Animal Groups from National Geographic Kids

One of my students checked out Animal Groups by Jill Esbaum from the library a few weeks ago. When I flipped through it, I knew it was a book I'd want for the classroom. There was just enough text on a page for my students to move beyond merely reading facts.  Plus I loved the umbrella that pulled this book together--the things we call groups of different animals.

When I spent a bit more time with the book, I realized that this would also be a great mentor text for informational writing. I am always struck by the quality of the writing in many of the NG Kids books.  The writing in this book can definitely be used to study the craft of nonfiction and each page is a short enough piece to be used on its own in a mini lesson for this study.

The word choice is what stood out to me at first.  The vets the author chooses are great for helping kids choose specific verbs in their writing. Lines like "parents dive for dinner" and "Flitting through sunshine" are on each and every page. Are there are also phrases that will give kids options for nonfiction writing beyond just writing facts. The page on sea otters starts out "The ocean is a perfect playground for sea otters...." and "They hang upside down, wings folded, awaiting the warmth of the morning sun."

As readers, the book is organized in a way to support readers--good headings, Did You Know? boxes with extra information, a map at the end of the book, and a list of animal groups not included in the main text.

This book is filled with interesting information and great nonfiction writing. I think kids will love it as readers and also as growing writers.   So glad to have a copy for the classroom!  It looks like Jill Esbaum has several other nonfiction books and I am definitely going to check them out as I think her writing is great for middle graders to study and learn from!

Mister Horizontal & Miss Vertical

Mister Horizontal & Miss Vertical
by Noémie Révah
illustrations by Olimpia Zagnoli
translated from the French by Claudia Bedrick
Enchanted Lion Books, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

Mister Horizontal and Miss Vertical couldn't be more different.

Can you guess who likes gliding, boating and "walking in the desert, with sand as far as the eye can see?" And who likes bungee jumping, rockets, and "New York, the city of sky scrapers?"

More than just a concept book about horizontal and vertical, this is a book about opposites, and a fabulous mentor text for writers of all age and experience who need to practice describing their characters in a variety of ways.

Fall Leaves

Fall Leaves
by Loretta Holland
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
September, 2014
Review copy from the public library, via my amazing literacy coach, Brooke!

The best compliment I can give this book is that I have read it at least 5 times and I am still finding new things to love!

When Amazing Literacy Coach Brooke handed it to me with a, "Have you seen this? I think it would make a fabulous mentor text." I read through it quickly, seeing the short phrases in large font with informational text in smaller font below.

On the next read, I really thought about the word choice for the words in large font. The book begins with, "FALL ARRIVES" and on the next page, "BIRDS LEAVE," then "LEAVES TWIST" and "RAIN FALLS."

I started to form a theory about the pattern of the words on my second read, but I had to read the whole book again from start to finish to confirm it: (spoiler alert) every page has either FALL or LEAVES in the text! Fall can be used as the noun (the season) or the verb (to fall). Same with leaves. So cool! And the text is satisfyingly circular.

On the fourth read, I studied the illustrations and marveled at the use of color, light, and movement that Loretta Holland used to perfectly capture the mood and feel of fall. On Goodreads, I tagged this book "Potential Caldecott."

Finally, on the fifth go-round, I read the nonfiction text under the large words on each page. The science behind each phrase is clearly explained and includes the large words (in italics).

Brooke was right. This would make a fabulous mentor text. Not since Nothing Like a Puffin have I read a picture book that calls to me to use its pattern to write my own version. The hardest thing will be to find two words that can both be used as nouns and verbs. I'm off to my notebook to brainstorm...

Nonfiction: Writing Great Leads

We are finishing up a unit of study on nonfiction writing.  In the midst of our study, it became clear that my students needed help learning to write well-crafted introductions.  As 3rd graders, they don't yet have much experience with this so many of their drafts began with sentences such as "I am going to tell you about..."  So I started to share some great nonfiction leads and we studied those. But it wasn't until I discovered the introductions in the National Geographic Kids Everything books that things started to fall into place.  

I have purchased several National Geographic Kids Everything (National Geographic Kids Everything Rocks and Minerals: Dazzling gems of photos and info that will rock your world) books this year. They are really well done and all focus on topics kids love.  The text is challenging but accessible and they immediately draw kids in.  So, as I was looking for good leads to share with kids, I pulled on from the shelf to see what type of intros they had as I hadn't paid much attention before.  Well, I was thrilled with what I read. The lead in every single one of these books is incredible!

For example, here is the lead to the book about Rocks and Minerals.  Take a minute to read it.

A pretty solid introduction into the topic.  Clear and well crafted. And then it ends with a little humor.  As we read on, we realized that each and every introduction does a little content-specific wordplay in the introduction as a way to transition into the story.

Over 2 days, we studied 6 introductions from this series and kids played with all they were learning. These were the perfect pieces to study and they helped kids really understand that a lead was not necessarily a first sentence, that it needed to be organized and set up the piece, and that it could use humor to do so. 

I have to say, I didn't really expect to use this series as mentors for writing but these intros are amazing.   haven't discovered many other introductions for my 3rd graders to study, that are as strong as these.  

A Place For Turtles

A Place for Turtles
by Melissa Stewart
illustrated by Higgins Bond
Peachtree, 2013
review copy provided by the pubisher

There is so much to love about this book.

From the moment you open the cover, there is information. The endpapers have maps of a dozen North American turtles and their ranges.

The main text, across the top of a gorgeous two-page illustration, is brief and accessible.

On the first spread, we are given the thesis of the book. The structure of the text is identifiably problem/solution or cause/effect: "Turtles make our world a better place. But sometimes people do things that make it hard for them to live and gro. If we work together to help these special creatures, there will always be a place for turtles."

The main text of very spread gives the main idea of one human-caused problem and its solution. In the sidebar information, the problem is explained in more detail (including more information about the affected species of turtle) as well as what humans are doing to rectify the problems they've caused for the turtles.

