Making Nonfiction From Scratch by Ralph Fletcher

Making Nonfiction From Scratch
by Ralph Fletcher
Stenhouse, available late November 2015

When I got the Stenhouse Publishers Newslink email last week (sign up now if you don't get them -- they always contain juicy tidbits) and saw that Ralph Fletcher has a new book coming out soon...AND Stenhouse is offering a free online preview of the entire text...AND we are just starting our unit of study on nonfiction writing...well, it felt like the universe was aligning.

There's so much to love about this new book. Of particular note:

Chapter One -- fun parable, then check out those headings -- minilessons, here we come!
Chapter Three -- interview with Louise Borden
Chapter Six -- NF read aloud
Chapter Eleven, page 94 -- what a final draft could look like

If you preorder this book by Wednesday of this week with the code NLDH, you'll get $10 off. What are you waiting for? I know you'll want your own copy to mark up and flag with stickies!

In honor of this book and our unit of study on nonfiction writing, tomorrow and Wednesday I'll have two more nonfiction posts.

Poetry Friday

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Dave Lawler

Please Don't

by Tony Hoagland

tell the flowers—they think
the sun loves them.
The grass is under the same
simple-minded impression

about the rain, the fog, the dew.
And when the wind blows,
it feels so good
they lose control of themselves

and swobtoggle wildly
around, bumping accidentally into their
slender neighbors.
Forgetful little lotus-eaters,

solar-powered
hydroholics, drawing nourishment up
through stems into their
thin green skin,

high on the expensive
chemistry of mitochondrial explosion,
believing that the dirt
loves them, the night, the stars—

(read the rest at The Poetry Foundation)

Oops. I think it's too late. Our first killing frost has told the flowers the cold hard truth of it all. (But don't you love how Tony Hoagland describes them: "solar-powered / hydroholics"?)

Jama has the roundup today at Jama's Alphabet Soup. Next week, Jone will have the roundup at Check it Out.

Graphic Novel is a Format, Not a Genre

Every Thursday in October, we'll be celebrating Graphic Novels here on our blog. We are teaming up with blogger friends at Kid Lit Frenzy and Assessment in Perspective, so you'll want to check out their blogs every week too! If you want to know more about our monthlong celebration, read our Nerdy Book Club post announcing it. We also hope you'll join our Google Community where the party will come together! We love Graphic Novels and we want to share that love with the world.

Last week while my students were taking a math test, I went from shelf to shelf around my classroom, gathering books for this post. That's right -- there's not a "Graphic Novels" shelf in one spot in my classroom. There are graphic novels shelved with autobiography and memoir, fables, mythology, and short stories. There are tubs for the graphic novel series (BabyMouse, Lunch Lady, etc.), but graphic novel fiction and fantasy are shelved by author's last name with the other fiction chapter books.

That's because graphic novels are a FORMAT and not a genre!

FABLES

Fable Comics

edited by Chris Duffy 

FAIRY TALES

Fairy Tale Comics

edited by Chris Duffy

MEMOIR

To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel

by Siena Cherson Siegel

SHORT STORIES AROUND A THEME

Explorer: The Mystery Boxes

edited by Kazu Kibuishi

MYTHOLOGY

Zeus: King of the Gods

by George O'Connor

HISTORICAL FICTION

Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: One Dead Spy

by Nathan Hale

HISTORY

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans

by Don Brown

This is a history book that is not for the faint of heart. In the graphics, towns are erased by crashing waves, people and pets drown and starve, crowds are locked out of the SuperDome, and aid is slow in coming. In the same way that the images force us to see the truth of what happened in New Orleans, the text is completely straightforward and honest. In fact, when you get to the end of the book and look at Don Brown's source notes, you will see that nearly every (maybe every?) line of text is referenced to a primary source. This is an amazing mentor text for accurate journalistic writing. Don Brown didn't get emotionally involved in the story he was telling; he was simply the conduit to tell the story, to remind us about what went wrong so that hopefully we can get it right the next time. (Heaven forbid there's a next time.) And he told it true as a tribute "To the resilient people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast" who have been working ever since 2005 to rebuild their cities and their lives.

