30-Day Challenge: Boot Camp and Struggling Readers

In late December, I decided I would join a one-month Women's Boot Camp to start exercising again. The bootcamp starts at 5:30 am each day so I figured that not much would interfere with that time! I was inspired by HipWriterMama's Fall 30 Day Challenge. Then, lucky for me, HipWriterMama announced her 2008 New Year's 30-Day Challenge so I immediately joined. My theory is that the more public I make this venture, the better chance I have of sticking with it.

HipWriterMama wants an update check-in each Monday. Friday marked the halfway mark of the first month of bootcamp. Getting up at 4:45 has been an interesting thing. But Bootcamp is a pretty fun time--even though I am totally and completely out of shape. I plan to sign up and pay for the February session this week.

Funny thing is that I have learned lots about teaching. As adults, we don't often put ourselves in positions where we struggle. Most of us have found work that we love and that we are pretty good at. Same thing with hobbies. So, participating in the class as a "struggling exerciser" has been a challenge. But I have learned a lot about what my struggling kids in school must go through each day.
I wrote an article about my first week at bootcamp that was posted on Choice Literacy's website on Saturday. It compares my experience with bootcamp to that of my struggling readers in reading workshop.

I haven't lost as much weight as I was hoping but since I am trying to make this a new habit, I am okay with that, I guess. I feel better, have a bit more energy and am hopefully healthier.

Graphic

This is our blog.
Want to see what yours looks like? Give it a go. Have patience. Watch the design emerge.
Thanks, Megan. Thanks, Tricia.

Poetry Friday -- Work

For my grade level, after a release day of intense work:

To Be of Use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

(the rest of the poem is here...roundup is at Farm School.)

"To the Ends of the Earth" Awards

I've been thinking a lot about the school librarian who wore a plastic tiara to school on Monday. She won a huge award for writing some short vignettes for her 5th graders to read aloud. She wanted to help to bring medieval England alive for them. She went To the Ends of the Earth for her kids, and she won a big award for it.

I'd like the para pros at my school to win a To the Ends of the Earth Award. They work with the trickiest kids (behavioral and learning challenges) every day and they are always cheerful, always patient, and always trying to find one more little thing that we can do to nudge these kids along.

A plastic tiara to the school nurse, who works tirelessly on behalf of the needy families in her district, tracking down beds, and washers and dryers, and warm clothes.

An interview on the Today Show for the ELL teacher who advocated to keep a second language learner out of special education. She knows that in the next five years, his English will develop at a faster and faster rate, if we just give him time. She also knows that if he ever goes back to his native country (a real possibility) with a special education label, it is likely that he would get NO education. (Now, if only we could only convince the NCLB'ers that he should be able to take a test that shows what he CAN do, not a test in a language he hasn't yet mastered.)

A special To the Ends of the Earth Award for the primary teacher who kept a school chess club alive even though she herself does not play chess, and another to all the teachers and librarians who support students in after school activities (or lunchtime poetry clubs) that develop them as thinkers and learners.

Please join me in handing out To the Ends of the Earth awards. Who are the people in your schools, who work with your children or with the children of others, who deserve a plastic tiara for the day?

Hmmm....

So, how did I do over here in "attempting to have read the Newbery" land?

Newbery:
Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! by Laura Amy Schlitz
Haven't read it, but it was one of the four last-ditch-effort books I TRIED to get at Cover to Cover on Saturday. They were sold out. I have one on hold.

Newbery Honors:
Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis Also on my last-ditch-effort list.
The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt
Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson Again, on my last-ditch-effort list.

Caledcott:
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick YAY! Not only have I read it, but my students have all read along in a shared read aloud.

The Caldecott Honors are a moot point for me. I don't follow picture books so much.

The Cybils had some canny nominating committees:

The Newbery winner Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! is a Poetry finalist
Newbery Honor title Wednesday Wars is a YA finalist
Sibert Winner/Caldecott Honor title The Wall is a MG/YA Nonfiction finalist
Caldecott Honor Knuffle Bunny is a Fiction Picture Book finalist
Odyssey Honor audiobook Skulduggery Pleasant is a Fantasy/Science Fiction finalist
Printz Honor title Your Own Sylvia is a Poetry finalist
Printz Honor title Repossessed is a Fantasy/Science Fiction finalist
Sibert Honor book Lightship is a Nonfiction Picture Book finalist
Geisel Honor book Vulture View is a Nonfiction Picture Book finalist
(thank you Jen and Tricia for cross-referencing all of these)

**Edited to add: The above info was also at the Cybils site. Shame on me for not looking there first!**

If you want to know the truth, the best part of the day was getting the results by text message as I sat at my desk working before school. Whoever it was at ALA who thought that one up deserves a prize all her/his own!

Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop

Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop: Making Informed Instructional Decisions in Grades 3-6

by Franki Sibberson and Karen Szymusiak
Forward by Nancie Atwell
Scholastic, 2008

Review copy compliments of the authors.

This is the right book at the right time for teachers of middle grade readers. The authors have set out to do nothing less than start a revolution in this crazy world of politics-driven standards, accountability, and testing, testing, testing.

Instead of looking at what our students can do and scaffolding them as they move forward, standards, tests, and measures are forcing us to use a deficit model of assessment -- and we wind up focusing on what kids can't do.

We've written this text to turn the tide. (p. 7-8)

Sibberson and Szymusiak begin by reminding us of the particular instructional needs of readers in grades 3-6, as they did in their 2003 Stenhouse book, Still Learning to Read. The shift from reading predictable primary texts to reading complex intermediate texts requires readers to acquire more sophisticated reading strategies.