We are getting ready to start nonfiction writing and research in my 5th grade language arts classes. Every topic won't lend itself to a cause/effect structure, but this will be the book I use as a mentor text for that structure.

On a side note...how did I miss this series, A Place For...? Stewart and Bond have books about bats, butterflies, frogs, and birds. I'm off to the library to check them out, and then perhaps to the bookstore!

Happy Birthday TEACH MENTOR TEXTS!

 

I am thrilled to be part of the 2 year blogiversary celebration of one of my favorite blogs--TEACH MENTOR TEXTS.  I have learned so much from Jen and Kellee over the last two years (and have spent lots of money on great new books!)  As part of the celebration, they are asking bloggers to share their favorite mentor texts.

I decided to write about an older book--one that I love when it comes to helping kids see what is possible when it comes to writing, HEY WORLD, HERE I AM by Jean Little. I think I learned about this book in 1991 when I attended the Teachers' College Summer Writing Project at Columbia. (I know that this was long ago because I remember recording every keynote on a very high-tech portable cassette recorder!) And when Jen and Kellee asked me to share a favorite mentor text, this one came to mind. It came to mind because it is one that impacts kids' writing every single year.

HEY WORLD, HERE I AM is a poetry book, a journal and more.  It was published in 1989 and had many great reviews and awards that year.  And even though it is a 1989 publication, so much of it still rings true for children today.  This book is a collection of entries by Kate Bloomfield. She writes about siblings, friends, loss and school.  She writes with passion and joy and with the insights of of a tween girl.

Each and every entry in this "notebook" is one that children can learn from. I have used this book when launching writers' notebooks as students begin to see all the ways they can make sense of their lives on paper. I've use pieces separately for specific minilessons.  "Not Enough Emilys" is one of my favorite pieces in this book.  In this piece, the author talks about her friend Emily--but instead of telling us about her by describing her, we learn about her through her actions. It is a powerful piece for both readers and writers learning about character.

I've used this book as a mentor for readers learning to think deeply around text. A poem in the book called "Five Dollars" is about a time when Kate stole $5 from her mother's wallet. The poem is about guilt and is an honest reflection that gets readers thinking in a way that helps them understand the character more deeply.

Another poem I like is poems in this collection is Louisa, Louisa. This  is a great poem about a new baby.  Welcoming her into the world and celebrating her new life.

I don't think there is a piece in this book I haven't used with students.  It is a book I really couldn't live without in my teaching of reading and writing. Kate is a character I love and I love coming to know her through her writing.

You can take a peek into this book at the Harper Collins site. And it is in paperback so it is doable to buy several copies of this one for your classroom.

Ignite Presentations With 4th graders

Our 4th grade team is working on a 4th grade project around Making a Difference in the World.  We began this project last year and it was inspired by Amy Krouse Rosenthal.  The project combines social studies (citizenship, economics, etc.). literacy and art.  This year, we've changed a few things and added a few things.

Our 4th graders are busy creating products to be sold at our annual Art Show in March.  Students are using art time to create their own products that will be marketable to the audience. I can't wait to shop!  Last year, each child donated money earned to an individual cause--one that they cared about and had researched. We changed this a bit this year. Our entire 4th grade will be donating one cause for the money. But we wanted kids to know that money was not the only way to make a difference. We want the to understand there there are lots of ways to make a difference and raising awareness about an issue is one of them.

So, each child has been researching a cause that matters to them. These topics range from homelessness to distracted driving to foster care to pediatric cancer.  Kids have spent the last several weeks learning about these issues and collecting information using diigo (more on that at another time!).

This week, kids will begin to create IGNITE-type presentations to educate others about these important issues.  As a team, we decided on an IGNITE presentation for several reasons.  If you aren't familiar with IGNITE presentations, they are similar to Pecha Kucha sessions but in Ignite, presenters use 15 slides and each slide is up for 15 seconds.The Ignite tagline is "Enlighten us, but make it quick." I love that and it seems that there is a lot to learn when given these parameters.  This seems doable for 4th graders and it is an authentic genre.
We knew that this format would support our teaching goals--research, nonfiction writing, visuals to support message, etc.  We have noticed that although our students used keynote, the presentations are text, rather than visual driven. We knew that an assignment like this could really improve the way they thought about creating presentations of all kind.

One challenge was to find samples for the students. Since many of them were not familiar with Ignite presentations, we wanted them to spend time studying the craft of the format before they jumped in. Finding Ignite presentations (or PechaKucha) so students could get a feel for the type of work they would be doing was a challenge--many are geared to adults and not appropriate for children. However, we did find several that we used and the conversations around what was possible with these have been wonderful. One of my goals when it comes to digital writing is to collect great mentors for kids--pieces that writers can study as they think about their own decisions as writers. For this project, I found four very different presentations that have helped us think through decision making when creating this type of piece.  Each of these four slideshows is very different and each opens up different possibilities for our stuents.  The four we have focused on are:

Clowns Without Borders: Pecha Kucha


Why Blog? Ignite by Chris Lysy


Ignite: Jessica Harvey: My Beautiful Wheelchair



And, How and Why to Make Video Games by Peter Justeson


This week, students will begin their work on their Ignite presentations.  I am working on one myself and we've created some planning templates to help students move forward with these projects.

This page has 15 squares on 2 pages for students to think through and plan their presentation as a whole.

Each student will receive 15 of these half sheets for detailed work---visual, script, and notes.

I think that this project will help students learn a great deal as researchers and writers, but I think they will also learn a great deal about visuals, creating powerful presentations, and presentation skills that they will be able to carry with them no matter what they create in the future.

I'll keep you posted!

Benjamin Bear in Fuzzy Thinking

Benjamin Bear in Fuzzy Thinking
A Toon Book
by Philippe Coudray
Candlewick/Toon Books, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher



I love Toon Books. Their catch-phrase is "TOON BOOKS: Bringing new readers to the pleasure of COMICS!"

