Great New Blog --TWO WRITING TEACHERS

We just discovered a new favorite blog--right up our alley. Ruth and Stacey have started a blog for writing teachers and it is full of great stuff. It is called Two Writing Teachers. This is their mission:

Good teaching is good teaching. Too often we get caught up in what's
happening in our own classroom walls or in the faculty lounge of our own
school building. This blog is a place that erases all of those barriers
and focuses simply on teaching kids to write and catching minds in the
midst. It's happening not only 872 miles apart, but in classrooms beyond
our Midwestern town and East Coast City.


I don't think we realize how important this is in these political times--to connect with other teachers and to learn together without the politics/specific stresses of our own spaces.

Another thing that I love is how they came to blog together (didn't you wonder when you read that they lived 872 miles apart?) Well, here is how it happened:

Ruth and Stacey met in March 2007 at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project’s Saturday Reunion. Ruth attended Stacey’s session, which was about grant writing. Even though Ruth and Stacey live 872 miles apart, they’re in touch daily.

Gotta love that! We all know as teachers how we often find others we connect with and can learn with and from. There is no better way to learn about teaching.

So, check them out. It is a great site--one I will definitely visit regularly! There is lots more I can say, but I think it would be more fun for you to visit for yourself!

Girl With 500 Middle Names by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Since we have been talking about good beginning-of-the-year read alouds and since this is our 500th post(!!!), I thought I would review a book that goes with the theme of the moment!

THE GIRL WITH 500 MIDDLE NAMES by Margaret Peterson Haddix would be a great read aloud. It is an early chapter book with lots to talk about. This is the story of Janie who moves into a new school. Her mother knits sweaters so that Janie can attend the school. But it is hard for Janie to fit in at a school where everyone lives in a big house and has new clothes. Janie has to wear the sweaters that her mom knits--those that were returned with names already on them--and she tells her classmates that she has many middle names. This is a very short chapter book and can cause lots of good discussion about fitting in, etc.


Isn't it coincidental that we posted our 500th post AND Alex Rodriguez (Yankees) hit his 500th career homerun this week? Rodriguez is the youngest in history to accomplish his milestone. And I am the YOUNGEST of A YEAR OF READING bloggers.

Wicked Cool Overlooked Books

Today is the Zombie Ass Kicking Edition of the monthly Wicked Cool Overlooked Books event at Chasing Ray.

I don't have a particular book to share this month, but I was thinking of doing something with the news that FirstBook had interviewed a bunch of people about the book(s) that hooked them on reading. (Here's the list of the top 50 books or series.) In true blogger form, Blog From the Windowsill turned the list into a meme. If you want to play, copy the list and put a + in front of the books that hooked you as a reader. What are some of the books that hooked you that DIDN'T make it on the list? (This is the part that connects to WCOB, in case you were wondering!)

- Nancy Drew by Carolyn Keene
+ Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
+ Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
+ The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
- The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
- Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
- The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey
-Go, Dog, Go! by P. D. Eastman
+ Are You My Mother? by P. D. Eastman
+ Curious George by Margret and H. A. Rey
- Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
- The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper and Loren Long
- Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
- Dick and Jane by William H. Elson
- Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
- The Bobbsey Twins by Laura Lee Hope
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
- The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
+ The Black Stallion by Walter Farley
+ The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Heidi by Johanna Spyri
- The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
+ A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
- Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
- Clifford the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell
- Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
- Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
- Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
+ Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- The Hardy Boys by Franklin W. Dixon
- One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
- Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
- Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
- The Baby-sitters Club by Ann M. Martin
- Horton Hears A Who by Dr. Seuss
- Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
- Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss
- Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs
- Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol
- Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty MacDonald
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
- The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
- Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans
- The Bible
- Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
- Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

A Wrinkle in Time is the book that launched me as a reader. I got it from the book order in 6th grade. It was the longest, most challenging book I had read up until that point. It was also my introduction to fantasy. It really made me think. No book had done that up until then, and once I had that experience, I expected it out of every book I read. (I either wanted the book to make me think, or make me feel. I spent many a Sunday afternoon rereading sad books and crying -- Little Britches, Love Story, Where the Red Fern Grows...)

The other books I marked with a + are books that I remember being in my life as I grew up. I read a lot as a child and we took regular trips to the library. All that reading got me ready for A Wrinkle in Time, so I won't dismiss it as water through a sieve, but it was definitely not memorable.

