The Kindness of Author Friends

Back in October, before I had to cut and run for home, my students benefitted from the kindness of a couple of my author friends.

My first read aloud this year in my fifth grade classroom was The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary by Laura Shovan. The story of a class of fifth graders who are fighting to save their school was the perfect way to start the year. My students read along on Kindle as we listened to the full cast audio via Audible. We had great conversations about the poetry forms, the characters, and the inferences that a reader must make when reading a verse novel.

I crossed my fingers that Laura would be available for a quick Skype visit after we finished the book, but lo and behold, she was driving from Cleveland to Cincinnati and was willing to stop in Dublin for an hour to visit with my students. She brought her big binder of the book and talked about her planning and revision process. The students were wowed by the length of time it took for the book to grow from the idea stage to a published book.



The day after Laura visited, I presented my students with their very own complimentary copies of Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong's new Poetry Friday project, You Just Wait. Some immediately wanted to dive in and try out the Power Play activities and Power2You poetry prompts, while others read through the story in the poems first.

After I got back from Colorado, I met with a small group who had written poems from some of the mentor poems in the books. It was an unfortunate series of events that resulted in not being able to do more with this magnificent gift from Janet and Sylvia, but my students and I remain thankful for their generosity.

Still Learning to Read: Our New Favorite Folder

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

I know these posts usually focus on reading but I feel like this writing tool has huge implications for readers so I decided to include it in this series.  We are all very excited about the new folder we have in Writing Workshop.  I have been struggling with the ways my kids think about writing and the need to write all three types of writing all year. We have focused units of study on narrative, information and opinion writing but we want kids to do writing in all genres across the year. I have struggled with how to make this work for kids, so that they get better and also understand the genre they are writing when we are not in a unit of study. 

So this year, I purchased these 3 pocket folders from Amazon. I am hopeful that they will make a difference at how kids look at writing and use what we've learned throughout the year.  The kids were VERY excited when I passed these new folders out, telling them we had a new awesome tool for writing workshop.

My plan for these folders is to label one pocket Narrative Writing, one pocket Information Writing and one pocket Opinion Writing. This folder will serve as a place to keep mini lessons, rubrics, pieces of writing etc.  Kids can sort things into the appropriate pocket as they work.  So when kids are working on an information piece, they can easily access texts from any mini lesson work we've done, etc.    For the past few years, I have struggled with a system for kids to have access to tools and resources they need when we are not all working on the same genre or when they are working on multiple pieces.

Kids already have these folders with them during writing time. As we fill them with more tools, I am hoping they become more useful.  In 3rd grade, one big goal is for them to think about the purpose of what they are writing. So, just the act of deciding where to put an in-process piece of writing will take some thinking on their part and I am hopeful that they will become more comfortable with these genres/purposes.

I think understanding genre and purpose as writers will help them be more thoughtful and critical readers of all types of writing.

(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August!  You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

NCTE: Things I Am Most Looking Forward To

The NCTE annual convention is one of my favorite events of the year. If you've followed this biog for a while you probably know that as we blog about it often! This year, I am looking forward to so many things about the convention.  I will be busy and not able to attend everything I want to attend but I think that is a good problem to have! There are so many  good things happening simultaneously all weekend. So many opportunities for learning and connecting.

Elementary Section Get-Together
The section get-togethers are always fabulous. Not only do you get to reconnect with old friends, but the speakers and award acceptance speeches are always the best way to kick off the convention. At this year's Elementary Section Get-Together, we'll get to hear Bess Altwerger, Ann Marie Corgill and Barbara Flores.

General Sessions
 I always think the general sessions have such good energy.There are so many amazing people speaking at the general sessions this year. Diane Ravitch and Doug Hesse (Thursday), an amazing panel of Author Advocates (Friday,) Ta-Nehisi Coates (Saturday), and Brad Meltzer (Sunday-And, if you missed his Why I Write podcast, you can  listen to it here.).  So many great speakers around such an important topic!

My Sessions
People often ask me why I write and present. First of all, I love to think with people around topics I care about.  I always learn so much in the process of thinking through a session. This year, I am excited about my sessions--the people I am working with are amazing and I have learned so much with them throughout the year.  I have 3 sessions that I am part of:

Staying True to our Beliefs: Advocating for Literacy and Learning Through Our Stories (Friday at 11) is a session I am doing with Ann Marie Corgill, Jen Allen and Cris Tovani on the ways we have stayed true to our beliefs and advocated by telling our stories.

Strategies for Equitable, Sustainable Literacy Assessment: A Roundtable Offering (Saturday at 11 a.m.) is a discussion around The Assessment Story Project. If you have not taken a look at it, I would highly recommend it. There are so many ways teachers can use the information.