We cannot prepare students in grades 3-6 for every challenge they will encounter in the books they read. Our goal shifts from preparing them for a text to preparing them for any text. (p.11)

As the authors lead us through in-depth discussions of the various routines and structures of the middle-grade reading workshop, the emphasis is continually on the kind of data and information we can gather about our students at that particular time. They never depart from their message that our stance when assessing readers should be what students can do, whether we are listening to conversations, observing, having an individual conference, looking over the students' reading interviews or logs, taking a status of the class before independent reading time, or any of the countless other times that we assess our students as a natural part of living in the same classroom with them throughout the day. And they never stray from the stance that the purpose of any and all of this assessment should be to inform our instruction of individual children, small groups of children with the same needs in a particular area, or our whole class.

This is a very user-friendly book. There are lots of samples of student work (not all pretty, and at a variety of levels -- just like you would find in your classroom), an abundance of text boxes with bulleted points for easy reference, and short lists of books throughout that support the facet of reading workshop being discussed in the text.

With the myriad of opportunities for day-to-day assessment in the reading workshop comes the challenge of record-keeping -- finding or creating the right forms, and remembering that

For our record-keeping system to inform our instruction, it should be ever changing...I have to remind myself often that there is a difference between record keeping and assessment. Just because I haven't written it down doesn't mean I haven't assessed a child. (p.51)

A generous 18-page appendix gives reproducible examples of the forms Franki has developed over time for her classroom. (But don't forget that notes-to-self jotted on stickie notes are sometimes the only form you need!)

New middle grade teachers, this is a book that will help you to implement your reading workshop. Not only will you understand each of the components of the workshop format, you will know why they are important to student learning, and how you can use assessment within each component to plan for your instruction in a meaningful way. Experienced middle grade teachers, this book is a breath of fresh air -- a reminder of the value in all we do, and chock full of new ideas for tweaking and polishing our workshops to make them more effective than ever before.

Newbery Round Up And Other Award Stuff

Well, this is the last weekend of wondering which books will win the big awards on Monday! We are anxiously awaiting all of the award announcements, especially the Newbery Award. We've done several things to think about this year's winner. We had several children's book friends share their Newbery Hopefuls lists with us. We heard from Don, Larry, Bill, Karen, Karen, Sally, Beth, Karen, and Jen. And, we shared our own lists of favorites of 2007. Lots of people in the Kidliotsphere are talking about awards. It's a great weekend to read books you missed, reflect on the 2007 books you've read and think about which books may win this year. As you wait, you can read lots of others' predictions and thoughts on this year's awards.

Felicity at Look Books has her Newbery picks posted as well as some thoughts on kids' thoughts on the award winners.

Monica at Educating Alice has list of all of her Newbery Thoughts posts gathered from throughout the year. Since she is on the committee, she has been very careful about her posts about books (so no top ten list from her!) but the thinking about being part of the Newbery is fun to read.

Allen County has posted its winners here.

BCCLS Mock Winners are here.

The Nassau Library results are here.

Sharon's Newbery

Betsy at Fuse #8 posts her Newbery and Caldecott 2008 "Predict-o-rama".

Chicken Spaghetti's shares some info on lots of awards.

Read Roger shares info about this year's Scott O'Dell Award Winner.

There is a great post about the Sydney Taylor award at Blog From the Windowsill.

Mother Reader is not making any Newbery Predictions but does share thoughts on the Newbery and other awards in her post.

Miss Rumphius Effect shares the 2008 Charlotte Zolotow Award winners.

Poetry Friday -- Found Poem

A poem is a group of words, arranged just so, that moves our hearts, right? Here is a poem, then, that I found in an email this week:

Sophie,
sitting at the table with us,
said "Mary Lee gave me Today I Will Fly."
(Phil looked at me with shock.)
Yes, I replied, she certainly did.

We went on to list
the other books
you have sent to her
and decided
you were really good to send
such great books to read.

So lest you think you are an unknown quantity
(horrors!)
or just mommy's friend,
I can assure you otherwise.



Round up this week is at The Book Mine Set.

Better Late Than Never?

You know by now that the Cybils Nominees have all been posted. My work on the Graphic Novels nominating committee is done. Franki is busy judging Poetry.

The Class of 2K8 is 28 authors strong. Check out their website and get psyched for the new publishing year!

The conversation about reading is hopping over at PBS Parents, where Jen Robinson is wearing the Expert Q&A hat. She has compiled an incredible resource of suggestions about helping struggling and/or reluctant readers.

Christopher Paul Curtis' Elijah of Buxton has won the 2008 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

The Bedtime Sh'ma: A Good Night Book by Sarah Gershman and Kristina Swarner, The Entertainer and the Dybbuk by Sid Fleischman, and Strange Relations by Sonia Levitin have won the 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Awards.

Susan, at Chicken Spaghetti, has more news on recent book awards.

On Monday, I went to the bookstore with Sara Lewis Holmes, and when I checked back at her blog today, she was creating the bookstore of the future (boys' version). Go give her input.

Enough. Dinner is ready and my couch awaits me.

Movie Thursday

Let's curl up on my new couch and watch some movies, okay?

I rented a couch once, when I lived in Dallas.

There have been no other couches in my life since then.

All the thousands of great books I've read in the past half-a-lifetime, and none of them read curled up on the end of a couch.

Well, that's all changing now. The first thing I did yesterday after it was delivered was grab the next book on my to-read list, The Garden of Eve, Beth's recommendation, cover up with a throw, make room for the cat, and read!

Now, the videos. First, coming from The Reading Zone, a thoughtful piece from a Kansas State University Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class about student learning in the 21st Century. The focus is college students, but there is lots of truth here about ALL of our students...and the disconnect between the ways we teach, the materials we use, and their lives outside of school.



Next, from Megan Germano, arguably the world's greatest Barbara O'Connor fan, and also from Barbara's blog, the book trailer for Barbara's spring release, Greetings from Nowhere.