Benjamin Bear is identified as a Level Two: "easy-to-read comics for beginning readers." However, the sophistication of the humor makes it a fun book for readers of all ages and all levels.

Each page is a story. A short story, but a complete story, with a beginning, middle and end. They are funny stories -- almost sight gags, since there is so little text. One of my favorites is a three-panel story, "The Biggest Fish." Bear says to Rabbit, "A shark takes up as much room as a whale." In the next panel, Rabbit asks, "How?" In the bottom panel (2/3 of the page) Bear and Rabbit stand at the shore looking down into the ocean, where all the fish have retreated to the edges of the panel, leaving a whale-sized empty space around a shark. Another favorite is "The Maze." Bear gets lost in a maze, but luckily, he has an apple with him. If you're wondering, "How could an apple help him?" you have a sense of the quirky humor in these stories. (Sorry. You'll have to read it to find out how the apple gets him out of the maze. Make your prediction. Then go get the book!)

Because they are single-page stories, this book would make a great mentor text for kids working with Comic Life or the Comic Book app to create their own single-page stories. Courdray uses a variety of panel sizes and combinations in each of his comics, and it would benefit young writers to study his panel choices and think hard about why he made his choices.


Also reviewed at No Flying, No Tights: A Graphic Novel Review Website

Poetry Friday: Digital Mentor Texts for Poetry Writing

Last Friday, at The Opposite of Indifference, Tabatha shared several centos that she had found while reading THE GREAT GATSBY. A cento is a poem created with the words of another author. You might have missed that she followed up on Saturday with this digital cento -- a poem created by editing a video of a commencement speech by Steve Jobs.

When I saw this, I realized that Poetry Friday had a way into the Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop conversation that's been going on here all week. I can honestly say:

This is part of a series of blog posts on Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop.  Contributors to this weeklong series are Troy Hicks, Katie DiCesare, Bill Bass, Tony Keefer and Kevin Hodgson. Posts are also being collected at Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop. Please join our conversation!


Poem Flow is the first place that comes to mind when I think of where I might look online for poetry in a digital form that makes me say, "I could do that!" Not only do they have an online presence on their website and on Poets.org, but Poem Flow also has an iPhone app that delivers poetry line by line, word by word, phrase by phrase on a simple white background. Click here to view Walt Whitman's A Noiseless Patient Spider in Poem Flow. Seems like that would be easy enough to do with PowerPoint or Keynote, but I know better than assgning it until I've tried it myself! (Franki's reflection on the importance of the teacher as digital writer is here.)

I would also love to create a typographic poem.  I've been stuck at the "How do they DO that?" stage, but I really have no excuse -- there are MANY how-to sites and tutorials online. Maybe I'll challenge myself to learn to make one before April! Here's an example that's perfect for Monday's holiday/remembrance. It's a poem that is a combination of typography and cento (and it was created for a school assignment). 



Here's a funny Taylor Mali typographic poem about language.

I used ToonDooSpaces, an online comic-making site, with my students for a couple of years. I could never convice any of my students to make a poem into a comic, but I had fun with Gerard Manley Hopkins' Pied Beauty.

My students love to read poetry on the classroom Kindle and the Kindle app on our iPods and iPad. We have Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong's PoetryTag Time and Gift Tag, Gregory K's Kickstarter poems (on pdf), and Alan Katz's Poems I Wrote When No One Was Looking.

Here's an easy way to make a digital book of classroom poems. Show your students Laura Purdie Salas' 15 Words or Less weekly challenge. Same as Laura, start with a photo for inspiration. Then invite your children to write a very short poem that's as descriptive and original as possible. Drag your photo onto a page of PowerPoint/Keynote (ideally while projecting on your screen/whiteboard for students to see), then have the students bring their poems up for you to type, one on each page. Voila! A digital poetry book!

Tara has today's Poetry Friday roundup at A Teaching Life.

Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop: Living Your Life as a Digital Writer

This is part of a series of blog posts on Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop.  Contributors to this weeklong series are Troy Hicks, Katie DiCesare, Bill Bass, Tony Keefer and Kevin Hodgson. Posts are also being collected at Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop. Please join our conversation!

I realize that my posts have been anchored on the things I believe about the teaching of writing and how I have been thinking about those when it comes to digital writing. Anchoring my work in the powerful things I've learned working alongside writers in writing workshops over the years is key.

Writers' notebooks are hugely powerful tools in the writing workshop.  It is not so much the notebook but the practice of living your life as a writer by keeping one.  A writer's notebook is hard to define as it takes on a bit of a different personality for each writer. Ralph Fletcher says,  "It's a place to collect, to react to ones world, to play with language, to stalk your inner voice, to find your stride as a writer."  And in her book Notebook Know-How, Aimee Buckner says, “A writer’s notebook gives students a place to write everyday...to practice living like a writer.”  


As a writing teacher, inviting kids to keep notebooks has always kept writing workshop authentic.  It was a tool that reminded me that living your life as a writer was key. It was also a place to focus on growing and being a writer, rather than on writing "stuff" and focusing on projects/products. 


So, I have been thinking about what this idea of a notebook means for digital writing.  How do we make time for kids to live their lives as digital writers and what does that even mean?


When I think about the writer's notebook, there are several things that make it powerful. A few things that writers do in the notebook:


They collect great writing--words, phrases, passages
They collect images and moments in their lives
They collect their thinking
They try new techniques
They play with language
They give things a try

A writer's notebook is the place where writers can play with the things they learn from other writers/mentors and make them their own. For me, a writers' notebook is often where the real work of mentor texts happen. It is a place where they can collect writing they like. It is a place where they can try a technique that they saw another writer use, without the stress of a finished product. It is a place to play with things.  Then, it is a place to go back to when publishing to pull out some of the things that will make your writing more powerful.

A Digital Writer's Notebook?

So, what does this mean for writers in this digital age. Obviously, a spiral bound notebook will not help our writers collect digital pieces, try our new techniques in film, or play with sound effects. But these things are clearly things that writers who use digital tools do. So, as the definition of writing has expanded, so has the definition of writer's notebook. 

