Text Set: Research-Books that Invite Readers to Learn More

 Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

If we want our students to understand that research can be about so much more than Googling an answer to a single question we have, we have to help them recognize their own curiosities. We also want them to know that often, the more you learn about a topic, the more you want to learn. There are several books that give readers just enough information to want to know more. This week's list features books that invite readers to learn more.

Go Show the World introduces readers to several Indigenous people who have impacted our world.  This is a picture book format so each person is introduced with an illustration and several Ines of text. At the end of the book, the author shares a short biography about each person introduced.  Using this book as a springboard for discussion about which people you are interested in learning more about, now that you know a little bit, could be powerful.

Many readers have people they love to read about. For me, I love to read about Jane Goodall. I tend to buy almost any book that comes out about her.  Books like yesterday's and the updated version of Enough! introduce readers to people they may be interested in learning more about.  The people featured in this book are featured because they changed America by protesting in some way.  So, readers learn a bit about people (who they may want to learn more about) as well as the issues they stood up for (which they may want to learn more about.) in this book.

Picture books are a powerful and effective tools for introducing young readers to times in history that demand more study and understanding.  Unspeakable shares the horrific events of The Tulsa Massacre and readers may want to learn more about this time in history.   Readers will leave with an understanding of this tragedy along with questions that would require more learning.

This book, by the author of We Are Grateful introduces readers to several Native American Truths in We Are Still Here. Traci Sorrell teaches readers about times in history that is often left out of history classes.  This book covers so much and each truth is a big topic on its own. Readers will definitely want to dig deeper to understand and act.

Poetry naturally invites engagement and curiosity. These three poetry books (Bravo, Shaking Things Up and Voices of Justice) introduce us to people who have shaped our world.  The poems and illustrations are powerful and give us just enough to want to know more. These poems can be used independently or as part of the entire anthology.

Follow @TextSets on Instagram for next week's Text Set!

This week's books were linked at Cover to Cover Children's Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous children's bookstore to support, this is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio!

 

National Poetry Month: #haikudiary.9

 

singing in the dark

first one voice, then a chorus

early morning birds

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Hmm...looks like I wrote a version of this haiku last week! These two haiku reflect not just the glory of springtime, but also my despair about (and hope for) the direction our country is poised to go. Let's be the wrens! Let's be the chorus!

Happy First Full Week of National Poetry Month! I can't wait to get caught up on all you've created! Tabatha has the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Opposite of Indifference.

National Poetry Month: #haikudiary.8

 

one slice of peach left

in a wide indigo bowl

early morning sky

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

National Poetry Month: #haikudiary.7

 

nervous, excited

first day at school...in April

together at last

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

My Remote Learning Academy students have been troopers (most of them, for the most part, most of the time). They've been learning through a screen and working in isolation for more than a year now. This month, they've been granted a small reprieve. It comes in the form of state testing, which must be done in person. But even the price of a morning spent testing is not too high for the opportunity to be inside a school again, in the physical company of classmates. We get two days this week, two days next week, and two days at the end of the month. This is what will get us through to the end of May. For once, I'm glad for the chaos known as state testing. 

For those who are following my spring bloom haikus, here's what the Virginia bluebells look like just one day later. See why they are classified a "spring ephemeral?" Now they are blue. Now they are bells.

National Poetry Month: #haikudiary.6

 

Virginia bluebells

at first neither blue nor bells

spring ephemeral

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Sorry I sent you off to Google for sessile trillium yesterday!

(Here's one of ours...see the little one to the right?)

And here are my Virginia bluebells as of today.

They are getting the faintest blush of blue.

National Poetry Month: #haikudiary.5

 

sessile trillium

blooms at the base of our oak

formerly forest

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

National Poetry Month -- #haikudiary.4

 

impulse purchase

packets of zinnia seeds

still too early

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021

Text Set: The Power of Studying One Idea Across Multiple Texts

 Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!

Studying one idea across multiple texts is something we do so often as readers.  We can show our students the power of doing this when building understanding/learning something new. When we read across several texts about a single topic, we build knowledge, examine perspectives, build on first understanding, change thinking as we learn more, and ask more questions. When we think of standards, when we read across texts, we practice synthesizing, we are learning true research and we learn to support our thinking with evidence. This week's text set explores books to use to study the idea of protest marches across several pieces of short text.

Both of these books are fabulous for starting the learning about Marches. They both have basic information. Sometimes People March share many reasons for marching with good information at the end of the book. In We March, we better understand the experience of being part of a march though simple text and illustrations. Both will be good to set the stage for more learning about marches.

