GUY-WRITE by Ralph Fletcher

As many of you know, I received a copy of Ralph Fletchers book, GUY-WRITE:  WHAT EVERY GUY WRITER NEEDS TO KNOW a little bit early. If you must know, he actually handed it to me at the All Write dinner.  I felt terribly guilty about getting a copy when my good friends did not. (I am sure you can see the guilt and worry on my face in the photo above.) Anyway,  I was thrilled to get a copy before its release date and started reading right away. (The book is available this week-I would not be so mean as to review it before you could actually get your hands on a copy:-)

Ralph Fletcher has a knack for writing books about writing for kids. I have always loved his books and my students have learned so much from his wisdom.  One of my favorites to use with kids has always been A WRITER'S NOTEBOOK: UNLOCKING THE WRITER WITHIN YOU.  But I think after finishing GUY-WRITE, it might now be a tie.

GUY-WRITE is directed at middle grade/middle school boys. It is chapter book length with chapter titles like:  "Riding the Vomit Comet: Writing About Disgusting Stuff", "Sports Writing", and "Draw First and Write Later".  The book will definitely appeal to boy writers, and it has lots of wisdom for teachers as well.

Ralph Fletcher talks directly to boys in this book. He talks with honesty and purpose.  Readers will sense this right away. Not only does he talk with honesty but he includes a lot of humor.  Ralph talks to boys about writing "disgusting stuff",  when and how to include bloody scenes, the importance of drawing for some writers, and how to improve your sports writing. The booked is packed with tips on how to improve your writing--how to get better as a writer--focusing specifically on things like this.

The thing I maybe like best about this book is the balance Ralph finds between understanding the needs of boys as writers and understanding the limitations teachers/schools often put on them.  He knows that many schools don't allow any writing about weapons and he talks honestly to readers about this. He gives them advice on ways to talk to teachers about the importance of some of these things to their stories and he also talks to them about how to know what works for school writing.  In the process, he also teaches kids the when and how of writing "gross" or "battles". He pushes the point that there needs to be a point to including these and shows readers lots of examples of ways in which the writing is done well and in context of a good piece. And he is very honest when talking to readers about stories he's read by boys that are just episodes of grossness or violence without a plot or purpose.  He makes strong points throughout the book about the place of these things.

Another thing I love about this book is the set of Author Interviews sprinkled throughout the book.
 Ralph interviews some great authors who are pros at the kinds of writing Ralph writes about. Jon Scieszka's interview focuses on writing about disgusting stuff.  Greg Trine talks about superhero writing.  Five author interviews are included and each will be interesting to writers.

There are some good lessons here for teachers too. I feel like Ralph is writing to boy writers, but he is also writing to the adults in these writers' lives.  Ralph reminds us how important it is for some boys to draw before they write. He reminds us that there is good writing that includes bloodshed and that sometimes gross stuff does belong in a story. And since most of us (teachers) don't include this kind of thing in our own writing, he gives us ways to support kids who do include it.  His work helped me see that there is a craft to all of this writing and learning to do it well will help writers grow in all areas of their writing. He is an advocate for boy writers and is sometimes working to help adults better understand the ways in which we can support them.

The first book I read written by Ralph Fletchers was WHAT A WRITER NEEDS. It is still one of my favorite books on the teaching of writing. It was this book that defined for me what was meant by mentor text and how to use great text to teach students the craft of good writing within a good Writing Workshop. I thought of this book again when I was reading GUY-WRITE.  Ralph embeds mentor pieces throughout the book--letting young writers and teachers see all that is possible.  He focuses on boy writers and issues that seem to be more common with this gender, but as always, Ralph is speaking to all writers--reminding them about the qualities of good writing and helping them to grow.

My book has about 30 sticky notes stuck throughout. I tabbed so many pages that would make for a good minilesson. This book has huge possibilities. It provides me with a great resource to use not only for minilesson work, but in writing conferences. It will certainly be read cover to cover by many writers this year, I'm sure. And it will be a book I go back to for my own understanding.  I am pretty sure I'll need several copies of this one in the classroom this year and one that is just for me!

(Patrick Allen has another review of this book up on his blog. All-en-A-Day's Work.

