HOLDING ONTO GOOD IDEAS IN A TIME OF BAD ONES- TOM NEWKIRK

A couple of weeks ago, I finished HOLDING ONTO GOOD IDEAS IN A TIME OF BAD ONES. It truly is one of the best professional books I've read in a long time, and I've been carrying it around since then, trying to put together a coherent post. Unfortunately, given that it's the beginning of the school year, not to mention the fact that we've just finished two weeks of two-a-days at football, I've finally decided the coherent thing is just not going to happen. But I loved this book, and really, really want people to read it, so we can talk about it, so I thought I'd just pull out a few of the quotes I loved, as teasers, and maybe those will make you want to read the book for yourself. So here goes:

"In my experience, excellent instruction rarely feels rushed. As a learner, you feel there is time to explore, there is the tolerance of silences, there is the deliberate buildup to an activity, there is the mental space to work in. This space is harder and harder to create" (11).

Newkirk argues that teachers must continually exercise what he calls "situated judgment." The teacher must have a repertoire of strategies but must "harmonize" these strategies in different ways, in different situations. The technical term for this kind of judgment is called kairos or timeliness, 'the ability to make judgment which is accurate in meeting occasions as they arise and rarely misses the expedient form of action" (25).

Newkirk believes that teachers' decision making process can be compared to that of doctors and nurses, who walk into a situation, and have to draw on a number of different sources of information (microtheories), such as knowledge of that specific child, knowledge of teaching and learning, knowledge of group dynamics, and knowledge of school culture, to make decisions. He says, "Each situation is, to a considerable degree, a unique experience that can't be anticipated by a preset procedure" (27). It makes sense to me!

"Readers comprehend for a reason. We discuss novels; use information in newspapers to form opinions, which we share; use our reading in our writing-- reading (or reading comprehension) is a means to a more public expressive act. We act on what we learn, and learning research shows that by acting on it, we retain it, something any writer can attest to. To view individual comprehension as an end is to confuse the part with the whole, it is to fail to see reading embedded in other language activity; it is to separate reading from its public uses" (61)

In a chapter on Expressive Writing, Newkirk talks about how young writers are expected to achieve "well-controlled" organization and "tightly controlled" language very early on. He compares young writers to young athletes, saying, "Promising young athletes, in my experience, rarely have their abilities in total control; they try moves or passes that are often beyond their current ability; they may expend too much energy on a play that has little chance of success; they are often not "smooth and natural- and this daring is actually a measure of their promise" (71)

ALSO KNOWN AS HARPER- Anna Haywood Leal

Last year, I used Barbara O'Connor's HOW TO STEAL A DOG as the first read aloud for one of my intervention groups. My fourth and fifth graders absolutely loved this book about Georgina, a girl whose family was living in their car. Desperate to help her mother make enough money to pay the deposit on an apartment, Georgina, a really good kid in a really hard situation steals a dog. My students loved this book and it came up in our discussions again and again. Several kids read other books by Barbara O'Connor. Sadly, three of the six kids in the group were homeless at one point or another throughout the year, and Georgina became a sort of compass, a beacon of hope in dark times.

I just finished ALSO KNOWN AS HARPER, and it's another book I want my students to have in their hands and in their hearts. Harper Lee Morgan's alcoholic father has abandoned his family, and her mother is working two jobs to keep a roof over her family's head. The financial burdens become too much, and Harper, her little brother Hem, and her mother end up living in a motel. Harper, a budding poet, is heartbroken, because for the second year in a row, she misses the school's poetry contest.

I loved this story. In these very difficult family times, I'm grateful to have yet one more book to place in kids' hands to somehow say, "You are not alone. Other kids have been here. They have gotten through this, and you will too." I love the community that Harper and her family find at the motel; Lorraine, a selective mute girl about Harper's age, who stopped talking after a horrible house fire, and Miss Dorothy, an elderly woman who wanders the edges of the motel, appearing to be homeless. I love the small kindnesses sprinkled throughout the book, e.g. the hotel maid who doesn't repair a broken lock, so that homeless people can take showers. I love Harper's poetry. And of course I love the fact that one of my all time favorite books, HOW TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, plays a prominent role in this book.

