mark Overmeyer.

Under What Rock Have I Been Living?

2010-01-06T21:47:00.009-05:00

Under what rock have I been living?

That's a question I really need to ask myself if I'm just now discovering Tracie Vaughn Zimmer. Yes, she's an author, and I do recognize a couple of her titles (and the others look promising!). But somehow I missed that she has created this awesome site (absolutely no hyperbole intended) containing hundreds of original teaching guides for picture books, middle grade and YA books, and poetry. And yes, my fellow frugal teachers, they're all there for free.

All Tracie asks in return, if you like what you see, is that you buy a copy of her book. Trust me, even if you buy all of her books, you're getting the better end of the deal! Free resources and her critically acclaimed titles for your own library.

So in an atypical move for me, I'll shut up now. I'll let Tracie's web site speak for itself (and you can check out her blog as well). Thanks, Tracie, for your terrific resources!

Lights, Camera, Notes!

2010-01-02T21:45:00.004-05:00

I've earned a reputation among my students. I never let them watch a video without good purpose, and I often require that notes be taken in some form.

So here's a pretty generic note-taking sheet that I've used in the past with Because of Winn Dixie. Email me if you'd prefer it in Word format; for some reason that didn't translate well to the Scribd site.

You might also be interested in the Movie Worksheets web site, although at this point in time the resources there are sparse. If you've created any movie study sheets, feel free to add them.

What Makes a Good Children's Book?

2010-01-02T21:42:00.007-05:00

What makes a good children's book? I'd suppose that's a tough question to answer, otherwise Microsoft would have already written Newbery Notebook 1.0 and Caldecott Creator for Windows. A good children's book is far from formulaic.

It seems, however, that Little, Brown Books has done a pretty good job of nailing some of the more prominently recurring traits of good children's books (both novels and picture books). See the whole list at the Upstart Crow Literary blog (a cool place to peek behind the curtain of the writing and publishing biz).

What use is this list to the average classroom teacher?

It may help you understand why some books win with children while others fail. The list explains, for example, why a common literary motif of many children's novels (Harry Potter, Lord of the Flies, Narnia, Holes) is the removal of the protagonist (and other main characters) from adult supervision and control.
The individual attributes may help you create some connections between otherwise unrelated texts. One successful exercise with every novel, for example, is looking at how a character grows or changes over time. I've used this approach with Number the Stars, Because of Winn Dixie, Crash, Flipped, and Island of the Blue Dolphins to name just a few. Check out this sample recording sheet.
The list can be used a fairly accurate indicator of a book's overall value when teachers must choose just two or three titles for study. Many teachers, for example, complain that their boys just don't "get into" books which feature strong female protagonists. A book like Poppy, however, which features a female animal protagonist, is somehow more readily embraced.
Teachers can use the list as a reference for writing minilessons. If these are the traits that make good children's books work, and if these are the attributes with which children have the most first-hand experience, then perhaps many of them could inform student writing as well.

How else do you see putting this list to work for you? Email me or leave a comment below!

(This same post also appears at my Teach with Picture Books site).

Failing to Teach the Hobbit

2009-12-29T21:37:00.008-05:00

Failing to Teach the Hobbit by Christina Socorro Yovovich is an intriguing vignette involving teaching The Hobbit as her classroom novel. If you teach any novel, at any level, whether by choice or obligation, this piece is a must-read.

Thanks, Christina, for sharing. The rest of us can learn a lot through your painful experience!

(Want to avoid the same experience? Check out what Kelly Gallagher has to say about How NOT to to Teach a Novel).

Doom, Despair, and Agony on Me

2009-12-13T21:33:00.011-05:00

"Doom, despair, and agony on me" were the cheery words that accompanied an old HeeHaw sketch in which a bunch of old coots on a porch tried to outdo each other with their tales of woe. Funny in its hyperbole.

But in a recent discussion on the English Companion Ning, I asked, "Why is it that so many of our novels for middle and high schoolers deal with death?" Are those the only books worthy of study, or is it some weird fixation? Even this year's Newbery Award Winner, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, seems to celebrate that theme (see book trailer below from HarperKids).

