Poetry Friday -- National Dog Day

August 26 is National Dog Day. To honor the day, J. Patrick Lewis kindly sent this poem. And wasn't it serendipitous that just recently we met Brutus Winston Buckeye in Selby Park as we set out walking to the Worthington Farmer's Market?

How Big?

You were a kid, 

             I was your pup,

I got bigger

             As you grew up.

When you were four,

             I was just two.

I was already 

             As tall as you.

Now you are twelve,

             And I am ten.

I'm still as big 

             As you are, Ben. 

You are my owner,  

             But I am in charge.

You are my captain, 

             I am your barge.

You are a prince,

             But I am the king.

I am the boss

             Of everything. 

You’re the conductor,

             I am the train.

You’re a great kid, 

            And I’m a Great Dane!

J. Patrick Lewis, ©2011

Here's to our canine friends: to the slobber, the barks, the whines, the drifts of hair in the hallway...and to the the tails thumping the floor, the adoring looks, the readiness for play, the leaning on our leg.

Don't let today, National Dog Day, go by without patting a dog on the head, or rubbing a dog on the belly, or scratching a dog behind the ears. It'll lower your heart rate and it'll make the dog's day!

Irene has the Poetry Friday Round Up today at Live. Love. Explore!

New Books in Favorite Series

Binky Under Pressure
by Ashley Spires
Kids Can Press, 2011
Review copy provided by the publisher

Maybe you have to have a fat cat who is set in his routines and ways, and who is totally committed to the art of napping, for the character of Binky to be hilariously funny. For the rest of you, he is just really funny.

Binky's pretty sure he lives in a space station. His adventures in the first two books have revolved around protecting the space station from aliens (bugs), and have been complicated by his love for his humans and for his stuffed mouse, Ted.

In this newest book in the series, his humans have the nerve to bring another cat into the space station...er, house. Except Gracie, the foster cat, turns out to be Binky's boss! She's a Captain, and she's there to give him a performance test and evaluation. Binky's under pressure.

The Busy Beaver
by Nicholas Oldland
Kids Can Press, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

This is Nicholas Oldland's third picture book featuring the beaver, moose and bear. These stories are a fun way to expand students' understanding of fables beyond the familiar Aesop's.

The book starts, "There once was a beaver who was so busy that he didn't always think things through." Beaver works up a huge mess and is felled by a tree he is busily felling. Beaver reflects on what he's done and mends his ways (and his friendships and the forest.)

Ninja Cowboy Bear Presents: The Call of the Cowboy
by David Bruins and Hilary Leung
Kids Can Press, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

In their first book, Ninja, Cowboy and Bear learned that they each have different strengths, so none of them can be "the best." In the second book, they realized that they each like to play in different ways. And in this third book in the series, Cowboy has to learn that his noisy rambunctiousness has a time and a place...but not when bear is birdwatching, or when Ninja is reading.

*   *   *

All three of these are going into the "New Favorite Series" tub in my classroom for the first day of school today!

Names

Names are on my mind at this time of the year. Or I should say, names are IN my mind at this time of the year, because, until the first day of school on Thursday, that's all most of my students are to me -- a list of names. Names to put on name tags, on charts, on die cut birthday cakes. Many of my students have names that are tricky for a native English-speaker -- names with lots of consonants or with the accent on an unusual (for me) syllable, and all have names that come packed with family and cultural history.

I have a collection of picture books that I use at the beginning of every year to talk about names:

My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits

The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi

My Name is Bilal by Asma Mobin-Uddin

My Name is Sangoel by Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed

This year, I have a new book to add to my list of favorites:

My Name is Elizabeth!
by Annika Dunklee
illustrated by Matthew Forsythe
KidsCan Press, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

Elizabeth loves her name, but she doesn't like it when people call her names other than Elizabeth. Lizzy, Liz,  Beth, Betsy...none of them will do. She asserts herself in a LOUD double page spread, and the people in her world get her message and call her Elizabeth. (Or as close to that as the baby can get!)

I can totally relate to Elizabeth. I've always been Mary Lee, never Mary. And I, too, have learned to advocate for the name that encompasses my identity.

Because of my own sensitivity about my name, I work extra hard to get my students' names just right. I look forward to Elizabeth helping with that conversation this year!

The New York Times agrees that this will make a great back to school book.

Betsy (Elizabeth) Bird reviewed the book on Fuse 8.