Teacher as Writer
I try to look at myself as a digital writer first. What habits do I have that feel like a writer's notebook expanded to include my life as a digital writer?  Here's what I know about my life as a writer:
I blog regularly.
I read other bloggers' writing daily and often try things I've seen
I bookmark things I'd like to try in my blog writing
I save videos, presentations and podcasts that inspire me to try something new in my composition
I collect photos that I may use in presentations in the future
I play with new tools and often become obsessed with them as I am learning them
I try to create things with new tools for fun
I try various drafts of things and save the drafts
I revise and edit with online tools
I share writing online and immediately for feedback
I compose collaboratively using things like Google Docs

I am sure there are millions  of other things I do. I did all of these things before there was a digital tool for composing. The difference is that before, my playing with writing, my collecting and my drafting was all housed in a writer's notebook. Although I still sometimes use the notebook, more of these habits happen on my computer, ipod or ipad these days.

As writers, we naturally pay attention to things we want to try.  (Yesterday for example, Tony Keefer used a check mark symbol in a tweet.  I had never seen that so immediately decided I wanted to write a tweet with a check mark. I investigated and thought of a tweet that would need a check mark. Now that is something I can do. The point is, sometimes these things are very small and meaningless but it is the way writers pay attention to what is possible and try out new things that is key.)


Mentor Texts as Invitations
So, I want to make sure to use mentor texts in ways that go beyond creating products. I believe in study and I believe that if we are writing persuasive essays, we need to immerse ourselves in reading persuasive essays to begin the study.  However, I think an equally powerful way to use mentor texts is as invitation.  If we want our students to live their lives as writers, invitations and playing are key. Collecting is key. And going back through your attempts is key.

So, I am trying to add more things like this to my time with kids. Quick minilesson type invitations where we study something a digital composer did and try it out ourselves--not to share, not to publish, just so we have it as a possibility in the future.

A few things we've done that support this idea:
Our students have access to lots of digital books and they spend quite a bit of time on sites like Tumblebooks. They enjoy audio and understand the idea of podcasts.  And they know how to record in Garage Band. If kids are to create audio, I want them to have fun with voice and music. So, I invited them to try a few things.

I created an invitations in the library that we played with in a minilesson and a few kids tried out using the foam board displays. One was a foam board display entitled, "How would the character say that?". Scattered around the board were favorite characters and memorable dialogue. We tried reading it aloud in various ways in the minilesson. Then I invited kids to try recording different ways to read character dialogue on garage band. This was fun for those who merely wanted to play. For others, it helped them when they created audio podcasts of picture books for younger students.

I also try to create invitations by finding pieces that connect to student interest. In the past I have found how-to videos for students who like to build with legos and many give those a try while building--taking photos or video of their process.  Our students love to build and a favorite building toy is Straws and Connectors.  I wanted to give the students options for visual creation. On the Straws and Connectors site, you can access several PDFs of directions for building different structures. Once I showed these to a few builders, they created visual directions that will be turned into PDFs and put on our school website.

5th graders are currently playing with Numbers, learning how to make graphs, charts and tables. Eventually, they'll be invited to include those in some of the research that they do. They will also be able to use it when they conduct experiments, etc.  So this playing time is key. Some may choose to use this tool. Others may not.

And, I love to share the Klutz Tricky Video book with students. These have been amazing invitations for students to see how various film techniques work and to give them a try. Klutz actually has many resources when it comes to giving kids opportunities to try some new and doable techniques.

And kids are finding their own ways to play when it comes to digital writing. When they have play time built into their digital writing workshop, they watch television differently. They look at commercials differently. They examine webpages differently. They listen to sound effects and they notice when a film has a close-up and when the scene is shot at a distance.  Then they give things a try. I have to remind myself of this every time someone wants to create a talk show about nothing ("Mrs. Sibberson, don't you watch TV. Talk shows about nothing are funny!") or when they want to spend hours taking a million photos of themselves and embedding them in nonsense pictures on Pixie.   The products don't always work, but the students are becoming more sophisticated digital writers every time they play.  And they are living their lives as writers.

I have worried about this "play time" and am trying to figure out the balance between playing with tools, strategies, and techniques and creating quality products for an audience. But I have come to realize that this play time is the way digital writers live. It is the way I live as a digital writer.  I like to play with things, give things a try, work with new tools, attempt new techniques and formats. Then these things come back in more published pieces when I see the need.  This play time is critical and most of my playing comes from mentor texts I've discovered-something I've seen someone else do that I want to try.  

My challenge is to help my students find ways to collect and revisit these things as we do in our writers' notebooks--to reflect and reuse in future work.  I am still working on this idea but know that I want my students to live their lives as writers--writers who have access to digital tools and writers who are critical readers of all types of texts. If I want them to live their lives as writers, I want them to be awake to all that is out there, to notice what is possible and to think, "Hey, I can do that." I want them find things they want to try and then to have the freedom to play with an idea or technique without the pressure of a finished product--knowing that this will add to the things that are possible for them in the future.  Just as in pre-digital writing workshop, I want notebook type thinking that helps kids live their lives as writers, and I want time for students to work hard on a published piece for an authentic audience. Both are equally important.

Mentor Texts: Teach the Writer, Not the Writing

This is part of a series of blog posts on Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop.  Contributors to this weeklong series are Troy Hicks, Katie DiCesare, Bill Bass, Tony Keefer and Kevin Hodgson. Posts are also being collected at Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop. Please join our conversation!

One of the most powerful things I learned as a writing teacher, was by Lucy Calkins who said, "Teach the writer and not the writing.  Our decisions must be guided by what might help this writer rather than what might help this writing."  