Marching for Change takes a close look at 3 different marches. These marches are 3 that students may know about and the book gives detailed information about each one.  There are photographs that will help readers connect to a visual. This book can be included in the research by reading about one march or all three. 

These two books take a close look at two different marches that may not be as well known to students.  Starting with the basics of marches and then getting to the specifics of different marches with these books will help children build understanding. Readers of All the Way to the Top may go on to read more about activist, Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins current work. These books provide two ways to learn more--learning more about a specific march (The Teachers March) and learning more about a single person's role as an activist. Both ways of learning about marches and protestors are important to bigger understandings. 
 

Together We March can provide weeks of mini lesson work. The book explores 25 different protest marches. The introduction is one that will add to the study of marches in this text set. Then readers can read more about marches they may know about and discover less known marches to build initial understandings.  Each short piece provides a great deal of new information that will help readers build on, grow, and change their thinking. 

Children's participation in marches will most likely be of interest to young readers and these two books that look at the children's march of 1963. Let the Children March looks at the whole of the march while The Youngest Marcher focuses on the youngest child who was arrested for protesting. These books focus on two stories about a single historical march and the important role of children. 

This week's books were linked at Cover to Cover Children's Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous independent children's bookstore to support, this is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio!

The 2021 Progressive Poem is Here!

 

This is the first time I've had a line so close to the beginning of the Progressive Poem, and the responsibility for setting the tone and direction of the poem is awe-inspiring. 

Kat Apel got us started the way Donna did last year -- each poet offering two lines from which the next poet can choose, then that poet offering two lines, and so on.

Linda Mitchell chose Kat's line

I’m a case of kindness – come and catch me if you can!

and offered me the choice of these two lines:

Easily contagious sharing smiles is my plan.

or

Don't fret about a fever, loss of smell, or taste

Let's think this through. If I go with the first choice, we've got a nice rhyming couplet out of the gate. Additionally, the seed-of-a-theme of kindness is carried on with the contagious smiles. And there's a plan offered up in that first choice. On the other hand, the second choice links the "case" in Kat's line firmly to COVID. And actually, that's a deal-killer for me. Enough with the COVID already!!

I'm going with 

I’m a case of kindness – come and catch me if you can!

Easily contagious – sharing smiles is my plan.

I checked with Linda, and she gave me permission to add the dash in her line.

Now, on to the choices I'll provide for Donna. If she wants to write another rhyming couplet, hopefully I've given her words she can work with. (Who am I kidding? Donna is the QUEEN of creative rhyming!) 

Maybe she'd like to pick up the voice of the speaker again? (Feel free to add a dash at the end of the line if you want...if you choose this one, Donna!)

I'll spread my joy both far and wide

Or maybe we need to elaborate on the plan to share smiles (and keep going with the middle-of-the-line dash). What are the things that give us joy?

Puppies, babies – what makes you giggle?

Have fun, Donna! Have fun everyone else! Just like every year, I can't wait to see what we create!

Here's where to find the poem throughout the month:

1 Kat Apel at katswhiskers

2 Linda Mitchell at A Word Edgewise

3 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

4 Donna Smith at Mainly Write

5 Irene Latham at Live your Poem

6 Jan Godown Annino at BookseedStudio

7 Rose Cappelli at Imagine the Possibilities

8 Denise Krebs at Dare to Care

9 Margaret Simon at Reflections on the Teche

10 Molly Hogan at Nix the Comfort Zone

11 Buffy Silverman

12 Janet Fagel at Reflections on the Teche

13 Jone Rush MacCulloch

14 Susan Bruck at Soul Blossom Living

15 Wendy Taleo at Tales in eLearning

16 Heidi Mordhorst at my juicy little universe

17 Tricia Stohr Hunt at The Miss Rumphius Effect

18 Linda Baie at Teacher Dance

19 Carol Varsalona at Beyond Literacy Link

20 Robyn Hood Black at Life on the Deckle Edge

21 Leigh Anne Eck at A Day in the Life

22 Ruth Hersey at There is No Such Thing as a God-forsaken Town

23 Janice Scully at Salt City Verse

24 Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference

25 Shari Daniels at Islands of my Soul

26 Tim Gels at Yet There is Method at https://timgels.com

27 Rebecca Newman

28 Catherine Flynn at Reading to the Core

29 Christie Wyman at Wondering and Wondering

30 Michelle Kogan at More Art 4 All

National Poetry Month: #haikudiary.3

 

razor blade north wind

winter is not quite over

wear wool once more

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2021