I received some profound and enlightening responses from my colleagues that are worth a read. If you're not a member of the English Companion Ning yet, the sign-up is free and painless, and the collegial atmosphere is one you'll enjoy. And if you're a teacher studying a novel in class that deals with death, be sure to weigh in on the discussion!

Novels as Mentor Texts

2009-12-11T21:30:00.009-05:00

The Northern Nevada Writing Project's Writing Fix site contains a terrific section of lesson plans on Using Chapter Book Excerpts as Mentor Texts.

What does that mean? It means the terrific writing we admire in our favorite novels can be used to guide our own young writers. The format, however, also means that your students don't need to have read the entire novel being referenced; each lesson provides teachers with the specific chapters, which can be read independently by students or as a read-aloud by the teacher. If any of the twenty some books featured are the same novel you're studying in class, added bonus!

So what you'll find here is a fabulous collection of middle school and YA novels (you'll recognize all the titles) categorized by the six traits: Idea Development, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Conventions. Each lesson plan is preceded by a Three Sentence Overview (boom! there's your lesson objective).

For example, Maniac Magee is used as a mentor text focusing on voice (with a supporting focus on word choice). The Three Sentence Overview reads:

The writer will analyze and discuss the tall tale format after reading Jerry Spinelli’s tale of Cobble’s Knot, told in Chapter 20 of Maniac Magee. Then writers will need to create an interesting character in a special situation which would allow them to stretch the truth in an imaginative tale. The interactive button game will provide writers with possible options from which to create their “whoppers.”

The lesson plan contains a step-by-step approach, and all needed hand-outs, and additional optional site links (if required). Many lessons also contain samples of student writing submitted by teachers who have used that lesson plan in their classrooms.

While at Writing Fix, also be sure to check out the ipod Lessons which use lyrics to popular songs as mentor texts. Great way to connect with the young folk!

(Go to this blog's original home at Wordpress to read two comments on this post).

60 Second Recap

2009-12-07T21:25:00.010-05:00

If you haven't checked out 60 Second Recap, you're in for a treat. 60 Second Recap is a collection of video clips covering the plots, characters, symbolism, literary motifs, and more of favorite classic literature for teens. But it's not a dry, overly-academic examination. It's a lively conversation hosted by a real-life, somewhat zany hostess named Jenny (you can find her on Twitter).

The site's overview gives you a sense of the tongue-in-cheek humor that's behind this great site:

"Eat your lima beans," Mom used to say.

And now that you're out on your own, honestly, are lima beans a staple of your culinary repertoire?

There, in a lima bean, lies the problem confronting the great works of literature. We're all forced to read them in school so we can get good grades so we can go to a good college so we can get a good job so we can forget all about that literature they used to force us to read so we could get good grades.

The 60second Recap™ aims to break this cycle of canonical irrelevance. We want to help teens (yes, teens of all ages!) engage with literature. We want to help them see it not as some chore to be endured, but as -- dare we say it? -- the gift of a lifetime. How? Through the language of our time -- the language of video. Video that's focused, engaging, informative ... and short enough to hold just about anyone's attention.

Smirk if you must. Consider this yet another mile-marker on civilization’s road to perdition. But here's the fact: You won't get non-readers to read by forcing them to read more. You'll get them to read by opening their eyes to the marvels awaiting them between the covers of that homework assignment.

With the 60second Recap™, teens finally have an alternative to the boring, text-based study guides that have burdened them for generations. And -- who knows? -- maybe that's just what they'll need to begin a love affair with literature, one that will last a lifetime.

In addition to the videos on classics such as Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men, Frankenstein, Lord of the Flies, and Hamlet, users will find a section called Recap Resource which includes a Dictionary of Terms (allegory, motifs, subtext, protagonist, etc.) and How to Write a Paper (that Won't Put your Teacher to Sleep). Again, these are presented in video form, which them much less intimidating for the average high school user.

The site also features an area for video responses from users, and another for users to request titles for recapping.

I highly recommend you visit the site and give it a look! I'm curious to see how it will change as it grows.

Know another great site for teachers working with novels? Find me on Twitter!

Book Report Tracking Sheet

2009-12-05T12:52:00.001-05:00

I mentioned this at a workshop, and I've had a few emails regarding it, so there may be some general interest. The Book Project Tracking Sheet allows for various "checkpoints" along the way in order to prevent students from procrastinating. Parents love it, and students have also told me they liked seeing their progress; it divided a really big "meatloaf of a report" into easily digestible chunks (my words, not theirs).