With all the light-hearted, fun-to-read graphic novels that are available, you might think this is an odd choice for our give-away today, but this is an important book that will expand your notion of what a graphic novel can be and what graphic novels can do for readers.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

BLOG TOUR: One Word from Sophia by Jim Averbeck and Yasmeen Ismail

There are some books that I pick up and know right away that I need to own a copy. I know when I walk into the hall and share the book with colleagues, they too will want to own a copy. And I know that if I buy a copy and put it in my classroom, I may never see it again as the children will circulate it among themselves for months.

This is how it's been with One Word from Sophia by Jim Averbeck (@jimaverbeck) and Yasmeen Ismail (@yasmeenmay).   Sophia is a little girl who is getting ready for her birthday. She wants one thing for her birthday--a pet giraffe.  She wants one VERY badly and tries to convince everyone she can that she should have one.   She uses slide shows, maps, graphs and more to try to convince her family that she should have a giraffe.

There is so much to love about this book and so many possibilities for the classroom. First off, it is a fabulous read aloud.  We read this as a #classroombookaday just for fun. It is a great story with a great character and the language is so engaging! Not only is Sophia engaging in the way she tries o convince her family of her true desire but her parents responses have invite some great conversations around vocabulary too.  I plan to revisit this book during our persuasive writing unit later this year as Sophia has persuasive skills like no other picture book character I know!  And if you want even more ways that this book can invite quality conversations, you can read this SLJ article and see how Paul Hankins plans to use it with his high school students.

You'll definitely want to check out this book as your kids will love it (whether they are 5 or 15). It is one of those books that I think we'll revisit often and find some new amazing thing each time.

You can read and watch more about the video on Simon and Schuster's site.

And make sure to visit the other stops on the ONE WORD FROM SOPHIA blog tour!
10/19/2015 - Jen at Teach Mentor Texts

10/20/2015 - Jennifer at Reederama

10/21/2015 - Franki and Mary Lee at Two Reading Teachers

10/22/2015 - Kellee and Ricki at Unleashing Readers

10/23/2015 - Crystal at Reading Through Life

10/24/2015 - Alyson at Kid Lit Frenzy

Happy Reading!

Math Monday -- Growth Mindset Edition

STRING

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Psyberartist

YARN

Flickr Creative Commons photo by Emily L

ROPE

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Shelley Ginger

Our guidance counselor did a fabulous growth mindset lesson last week on how neural pathways are built in our brains. She talked about how new information is as tenuous as string or thread, but that with repetition and learning, pathways become as strong as yarn and as durable as rope.

On Friday, my math class did a pre-assessment on 5.NBT.2 -- understanding patterns of place value in numbers that are multiplied/divided by powers of ten, exponents, and metric measurement.

We're only two months into the school year, but my students understand that pre-assessments are to show what they know so that I can better meet them at their level. They have learned to approach them with a sense of curiosity -- a pre-assessment is a sneak peak at what they'll learn in the coming weeks. But these concepts on Friday were so far out of their realm of background knowledge that one student told me his neurons weren't string, they were spider webs! Not to be outdone, another student said, "Mine aren't even spider webs...they are CLOUDS!"

My response was, "That's okay, because in two weeks -- **finger snap** -- you'll understand all this!"

This will be a fun two weeks in math, and we'll keep a close watch on the way our learning grows as the strength of our understanding progresses from clouds to webs to string to yarn to rope.

Poetry Friday -- The Belly of the Whale

Wikimedia Commons

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
by Dan Albergotti

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.
Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way
for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review
each of your life’s ten million choices.

(read more here)

If "the belly of the whale" is the point of no turning back in a hero's journey, then that is definitely what October is like in the classroom. Except I think someone forgot the supernatural aid...unless those are the literacy and numeracy coaches!!

I like the attitude of the speaker in this poem. If you've got to be in the belly of the whale, then at least you should kick back and rest...maybe even get a little work done!

Amy has the Poetry Friday roundup today at The Poem Farm, and remember, Jone will have the roundup on the 30th, not me.

