Listening to Children

We talk about listening to children. Maybe (no, I'm sure) we should also take on the uninhibited characteristics of risk taking.

http://www.ted.com/talks/adora_svitak.html

Writer's NotebookSSSS

As Ralph Fletcher says, "Keeping a writer's notebook is one of the best ways I know of living a writing kind of life" (p.3 A Writer's Notebook). For me, it's not A notebook, it means several notebooks. I find that I have notebooks for different purposes- some notebooks have a collection of professional and personal experiences, one is small so I can easily transport it, and some I started and for some reason stopped using. I'm glad I found this video of Jack Gantos telling about his writer's notebooks! Jack Gantos on Writer's Notebook

Learning from a Student

Graphic novels are a popular genre I am learning more about. I've browsed the shelves at the local bookstore and read an article or two about these multimodal texts. But, it was a student in my 4/5 class that taught me and brought my browsing and reading about to life!

An avid reader of this genre, he explained character sketches, traits, as well as how the text "works". He read several pages with great expression and included background knowledge from other texts to help me understand. What I didn't know was that he was considered a "struggling reader" prior to this school year!

These texts build on students' interests in art (I often see students drawing anime), video games, and other popular media. Scholastic now has their own site of graphic novels to read.

How could students create their own graphic novels? ReadWriteThink has a comic creator students could use, but has limitations in design and limitations inherent in a web 1.0 tool. Another site (at a minimal cost) allows the student be the producer and creator of their own graphic novels. Negotiating these limitations can lead teachers and students to become creators as well as consumers of this engaging genre.

Multimodal Poetry Response

A few weeks ago, Voicethreads, an interactive sharing site was mentioned in our class. A third grade class' thread is an example of how students use art, voice, and interpretation to share their work and others can comment and participate in the work. Comments can be made by voice recording, video, keyboarding, and even using a cell phone! Check out their thread!

Shelly Blake-Plock is a high school teacher and authors the blog Teach Paperless. He said, "Before I went paperless and used blogs to get information from them, I would only see students' work if they wrote an essay or turned in a quiz or test. Now I'm seeing what they're working on all the time..."

As I read e339 blogs this week, I learned more about each of you and your "process" in selecting and researching the topic for the multigenre research paper. It was another form of "inside sentences" that Hale talked about in Crafting Writers. I experienced another advantage of blogging for students AND teachers!

Help!

The Indiana Partnership for Young Writers is a wonderful resource for pre-service and practicing teachers of writing. Ms. Mary Wordsmith is an interactive blog that you might want to visit.

http://marywordsmith.blogspot.com/

Writing Conferences

When you spend time with a student in a writing conference, you not only encourage them as a writer but you get to know them as a unique individual. Two videos about writing conferences highlight this important relationship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ey7Fb9hU6Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82Zuy3JUpmI

Show Not Tell

Hale talks about noticing craft in literature and in week 5 resources there is a list of genre and craft lessons to help you find appropriate text. Using picture books to teach specific craft is a powerful and endless resource! As you begin noticing craft in literature you can build your own storehouse of "craft lessons".

A favorite book, The Leaving Morning,by Angela Johnson illustrates "Show Not Tell" in text and structure. After an initial reading to enjoy the book, I read the first page.

THE LEAVING happened on a soupy, misty morning, when you could hear the street sweeper. Sssshhhshsh...

The students and I know that this story starts out in the morning, but when? EARLY! How do we know?

• It's EARLY when the street sweeper comes by, before all the cars come out!
• It's quiet early in the morning.
• Sometimes it is foggy; soupy, misty are words that describe what fog looks like.
• AND the street sweeper has lights on because it is dark. That's early! (The picture is text too!)

To show that saying goodbye took a long time, the author stretches the goodbyes out over several pages with just a few words on each page.

Even young children can "see" craft and then be taught to try out that craft in their own writing.

Reading Like a Writer

How many of you looked at other blogs before writing your own? I did! I wanted to "notice" the kinds of writing that this new genre (for me) was all about. That is reading like a writer. In my elementary classroom, after spending several days immersed in reading the genre we would be writing, I selected a piece or page from one of the texts and asked students what they noticed about the writing. In the beginning comments like "they used periods at the end of their sentences" or "they told what happened" were common but soon students' noticings about structure and craft in writing were showing up in their own writing! The chapters in Crafting Writers K-6 reminded me of the personal power to improve writing that learning to read like a writer affords to authors of all ages.

Creating a Learning Community

A new technology does not wipe out what went before; it transforms and enhances it. When people started writing, they didn't quit talking.

Walter Ong, (2002). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Taylor & Francis, Inc.

This is my first experience blogging. Creating a classroom culture where everyone's voice is heard is certainly enhanced by this technology! Responding, thinking, and wrestling with ideas to tell each of our "stories" facilitates building a strong learning community where new ideas will certainly emerge.