I have come back to this quote often in the last few weeks as I am working with 2nd graders on creating e-Comics.  In Writing Workshop, before the digital tools entered, I had very little trouble remembering Lucy Calkins' important words. I was good at focusing on the learning, rather than the product. I felt confident about teaching things that my students would use in future writing--I was impacting the writer, not the writing. I learned early-on as a Writing Workshop teacher, that it was easy to "clean up" a student's writing to make the product "look good". I could do the revising and editing, make decisions for the child, etc. and have something nice to publish.  But I quickly realized that with that approach, students writing never improved. Students never grew as writers. I was lucky to learn from amazing writing workshop teachers and saw huge growth in writers once I stopped focusing on individual pieces of writing and started focusing on individual writers.

Enter digital writing...  I feel like I took a little step back in time and in my ability to manage an authentic writing workshop. It seems that more often with digital tools, I am a bit more structured and directive.  I have to continue to remind myself about my beliefs about writing and learning.  I have to go back to books by my writing mentors--Katie Ray, Ralph Fletcher, Lucy Calkins, Don Graves, Shelley Harwayne--to make sure I am staying true to what I know about quality writing instruction.  Some days, I look around and notice everyone in the same place in the writing process, everyone using the same tools to create or everyone creating similar pieces and I panic.  My workshop before digital tools was much more student-centered.  Students had choice in tools to use, formats to publish and how fast to move in the process.  There seemed to be fewer directives and more invitations.  My vision of what a writing workshop should look like is harder to make happen with so many new tools and possibilities coming so quickly.  I am working to make sure I stay true to what I believe about writing and that I give my students the right messages about what it means to be a writer.  I am moving toward making sure my writing workshop matches the vision I have for it.

So, back to the Comic ebooks.  This is a collaborative project I've been working on with our art teacher, our technology specialist, and our 2nd grade teachers.  We started this project to meet several goals/standards that included learning around narrative writing, text and illustrations working together, using draw tools, finding and saving documents, creating ebooks, dialogue and talking bubbles, and more.  

We used Pixie and Comic Life to create the ebooks. Comic Life has been a popular piece of software but we noticed students not really knowing what to do with it. The photos available didn't always make for the best stories. And they had no idea how to use a draw tool to create comics.  In reading, I noticed that our younger students focused more on individual frames in their reading of graphic novels, than in the story as a whole.  Understanding that graphica was just one more way to tell a story was key goal for us. It was a long unit of study as the students only worked on the projects during art and library class. As with our 3rd grade book trailer unit, we immersed ourselves in comics and made decisions about how our writing would go. 

Challenges:  

About mid-way through our study, students were noticing the various sizes and shapes of the frames in comics.  We talked about how many shapes and sizes they could find and talked about why each was different.  EVERY SINGLE child believed that the authors of comic books merely filled out the template they were given.  They knew Comic Life well and just assumed that comic book writers were given a template and filled it in.  They had no idea that the comic book creator was the one who decided on the size and shape of the frames and how critical that decision is to the piece as a whole.  I was a little bit alarmed. As much as I love the tools that make digital writing more accessible, I also saw the limitations.  The messages my students were getting from this piece of software, were that the software was in charge of their decisions as writers.  I had to rework the unit so that students understood the decisions authors made when it came to frames, and more. 

Another challenge that we faced was that, as teachers, we realized that we got caught up in technology troubleshooting. This was a huge project and there was always some issue that required a computer restart, help with a password, an undo, etc.  Our kids are great at problem solving and collaborating but there were many times when kids needed our assistance.  This seemed okay at the time--kids were learning important technology skills as we worked with them. But what we realized was that we had very little time to conference with the kids about their actual writing or their process. Our work with them focused on the technology  We had worked hard on the writing before they got to the computers, but many kids missed out on the in-the-midst conferences that they needed because we were caught up in troubleshooting. 

We worried about publishing.  Our plan was to publish the ebooks on a internal class site. Putting work on the Internet is a little more stressful.  Published pieces have always forced teachers to make decisions about what is acceptable to "publish". But it seems to be even more difficult when we are not merely hanging writing in the hallway or hosting an author event with student writing.  

Reflection

We stepped back and thought back to all that we had wanted kids to learn and realized they learned SOOO many things that would take them forward as digital writers.  No matter how their "product" turns out, every student learned to tell a narrative story using a draw program and in graphic novel form. In terms of technology, they learned to save and name documents, to use draw tools, to create text boxes, to use and manipulate templates, to export pieces, to change fonts, and more.  In terms of writing, they learned to make decisions, to think about their audience, to connect words and visuals. They learned the difference between dialogue and narration.  They learned how to revise when things weren't going as they had planned.  They learned how to reread and rethink when something didn't make sense to their reader.  

None of this is evident if you look only at the finished products but this learning--the learning that they will carry with them as writers--is far more important than what the product looks like.  I have been visiting and revisiting the Video Game Design website that Kevin Hodgson created to make visible all of the learning that went on in his game design unit. This website is hugely powerful and important work. If we are to have successful writing workshops, it is critical for us to make the learning visible and capture what it is the students learn as writers--things they will carry with them no matter what it is they compose. I also think it is important for us as teachers as a reflection tool. We need to take the time and sit back and reflect on the learning that happens in a project like this--otherwise, we run the risk of focusing on the project and teaching the writing, not the writer.

Celebration

Some days, these comic ebooks take over the library. It seems there is always a computer open that's screen shows a product in the midst of a comic creation.  A student who left a computer on, a child who popped in to work on something, etc.  And guess what? Our biggest, most important goal--the one we forgot about throughout the project--has been achieved.  Early on, we knew we needed good student-created mentors for our students. Pieces that students at our school created that would open up what was possible with the tools we had. As these open computers sit around the library or as I am finishing up moving a pdf to my flash drive as a new class comes in, someone notices the comic on the screen and someone says (almost every day)--"What is that? I want to do that."  I can only imagine what will happen in the next few weeks as these comics are put online for the school community.  So, we've met individual standards-based goals. But we've also met a schoolwide goal of creating a library of projects that our students can learn from.  In-house mentor texts that can open up what is possible for all students.  Every writer will grow a bit by seeing a few more things that are possible.