2 New KLUTZ Movie-Making Books

A few years ago, I discovered the KLUTZ TRICKY VIDEOS book. (Blog Review here) I shared it with kids in the midst of some work with critical literacy--helping kids to see that what they saw in movies, commercials, etc. weren't always quite as they appeared.

So, I was thrilled to find two new KLUTZ video-creation books to share with kids this fall. MAKE YOUR OWN MUSIC VIDEO by Kaitlyn Nichols and THE KLUTZ BOOK OF ANIMATION by John Cassidy and Nicholas Berger.  Both look like they are filled with great tips for creating good videos.


Over the last few years in the library, I feel like our K-5 kids have really learned a lot about the tools of technology and what they could do. They have expanded the ways they use technology--rather than just being tools for game playing and recreation, they are now using the tools for learning and creation.  One of my big goals next year is to really think about raising the quality of the types of things students are creating and producing. I think they needed some time to play and see what was possible and we are ready to move ahead to really thinking about how to craft quality pieces.

I took some time with the Animation book today. This one is quite similar to the Tricky Video book but focuses almost completely on Stop Motion animation. The book has nearly 20 things to try with stop motion with directions and props when needed (pull out pages in the back of the book). For each set of directions, readers can go online to see the video in action. Videos include Claymation (Runaway Clay) as well as other stop motion (PAPER DOLL DISCO and NO-HANDED EATING).  The book also provides tips on sound effects and other tips for your first stop motion video.

The MUSIC VIDEO book is a bit different in that each page focuses on one tip for creating good music videos.  A few examples are "10 Steps to Amazing Air Guitar" and "Special Effects on an Allowance". The book also includes a portable green screen, downloadable backgrounds and free editing software (which I have not checked out.)

My goal with books like this is to open up the possibilities for students. I believe that for students to view and consume critically, understanding how things are created is critical.  The key this year will be to move beyond this quickly and to use the tips in these to create videos with messages or stories with depth.  I think the kids are ready to learn about sound effects, etc. and to then embed those skills into videos that they create in order to give a message, review a book, tell a story, etc.

I'm looking forward to sharing these with students in a few weeks

Mentor Author, Mentor Texts by Ralph Fletcher

I was excited to finally get a copy of Ralph Fletcher's newest book for teachers, MENTOR AUTHOR, MENTOR TEXTS.  I always love whatever Ralph writes so I was looking forward to this one.  This book is a collection of short texts, written by Ralph, with his insider's thinking on each piece.
I love Ralph's introduction to this book. It is called "Contagious Magic" and Ralph shares his thinking on the idea of mentor texts in our teaching.  The thing I love about Ralph's work is that it keeps me grounded.  He is a writer and also understands teaching and learning and he is always about keeping school writing experiences authentic for children. So, in this book, he is clear about his idea of mentor texts. He is clear about what worries him about how texts are being used in schools.  (At one point, he questions the word "anchor" texts because anchors weigh us down and this writing should lift us up.)  He talks about how often, we, as teachers, use mentor texts to point the things out that we want kids to notice. But he challenges us to let our students own the idea of mentor texts. He says, "let's invite students to connect with whatever aspect of the text they find compelling or intriguing." He adds, "let's honor whatever they notice, and use that as the building blocks of our teaching."  Ralph approaches mentor texts as invitations for student writers, putting them in charge of what they notice and what they are ready for.  He speaks against the idea of "doing mentor texts" and assigning tasks for students to "do" with certain texts and that studying mentor texts is not about having the right answer or noticing what the teacher wants you to notice.

Ralph continues the book with an introduction of himself to students. A great intro to his collection of writing, letting kids in on Ralph as a person, a writer and a teacher. He shares lots of the same things with students that he did in the intro-his belief about mentor texts and his invitation to them to notice things.

Then he gives us a collection of his own writing--writing from some of the books we love-Fig Pudding, Harvest Moon, Ordinary Things and others.  And with each piece of writing, he gives us a short narrative--an informal chat about what his thinking was behind the piece.  He doesn't include a detail of every decision he made, but just shares his thinking about the things he thinks are important about the piece or important decisions he made in the process of writing. And he gives readers an invitation to notice something or try something.

Included in this book are some web-based PDFs that can be used on a whiteboard, etc to share with kids. There is also audio of Ralph reading several of his pieces. You can access both of these with a password provided in the book.

