Jot It Down

 

We're gearing up to practice watching a video as a form of text (what, what PARCC tests coming!?!!) and wouldn't you know ATP found this catchy video, Jot It Down, to help students take more effective notes.  I dare you not to get it stuck in your head!

 

I promise I'll post her version as soon as I can talk her into rapping for our classes!

Any other good tips or resources for teaching note-taking?

New Used Books

Mom and I went to an amazing used book store's going out of business sale and struck it rich!  I'm talking 20 books for $23. 

Among those, there are a few I'm really excited about!

The first is This Land is Your Land.  The text is based on the song by Pete Seeger with love regional illustrations.  It will be a perfect fit before or after our regions studies to show the beautiful variety of America.

 Along those lines, I found two collections of "Americana" type text collections.  The first is From Sea to Shining Sea edited by Natasha Tabori Fried.  It is a collection of everything from recipes, to speeches, to poetry, to songs and letters, all about defining America.  

The other is called I Can Make a Difference: a Treasury to Inspire our Children, which I'm excited to use during our Civil Rights unit.  The selections in this book are grouped by topics such as "I can make a difference by being courageous," "I can make a difference by being grateful for the wonders of life," and "I can make a difference by being nonviolent and working for peace."

 

I found a few new narrative nonfiction books (a huge push in the CCSS).  Home Run by Robert Burleigh (about Babe Ruth) and A Band of Angels by Deborah Hopkinson (about the African American group the Jubilee Singers) were awesome finds for our NF unit.

Finally, I'm excited about Newbery Girls: Selections from Fifteen Newbery Award-winning Books Chosen Especially for Girls by Heather Dietz.  ATP and I try to really promote students reading across genres and publishing dates, with special attention to major award-winners.  I love the possibilities this book has for sharing my love of Newbery winners.  I can see future girls eating this one up.

*Note, I'm sorry that none of these titles are linked to Amazon... working from Mom's laptop today and it's not cooperating with me.  But I trust you can figure it out for your smart self :)

History Class Take-Aways

This week ATP and I, along with some other colleagues, took an American History class.  The class was very lecture-heavy with content much deeper than we would share with 5th graders.  But there were some take-aways I want to remember to incorporate into future teaching.

The focus of the course was on ecological and geographical connections to history.  (Fancy, eh?)

Day one focused on the demise of the buffalo (yup...5 hours).  The presenter's argument was that much more of it was already in motion before the white hunter/settler.

I particularly liked this infographic that was shared.  I think it's a great way to show students the deep impact that the decline of the buffalo had on the culture of the Plains indians.

 

On day two, we started with a presentation on ArcGIS software.  GIS stands for Geographic Information System. 

 

The software has been purchased by the state of Ohio for K-12 classrooms, but is still in the roll-out phase.  There are lots of potential uses for our newly geographic-focused curriculum, especially in allowing students to make inferences about different thematic maps and what they reveal about the city/region.  Check out some of the data available here and some examples of maps below.

 

 

 

 

The software is limited right now by the fact that students have to have a unique account linked by email.  Also, right now all the free accounts are public, so make sure to remind students not to mark their own homes.

 



Disclaimer: a LOT of this seems very complicated and to my untrained eye.  I would prefer to use Google Maps/Earth for most of the same type of lessons.  I'm sure if you really get into the ArcGIS software there is a lot more depth, but I'm not sure I'm totally ready to dive in.

 

One feature I am eager to try is the newly developed addition of Story Maps.  Basically, they are animated maps that cover an event, from the Moore tornado to the Battle of Gettysburg.  I want to remember to look into this more this school year.

 

Since then the take aways have been minimal, but we did take a walking tour of downtown Hamilton to learn about the Flood of 1913.  I'm not sure if there is enough history in our school district to actually do this, but as AC (awesome colleague) shared, it would be an interesting project to have students create more of a "virtual" walking tour of some sort.  AC's idea was to create a larger "walking tour" of a region.  This could also be incorporated locally with the impact of European exploration. Perhaps a walking tour of nearby English, Spanish, or French architecture? 

 

Overall, I'm thankful for the credit hours and the few nuggets of ideas, but mostly, it was a good week to catch up with colleagues before heading back into our classrooms.

 

 

 

 

 

Fiction/Nonfiction Smackdown

I am honored to introduce you to another Art of Teaching guest blogger, Rachel Niemer. I met Rachel through the Historical Perspectives online class I'm teaching this summer. Even over the world wide web, her voice and personality has jumped off the screen in her reflective posts. Rachel just finished her third year of teaching World Literature to 9th graders and 10th grade English at West Carrollton High School. She is a runner, yogi, and world traveller. Last summer, she and her boyfriend went all the way to Nicaragua. When she is not travelling the globe or training for a half marathon, Rachel spends time pondering the education issues that affect us most today, like the Common Core (okay, maybe we assigned her to do this!), but her argument about the way the CCSS has pitted nonfiction against fiction is seriously impressive and enjoyable. Hope it makes you think as much as it did for me.

