Focus, on blogging

An article from Elizabeth Bird from School Library Journal that discusses the purpose of children’s literature blogs got me thinking about focus in writing as it relates to one’s blog:

Yearly conferences take place, and each week children’s literary bloggers of all stripes contribute to Nonfiction Mondays, Poetry Fridays, blog carnivals, blog tours, interviews, reviews of new titles, and more.

It all begs the inevitable question: To what end? Sometimes I wonder if this is just a case of bloggers reading one another’s posts, commenting on one another’s blogs, contributing to an insular community that doesn’t have much impact on the outside world.

This resonated with me because I too find myself wondering, “To what end?”  I often witness the “echo” of one blog posting about another’s post - in all categories of my feeds, not just kidlit. I subscribe to quite a few home design blogs and you can see a topic or item pop like popcorn around the web - going “viral” it’s sometimes called. And while this is to be expected and totally fine, I sometimes wonder what the point is of my blogging about something I’ve seen on another person’s site. Why contribute to the hollow echo? That leads me back to the question of focus. What’s the point?

These are good questions to discuss with students to help them frame their own blogs, writings, or communications. If my blog is just “things I see on the web and want to remember”, then that is fine, but it will not have much focus. If my blog is “Filtering the web for reading and writing ideas for the intermediate classroom”, then what I read and whether or not I post about it will be a much easier decision. Focus. It helps make things clear.

Extending it further, is your contribution valuable if you don’t add some new learning to the topic? This speaks to those higher order thinking skills: application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. For a piece of writing to be worth posting (or sharing in the classroom, or submitting as an assignment…) shouldn’t it be more than just a regurgitation of information accumulated elsewhere? On the other hand, how exhausting! All that THINKING. hmmmm…

Hot Topics

The New York Times has been sparking great discussion in the past week with it’s article about The Future of Reading. Stanley Fish has caused similar debate with his articles What Should Colleges Teach and What Should Colleges Teach Part 2.

In his first article, Fish laments that colleges are no longer teaching composition courses that focus strictly on the craft of writing. He wishes to see more focus on crafting an argument and understanding grammar and syntax, rather than content-based writing courses that use interesting topics to get students to want to write. In his second article, he responds to the flurry of complaints he received in the first article’s comments.

The argument highlights the balancing act we face between getting students to be engaged with their writing and teaching them to be competent crafters of the English language. I understand the motivations of “writing courses” focused on controversial issues that will inspire and engage students to want to write. However, I also feel we are not doing enough to teach our students how to write effectively.

In many ways, isn’t this the same argument we have in every issue in education? Love of writing vs. mechanics? A love of literature vs. phonics? Concepts vs. math facts? And haven’t we learned yet that the most effective answer is “yes and yes” - you need to teach both?

It seems to me, a course that uses articles and essays written on interesting, engaging topics could also teach grammar and mechanics by using those essays as mentor texts. I believe this is what we try to do when we use mentor texts at the elementary level to teach sentence structure and style.

However I do feel that we as teachers need to be sure we are capable of teaching grammar and mechanics well. Much as I felt I learned how to multiply and divide all over again when I first began learning how to teach those concepts, when I look at why I change verb tense or use a comma, I find I don’t have a very strong grasp of the subject at all. Things just “look right” or “sound right”. Obviously, not good enough.

I think this article piqued my interest for two reasons. First - and here’s where I get to put on my snobby teacher hat -I am appalled at the poor spelling and grammar people use on Facebook! It’s unfathomable to me that one would not reread his or her comment and fix the wrong homophone or mispelled word! [pause while I scan upwards to make sure I haven't made an such aggregious errors in this post...]  Secondly, since I’m not taking classes this semester, I’ve been hoping to tackle the pile of “teacher books” I have waiting for me on my desk. I think this solved the question of which book I should read first: Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and Style into Writer’s Workshop. Hopefully I’ll learn a thing or two!

Video Podcasts

I just read “The Vod Couple” from T.H.E. Journal this month and it sparked so many ideas. Basically, these two chemistry teachers, over a couple of years, have gone from teaching a typical lecture/homework type course to having students watch the lecture in video podcast form the night before and then complete labs and activities during class. They use a “Mastery of Learning” model where students complete the activities and take/retake the assessment until they show they have mastered the material.

First of all, from a student’s perspective, I would SO PREFER this style of learning. I hate taking a course where you get to class and the professor just disseminates material or rehashes what you read for class. It assumes that you haven’t done your work, and makes you feel like you are wasting your time.

But how could this model be used at the elementary level? Obviously we can’t have 3rd graders watching a video of your science lesson the night before and showing up to do the worksheet. Not exactly hands-on! But what about as a communication tool with parents? And as a review for students who need it? I could see taping important math and science lessons and having them available on the class web site so when mom or dad is helping with homework, they can watch with their child how it was presented in class. This would help so much in areas - like math - where we teach basic concepts so differently than we did when our students’ parents were in school. I wonder what copyright issues would result in teaching a lesson from a published textbook online?