Email me if you'd like a Word format for tweaking.

Book Report Tracking Sheet

The Mother Lode!

2009-12-02T12:48:00.003-05:00

A mother lode (yes, the spelling is correct; I even looked it up) is a rich and abundant source, usually of ores or minerals.

But in the case of the ReadKiddoRead ning, mother lode refers to a resource of over 100 lesson plans for both picture books and novels. This ning is the community site of James Patterson's ReadKiddoRead site, which provides tons of reading suggestions for kids, all categorized by age and genre.

I don't know about you, but I'm a visual person, so I like that the ning has the lesson plans organized in an array of books covers. In addition to these plans, the ning also offers teachers and parents opportunities to share tips on motivating your readers through forums, groups, interviews, and lists.

Many of you know that I'm a member of many nings (ReadKiddoRead, Book Marketing Network, English Companion, NCTE, Teacher Librarian, Stenhouse Publishers, Writing Lesson of the Month, Elementary Tech Teachers, Elementary Teachers Network, and Classroom 2.0). Each one has its own strengths, and I'd recommend you try out a couple to see which is the best fit for you. If you happen to join any of these terrific nings, add me as a friend!

Great Minds Thinking Alike

2009-12-01T12:47:00.016-05:00

A couple months ago I mentioned the English Companion Ning. That group is now nearing 10,000 members, and I encourage you more than ever to get involved!

For those of you who don't know much about Nings, here's a quick Q and A from member Jennifer Ansbach.

What's a Ning? A ning is a closed social network, like a Myspace or Facebook with a restricted membership. You have a profile, a blog, and participate in forums and send/receive messages.

What is the English Companion Ning? Started one year ago this week by English teaching guru Jim Burke, the English Companion Ning is a place to share resources, ask questions, and participate in online, self-directed professional development.

Why should I join? Jim Burke has leveraged his author and professional connections to bring some of the leaders in English education to the ning. Members include not only Jim Burke but current NCTE president and author Carol Jago, outgoing NCTE president and author Kylene Beers, and others who publish about best practices. Each month there is a professional book club, with an online discussion led by the author. Past books included Kelly Gallagher's Readicide and Tom Newkirk's Holding on to Good Ideas in Times of Bad Ones. This month's book club on improving student writing features Penny Kittle's Write Beside Them.

There are forums devoted to specific topics, with people posting their handouts, lesson plans, and strategies. In addition, there is a place to seek help for questions or for support. Yesterday someone asked what to do when your urban students admit they think you are a pushover. Within a few hours, several people had offered solid advice and resources. Earlier this year, a teacher posted about celebrating with his student teacher, putting her in her car, and having a truck kill her instantly around the corner. That teacher found a place to share his grief and also received help and ideas for putting together a fitting tribute to the young woman (his students had written letters to her that he hadn't given to her--he crafted a eulogy of the students' own words about what she meant to them).

It's free to join. Just sign up on englishcompanion.ning.com. Jim Burke pays the $25 a month to keep it running and does not accept any advertising on the site. I am not a paid promoter. This week, as the ECNing celebrates its first birthday, it has 9,700 members and Jim is hoping to reach 10,000 this week. He asked us to make sure our colleagues are aware of the ning and what it has to offer.

Thanks, Jennifer! Well articulated. This ning is perfect for those of us engaged in the sometimes lonely business of teaching Reading and Language Arts!

UPDATE 2/01/10 This site has now passed 12,000 members.

Teaching Metaphorically

2009-11-19T12:45:00.004-05:00

In response to my prior post about Metaphors and Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject, I received an email from Adriana who asked, "Can you give an example of a metaphorical lesson? Not a lesson that teaches about metaphors, but a lesson that uses the idea."

While I had a few ideas, I thought the best way might be to show a lesson in action. Check out this clip from Mr. Langhorst's 8th grade in Liberty, Missouri. It's a perfect example of an extended metaphor.