Teaching the writer, not the writing is key when it comes to any type of writing, especially digital writing.  Some days I feel like I am back to my beginning years teaching in a writing workshop-reminding myself of what is important.  I have to ask myself every single day-what I am doing to help this child become a better writer? What will he/she take with him no matter what he/she is composing in the future? What should I focus on now that will impact all future writing?

And I also have to ask myself, what am I doing to help this community of writers? How am I building our own library of mentor texts-pieces to learn from and to open possibilities for what is possible in our writing community?

Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop: Creating My Own Book Trailer

I was working with 3rd graders on creating their own book trailers. It was a long-term project and I was thrilled with the trailers I had found to study with children.  This seemed perfect for this grade level as book response is a part of their writing curriculum.

I believe strongly in Study-Driven/Inquiry-Based writing instruction. I live by Katie Ray's quote from her book STUDY DRIVEN, which is one of the books that has most influenced my life as a writing teacher. She says, "In an inquiry stance, teachers help children explore different alternatives for how to write something, and then let them do what writers really have to do and make decisions about how their pieces will go." I have been working hard to transfer this understanding about the writing process to a workshop where digital pieces are being composed regularly.  It is not as easy as I had imagined!

As I was inspired by all of the amazing conversations the kids were having about each of these trailers and what they envisioned for their own, I started to read Kelly Gallagher's new book WRITE LIKE THIS. Early in the book, he reminds us of the importance of writing the kinds of things we are asking our students to write. DUH! I knew this. I have kept a writer's notebook for years and believe strongly in this important piece to being a writing teacher. However, I had kind of forgotten to do that with the book trailers. I figured I had created videos and other similar products and I was constantly creating pieces digitally. But I realized that I HAD to create a book trailer.  So, I got to work.

Here's the thing, by the time I had decided this, I had done a ton with the 3rd graders getting them ready for their own composing.  We had studied 6-8 book trailers as a group. We looked at trailers where students spoke and used green screen and animation:



We looked at samples that had no spoken words but focused on visuals:



We looked at student-created videos as well as commercially published trailers. We studied several scripts of effective book trailers. (I had transcribed several so that we could look hard at the crafting of the script.) We looked at the first lines in the videos and which hooked us.  I had typed up the first lines of some of the trailers we had enjoyed and we talked about how each was crafted:

Some Leads We Studied:

Caveman ABC

What do you get when you take an acorn….  Aabear……a caveman…and a dinosaur and put them all together in one book?

Shark Vs. Train

The great white shark…short tempered, single minded marauder of the watery deep.

The steam locomotive train…unstoppable,  coal fueled, king of the rails.

We’re In a Book

Shhhh!  Pssst! Piggie

Yes Gerald?

Piggie, I think someone is looking at us.

39 Clues

“Somebody’s Coming”

“Look at this”

A worldwide adventure, a family of rivals, a game of wit, a reward beyond measure…

Snakes

Snakes Snakes and even more snakes.

Dinotrain

All Aboard! All about the dinotrain. This books adventures begin right down the track.

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

One bus.  One Pigeon.  One Rule.

Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus

Everyone has a dream of something they would like to do.  But have you ever heard of a pigeon who would like to drive a bus?

We had watched a few trailers looking at the variety of  decisions each writer had made. We looked at the text decisions, visual decisions, and sound decisions.  We talked off of a form like this that we used when watching a few of the videos.

We definitely knew the possibilities.  I thought we were at the point that it would be no big deal for the kids to actually create a good book trailer.

So, then I jumped in. Before I asked the students to move forward in their work, I decided to create a trailer for Mo Willems' book, SHOULD I SHARE MY ICE CREAM. I love Mo Willems and I knew all the kids would know this book.  So, thinking about the things we talked about, I created a plan, just as I had asked my students to do. I used Popplet on the iPad to think through the things I wanted to do in the script, with text, with sound and with visuals. This is when I realized that all of these conversations were wonderfully inspiring when I was thinking about what decisions other writers had made. I realized how very overwhelming it was to think through each one of these decisions myself, now that I knew what was possible.  It was all too much to think about.  But, I got to work.

I knew that I wanted to use Ice Cream Truck music. I knew that I wanted real photos of ice cream. I knew that the script would be behind these photos and I wouldn't be on screen. I knew that I wanted to mention other books in the series and have pictures of those.

All of the planning was pretty fun.  But then I got to the actual creation and it got really, really hard.  Getting my ideas to match my vision was not as easy as I thought it would be. I wrote the script and timed it. I found photos on flickr and on my own iPhoto account.  Then I got started dropping it all into iMovie.

I dropped the ice cream truck photo, the other photos and the book photos. I read my script and realized I needed more photos. Then I began my search for ice cream truck music.

That's where things fell apart.  It wasn't so easy to find this music, especially music that was available for use for a project like this.  So, my husband and I became obsessed with finding good music. We finally discovered that "Do Your Ears Hang Low" is a popular ice cream truck song and available for free use.  But we couldn't find a version that worked online. So, we tried a few things. We bought the piano app on the iPad and found simple sheet music online that we tried to play. We called my mother-in-law, a pianist in Toledo and her play it on her piano while we recorded it over the phone.  We got caught up at the kitchen table for HOURS trying to get the music I was hoping for.

I worked so hard on the music that I didn't have time to actually finish the book trailer....

I ended up abandoning the project as a class expectation. I could not justify spending much more time on this project once I realized what was involved.  The unit wasn't wasted--we had learned to be very critical readers of digital text. We had learned about the decisions digital composers make and the reasons that they made them.  So,  I showed some simple examples that were more book podcasts.I invited kids to finish who wanted to and I stepped back to reflect on what went wrong when it came to the writing.