I love the whole idea of this book. The idea of a mentor text as invitation. The idea that it is more important to value the things that our students notice in good writing, than to force our noticings on them. The idea that we want our students to find their own mentor texts and find things they are ready for as writers.  And I love that students can get the inside scoop on some of Ralph's writing. The idea of mentor texts as more of a process than a science is refreshing. And you can always count on Ralph to be refreshing and to help us really think about our work with students.  Ralph is a great author to mentor us as teachers and to mentor our student writers.

LOVE THIS ONE!

(To hear Ralph talk about his thinking on mentor texts, you can listen to my podcast interview with him at Choice Literacy.)

Poetry Friday -- Found Poem

Flickr Creative Commons licensed photo by Thokrates

FIT TO BE CALLED READING
by Robert Louis Stevenson


In anything fit to be called
by the name of reading,
the process itself
should be
absorbing
and
voluptuous;

we should gloat over a book,
be rapt
clean out of ourselves
and rise from the perusal,
our mind
filled
with the busiest,
kaleidoscopic dance of images,
incapable of sleep
or of continuous thought.

The words,
if the book be eloquent,
should run thenceforth in our ears like the noise of
breakers,

and the story,
if it be a story,
repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures
to the eye.

from Memories and Portraits, but found in The Pocket R. L. S. : Being Favourite Passages From the Works of Stevenson, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922



Thank you, AJ, for sharing this passage-turned-poem (by me) in your little leather-bound 1922 collection of R. L. S. quotes and passages.

Here are a couple of links from some recent discussions about the love of reading:
Alan Jacobs in The Journal of Higher Education
and a response from
Donalyn Miller at Education Week.

Where do you stand on the love of reading?



Today, the Poetry Friday Round Up is at Dori Reads.

Exclusive Excerpt of Breadcrumbs, by Anne Ursu

Breadcrumbs
by Anne Ursu
illustrated by Erin McGuire
on shelves September 27

Here's a snippet, a "crumb," as it were, of one of our favorite fall books. You won't want to miss this one!

"She stepped outside, and then stopped and stared. The small garden was just a slip of earth on the side of the house, but it seemed like its own universe. The sweet, sharp scent of hundreds of flowers greeted her. Even in the night their colors sang. It was a thick, lush blanket of color—luxurious purple and electric blue and sunshine yellow and cheery red. It was like a movie version of an enchanted garden, gorgeous, vivid, and too beautiful to be real. She could dive into the purple of the violets and live there.

She felt suddenly that she wanted for nothing in the world. The flowers called to her, like they had secrets to tell—Rose, come on. Hazel found herself lying down on the cushioned white bench that sat among them, and their fragrance reached up to welcome her.

Sleep pulled her back immediately, wrapping her in the sort of haze that presses down on you and you’re not sure it will ever let you go but you’re not sure that you ever want to leave. It was so peaceful there in the fog. She wanted for nothing.

And then the flowers began to whisper to her. The noise did not belong. It pulled at her brain like longing, and Hazel wanted it to go away.

They did not stop whispering. The flowers had secrets. They had names, too, though the couple in the cottage called them Daisy, Lily, Hyacinth, Violet, Dahlia, Jasmine, Poppy, and they did not remember the ones they had before. They told Hazel that she must listen.

Daisy grew up in a house with a stream in back, and behind it were some woods. She and her friends Isabelle and Amelia played in them all the time when they were little kids, even though they weren’t supposed to. Daisy’s mother liked to keep her eye on them, and the trees blocked herview. And then Daisy got sick and could not play anymore. Her friends stood by her bed telling her of the things they did, but after a while they stopped coming. Daisy snuck out of the house one morning, dragging her muscles and bones with her, and crept into the woods. She came upon a wizard who lured her in with healing whispers but did not mean her well. She ran, and a kindly couple took her in.

She was a flower now. She missed her friends and the games they’d play in the woods. They were princesses once, charged with saving the kingdom from a dragon, and whoever could defeat it would be queen. Daisy used strength, Amelia wits, and Isabelle fell in love with the dragon, because that’s the sort of girl she was. She rid the kingdom of the dragon, and then made it its king."

Souvenirs From Belgium

I brought you chocolates from Belgium!

Oops! I ate them all before we left Europe!

Oh, well, push back from your computer so you don't drool on the keyboard, and enjoy vicariously:

(Click on the mosaic and/or on each image to enlarge. You can also visit these pictures on Flickr.)

THE ONE AND ONLY STUEY LEWIS by Jane Schoenberg

I am so excited to have discovered THE ONE AND ONLY STUEY LEWIS by Jane Schoenberg. It looks like this is going to be a new series that will be perfect for transitional readers!