I love this approach! In my third and fourth grades, where I've taught the Revolutionary War as well, I've taken a slightly different approach. Students were presented with a letter from the school board, announcing that due to last year's low test scores several drastic measures would be put into place: extended school hours, summer school for all students below a 3.5 average, school on Saturdays, and no more Physical Education. Students became quite upset that neither they not their parents were in attendance at this meeting, and that they were being punished for last year's bad scores (purely fictitious as well). Seeing how distraught my students were, I graciously allowed them to draft letters to the testing coordinator (Mr. Itzal LaSham) expressing their feelings. Without fail, students created the most articulate, persuasive writing of their lives! When read aloud, the letters of protest were impassioned and convincing.

But then I wondered aloud, "I'm not sure if we should have done this. Perhaps Mr. LaSham will get upset, and call your parents. Are you guys really willing to take that risk?" Out come the erasers, but not for all. Most students are so adamant in their beliefs that they refuse to erase their names, no matter what the consequences!

It's usually at this point, although sometimes much earlier, that some student will exclaim, "This is exactly what happened to the colonists! We're being forced to live by rules that we didn't help to make." And eventually, of course, I do let students in on the secret: The letter is fictitious, and so is the testing director (Mr. It's All a Sham). We then discuss the similarity between their letters and the Declaration of Independence. Both documents express extreme dissatisfaction, but the latter is further expressing outright rebellion. Should the colonists lose this war, the bold Declaration will serve as King George's hanging list.

In nearly twenty years of implementing this lesson, students have been faithful to not share it with their siblings or friends, and each year's new class faithfully falls for the trick: hook, line, and sinker. But the real payoff is that years later, when students return from high school and college to visit, they'll ask, "Did you do the letter yet?" and they'll vividly recall every aspect of the lesson, including (here's the clincher!) its point.

Now that's a lesson that sticks.

If you're a social studies teacher, check out Eric Langhorst's blog for more great resources and insights. You may also want to check out the six elements of "stickiness" found in Dan and Chip Heath's Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

Metaphorically Speaking

2009-11-10T21:08:00.000-05:00

Stenhouse has put out a new book that I can't recommend enthusiastically enough. Rick Wormeli's Metaphors and Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject adds to the canon of distinguished titles which deal with the topic of metaphor.

His work, however, is so far the most practical title I've seen on the topic, offering teachers simple steps for improving their instruction through the use of metaphors and analogies. Every page provides subject-specific examples, allowing readers to easily understand the real-life applications to the classroom.

My own forays into this topic began with George Lakoff's now-classic Metaphors We Live By, which plainly illustrated the pervasiveness of metaphor in everyday language.

While critics argued that the book was not well supported with research, just a brief look into its pages will convince any reader that what Lakoff was attempting to prove through discourse alone was pretty self-evident (once exposed) and pretty remarkable as well. People do speak unconsciously in metaphors, all the time, and the metaphors they choose can tell us a lot about their preconceptions, perspectives, and prejudices on a topic. My personal copy of Metaphors We Live By contains hardly a page not scribbled with a comment or question; it did profoundly influence the way in which I approached reading and language arts instruction.

Next came Marcel Danesi's Poetic Logic: The Role of Metaphor in Thought, Language, and Culture, which was arguably more research based than Metaphors We Live By. Discovering the scientific and linguistic basis for everything Lakoff argued reinforced for me that metaphorical language is neither coincidental nor arbitrary. In Danesi's own words:

The main goal of this book has been to take the reader on an excursion through an amalgam of facts, ideas, and illustrations that reveal how poetic logic works in making the world visible and thus understandable in human terms. Metaphor is a trace to poetic thinking, which constantly creates connections among things. This is why metaphors and metaforms have such emotional power—they tie people together, allowing them to express a common sense of purpose in an interconnected fashion.

What Rick Wormeli now brilliantly accomplishes through Metaphors and Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject might be seen as a currency exchange. He takes the "hundred dollar ideas" of Lakoff and Danesi and turns them into "spending money" for the classroom. Wormeli shows how students can use metaphors to make connections between the concrete and the abstract, prior knowledge and new concepts, and language and image (neither Lakoff nor Danesi discussed visual metaphors at any length). Wormeli also goes beyond the passive museum experience of "let's notice and appreciate the beauty of metaphors" to a workshop mentality of "let's throw some clay on the wheel and see what we can form on our own." Ultimately, his work is an impressive how-to on the subject.