What about our anchor lessons in shared reading and shared writing? What better way to show parents what connecting/predicting/visualizing look and sound like in your classroom? Imagine having a homework sheet with a link at the bottom that says, “Watch Mrs. Markelz do this online at www….”

Lots of ideas. Lots of potential pitfalls. Hopefully some of them will be solved before I get back in the classroom!

Break in the Action

Things have been a little slow here with the arrival of this little one…

But I hope to be returning to blogging soon!

Teaching Theme and Main Idea

Getting caught up on the overflow in my Google Reader while I wait for this baby to arrive! Earlier this month, Stenhouse’s Quick Tip Tuesday focused on Finding the Main Idea in fiction texts. It showcases ideas from Amy Greene and Glennon Doyle Melton in their book Test Talk: Integrating Test Preparation into Reading Workshop.

I like the explicit way Glennon introduces the main idea to her students while reading Thank You, Mr. Falker (what a tear-jerker, by the way). And it immediately brought to mind another teacher’s way of teaching theme in her classroom.

New Additions

I’ve added a downloads section to the site to house some of the resources I have made throughout the years that help make my classroom run smoother, or teach important concepts/lessons. I find lots of great ideas online, so hopefully these will help someone else in return! Click on “Downloads” at the top of the page to see these resources.

Word Choice Booklist

Franki Sibberson shares some excellent resources in her article: New Mentor Texts for Word Choice BOOKLIST.

I think finding and keeping track of excellent mentor texts is one of the trickiest logisitics for teachers - there’s so many to keep track of!  I’m hoping this blog will help me not forget the great texts I come into contact when surfing online.

I’ll definitely be adding these to my list for word choice mentor texts!

Word Sort Images

Amy at teach mama posted this week today about word sorts and lists this great resource for making your own:

Sound Sorting Menu clipart

This is from the Rockingham County Public Schools in Virginia. A little digging through their site revealed pages of great links for teachers - with even more resources. Check them out!

Poetry Pickings

After hearing Jim Holt on NPR one day, discussing his essay “Got Poetry?” where he makes the case for memorizing poetry, I was inspired to sign up for Poem-A-Day at poets.org. I may not get around to memorizing many poems, but I thought it would be useful as a teacher of writing (and a literate adult) to get more poetry into my daily reading. Some days the poem comes and I don’t feel very engaged - the poet’s message and my mood just aren’t jiving at that moment. But sometimes the poem arrives in my inbox and it sparks all kinds of images and ideas. More after the jump:

Today’s poem was Ode on Dictionaries by Barbara Hamby. And while the poem itself is not appropriate for children, there are snippets that could be shared to show how a poet loves words - devours them.

I’m building
my own book as a mason makes a wall or a gelding
runs round the track—brick by brick, step by step, word by word,
jonquil by gerrymander, syllabub by greensward,
swordplay by snapdragon, a never-ending parade
with clowns and funambulists in my own mouth, homemade
treasure chest of tongue and teeth, the brain’s roustabout, rough
unfurler of tents and trapezes, off-the-cuff
unruly troublemaker in the high church museum
of the world.

I like the idea of students keeping track of words they adore - whether because of how they sound or what they mean - and building a poem “brick by brick, word by word” with their favorite words they’ve found over time.

The WHY

We’ve been conducting and participating professional development sessions as final projects for my reading specialist class. My classmates have put together excellent presentations on a broad span of topics. In our discussions about the content of our presentations and the reactions of participants, it struck me that the most effective professional development addresses what I can only label the WHY. I think the WHY is what is most often missing from the PD we participate in our schools and at conferences. To explain:
- In a word study presentation, many teachers had some experience with word study activities. But it was the developmental spelling stages that had the greatest impact. Having a deep understanding of these stages is essential to choosing the right activities to use with students.
- One classmate presented to her teammates about the relationships and differences between Lexile Scores, DRA levels, and the Fountas & Pinnell reading levels. She reported that, even though these teachers used these systems regularly, they never knew how the levels were determined. They were all so appreciative to know the WHY behind this tiered system.
- Yesterday’s session focused on kindergarten comprehension. I haven’t taught that young of an age for a long time, but this topic has new interest for me as my daughter gets closer to kindergarten. In discussing ways to teach comprehension at this young age, we were all challenged by the simplicity of the kindergarten texts. And I kept asking myself, “Why is sequencing important to a 4 year old? What does it teach her when she’s reading or hearing a story?”

I guess my point is that because we are overwhelmed by the monumental task of teaching all we have to teach, we can become too focused on the WHAT rather than the WHY. While in reality, if we really understand the WHY - the end goal, the focus of our pursuits - then finding/creating activities to address that focus will become much easier. I find myself hoarding teaching materials so often - “Oh that’s great! Let me get a copy of that!” But if I focus my pursuits on the WHY of what my students need at this point, I won’t have to hoard everything I come into contact. I’ll be able to make focused, clear decisions and choose activities more wisely.