atychiphobia

It's Monday What are You Reading?

I decided to join Jen and Kellee from http://www.teachmentortexts.com/ on this Monday recap/review of what has been read in the week before.

This past week was busy for all of us I imagine.  I didn't read as much as I had planned, but I did manage to finish three novels for middle grade students. All three were gift books from students in my class.

I started the week with TroubleTwisters by Garth Nix and Sean Williams.  I was a little disappointed by this book.  Nix and Williams have created a fast paced fantansy that will appeal to many middle grade readers.  But the dialogue was too predictable and choppy in many places.  

My next read was Vaniushing Acts by Philip Margoilin and Ami Margolin Rome.  This is the first book in what I expect to be a series of middle grade mysteries starring Madison Kincaid.  I thought the book was a fun read.  I think most middle grade students would be able to connect with Madison.  I also like the fact that the mystery(ies) Madison helped to solve were a little more serious than a missing backpack or ipod, but not too intense for 10-12 year olds.

My last read of the week was Framed by Gordon Korman.  I loved this book, just like I loved the other books from this series.  Griffin and the gang are trying to solve another problem, but this time the problem is Griffin has been framed for a crime.  There were several times I laughed out loud.  I just can't believe it took me so long to read this book.  I guess that is what happens when the glass gets hooked on an author.  I think Framed was "checked out" since I put it into the classroom library back in September.  Which is why I am glad I got another copy as a gift last week.

This coming week my family and I are heading out of Central Ohio for a quick vacation, so I will be able to squeeze more reading time in than I usually get.  My backpack and Kindle are loaded up with some children's and adult books.  I hope to be able to read them all.

Later,

Tony

Stories from Room 226: Thinking about Theme

During the 10 to 12 days before our Holiday Break the students in my class worked on the idea of determing a theme in a text.  In my opinion this is hard work for an adult, let alone 9 and 10 year olds.  I think determining a theme is hard work because how we define themes in literature is broad and sometimes vague.  Depending on the resource you use theme can be anything from a "big message" to "a central idea" to a "lesson you learn."  I am ok with flexibility and vagueness in a definition of something, but are most kids that comfortable?  I also think things can get muddied a little because what a reader brings to the book can highly influence his or her thinking about themes to be taken from stories.

This year I launched our exploration of theme by trying to be very explicit about the idea that there are some really huge themes that seem to be in an enormous amount of books and movies.  I shared a theme (like "good vs. evil" or "the importance of family") and let the class think and talk and list stories they felt might be good examples of these themes.  We created an anchor "smartboard chart" to highlight some of the general themes and stories that showcase them.  By the end our chart had 12 big themes and example stories.

After this, over the course of a few days, I read aloud several picture books (Angel for Solomon Singer, Amazing Grace and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble) and the kids charted thinking in their reader's/writer's notebooks.  We would debate which theme or themes emerged, but it felt a little like a matching game.  "I think it is # 9 on the chart because ...."

It was during the last day of the read alouds with Sylvester that I saw "the magic" happen.  We all agreed that "the importance of family" was a theme definitely in the book.  But when one of my students asked, "I know it is not on our list of themes, but could something like "Be careful what you wish for" work as a theme in this story?"  I was elated.  I don't think there is any way as a teacher that I could share every single possible theme that is "out there" and this idea was not on our list.  So I responded something like, "I think it would definitely fit.  One of the things to remember about our list of themes is that it is just a general guideline.  It is just to get us thinking."

You could see the class collectively "get it" a little more.  I asked them to talk about the new theme that was shared and the buzz was quick and thoughtful.  I heard snippets great thinking as I bounced around our meeting area.  Some of the comments I heard were:

• There are tons of stories that deal with be careful what you wish for.
• Of course Sylvester has multiple themes, I bet most stories do too.
• Maybe this isn't a be careful what you wish for story because by the end, both Sylvester and his parents got what they wished for.

When we broke into partners that day to read and think about the collection of picture books I pulled for this study, you could see that it was much easier for them to dig in and determine themes because of the freedom to not choose from the list on our anchor chart.  It was energizing to see the kids debate with each other about themes present in their books and defend their thinking with examples (sounds a lot like what one thing 4th graders are supposed to do within the Common Core). I am not sure if I would have been able to lift road block of just using the achor chart themes without the help of the student who took the risk and proposed a theme we hadn't previously discussed.  I love it when a student leads the way in our room.

When we return from break the kids will be writing reviews of some of these picutre books.  One of the items on the rubric for this project is an exploration of theme.  I am thinking it will be a great deal easier for this group of students because of the fact we took the time to slow down, share our thinking and push oursleves to new places in our thinking.