But what's in it for teachers of literature? So many of Wormeli's examples are based in math, social studies, and science that Reading and Language Arts teachers might wonder what's in it for them.

Rather than construct an argument, let me instead offer a simple example. Below is an excerpt from Wendelin Van Draanen's Flipped (grade level equivalent 5.5). How many single and extended metaphors can you spot? And more importantly, what additional (between the lines) information can they provide if the reader is alert enough to notice them?

My sister, on the other hand, tried to sabotage me any chance she got. Lynetta’s like that. She’s four years older than me, and buddy, I’ve learned from watching her how not to run your life. She’s got ANTAGONIZE written all over her. Just look at her – not cross-eyed or with your tongue sticking out or anything – just look at her and you’ve started an argument.

I used to knock-down-drag-out with her, but it’s just not worth it. Girls don’t fight fair. They pull your hair and gouge you and pinch you; then they run off gasping to mommy when you try and defend yourself with a fist. Then you get locked into time-out, and for what? No, my friend, the secret is, don’t snap at the bait. Let it dangle. Swim around it. Laugh it off. After a while they’ll give up and try to lure someone else.

At least that’s the way it is with Lynetta. And the bonus of having her as a pain-in-the-rear sister was figuring out that this method works on everyone. Teachers, jerks at school, even Mom and Dad. Seriously. There’s no winning arguments with your parents, so why get all pumped up over them? It is way better to dive down and get out of the way than it is to get clobbered by some parental tidal wave.

The funny thing is, Lynetta’s still clueless when it comes to dealing with Mom and Dad. She goes straight into thrash mode and is too busy drowning in the argument to take a deep breath and dive for calmer water.

And she thinks I’m stupid.

The fact is, for students to read with comprehension and appreciation, they must be able to recognize and dissect both simple and complex analogies. And for students to be able to explain their own understandings of difficult concepts (no matter what the discipline), they must be able to describe those concepts through metaphors and analogies.

I highly recommend Metaphors and Analogies: Power Tools for Teaching Any Subject for teachers looking to advance their own practice as teaching professionals. As always, Stenhouse offers you a preview of the entire book at their site.

Stephen King on Short Stories

2009-11-03T12:42:00.002-05:00

One of my all time favorite short story writers expounds here on short stories and a bit more. If you have sensitive ears, skip this one!

Do you agree with King? Have readers become lazy?

Personally, I can't say I disagree with him.

Lord of the Flies, Interactively

2009-10-29T20:57:00.002-04:00

William Golding's first novel, Lord of the Flies, was originally published in 1954 and quickly became a world-wide bestseller and admitted favorite of many modern day authors. Golding was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Literature and is to this day probably one of the few Prize winners in Lit that I've actually read! Sorry, my fellow Reading and Language Arts teachers!

If you're a fan of LOTF, or if you're using this book with your classes, I highly recommend you play the Lord of the Flies Game. According to the Nobel Prize site where the game is hosted,

this game presents one possible interpretation of Golding's book, which is no more legitimate than any other. As Golding himself claimed, "The right interpretation is the one that rises to the reader the first time he reads the book."

The aim of this game is to analyze symbolism and characterization in the novel. A great refresher before an end-of-book test!

(According to a post at Mental Floss titled 15 Famous People Who Used to Teach, "The author’s experiences as a teacher helped inform the novel that made his career. He once allowed a class of boys to debate with complete freedom, and the classroom quickly devolved into such disorder that it inspired Golding to write Lord of the Flies." Yeah... I can totally see that).

ADDED 12/31/09 Here's an interactive sequencing activity for LOTF which could be used as a nice group review on an interactive whiteboard.

For those of you interested in the Nobel Prize angle, you may want to check out the picture book The Man Behind the Peace Prize: Alfred Nobel, a short yet intriguing account of man who invented dynamite. From the inside cover:

Alred Nobel was born in Sweden in 1833. A quick and curious mind, combined with a love of science and chemistry, drove him to invent numerous technological devices throughout his long life. But he is perhaps most well known for his invention of dynamite.

Intending it to help safely advance road and bridge construction, Nobel saw his most famous invention used in the development of military weaponry. A reading a newspaper headline mistakenly announcing his death, Nobel was inspired to leave a legacy of another sort.