Amelia Lost

Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart

by Candace Fleming 

Schwartz & Wade, 2011

Last night I finished reading Amelia Lost. This morning I read this on The Writer's Almanac:

It was 75 years ago today, in 1937, that Amelia Earhart was last heard from, somewhere over the Pacific. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, had set off in May from Miami to fly around the world in a Lockheed Electra. She said, "I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system, and I hope this trip is it." 

They had completed all but about 7,000 miles of the trip when they landed in New Guinea. Maps of this part of the Pacific were inaccurate, and U.S. Coast Guard ships were in place to help guide them to their next stop, the tiny Howland Island. The weather was cloudy and rainy when they left New Guinea. At 7:42 a.m., Earhart communicated to the Coast Guard Cutter Itasca: "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Fuel is running low. Been unable to reach you by radio. We are flying at 1,000 feet." Her last transmission, about an hour later, was "We are running north and south." 

Franklin Roosevelt sent nine ships and 66 aircraft to search for the downed plane, to no avail. 

This month, 75 years after Earhart's disappearance, a new search team will use robotic submarines to comb the area where they think the Electra went down.

Cosmic, eh?

This is the kind of longer nonfiction I can imagine reading aloud to fourth grade and up. Fleming does an excellent job maintaining tension, even though we pretty much know the story. She does this by alternating between chapters about Earhart's disappearance and the search that was conducted for her, and chapters that tell her life story.

My next #bookaday/#paredownthetbrpile book will be The Good, The Bad, and the Barbie. At first glance, it might seem to be a ironic choice. But I'm interested to see what kind of overlap there is between Amelia, the legendary/mythic/iconic role model for women/girls, and the much-maligned toy role model/monster/psychological destroyer know as Barbie.

Poetry Friday -- Wordle Poetry Quick-Write

Yesterday's quick-write prompt at Kate Messner's Teachers Write! Summer Camp invited us to use Wordle to discover the theme of our writing and to learn more about our characters.

I made two versions of a Wordle out of six poems I recently submitted. (It's a little disturbing to see the extremely pedestrian word LIKE as the biggest word in the cloud, but when I looked back at the poems, I found that just one poem was the culprit, and those "likes" were quite necessary in the context of that poem. Whew!)

Then, because I do love to twist the writing prompts into my own braid of ideas, I used the Wordles as if (I almost said like...) they were Magnetic Poetry. I created a poem using just the words I could find in my Wordles. It was quite a fun exercise that I would recommend!


AWE

Hope spirals,
cloud-weary
at midday.

Girl turning.
Wish travels
through sunbeams.

Spin wonder:
soar, flutter...
keep dreaming.

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2012



Marjorie has the Poetry Friday roundup at PaperTigers. The schedule for July-December is filled, and I'll get the html code into files at the Kidlitosphere Yahoo Group and to Pam for the calendar at the Kidlitosphere Central website this weekend. If you don't belong to the Yahoo group but would like the code for your sidebar, just send me a request: mlhahn at earthlink dot net.

Happy Friday!

Your Character's Playlist

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by rifqi dahlgren

OUTA MY WAY

I'm an ant.

My eyes are big,

my joints are orange,

my bite means business.

I have work to do.

You're in my way. 

I'm warning you --

my bite means business.

You better move.
I'm just one.
A hundred-hundred more
are following.

And we mean business.

Music this ant hums as he marches along (with his hundred-hundred comrades): March of the Defenders of Moscow, sung by the Red Army Choir.

And yet, after a day of marching, there's nothing this ant likes better than to kick back, relax, and tap into his creative side. He invites his friends to pose for portraits in his photo studio. Then he composes his own music and he posts his photo/music montages on YouTube, in the hopes that he will increase appreciation for the Formicidae family.

All business by day, all arts by night, this is one multi-faceted ant (and we're not just talking about his eyes, folks!!).

* * * * * * *

What on earth is this crazy post doing here? It's my response to the Tuesday Quick-Write for Teachers Write! Summer Writing Camp. I didn't really follow the rules very well. (What did you expect?!?) But I had fun getting into the head of this ant.

Teachers Write! Summer Camp with Kate Messner

I've been dipping in and out of Teachers Write! for the past few weeks, using the prompts and taking the challenges as my schedule would allow.

Now that I've got a clear stretch of time to dig back into my own reading and writing life, I'm looking forward to getting more involved with the community of writers that have gathered at Kate's virtual summer camp.