What I Learned:
The most important thing that I learned was how important it is to go through the process of creating digital pieces before I even think about assigning them to students.  With the experience behind me, I can better understand what kids will need, which mentors would be most helpful, the time the project will take and the learning that is necessary. Having assigned a book trailer before I had ever created one myself became a huge problem.  Not only did I overwhelm the students with the trailers I shared, but I lost sight of the goals of the project.  Looking back, had I planned the project after I had gone through the process myself, my teaching would have been far more effective.

I also learned how easy it is to get caught up in some little thing for hours.  Not being able to find the music to fit my vision became my obsession.  I could not move forward without the perfect music.  All of a sudden, I understood those students who spend hours on garage band and create three seconds of music.

Deadlines matter. I dragged my book trailer creation out for days.  As with any writing, a deadline would have forced me to just make a decision and get the work out there to an audience.  Deadlines almost provide a sense of relief for some projects.

There were so many decisions, almost too many. The options I have as a composer of digital text is overwhelming. Whether we are creating blog posts, websites, podcasts or book trailers, the possibilities are endless. Knowing how to make digital writing authentic and doable for young children is currently a struggle for me.

I lost steam.  I can't imagine what the third graders felt.  One of the problems was that the work on this was done solely in the library. And working on something for 45 minutes every 4 days doesn't seem like the best way to attack digital composing.  So, what place does digital creation have in the library when time with students and time planning with teachers is limited?  What are the most important things for elementary students to learn and understand?  Would this have been different in the classroom?

Questions that Came from My Experience?
What is worth the time? How much of the time spent was really worth it?
Was this doable for an 8th grader?
Did I give too many options?

I am struggling with what is doable at the elementary level.  I clearly learned that I tried to pack too much into this project and I am not sure if the learning was worth the time. How do I keep writing authentic and teach students so that they grow as digital writers, but at the same time, make sure we are not spending hours and hours on deciding how to create the perfect Ice Cream Truck music?

I will never ask students to create a digital piece of writing without first going through the process myself.  And I don't really want to do that in the midst of a project again. As a teacher of writing, I need to take full advantage of trying various types of digital writing just because....knowing that the learning I do in the process will make me a better teacher of writing.  I have been learning a great deal from Kevin Hodgson over the years and his work with students. He seems to plan in a much more effective way than I have lately. And it is becoming clear to me that his commitment to his own digital creations allow him to do that.

Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop: Reading Like a Writer

(This post is part of a series on Mentor Text in the Digital Writing Workshop. Other participants include Katie Dicesare, Tony Keefer, Kevin Hodgson, Troy Hicks and Bill Bass. The post are being collected at  Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop.)

"Teachers must also ensure that children have access to reading materials that are relevant to the kind of writer they are interested in becoming at a particular moment.  Teachers must recruit the authors who will become the children's unwitting collaborators."  
                                                               Frank Smith, Joining the Literacy Club

Our students naturally mentor themselves to texts that matter to them.  Kids are good at writing picture books because they have often been immersed in narrative for years before they write one of their own.  Every day in the library, someone writes a new installment of the Pigeon books by Mo Willems. We have The Pigeon Gets a Christmas Tree, Don't Let the Pigeon Get Away and The Pigeon Gets a Wife in process right now.  Mo Willems makes it easy for kids to grow as writers after they've been immersed-as readers-with his books.   Lately, I have been thinking about what it means to read like a writer when the idea of both reading and writing are constantly expanding. 

A few years ago, many of my students were learning Hannah Montana's Hoedown Throwdown dance from this video.  Kids would practice the dance at recess and the clip inspired many to start their own Youtube channels teaching other dances they knew.  They looked at this and thought, "I could do this!"

And we are seeing more and more things like Toaster Pop, an iPod app/game created by a first grader.

With apps like the Toaster Pop, we can read the story and easily identify the mentors this child used and the way in which he realized, "Hey, I could do that."   Our kids are natural creators--they easily and naturally create things that they see in the real world.

But my students have taught me that the experiences they have with digital texts at home are mostly limited to viewing for sheer entertainment.  They have said, "We are good at watching videos for entertainment, but not to get information or learn."  Much of their viewing is based on videos or shows like iCarly. I LOVE iCarly and her web show makes me laugh. But I notice that when kids try to create narrative or tell stories digitally, they fall back on the kinds of things they've seen. Like this popular iCarly clip.

Funny, right?  I can already think of other episodes I would love to create and this video has sparked ideas of videos that would be fun to create for friends' birthdays or other holidays.  As a teacher, I need to know what my kids spend their time viewing so that I can build on and teach from that. But the types of things kids are viewing are not necessarily the things that will help them learn to grow as writers. So, I also need to find mentors that better match what I am hoping they will create. And as Kevin Hodgson mentioned in his post yesterday, "...with some exceptions, there is still a decided lack of digital examples of  composition with technology that we can turn to as educators and provide as samples for our students."

I am a person who is is constantly mentoring myself to experts.  The internet has been so instrumental in my learning.  As a beginning blogger, I evolved as a writer because I read other blogs and got to know the genre and the culture of bloggers. When I started making cake pops and more fancy cupcakes, I followed blogs that shared the process of decorating and focused on those that could move me forward.  And as I start toward a fitness goal of running, I look to others who have very recently started the process so that I learn from their experiences.

But in order to do that, I had to be comfortable on the web and with digital texts without an immediate need to learn something specific. It is the same with our students. If we want them to be composers of quality digital pieces, they need to be immersed in these types of things as readers. As Troy Hicks mentioned in his post on Friday, "It’s the difference between handing them a flip camera and giving them an hour to pull something together as compared to spending time talking about the craft of digital writing."

If we want students to create more sophisticated pieces, or use digital tools for authentic purposes,  we need to make sure that we don't just pull those samples out quickly during writing workshop time--to study for a day or two. Instead, we need to think about how digital texts fit into all of the pieces of our literacy workshops. We need to use pieces of quality media throughout the day and rethink the ways we integrate all forms of reading into our day.