Beyond Cute: The Digital Work of Young Children --an IGNITE Session that I am most excited about! I am chairing this one and excited to be able to chair for such an amazing group of people.

Children's Book Award Lunch
This has always been one of my favorite events of the convention each year.  Not only do you get to hear great authors, but you get to sit at a table with an author. Yes, an author at every table!  The winners of the 2016 Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction (Sharon Draper) and the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children (Don Brown) will speak at the luncheon. This is the place to be if you love children's literature!

Orbis Pictus/Charlotte Huck Award Sessions
There are so many great children's literature sessions at the convention.  I love the years when I am able to attend the Children's Literature Assembly and the ALAN Breakfasts.  But there are lots of other sessions that focus on children's books.  I have been a committee member of the Charlotte Huck Award for Outstanding Fiction for the past 3 years. The Charlotte Huck Award and the Orbis Pictus Award have a few sessions where you can learn more about the winning titles and meet some of our award-winning authors!

I am excited about all of this before I even look at the program to see what concurrent sessions I can attend!

And don't miss this week's NCTE Twitter Chat about the #ncte16!  You'll get lots of information and tips!  The Twitter chat is at 8 pm EST on Sunday, November 13. Just follow the hashtag #nctechat
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Poetry Friday -- Pain and Glory

Life is Full of Pain and Glory

Like a single leaf
spiraling lazily down
through a china blue sky.

Like a hangnail
which, in careless irritation,
is yanked and bleeds.

Like a fragile, confused iris
blooming in October
one block from the hospital.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2016




It's good to be back. Mom survived cellulitis and unintentional poisoning by two different antibiotics, my class survived two weeks without me (the sub and my grade level team survived two weeks without any plans because it was a "drop everything and go" situation), and I not only survived, but was profoundly changed by the entire experience.


Laura has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Writing the World for Kids.

Still Learning to Read: Sketchnoting

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

Another reason I LOVE having a coach--Sometimes they push me to study things that I can't seem to find time to get to on my own.  This week, our literacy coach Heather Halli, helped my students and me think about Sketchnoting.  She sent an email out a few weeks ago, sharing an article she had read on Two Writing Teachers called Sketchnoting: My First Attempt by Dana Murphy.  I had been trying to attend one of Tanny McGregor's sessions on Sketchnoting but my schedule hadn't worked out.  So, Heather and I talked about sketchnoting informally after her email and we quickly shared resources over text and email for the last few weeks.  I had been meaning to watch Tanny McGregor's  and Shawna Coppola's Sketchnoting webinar that was recorded from the Ed Collaborative online PD Day but hadn't had the time. When Heather said she watched Tanny McGregor's EdCollaborative webinar on Sketchnoting, I knew I needed to watch it too. So I made the time. (See what I mean about coaches--after months of trying to make time to learn from Tanny, Heather's thinking helped me to actually move forward!)

Introduction to Sketchnoting

To begin our thinking about sketchnoting, we shared this video with my 3rd graders.  We watched it a few times and noticed new things each time.  It was a fabulously simple introduction to the idea of Sketchnoting called Sketchnoting for Newbies.

Sketchnoting for Newbies

Sketchnoting: Learning from a Video

The next day, we shared this image we found that we thought was a good example of Sketchnoting that we found in the post Adventures in Sketchnoting and a Book in Five Days by David Burton. Then we invited kids to create Sketchnotes on a short bird video we discovered. We watched the video 2 times so they could jot notes. The second time we watched it, we paused it every 20-30 seconds so kids had time to jot/sketch.

Sketchnoting: New Learning from Reading 

On the third day, I asked kids to Sketchnote while reading several things about maps on the site, Pebble Go. There was lots of information here and I wanted to see what kids did when they could work at their own pace--stopping to sketch and jot when they needed to.

Sketchnoting About Ourselves

Finally on Thursday, we decided to invite the kids to Sketchnote about themselves. We shared the Tips on this blog and then shared some of the other slides from this presentation on Tech and Learning. (We even printed some to keep around the room so kids can play with font, dividers, etc. as they get better at Sketchnoting.) We wanted kids to focus on the techniques of sketch noting so we thought taking away new content would help them think about structure, organization, design, etc. This was also the day we added colored pencils which seemed like perfect timing!

My Reflections on Our Week of Sketchnoting

This was one of the most exciting new things I've tried in a while.  In just a few days, kids were excited about the possibilities of Sketchnoting, they saw the power in making their thinking visible in this way, and we have lots to build on throughout the school year.  I saw changes in the ways kids read information as they were deciding where to put things on a page. I saw rereading with purpose as kids went back to think about information they missed on the first read. I saw kids who love to draw add more words to their thinking and kids who write lots think differently when added visuals. I am excited to see where this weeklong study will take us.  I'll  keep you posted!