And how lucky was I, that the day I got back to being more scheduled with my writing and more dedicated to my participation in Teachers Write!, the mini-lesson was given by Ruth McNally Barshaw, author/illustrator of the Ellie McDoodle books! I LOVE Ellie McDoodle!

Ruth's mini-lesson? Sketch before writing. Sketch during writing. Sketch to understand your writing (character, setting, plot -- with storyboarding).

Down to the basement I went, and look what I found waiting for me in one of the tubs stacked on the bonus desk down there:

I knew my colored pencils were there, but I forgot about the virtually unused sketch book (it's been almost 10 years since I sketched and wrote in it!!), the water colors, and the water color colored pencils that can be brushed and blended with water.

I used my camera as my digital "sketch book" when I took my walk this morning, then sat on the front porch in the shade of the oak tree,

writing and sketching from the shots I took...and from the meanderings of my brain.

There are bits and pieces of a poem-to-be about our big front yard oak tree on this page of doodling in words and images.

It made me unbelievably happy to reconnect to my artistic self in my writing process. Thank you, Kate. And thank you, Ruth!

All Write Summer Institute

Mindy Hoffar and her peeps run an incredible Summer Institute every year in Indiana.  Last week was the annual event. It was a two day institute. Last year, a group of Twitter friends decided to attend. We had such a great time that we all returned this year.  I did a few sessions on Thursday and stayed for the 2nd day of the conference.  It was such a great few days. Not only was it a great institute, but it was so fun to see good friends.  There was a group of about 10 of us from Central Ohio (several from Dublin) and lots of other friends from around the country that we got to spend time with. Such fun learning with friends.

Not only were the sessions great but being there with friends made the institute even better. Not only did we have meals together, runs together and late night snacks together, but we had carloads of us drive in from various places around the area.  The car ride alone, talking to Karen and Tony for uninterrupted hours, was some great professional learning in itself.

We started the conference with a fun dinner at the Boathouse restaurant in Warsaw. Ruth took care of making the plans and we all had a great time catching up.

I couldn't possibly share all that I learned or all that I left thinking about. But I thought I'd share some highlights.

One of the things I left with was the overall theme of the two days. It was an unplanned theme, I think. But every speaker seem to be giving similar messages about bringing joy back to the classrooms--remaining grounded in our work with children.  It was great to hear this in so many ways, from so many brilliant people.

The Twitter friends getting ready for Ruth's opening keynote. (You'll notice that Tony is following Paul's Rider by leaving an empty chair next to Paul.)

Ruth Ayres gave one of the most brilliant keynote I've heard.  She was genuine and graceful and smart about all that she said. Her keynote title alone was brilliant. The keynote was titled, "Mandates, Standards and Evaluation: Can Teachers Still Change the World?"  She reminded us about being joyful in the classroom. She reminded us that we control our attitudes. She reminded us that, yes, we can change the world.  Here are some of Ruth's most brilliant quotes from her keynote:

Our mission should be one of story. Story allows us to change the world.


Living your story may be the most important thing you do in your classroom.


The decisions you make are based on knowledge and research and wisdom.


It's time to trust ourselves again and do the things needed for students' well being.


And a quote Ruth shared from Hal Bowman, "It's really not that complicated.  All you have to do is send them home a little bit better than they came to you in the morning."


Ruth reflected on her keynote on her blog, Two Writing Teachers.

I was able to hear Jim Burke talk about the 4 Cs of writing.  He talked about the importance of commitment, content, competency, and capacity. He reminded us of the importance of time and the unique work of academic writing. He also talked about the recent emphasis on reading in schools that has really impacted writing instruction. Jim gave me lots to think about. I want to think about what his thinking means for elementary students. I loved his ideas about digital essays and the ways he used Google searches to help students build background knowledge. My favorite quote from Jim was:

Writing is probably the largest orchestra your brain will ever conduct.

The dinner event was held next door to the hotel and Ralph Fletcher was the speaker. He talked about writing notebooks.  I could talk about his session, but instead I want to share some info on his upcoming book, Guy-Write.  It is a book for boys about writing.  I love the boy audience and Ralph is the perfect person to write this book. Ralph brought me a copy of the book (due to be released in early July) and some of my tablemates were a little jealous. Granted, I was a little bit excited about getting the book and I may have shown it. (I believe Paul called me "smug.")  And I didn't have the empathy I should have for others at the table who did not get a copy of the book. Even after I saw their shocked and sad faces. But, I understand there was a plot to steal the book....