Even high school students will appreciate how effectively the concise picture book format captures Nobel's life story. As an extension activity, students could research a winner of the Peace Prize (all listed in the back of the book) and create a similar picture book-like recounting, using an easy online publishing program such as Tikatok.

Interested in other extension ideas? Be sure to visit the publisher's site for the free, downloadable teaching guide to accompany the book.

Getting Graphic

2009-10-21T12:40:00.006-04:00

For those brave souls who dare enter the world of (gasp!) graphic novels, you'll find that Get Graphic is a comfortable place to start.

In addition to the helpful Teachers' Pages, the site features an extensive and impressive A-Z offering of annotated titles, complete with recommended grade level, a short summary, and web site.

I'm a fan of graphic novels and I fully support their use in the classroom (see my lame attempt here to expound on the subject), but I won't even pretend to be an expert. This site, however, offers me a fighting chance of keeping up with those crazy kids and their eclectic literary pursuits.

What Student Writing Teaches Us

2009-06-05T12:38:00.003-04:00

I’m pleased to participate in the Blog Tour for Mark Overmeyer and his Stenhouse publication What Student Writing Teaches Us. This extremely practical yet highly informed book answers many of the questions I’veasked myself over the past 20 years, or heard from my colleagues in teacher workshops. For more information on this book (which you can read in full online at the Stenhouse site), visit my Teaching that Sticks blog.

Prior to Mark’s visit on June 29th at Teaching that Sticks, I encourage you to check out the full book online at the Stenhouse site. As you read, jot down your thoughts and questions for the author and then send them my way. We’ll pose these questions to Mark when he visits on June 29th. Don’t hold back! Don’t be shy! This is your chance to pick the brain of a guru who has spent countless hours in classroom, observing and interacting with teachers and students passionately engaged in the writing process.

Classics Online

2009-05-31T12:37:00.005-04:00

There are hundreds of sites online that allow you to read public domain classics such as 1984 and Paradise Lost. If Google is any measure, the search phrase "Read Classic Literature Online" serves up 321 results, and "Read Classics Online" serves up 5,740.

If you're looking for the best site of its kind, I highly recommend ReadPrint. Unlike other literary classics sites, ReadPrint is incredibly lean and clean, with a modern interface with no annoying ads or upsells. Over 8,000 books by 3,500 authors available at your fingertips.

Like most other sites, you can search by either author, title, or writing type (essay, fiction, nonfiction, play, short story, poem). But what's really nice is that ReadPrint also provides you the author's biography and selected quotes. The quotes alone are worth the visit! I found myself reading through dozens of these, thinking how each could be used as a great thinking prompt at the start of class.

What happens so often as we get involved with new writers and new books is we forget how terrific the "old school stuff" really is. Take this character description from the opening page of Treasure Island as an example:

I remember him as if it were yesterday, as he came plodding to the inn door, his sea-chest following behind him in a hand-barrow--a tall, strong, heavy, nut-brown man, his tarry pigtail falling over the shoulder of his soiled blue coat, his hands ragged and scarred, with black, broken nails, and the sabre cut across one cheek, a dirty, livid white. I remember him looking round the cover and whistling to himself as he did so, and then breaking out in that old sea-song that he sang so often afterwards:

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest-- Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!" in the high, old tottering voice that seemed to have been tuned and broken at the capstan bars. Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard.

"This is a handy cove," says he at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?"

My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity.

"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at-- there"; and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander.

Arr, that be good writin.' And there's plenty more where that came from. Give ReadPrint a visit; it's sure to become your go-to site for classical inspiration.

Two Hot Resources

2009-05-29T12:37:00.008-04:00

By sending you over to Literacy is Priceless, I'm hooking you up with two hot resources. First of all, that blog itself. Lots of web and tech resources for bringing literacy into the 21st Century.

Second is the topic of that post, which is the Shmoop website. Shmoop is a fabulous collection of resources in the areas of literature, history, and poetry. I love free stuff! But at this site I especially appreciate the section of each resource called "Why Should I Care?" Next to free stuff, I love relevance!

"Why should we care about this stuff?" is the grunted (yet valid) motto of every middle and high school student, and these well-written and funny selections answer that question (for example, check out the Why Should I Care? for 1984).

Plan to spend some time there.