I'm pretty sure ALSO KNOWN AS HARPER will be the first book I read aloud this year.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG…

OK, so I'm interrupting my blog to do a bit of what can only be described as shameless commercial promotion for my two readers from Colorado. My boys (see above, aren't they handsome, even if they won't smile for pictures!!!!) started football at East last week, so besides being chief cook (anyone who knows me knows me very well knows that there is actually not much of that), bottle washer, and chauffeur (lots of that), I have also been thrust into the role of family fundraiser. The team is not selling gift wrap, or stale chocolate, or butterbraids that expand and take over your trunk if you forget about them (not that anyone would ever do that, but just in case…). Instead we are selling "Adrenaline Discount Cards." The cards cost $20 and have lots of 2 for 1 and discounts, e.g.

• Black Eyed Pea- buy two dinners, get a free appetizer or dessert
• Black Jack Pizza- buy one large pizza and cinnabread, get a large pizza free
• Carl's Junior- Buy one sandwich and drink, get another of the same sandwich for free
• Domino's- Buy one large two topping pizza, get a second medium one topping pizza for free
• Fat Burger- Buy one Big Fat Deal and get a free baby fat burger
• Joe's Crab Shack- free appetizer with a purchase of an entree
• Johnny Rocket- free burger with the purcase of a double burger and fries
• LePeep- Free entree with purchase of one entree and two beverages (not good on Sundays)
• Popeye's- free three piece combo with purchase of a three piece combo
• Subway- free six inch sub with purchase of six inch sub and large drink
• Sonic- Free Sonic burger with purchase of Sonic burger
• Texas Roadhouse- free baby blossom with purchase of two entrees
• KFC- 10 percent off
• Jiffy Lube- $5 off signature service
• Grease Monkey- $5 off full service oil change
• Best Buy- $2 off of any regular priced CD, DVD, video game or computer software
• Brunswick Zone $1.99 per game.

To the best of my understanding, these discounts can be used any time you go to these places any time between now and August 2010. The card also includes three one time offers- $5 off a $25 purchase at TGI Friday, six wings with the purchase or 12 at Buffalo Wild Wings, and a 2 for 1 adult lift ticket at Loveland. We have to sell 20 of these (ten for each son) by next Saturday, so if anyone is interested, drop me an email or call or leave a comment here. Otherwise, wave when you go by the corner of Colfax and Colorado because I may set up a little booth to sell them there.

OK, now back to the real stuff.

FAMILY REMINDERS- JULIE DANNEBERG

CALLING ALL COLORADO TEACHERS,
ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO TEACH COLORADO HISTORY.
HERE'S A BOOK YOU'LL WANT TO OWN!

Ten-year-old Mary McHugh lives with her father and mother in Cripple Creek, Colorado in the late 1800's. Mary is at school one day when a siren goes off, indicating that there has been an accident at the mine. After school, Mary discovers that her own father has been injured. He survives, but is no longer the happy, wood-carving, piano-playing daddy that Mary knew before the accident, and Mary and her mother must find a way to help him work out of his deep depression, and also help the family survive without its previous income.

FAMILY REMINDERS would be a terrific read aloud for anyone doing a unit on life in the mining towns. I can also see myself handing the book to some of our second, third, and fourth grade readers, think LITTLE HOUSE books, but a little easier. And I love Mary and her mom, plucky heroines who make lemonade when life hands them lemons. They're great models for today's tough economic times.

POETRY FRIDAY

Football

Louis Jenkins

I take the snap from the center, fake to the right, fade back...
I've got protection. I've got a receiver open downfield...
What the hell is this? This isn't a football, it's a shoe, a man's
brown leather oxford. A cousin to a football maybe, the same
skin, but not the same, a thing made for the earth, not the air.

Read the rest of the poem here.

POETRY FRIDAY is at Miss Rumpius Effect.

EXTRA CREDIT- ANDREW CLEMENTS

Abby is a sixth grade girl who lives on a farm in the heartland of Illinois. She likes a few things about school- the climbing wall in gym, the grilled cheese sandwiches, and hanging out with her friends. She does not, however, like much about the school part of school, so much so that midway through sixth grade, her counselor tells her she probably will not be able to go on to seventh grade with her class.