(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August!  You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)
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A Guest Post by Emma and Elizabeth : The #stickynotechallenge

(Today's post is a guest post by 3rd graders Elizabeth and Emma. They wanted to share their idea of the #stickynotechallenge and to invite you to participate with the hashtag and Padlet.)

Elizabeth and Emma started the  #stickynotechallenge. Emma and Elizabeth are both nine years old in third grade. First at writing workshop Elizabeth just finished a story and wanted to make a challenge. So she came up with the #stickynotechallenge and next she showed Emma. Emma liked the idea. They told Mrs. Sibberson.  She liked it too. The #stickynotechallenge board was a tiny wall nobody ever did it so it really was just for Elizabeth and Emma at the time. One day the question of the day was How do we spread awareness about the #stickynotechallenge? because only kids and few teachers see our board. A few days later Elizabeth and Emma walked into the room and Mrs.Sibberson had a surprise for everyone. Mrs.Sibberson bought us some BIG blue sticky notes and some medium pink,orange,yellow and green sticky notes.  Mrs. Sibberson told us we could use the wall outside of the room if we wanted to.

 The #stickynotechallenge is how we keep trying to ask questions. Outside of our classroom we have a big board. We write down our questions on a sticky note and we stick them on the board. On our board we have the rules of the #stickynotechallenge. Our board also has two signs. One says “Little Questions” and the other one says “Big Questions”. We also have “Question of the Month”. The Question of the Month is an opinion so there can be more  than one answer. Our first question of the month is What is your favorite color? Our question of the month got a lot of answers.

The #stickynotechallenge started one day on a wall by a table in our classroom.

The #stickynotechallenge grew when Emma and Elizabeth wanted "to get the word out". This is a photo of the first day, before kids and teachers added to it.

Next we are going to try to study some of the big questions. Big questions are questions that have more than one answer. Some of our big questions right now are : What are civil right?, How can you learn Japaneese? Some ways we can study them are by using the internet and in books. We also found out that we can get other people’s ideas from the #stickynotechallenge. Just in case you are wondering why do we need to keep track of our thinking? We keep track of our thinking so our brains can get bigger and we get smarter. By asking questions we can get smarter and if someone answers our questions we would learn something. The #stickynotechallenge helps us know more. We created this so people learn more and they would become smarter. The #stickynotechallenge can help everyone become smarter. Kids and adults can do it. That’s what makes it fun! Why we say don’t write your name is so that  people can be respectful. If we told people to write their names we’re afraid that people might write great questions and then someone might not like the person and write a mean question. That’s why we say don’t write your name.

 One day Mrs. Sibberson said “Do you want to do a guest blog post on my blog?” Emma and Elizabeth said “sure”. We also made a Padlet that people from all over the world can write questions but our Padlet you cannot answer. That is the only negative. During writing workshop Mrs.Sibberson asked Elizabeth and Emma to go over to her table. Mrs.Sibberson asked us if we wanted to make a padlet about the #stickynotechallenge. First we had to decide what we wanted our background to be. We couldn’t decide--there wasn’t really a back round that matched. Luckily Bridget was sitting at that table and she said we also could upload pictures for our background. Mrs.Sibberson had a picture of our #stickynotechallenge board so we made that our background. Visit our Padlet and ask a question!!

RULES     

                               1.)Get a sticky note

                               2.) Write a question or wonder

                               3.) Don’t write your name

                               4.) Stick it anywhere

                               5.) Wait for someone to answer

                               6.) HAVE FUN!!!!!

                                    

WRITE IT READ IT SHARE IT

-#stickynotechallenge

Still Learning to Read: The Power of Graphic Novels

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

I looked around the room the other day and was struck by the number of students reading graphic novels.  It made my heart happy.  I have built our classroom collection of graphic novels over the past few years and have added so many quality titles and it was pretty incredible to see so many in the hands of my 3rd graders. I realized just how important these books have become to my 3rd grade readers.

 Not only are students totally engaged in their reading but they are learning so many things about becoming a reader:  Readers are finding new authors who they love.  Raina Telgemeir, Dav Pilkey, Dan Santat and Jennifer Holm are authors they love and recognize. The books are making their rounds in the classroom without any guidance from me. Kids are being introduced to books with more complexity because they are willing to give new things a try when something is in graphic novel format.

Mary Lee and I have written about graphic novels quite often over the years.  Looking back, I realized that it was in 2008 that I committed to reading graphic novels because I saw the power they have for kids. Over the past 8 years, I have become a more confident reader of graphic novels and have fallen in love with them myself.  I have discovered so many amazing books and authors and am so glad I've been able to add so many to our classroom.