Stuey Lewis is a 2nd grader. He has an older brother named Anthony, a best friend named Will, and a wonderful teacher named Ginger/Ms. Curtis.  Each of the 4 chapters in this book is a story about Stuey, and he is a pretty funny guy. In the first chapter, Stuey starts 2nd grade and is very worried that he is not yet a great reader.  In the second chapter, Stuey, plans his annual Halloween Caper, which even his big brother, Anthony, is in on (it is a surprise:-). In the third chapter, Stuey starts to play on a soccer team. And, in the fourth chapter, the school year ends.

The four chapters follow the sequence of the school year but each also stands alone. I love this for transitional readers.  Such a great comprehension support when each chapter stands alone. There are also a few key characters throughout the book that readers will come to know more and more with each chapter.  I LOVED this book and think it is a great addition to the books out there for this age level. I can't wait for more stories about Stuey Lewis to come out. (The author's website indicates that the next Stuey Lewis book is due out this spring and will focus on Stuey Lewis's third grade year:-) I am hoping that this author writes lots of books about Stuey's adventures in 2nd and 3rd grades. He is a great new character!

17th European Conference on Reading, Mons Belgium

I've attended conferences. I've presented at conferences. (I've even helped to plan conferences.) So at the same time that there was nothing new about attending and presenting at the 17th European Conference on Reading in Mons, Belgium, it was like no conference I've ever been involved with!

I met teachers (mostly professors) from Germany, Iceland, Scotland, Russia, Finland, Taiwan...Pennsylvania, and Kansas.

The opening session was given in French, with simultaneous translation (earphones) in English. I felt like I was at the United Nations!

I attended some sessions based on interest (great session on teaching inference to deepen reading comprehension given by 3 presenters from...Kent State University in Ohio!), and I attended other sessions to compare and contrast information (for example, sessions dealing with using children's books given by presenters from Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan; sessions on digital literacy given by presenters from the US and from Canada, Brazil, and Australia).

The session I attended that best captures the flavor of the conference was one I chose based on interest in the topic, but which was a complete stretch in terms of the language/cultural divide: "The pedagogy of reading: a cross-curricular and multicultural approach" chaired by Tatiana Galaktionova of Russia, and presented by Liliya Mishkina, Svetlana Savvina, and Irina Kozlova of Russia. At the beginning of the session, they asked how many English speakers were in the audience, and as there were a handful of us, they presented in both Russian and English.

The first part of the session was about using a "Reader's Portfolio" as the content for Computer Studies lessons -- teaching about word processing by having students complete a reading passport and reading biography; learning about spreadsheets and graphing while keeping track of books read; creating pages for reading response and reading logs. The next part of the session described an approach that used children's literature as a way to encourage students to engage more deeply in reading. Finally, the third presenter told about a cross-curricular study that was based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales.

At the end of the session, the presenters called for questions. Here's a move I'll try the next time I present -- when there were no questions, they were prepared with questions for the audience! The first presenter asked what else we would suggest be included in a digital reader's portfolio. I suggested an audio or video clip to capture the reader's fluency at several different times in the school year. Well, I guess that having an English-speaker who not only understood their presentation, but was willing to interact with pertinent ideas made some kind of impression -- when the next two presenters asked their questions, they addressed them directly to me! What are some examples of children's literature used in the classrooms in the US? Quick -- explain a classroom filled with 500-1000 children's books and a literature-based reading workshop in a soundbite that translates to Russian!! I fared better on the last question. When asked about cross-curricular studies in the US, I explained that content standards and testing have made those kind of interdisciplinary studies hard/impossible in many places in the US (mumbles of agreement sounded from around the room).

After the session, I stepped across the aisle to ask a Russian participant a question about the role of choice in Russian reading classes. (From the presentations, choice seemed to be limited to choice from a list, or no choice at all.) She understood my question, but didn't have enough English vocabulary to answer it, so while she went off to get a translator to help, I chatted with two teachers from Finland about choice, reading workshop model, and standards.

Big take-away from this session and from the conference: Teachers around the world are more alike than they are different. Also, even if we don't realize it, we are involved in a global conversation about

• diversity -- how do we teach TO differences as resources
• literacy -- critical, multilingual
• literature -- comprehension, for social understanding, for cultural understanding
• teaching in a Digital Age -- digital literacy balanced with text-based literacy, teaching our students (as much as possible) using the digital tools with which they are familiar/comfortable

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) definition of literacy