Later,

Tony

Coming Soon

In an effort to become a little more routine about my writing in this space I am committing to a few new regular events as well as joining a group of friends for a weeklong event in January.

1) Inspired by Jen Vincent and Kellee Moye over at Teach Mentor Texts (who seem to have been inspired by Sheila at Book Journey) I will be posting a quick blurb about what I have been reading.  The goal here is not necessarily to review the books and articles, but it will help me track my own reading.  Hopefully it will also help me keep better track of what I am logging on my goodreads account.  I have found that when I finish a book and I am not near a computer, I forget to update my goodreads accout.  Who knows, maybe you might even choose to read something I listed.

2) Colby Sharp wrote a thoughtful piece on his blog about a month ago that caused me to reflect on my role as being "just a teacher."  The tickles in the back of my brain from his post along with some interesting conversations with my principal, a very smart colleague from my school and a mentor on mine have made me wonder why I have tried so hard to be "under the radar" and not regularly share what is going on in my class room.  The students who I work with are awesome, so starting tomorrow I will do a regular Friday post that highlights something one of my students accomplished that amazes me.  Not sure how this will work, but "Stories from Room 226" is not meant to be selfish or showboating, I want these stories to honor students who have shown their love of learning.

3) In January I will be writing alongside some people who I admire greatly.  Frank Sibberson got the ball rolling on making me think about the use of mentor text with students who are composing digital works.  I think she is onto to something really big.  If we are wanting our students to produce authentic work that can be shared on the web, then we probably be thinking deeply about models that will inspire quality work.  It will be exciting to learn from Bill Bass, Katie DiCesare, Troy Hicks, Kevin Hodgson and Franki.  It will also be a little nerve-wrecking to read their "stuff", then go back and read my "stuff" and think "Man, I should have said that!"

Hopefully, openly broadcasting that I will be writing more regularly will hold me accountable to develop a more consistent habit of actually ... writing.

Later,

Tony

Nerdilicious

 

My good friends Colby Sharp and Donalyn Miller started this thing called the Nerdy Book Club.  When you get there, the words, "A Community of Readers" is quietly posted near the top left corner of the page.  I love this idea, a community of readers.  As a middle aged guy living in Upper Suburbia, I don't have much of a community of readers except my family and the students I get to work with on a daily basis.  Not too many guys who read a ton in my neck of the woods (and if there are, I haven't found them).   

I do have lots of other "communities" that I enjoy a great deal:

• My neighborhood community of pleasantries
• My church community of grace
• My teaching community of promoting learning
• My Ohio State fan community of unrealistic expectations
• My soccer community of rightous indignation
• My bar community of microbrew snobbishness ...

But this "Community of Readers", especially those who willingly admit their book nerdiness, is incredibly refreshing to me.  In some ways it feels more like "home" than some of my other commnuties.  When reading is something you treasure, it becomes easy to befriend another who shares that view (even when you don't see her face to face very often).  

It will be interesting to see what happens in the future with this group.  So far the posts on this blog share great stories of why the author is living a life in which books are incredibly important.  My "nerdy" post will go online tomorrow, but before you read mine, be sure to read the posts of Kathy, Kellee, Mindi, Katherine, Jen and Donalyn.  All of these posts made me nod in appreciation of their life long journey with books.  In the coming days, I will be looking forward to see who else will make my day with a new take on the importance of having a "community of readers."

Later,

Tony

 

 

Current Wonderings

This is me most evenings lately.  Spending time reading and thinking about lots of stuff.  I am in the middle of a self-propelled wave of inquiry about how best to inspire the kids I work with everyday.

I work in a good school by most accounts.  We have great community support, a solid teaching staff and for the most part the kids are awesome.  These are all relative concepts, because what I think is good others might think is anywhere from fantastic to craptastic.

Working in an environment where people are happy and kids are doing fine on pretty much everything including standardized tests, you'd think that I wouldn't be spending 2 to 3 hours daily just reading (or sometimes watching video clips) and thinking.  However, I can't turn my brain off right now.  It's most likely a combination of great learning from twitter, several conferences I have been to lately and the fact I am just a little unsettled about the roll out of Common Core.

So here are some things I have been wondering lately.  

1) Can I be excited about the renewed emphasis on writing that the Common Core brings when I am also very concerned that emphasis of argumentative, informational and narrative writing is so high that poetry may become devalued?

Creative Writing beyond Narrative: The narrative category does not include all of the possible forms of creative writing, such as many types of poetry. The Standards leave the inclusion and evaluation of other such forms to teacher discretion.