Abby makes a deal with her teachers. She will complete all homework for the rest of the year, get a B average on tests, and do a penpal project for extra credit project in social studies. Abby selects Afghanistan (because of the mountains) for her penpal project and begins writing to Sadad, a sixth grade boy in a mountain village on the other side of the world. Actually, she writes to Sadad's fourth grade sister, Amira, because cultural norms in Afghanistan prevent a young man from corresponding with a girl. Amira is not yet totally fluent in English, so Sadad's teacher asks him to help Amira with writing to Abby. Sadad helps Amira, but also adds his own "two cents worth" to the letters. Because of the male/female restrictions, Abby can't respond directly to Sadad's questions and comments, but figures out a way to weave her responses into her letters to Amira.

There's a lot to like about this book. Clements does a really clever job weaving geographical and historical information about Afghanistan throughout the book, and he does it without being preachy or teacher-ish, it's just there, as part of the story, and readers (me included) learn a lot about a very different part of the world (I could see pairing it with THREE CUPS OF TEA). I love how Abby and Sadad use letters to correspond- a great example of a real world use of writing. I love the friendship that evolves between Abby and Sadad. From a teacher standpoint, I could use this book to teach kids how readers think when an author alternates characters in different chapters. The book also lends itself to some great conversations about inferring.

I'm looking forward to sharing EXTRA CREDIT with DiAnthony, and other kids in the Andrew Clements' fan club, when we return to school on August 19th.

A FEW AUGUST THOUGHTS

It's August 1st, and I'm starting to think about school (OK, actually I don't think I ever stopped). I don't know why, but I always spend more time thinking about the kids who don't like reading than those who do. I imagine my classroom. I pick my first read aloud- it has to be terrific, the one my kids will still be talking about in May. I think about what books will stand up on the top of the bookshelves, inviting readers to visit. I peruse the sale flyers, sure these cool CU Buff beanbag chairs will invite a kid or two to read.

I think a lot about the conversations we will have those first few days and how they will shape us as reading community. This morning, I read Donalyn Miller's column, "Every Reader Tells a Story." In the article, Miller talks about how her mom banned bedtime reading after Donalyn burned her ear one night when she fell asleep reading with a flashlight. Miller believes that every reader has those "stories of origin." She will begin the school year by telling her stories, and inviting her students to share theirs.

I totally agree with Donalyn. All readers have stories. Communities begin with stories. It makes sense, then, to start the year by asking our readers to tell their reading stories. I'm not sure, yet, what story I will tell. I might talk about the day I remember actually learning to read- when I could read the words on the last page of HOP ON POP. Or I might talk about going to visit Mrs. Holly at the bookmobile each Monday afternoon. Or maybe I will tell the story of my family's hot summer road trips. I was ok with being crammed between my sisters on the hot vinyl seats in those pre-air conditioning days, because I knew when we got to Chicago, my grandmother, a Chicago librarian for many, many years, would have a pile of wonderful books waiting for me. And then there is the story of the day my mom took me to the doctor, sure I had a fatal disease, because I had created a bald spot on my head from twisting my hair like Ellen Tebbits did. Or I could tell about how I always hid a book in my lap and read when the action was a little too slow in school.

I'm imagining myself telling these stories, and inviting kids to tell their stories. I'm thinking however, that my story telling might begin a little differently. I've thought a lot about the role of picture and image this summer. I've been especially taken by the number of children's book illustrators using collage as their medium. I'm imagining, then, that I will begin my intervention groups with stories, but they will be stories told in collage. I'll start by telling one of my reading stories, creating a collage as I go along. I will show the kids other samples of collage, e.g. illustrators like Mo Willems' Knufflebunny books, and the work of David Diaz and Lauren Child. Then I will invite the children to select one of their reading stories and create collages, using a bunch of materials- construction paper, magazines, markers and crayons, and whatever else I think might grab them. Afterwards, we will tell these stories, then maybe write them, and display them for everyone. I'm trying to get brave and take the plunge with a class wiki this year, so maybe the reading stories will even be our first post on our wiki pages.

Lots to think about in August…