10 Graphic Novels Recommended by 3rd Graders

Every Thursday in October, we'll be celebrating Graphic Novels here on our blog. We are teaming up with blogger friends at Kid Lit Frenzy and Assessment in Perspective, so you'll want to check out their blogs every week too! If you want to know more about our monthlong celebration, read our Nerdy Book Club post announcing it. We also hope you'll join our Google Community where the party will come together! We love Graphic Novels and we want to share that love with the world.  And don't forget to visit Kid Lit Frenzy today for your chance to win a prize!

Graphic Novels are quite popular in our classroom. Last week, I talked to my kids about this post and this monthlong celebration and asked them which 10 Graphic Novels they'd recommend to other 3rd graders. This is the list they came up with. These are the books that are being read like crazy in our class right now.

Babymouse (all of them!)

Squish (all of them!)

Lunch Lady (all of them!)

Comics Squad

Smile

Sisters

Baby-Sitters Club Graphix 

 The Misadventures of Salem Hyde

Hilo

Mal and Chad

HOW TO SWALLOW A PIG-a new book by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

I love Steve Jenkins and Robin Page so I didn't really even have to open this new book (How to Swallow A Pig: Step By Step Advice from the Animal Kingdom) by this pair before I decided we needed it for our classroom.  I don't have one book by Jenkins that I don't find fascinating (and I think I have them all!).  He is not only brilliant in the way that he shares information so that kids understand it but his organization and design for each book is amazing to me. I remember reading his book Down, Down, Down: A Story to the Bottom of the Sea and being intrigued by how he got the idea to focus and organize a book by going further and further below sea level to see what was there.

I am just as intrigued with this book. It's actually a How-To book which I find rather amusing.  Each two-page spread teaches the reader how to do something that animals can do.  The introduction to the book is great. Jenkins says, "So, you want to learn how to swallow a pig. You've come to the right place. Follow these step-by-step instructions, and soon you'll acquire the dining skills of a large snake..."  He goes on to tell readers that there are other great skills to learn too.

Each 2 page spread focuses on a skill that readers can learn-For example, "Crack a Nut Like a Crow" and "Spin a Web Like a Spider" are two of my favorites.  Jenkins takes a step by step look at how these things are accomplished and breaks them down into a set of how-to directions.  Such a creative way to share this information.

I learned a great deal reading this book I think kids will enjoy the format (and as always, the art too!).  It is a book that can be read from cover to cover. But it is also one that can be used in pieces--each two-page spread stands alone so each can be studied and discussed separately too. A good one for nonfiction book talks I think!

Math Monday: A Great New Picture Book

I picked up a great new math picture book from Cover to Cover last week. It is called Charlie-Piechart and the Case of the Missing Pizza Slice. Charlie has some friends over and they are ordering pizza.  There are 6 pizza eaters so everyone will get 2 slices. But then one slice goes missing so they are not sure what to do!

This is a great book about fractions and the one thing I think it explains well is parts in a group--for example when Charlie is trying to solve the mystery of who stole the piece of pizza, he knows that every person is 1 out of 5 or 1/5 of his suspects but as people are cleared, the fraction changes to 1/4 and 1/3 etc. as he looks at each suspect.

This is a fun story that will start lots of good conversations about fractions.  I am finding with 3rd graders, stories like this read over and over help kids make sense of some of the more complex math concepts.  So I am happy to have this one for our classroom.

Poetry Friday -- Rereading Frost

Rereading Frost 

by Linda Pastan

Sometimes I think all the best poems
have been written already,
and no one has time to read them,
so why try to write more?

At other times though,
I remember how one flower
in a meadow already full of flowers
somehow adds to the general fireworks effect

as you get to the top of a hill
in Colorado, say, in high summer
and just look down at all that brimming color.

(read the rest of the poem here)

That first stanza...so true, right? But the best part of writing is working through the "Why bother?", keeping my eyes open and my pencil ready, and receiving amazing gifts from the universe and my imagination. Ah, writing!

Laura has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Writing the World for Kids, and -- make a note of this -- on October 30, the roundup will be at Jone's place, Check It Out, instead of here at A Year of Reading.