-From Appendix A of English Language Arts Standards of Common Core, page 23

2) For years I have felt like I guided my students to deeper thinking, but will computerized Common Core assessments really allow for the kids to actual show deeper thinking, especially when typing can still be a struggle for our students?

3) How do we as teachers work to create environments where collaboration is valued, creativity is nourished and problem posing is in the forefront when we are increasingly being asked to raise test scores.  And unfortunatly I don't think that will slow down with Common Core.  

4) Speaking of creativity, Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk about schools killing creativity is kind of old news, but why aren't we taking his thinking seriously?  Can you remember the last time you had professional development about nurturing creativity? I can't, which is probably why I get lost on TED for hours.

5) I consider myself reasonably smart and more times than not I am prepared for what I need to do, but If my principal had a "staff meeting rubric" with this:

Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required material; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion"

 -From the Common Core Speaking and Listening Standards : Grade 4, page 24

I am not 100% sure I would pass.  And I am not 10 years old.

6) The group of students I have this year seem to have raised their personal bars for reading this year.  All 28 of them exceeded their goals for the first trimester in terms of books read and trying out different genres.  I should be immensely excited, but this has been tempered by a few questions like, "Is my daughter really challenging herself as a reader?"  Why wouldn't reading 17 novels written for children ages 8-12 in three different genres during a 12 week stretch not be challenging yourself?

7) Is the internet really changing my brain?  And if it is, should I be worried?

8) Will public education in America end before I am ready to leave the profession of teaching?  If you think that is crazy or outlandish, would you have believed 5 years ago that we would see an assualt on the teaching profession from powerful Democratic politicians and powerful business leaders at the same time?

9) Why do I keep adding feeds to my google reader when I can't even keep up with the over 300 I have in it currently? Especially when some of the feeds post multiple times daily.  I feel like I am probably Richard Byrne's worst subscriber.  Even though this is not his intention I often skip his posts because he make me feel like a slacker.  

10) Is is better to work for change within the system like I am trying to do now or do something truly amazing and move out of the system and create a school like Kelly Tenkely has done with Anastasis Academy or like Andy Smallman and Melinda Shaw did with Puget Sound Community School?

Any advice for me? I'd appreciate it.  Also I am curious about what you may be currently wondering.

Later,

Tony

 

Finding Fellow Travelers on the Path

It has taken me a while to post.  So to all three of my readers, sorry about that.

I went to the NCTE Anuual Convention for the very first time this fall.  I seriously have no excuse for not attending in the past.  I guess I thought that the roughly $1,000 I knew I would spend on conference fees, transportation, hotel, food, drinks and books was too much for me to afford.  After 3 days in Chicago I came to the conclusion that I can't afford not to spend the cash in the future.  Thank goodness my "tweeps" got me to seriously consider going.  Without them I would have missed a tremendous experience.

Thinking that  I am clearly an "odd" teacher has never felt better to me than it did at NCTE.  For nearly 20 years I have meandered along a path that felt like the outskirts of the world of teaching.  I am the guy who spends probably too much time and money on both books for kids and professional books.  The nearly constant process of looking for new thinking and stories has been fulfilling, but often times I have felt rather lonely on this path.  Yes, I have been fortunate enough to develop connections with some great people over the years, but in my school I feel out of place at times.  I love where I work, but it is hard to have a conversation with a colleague about a book they haven't read.  And it is really hard to have conversations with colleagues who say things like, "I know I should read more, but who has the time?"  These colleagues are great people and teachers, but it is hard to completely be myself with them.

The major take-away for me after attending NCTE is that there are literally hundreds of teachers like me.  In fact there are people that make me look like I never crack the spine of a book or think about new ways to inspire kids.  Meeting and learning from people who live in a world filled with the richness of reading and learning was both ridiculously rewarding and humbling.

Creating a list of all the people who welcomed and inspired me at NCTE would make this post about 3,000 words and it would become dreadfully boring, but I feel the need to say thank you to a few old and new friends that helped create the wonderful time that I had.  So thank you very much Franki, Katie, Cathy, Karen, Mandy, Donalyn, Jeff, Terry, Mindi, Katherine, Teresa, Brenda, Bill, Troy, Laura, Ann Marie, Jen, Cindi, Ellie and Colby (who rescued me with a place to stay).  

In different sessions, both Kathy Short and Sara Kajder spoke to the idea that NCTE was home or family to them.  If I hadn't gone, I am not sure I would have completely understood what they both meant.  Their vision of family is probably not the same as mine, but I do think I found a community of fellow travelers at NCTE.  And it sure beats the idea of walking down the path without some company.

Later,

Tony

image credit: m3cfa