This was also the first time my reading life outside of school had intersected with reading inside of school. Up until that point, reading at school was a basal reader and SRA cards. I was a good reader according to all of that, but none of my teachers knew me as a reader. None of my teachers ever asked me, as I will ask my students in a couple of weeks, to tell them about my reading history. None of my teachers ever gave me a list like this and asked me which books had hooked me on reading.

We survived our schooling. It was something that was done to us. How much better it is now that students actively participate in their learning. Now that students are asked and can answer, "Which books hooked you on reading?"

Synchronicity

Susan, at Chicken Spaghetti, has real, live chickens!

More First Read Alouds

Franki got us thinking about first read alouds when she pointed us to Shari Frost's Choice Literacy article.

Here are some of the picture books I read in the first weeks of school, and that we revisit at the end of the year or the end of the loop.

Ish by Peter Reynolds
I value approximation.

The Wonderful Happens by Cynthia Rylant
I celebrate each unique student.

The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi
We honor diversity, and recognize the importance of names.

The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper
Stamina and persistence are positive traits.

The Secret Knowledge of Grown-ups by David Wisniewski
Humor is valued in my classroom.

EDITED TO ADD:
How We Are Smart by W. Nikola-Lisa
Everyone is 100% smart, even if we are different mixtures of the multiple intelligences. (I finally got my ginormous Powells order -- in it was this one that I bought based on the Poetry Friday review at Tea Cozy.)

A Mama For Owen by Marion Dane Bauer

I purchased Owen and Mzee as soon as I saw it. I loved the book and so have all of the children I've shared it with. A fascinating and heartwarming story.


I was glad to see this new version of the story, A MAMA FOR OWEN by Marion Dane Bauer. This picture book is categorized as fiction. It is a more simple story of the relationship between the baby hippo and the old turtle. The illustrations are done in earth tones, ad the text is more poetic.

The reason I bought this book is to share with my students as a sample of writing--it is not often that I find a fiction story based on a true story that is also available. We do quite a bit of nonfiction writing in 3rd and 4th grades and this will be a nice piece to add to the books we study--it will be interesting to see what the kids notice when comparing the two accounts, when we think about how this author made decisions as a writer, etc.

I am excited to have two versions--one nonfiction, and one based on the true story, to share with kids about an engaging topic.

First Day Read Alouds at Choice Literacy

There is a great new article at Choice Literacy about great read alouds for the first day of school. It is written by Shari Frost--thought since we were chatting about the beginning of school, some of you might be interested. I already ordered one of the books on the list!

Any Advice?

I'm going to switch our template (finally) from Old Blogger to New Blogger.

Based on your experience, do you have any suggestions or warnings? Or will it be easy and trauma free?!? (What big change ever is?!?!)

While I'm asking for advice and suggestions...I'm back at the beginning of a loop and thinking about how I will introduce myself and my classroom to a new set of parents and students. Those of you who do that every year (I'm a 2-year looping teacher, so it's every other year for me), what kinds of things do you do to introduce yourself and your classroom before school starts, in the first weeks, and at your Curriculum Night/Parent Information Night?

MEOW RUFF: A STORY IN CONCRETE POETRY

I picked up this new book, MEOW RUFF: A STORY IN CONCRETE POETRY by Joyce Sidman, last week at Cover to Cover. What a great book. I needed to spend some time with it--it didn't make a lot of sense to me when I browsed. I was expecting a regular poetry book. This one is concrete poems. But the best thing is that the concrete poems go together to tell a story. It almost reads like a graphic novel. As a reader, I had to pull together what was going on in the pictures with the words all over the page.

Different from other concrete poetry books, each page consists of several concrete poems--nearly every object in each illustration has some type of words or poetry connected to it. I can use it with DOGKU by Andrew Clements since they are both stories about dogs talk in different types of poetry. Fun writing for kids to play with.

The pages go together to tell about a new friendship between a dog and a cat. The illustrations are colorful--younger kids would love the story. Older kids could really study the writing and the way the pictures and words work together.

Definitely glad I picked this one up.

No Talking

Fuse is right.
Maybe Clements' best.
Too didactic?
Awaiting kids' reactions.
Note to self:
Read aloud contender.

(Why three words?
Read the book!
I'd participate willingly!
Would you?)