There are great resources out there for teachers and parents on the benefits of Graphic Novels.  One is
Raising Super Readers: The Benefits of Comic Books and Graphic Novels from Scholastic and the other is Raising a Reader! How Comics and Graphic Novels Can Help Your Kids Love to Read with an introduction by Jennifer Holm Holm from CBLDF.

And if you need a great book talk on a graphic novel to share with your students, the amazing Livbits shares the amazingness of El Deafo and Cece Bell in one of her newest videos!

(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August!  You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

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It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Join the It's Monday! What Are You Reading party at Teach Mentor Texts and Unleashing Readers!

I read two great middle grade novels this week. Both were novels in verse.  These seem to get me out of whatever reading rut I am in and these two were definitely fabulous choices. I would highly recommend both of them for upper elementary and middle school students.

Garvey's Choice by Nikki Grimes

Unbound by Ann E. Burg

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Still Learning to Read: Books I've Handed to Kids Recently

This is one of a series of blog posts that continue the conversation around Still Learning to Read--teaching reading to students in grades 3-6.  This series will run on the blog on Tuesdays starting in August 2016 and continue through the school year.

It is always around this time of year when I find that handing a book to a child can make a difference for the rest of the year.  This is the time of year when I know readers well enough to chit chat books on the way to lunch or at recess. This is the time of year when I start leaving a book in a child's book bin that I think they might like.  There is something about a young reader knowing that you thought about him/her specifically when you saw a book.  There is something about handing a child a specific book that strengthens a relationship.  This week, I noticed myself informally handing books to children in informal ways.  This is one of the most important jobs I do--so I have to know lots of books. Always. It seems that every year my kids have different tastes as readers, so I can't just recommend the books I've always recommended.  It is always a personal act--the act of recommending a book.  These are some of the books I've handed to kids (or ordered for kids) this week.

So many of my kids have become Raina fans. Raina's name comes up like she is a student in our class!  A few of us  were chatting informally as they came in the other day about them.  They especially love Smile and Sisters.  This week, I pulled out the Babysitter's Club Graphix. (I seem to only have #!--my other 2 have disappeared since last year so I had to reorder!)   Kids were thrilled to know about more books that Raina illustrated and there is a list of people waiting to dig into this series. (I love this kind of recommendation because it builds on what they love (Raina) but also introduces them to a new author that they might fall in love with (Ann Martin). 

One of my students had fallen in love with the Zita books  (By Ben Hatke) and was more engaged when reading them than I'd seen her all year. I remembered that I had received a review copy of Mighty Jack by the same author, earlier this month and I mentioned it to her and left it at her table the next day. She loved it and passed it on to another reader in the class who she thought would love it.

The Little Shaq books went around my room early in the year but they seem to be making their rounds again. Last week, I had a conversation with a student who was reading the 2nd book. We checked and were THRILLED to find out that the 3rd book in the Little Shaq series (Star of the Week) was due out THIS WEEK!  It should arrive today and was the talk of the room.  Not only did I get to hand a book to a child but this also built some awareness for those "hot off the press" books. 

The Treehouse Books were popular in my room last year and I realized they were published about a year earlier in Australia than they are here.  Lucky for Amazon, I can get copies of the books that are not quite published in the US yet which I think is the case with The 65 Story Treehouse which should arrive this week so one of my readers can read this last book (so far) in the series.

I bought the first two books in the new Super Happy Party Bears series after Ann DiBella recommended them on Facebook. I love having new books, doing a quick share in the morning before we start our day and handing them off to the first readers! Kids always love to be the first readers of new books so this is a fun way to hand books to kids.  I need to read this one as soon as I can get it back as it seems like a fun read for 3rd graders.

We visited the Columbus Zoo on a field trip a few weeks ago. My kids aren't reading much nonfiction yet so I picked up two of Jack Hanna's Wild But True books and gave them to a few of the first kids to walk in the room the next morning. I always love to hand books to kids in the morning as they start a buzz in the classroom with lots of kids curious about the books.

My students know me well enough now to know that they don't have to love any of the books I recommend to them. They know that they own their reading and that when I recommend a book, they are not obligated to read it. But, they also know that I think about them and their individual tastes and needs as readers and that matters. Knowing my kids as readers and combining that with what I know about books is one of my most important roles.  And one of my favorites:-) 

(Our new edition of Still Learning to Read was released in August!  You can order it online at Stenhouse! You can follow the conversation using the hashtag #SLTRead or you can join us for a book chat on Facebook that began this week by joining our group here.)

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Poetry Friday -- Below the Surface

image via unsplash

For Once, Then, Something
by Robert Frost

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths—and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

This is a new-to-me Robert Frost poem. Seems important these days to look beyond the surface, no matter how scary that Something is that we might find there.

Irene has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Live Your Poem.