If you have heard the rumor that I did not share the book, let me assure you that it was merely a rumor. Of course I shared the book. Here is proof:

Paul looking at Franki's copy of Guy-Write

Not only did we get to hear Ralph at dinner, but I also went to his morning session on Mentor Texts. He had us write a bit--you can read a poem that Mary Lee wrote in this session on last week's Poetry Friday post.  A few of my favorite quotes from this session include:

Those of us who teach writing need to take advantage of short texts.


Don't squeeze all the juice out of a mentor text.

Patrick Allen and Ruth Ayres did a session together on the impact our own reading and writing have on our teaching. I got to this session a bit late so I missed the first 20ish minutes.  Ruth talked about the importance of "nudging joy" and asked us to ask ourselves, "Are the kids in my classroom feeling this kind of joy?"  She talked about the importance of teaching that nourishes, nudges and strengthens.  Two quotes that I loved from this session were:

The best professional development is to build our own reading and writing lives. (Ruth)


I want kids to leave with a little text in their hearts and minds. (Patrick)


In the afternoon I went to a session by Patrick Allen on Synthesis.  Patrick so understands reading instruction and strategy instruction.  I have heard him talk about conferring with students but had never heard him talk about synthesis.  An important thing he said that I am thinking about was the way he talks to his studnets about what "wise" readers do instead of what "good" readers do.  


What matters most to student learning? Thinking, Understanding, Decision-Making, Purpose

Thinking strategies are intentional plans readers use to help themselves make sense of their reading.


I got to hear Donalyn Miller talk about the ideas behind her new book about authentic reading.  She asked us to think about whether we were creating independent or dependent readers in our classrooms. There was a ton to think about. During Donalyn's session, I took this photo of our friend Stella who was busy taking notes (while also tweeting on the iPad!) and doing lots of thinking, as we all were! Love this picture of Stella!

Two favorite quotes from Donalyn were:

We need to spend some time explicitly teaching reading habits to kids.


We are not expecting kids to read nearly as much as they are capable of reading.


Katie Wood Ray ended the conferences with her keynote titled,  "Holding on Tight to What is Common to Our Core."  As always, Katie's talk was amazing. I have read everything she's ever written, heard her speak more times than I can count, and I am inspired by her every single time.  She talked about the impact of Common Core and the power of writing workshop and reminded us that we know the growth our students make because we have writing workshops in place.  Some favorite quotes from Katie:

Ways of being with children in classrooms will not change.


You will always own how you teach.


Nationalization of curriculum will not negate the beautiful truth of individual children.

She ended by saying, "We teach children. That is my stance."


You can go back and see all the tweets from the conference by searching the Twitter hashtag #allwrite12.  So many great things shared through Twitter during the two days.

I am already looking forward to next year's All Write Summer Institute!

Slides from All Write

I will be writing more about all that I learned at All Write this week--what an amazing few days of learning with friends! Such a great conference. I promised to post my slides on my Slide Share account. I did that this morning so here is the link to those. They sometimes miss things or cut things off when loaded to Slideshare but the links to every site and video are included so they should include the info people wanted. Hope it is helpful.  I have posted all 3 sessions--Digital Reading, Digital Writing and Planning Minilessons.

http://www.slideshare.net/Franki22

And for those who asked, my upcoming book on Planning Minilessons should be available from Choice Literacy in early fall.

Poetry Friday -- Mentor Texts

I'm at the All Write conference in Warsaw, Indiana.
I sort of lost track of time and forgot it was Friday.
Oops.
But Ralph Fletcher saved me.
At Ralph's session on mentor texts, he invited us to use the first two lines and the last two lines of his poem, "The Good Old Days" to write our own poem.

Here's my quick-write:

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Sometimes I remember
The good old days

Getting my bike out of the little building
In the cool of the early morning

Snatching the ripest cherry tomateos from the vines
Before I headed to swim practice

Biking on the gravelly streets
Squinting into the sun

Throwing my towel on the still-wet grass by the pool
And diving into the shockingly cold water

Windmilling my arms to the end of the pool and back
Again and again until I was exhausted

I can't imagine
Anything better than that.


Amy at The Poem Farm has the Poetry Friday roundup this week, but I can't seem to link to her yet. Use the schedule in the sidebar to find her.