I have realized lately how much is out there for our students to learn from. There  are many non-quality digital resources out there,  but there are also many amazing sites for students.  Some of my favorites are Wonderopolis, Pebble Go, Meet Me at the Corner, DOGONews, ToonBookReader and Tumblebooks.  But I am also realizing that if we do not value al types of media at school, all day, every day, we cannot expect our students



Read Aloud
Do I choose to read aloud only texts from traditional books or do I share digital texts, audio books, blogs, etc. during read aloud?
Do we use web resources such as author websites and book trailers to help us dig deeper into the book we are reading?
Do I read aloud from websites and blogs?

Independent Reading
Do we use online resources for book previewing and book selection?
Do I limit students' independent reading to traditional books or do they have a variety of options for their reading time?  Do I place equal value on reading on e-readers, reading websites, etc. as I do on reading novels?
Do I help my students use online tools to support their lives as readers? Do I value annotation tools, bookmarking tools, RSS feeds, etc. as part of my readers lives? Do I model these tools in minilessons?

Reading and Writing Minilessons
Do I use digital texts or pieces when teaching minilessons?
Do I rely completely on traditional text or do I use film clips, blog entries, podcasts, etc. when planning minilessons?
Do I share process in my minilessons? Do I tend to share process only as it relates to creating text-based pieces?
Do I share my own writing process?  Composing in several types of media?

Shared Reading
Have I reflected on the resources I rely on for Shared Reading?
Do I include web reading and viewing when thinking about Shared Reading experiences?
How can I include a variety of texts for students to process through together?

Content Reading
Have I found sources for content reading that go beyond textbooks and traditional text?
Do I rely on newspapers for talk around current events or do I tend to focus more on sites like DOGONews and other sites that combine text and video?
How am I supporting the importance of visual information in the content areas?

I spend a great deal of time reading books so that I have the right book to share in a minilesson or reading conference. But I am working to rethink the messages I give to students as both readers and writers when I rely almost exclusively on more traditional texts for much of the day.  I've been inspired by teachers like Andrea Smith who incorporates Wonderopolis into her Morning Meeting.  I also learn tons from Katie DiCesare who has been thinking about this idea for some time.  For me, it is about honestly reflecting on the types of "texts" I value all day, every day. And to expand the ways I use digital texts throughout the day. I know that if I want my students to read like writers, they need to be readers of digital text first.  For my students to become creators of sophisticated digital texts, I believe that they need to be immersed in a variety of quality multi-media all day, every day.

Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop: Writer as Decision-Maker

"This is no recipe book: I have tried not to be formulaic. Rather, I want to suggest the richness of the options, the myriad of possibilities open to the writer at any given moment."

Ralph Fletcher, What a Writer Needs, 1995, p. 2

When I think about how the possibilities for writing has expanded for our students, these are the two video clips I keep going back to.

I discovered this "Saved by the Bell" Public Service Announcement years ago and have watched it numerous times.

Don't do drugs - saved by the bell from Matthew Stockmeyer on Vimeo.

It seems somewhat obvious that this was a clip scripted and produced by adults--adults who worked at a television studio. It also is interesting that the "adult' has to come in to have the final word. If I were to imagine kids watching this on t.v. I assumed not many kids watched it and thought, "Hey, I'd like to make something like that."  With the technology available then, it took the big television studios, etc. to get word out about a topic quickly. It took lots of money and lots of adult organization.

Compare that to this Public Service Announcement done a few years ago by Noah Gray, a high school student:

I found this clip almost 3 years ago and I have watched it over and over again. The power of this message is amazing.  From my understanding, Noah Gray was a high school student when he created this video. It was a message he cared about and the equipment necessary was easy to use.  The message hit the internet and spread.  You can find connected videos inspired by this video all over Youtube. It is clear that kids saw this and thought, "I can do that."

In my thinking about mentor texts, we have to keep in mind that writing has to be real and it has to have a real audience.  We also have to remember that writers are ultimately decision-makers.

I've used this clip with students and adults to really begin to think about all of the decisions available to writers today.  Noah Gray made so many decisions as a writer in this very short, powerful clip. He made decisions about the script, the sound and the visuals.  Noah decided where to cut each person's lines and where to start the next person. He decided on the message. Here are some other decisions he made:

black and white video/no color
head shots only/not full body-same shot for each participant
casual dress for people speaking
short clips of talk by participants
boys and girls all look to be in teen years
participants showed up more than once
question as a lead into the video/script
9 people total
ending united with 9 kids shown in grid
white, plain background
no music/background sound
30 seconds long

Each of these (and many other) decisions were made for a reason. The reasons had to do with the message that Noah wanted his viewers to take away. Instead of just crafting words, as writers have done in the past, digital writers make decisions about words, sound, visuals and more.

Mentor texts in our classrooms could open up students' possibilities to these decisions-the options they have as writers. They can see that they are the decision makers and that multi-media requires creators of digital text to make many decisions so that their messages are clear and powerful.  Rather than be formulaic, I want my students' mentors to be pieces that open up what is possible in their own work.

Nothing Like A Puffin

Nothing Like A Puffin
by Sue Soltis
illustrated by Bob Kolar
Candlewick Press, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

This is a very fun book!

It starts off being a book about the things a puffin is NOT like: a ladder and a house. But then we come to the newspaper, and

"A newspaper, to be sure, is nothing like a puffin. A newspaper is shaped like a rectangle and made out of paper. A newspaper has pages. It's black and white. But wait -- a puffin is black and white, too! What are the chances? 

A newspaper is something like a puffin, after all."

After the newspaper come things that a puffin is more and more like, until we get to a penguin, which is very much like a puffin...but not quite. In the end, "There's nothing like a puffin!"

The illustrations have their own story line, so the book begs to be read more than once to enjoy all the details. 

And this is a book that also begs to be used as a mentor text. Wouldn't it be fun to pick an animal or an item, find a few things that it is NOTHING like, then several things that it is SORT OF like, and finally one thing it is A LOT alike, and write with the same pattern? Yes, I thought so. We'll be doing this in our writing workshop after the first of the year!