 

The more articles I read about the Common Core, the more I see this as a battle between Fiction and Nonfiction. Why is that so? Can't teachers teach the same essential concepts through both types of literature? Yes, there are unique elements of both (which is why we should maybe strive to provide a more balanced, diverse text set in our classrooms). If we only focus upon teaching one type of writing (like the Common Core's attention to nonfiction), we lose so much, and our next state-implemented standards (probably in the next 10 years) will swing our attention back to fiction. The New York Times article What Shouls Children Read? called this a, fiction/nonfiction "smackdown." Why does it have to be this way?

When professor/author Dr. Tom Romano recently presented at Miami, he mentioned his frustrations with the CCSS disregarding narrative writing. This also saddens me, as good, creative writing is what I like to read most. I'd much rather read a story that has a beautifully constructed, vividly creative way of describing the accounts of their life rather than read a stark piece of writing any day. But, I definitely see value in nonfiction, business-like writing. Most of the job world out there isn't going to want something with meaningful metaphors and strong symbolism. Rather, they are going to want a specific account of a lab procedure, meeting minutes, travel log, etc. David Coleman, one of the authors of the CCSS summed this up by saying, “It is rare in a working environment,” he argued, “that someone says, ‘Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday but before that I need a compelling account of your childhood.’”

I think that both types of writing, fiction and nonfiction, need to coexist more in the classroom. When both are used, the texts we choose to read in our lives become more worthwhile to read. For example, I love reading (nonfiction) blogs. Though the stories told on these blogs are about the real lives of women, I'd be bored after one post if the blogger hadn't included beautiful imagery, creative word choice, charismatic writing voice, and cute plays-on-words (all of which we associate with "narrative/fiction/creative" writing).

Our students are going to enter a "grown up" world that will bombard them with multiple perspectives, diverse opinions, and diverse writing pieces. So, why not give them access to a mix of the two types of texts? (I think this is where the "historic fiction" pieces come into play!) In the Scholastic article Why and How I Teach with Historical Fiction, the author mentioned that historical fiction, "...introduces children to characters who have different points of view and offers examples of how people deal differently with problems. It also informs students about the interpretive nature of history, showing how authors and illustrators deal with an issue in different ways." THAT is what I want my students to learn in class!

Historical Fiction is kind of the peacemaker in this "smackdown" between fiction/nonfiction. If we use this style of fiction, it opens the doors for nonfiction to coexist (potentially in a cross-curricular fashion, if we could plan this with other departments)! Through the Common Core, there may seem to be a push to incorporate nonfiction into our curriculum. But, I think we can still find ways (like using historical fiction!) to teach our students to appreciate both types of writing!

Historical Perspectives, pt 1

This past Tuesday I met with the teachers in the online class I have been coteaching this summer for the Ohio Writing Project: Historical Perspectives.  We have been reading one of my favorite texts, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.  TGLAPPPS is set in post WWII England and consists of letters between characters in London and a book club in the English Channel.

It has some majorly endearing characters and is a charming historical fiction work.  It's lovely and compelling and has been perfect for our class. 

As part of our time together yesterday, SATP (Summer Awesome Teaching Partner, of course) shared a text set that we created as a companion to TGLAPPPS.

What is a text set you ask?  Well, here are three quotes from the experts that may help you shape your own definition.

● A collection of ... texts that have some connection to one another. "Text" can be defined as
a book, an article, a poem, a movie ... The connections are the reader's and are connected to
personal response.... Any classification that expresses a commonality of ideas or authorship or
time or curricular issue would be the basis of a text set [The Reading Teacher]
 
● Collections of resources from different genre, media, and levels of reading difficulty...to
support learners with a range of experiences and interests more than any single text. They are
particularly supportive of less-experienced readers [NCTE leader, Laura Robb]
 
● The idea is centered around the standards and the requirements of argument, perspective, and
multiple texts [Ohio Writing Project Asst. Director, Beth Rimer]

Basically, a text set is what lots of smart teachers have been doing for years to help students connect literature to all sorts of genres in order to think more deeply about a text/era/theme.

SATP shared our Guernsey text set.  It's yours to browse here if you're interested in seeing an example or you perhaps teach WWII. Among other materials, it includes an interview with one of the authors, Annie Barrow, and several primary source images.

We also wrapped up our book club discussion on TGLAPPS.  But that's not all!  I'll share next week about our Skype session with author Lynne Dorfman.

Top 100

Doing some research for my online class and stumbled on these two awesome resources I thought I'd share.  Check out the Top 100 Fiction Books Read and Top 100 Nonfiction Books Read by American students. 

What I love most is that they're sorted by text complexity/grade level.  Nice to have when planning new CCSS curriculum.  At least it's something to make this overwhelming task a little easier. 

Any of your favorites make the list?