Oh, and speaking of the schedule, there are three spots open on the July-December PF Roundup schedule. If you want one of those three spots, leave a comment here.

Summer Solstice

Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year (in the Northern Hemisphere). Today, the reason for the season has nothing to do with any kind of human construct. It's all about our planet, it's 23.5 degree tilt, and its yearly trip around our amazing star, the sun.

Solstice seems like the perfect day to spotlight three books by Molly Bang about the sun.

In 2004, Molly Bang wrote My Light, a celebration of the sun and a description of how we can transform sunlight into electricity.

In 2009 (with Penny Chisholm), Bang gave us Living Sunlight, one of the clearest explanations of photosynthesis (down to the molecular level) that you'll ever read. Again, a celebration of our sun.

This year (again with Penny Chisholm), in Ocean Sunlight, Bang celebrates the sun's role in sustaining life on our planet, specifically, in the habitat of the ocean.

She begins by reminding us what we know about photosynthesis on land, and how every food chain begins with plants harnessing energy from the sun. Then she asks us to think about food chains in the ocean:

"All ocean life is part

of food chains, too.

And every ocean food

chain starts when plants

catch my light.

But where

are the ocean's plants?"

Where? In the billion billion billion phytoplankton drifting in the oceans! A microscopic pasture that feeds larger and larger organisms, all the way up to the whales.

That's interesting and mind-boggling, but then she takes it to a whole new level...to the dark dark bottom of the ocean. How do the animals there get to participate in a sunlight-driven food chain when they have no light? They recycle all the "junk" that floats down from the surface. And how do the nutrients created by the life forms on the bottom of the ocean get up to the phytoplankton on the surface? The sun. The sun causes the currents that stir the oceans.

The sun. It always comes back to the sun. Life on earth, the water cycle, food chains, photosynthesis, oxygen and carbon dioxide, consumption and production.

Happy Solstice. 

Take a minute today to appreciate our sun.

IT'S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Back to IT'S MONDAY! WHAT ARE YOU READING! I love this tradition created by Kellee and Jen at TEACH MENTOR TEXTS. My reading list grows every Monday when I read about everyone else's reading!

I read some great books this week. I am trying to focus my reading on new 4th grade titles as well as series that I may have missed in the last few years.

THE TEMPLETON TWINS HAVE AN IDEA by Ellis Weiner is a great new middle grade novel that looks to be the first in a series.  This book is about twins who have an inventor for a father.  But they get kidnapped because of one of these inventions. The kids are clever though so it is quite a fun adventure. The book reminded me a tiny bit of The Series of Unfortunate Events in the storyline/crazy adventure and the humor combined.  I love the humor in this book. The narrator talks to the read often, usually with quite a bit of sarcasm.  This would make a fun read aloud for older middle grade readers with a sophisticated understanding of sarcasm and humor. I am already looking forward to the next book in this series.







I am a huge Lisa Graff fan and was thrilled to discover her new book DOUBLE DOG DARE. I love Lisa Graff because she is a brilliant middle grade author. She understands the age she writes for and she is able to tackle difficult subjects in a way that makes them accessible to middle grade readers.  She combines the perfect combination of serious issues and humor to write great books. In this book, a new student moves in.  A battle for the news anchor job begins and each of the people wanting the job agree to "double dog dares".  The dares are fun and kids will love to read about the dares, and how each turns out.  Embedded in the funny story about dares are issues of moving to a new town, friendship, family, divorce and more. This is a perfect book for 4th and 5th graders--one that will hook them from the very first chapter.

A series book that I read this week (recommended by Tony Keefer) was THE CHAMELEON WORE CHARTREUSE:  A CHET GECKO MYSTERY by Bruce Hale. I was not familiar with this series and was happy to find a new one that might engage some 4th graders. I enjoyed the book and will definitely include a basket of these in my classroom. I am not a huge middle grade mystery fan but this is a good mystery series. The word play in this book was my favorite part. Clever language makes the story fun to read.

My friend Tammy sent me a new picture book biography that I loved. QUEEN OF THE TRACK:  ALICE COACHMAN: OLYMPIC HIGH-JUMP CHAMPION by Heather Lang is the story of the first African-American woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics.  I love good picture book biographies, especially those that introduce us to stories of people who are not as well-known as they should be.