Children's Day/Book Day/El día de los Niños/El día de los Libros

Celebrate Book Day with Pat Mora's

Book Fiesta!: Celebrate Children's Day/Book Day/Celebremos El día de los Niños/El día de los Libros!

The book depicts people celebrating the holiday.

 

MGP 2011: Tuck Everlasting Sample Genres

K.R.'s  MGP is a journal from Jesse's perspective.

M.P. created a found poem from ch. 12 in Tuck Everlasting.

MGP: Sample genres

N.T. created a scrapbook for her MGP. This is an acrostic poem.

 M.P. used a verse from the Bible to illustrate the seasons of life, an idea expressed in Tuck Everlasting .

MGP 2011: Tuck Everlasting

 S.R.'s cover for her MGP on Tuck Everlasting was filled with moss and water beads.

A.L.'s MGP was filled with poems, prayers, scrapbook pages, and her students' art work.

MGP: Esperanza Rising

MGP's on Esperanza Rising

S.J. put her genres in a basket lined in fabric filled with images of produce. She included recipes, a letter to Papa, and a job cover letter. 

A.S. put her genres (e.g., journal and a poem) in a decorated box.

Multi-genre Projects (MGP) Spring 2011

K.L. decided that all of her genres for Toning the Sweep would be placed in

a care package that Emily would send to David Twostar.

The envelope had actual CA addresses and stamps and it was filled with a postcard to Martha from Ola, a CD with an original song K.L. wrote and sang with her daughter, and a letter. And, yes, she put it all in a mailbox.

Multi-genre Projects (MGP) Spring 2011

 
 
 
 
 



P.S. decided that since Ola was dying in Toning the Sweep, she’d probably create a bucket list. She’d travel back to Alabama and plant a Joshua tree. P.S. included a poem, menu, trowel, map, and other genres.
 
 

Multi-genre Projects (MGP) Spring 2011

*L.C. used a family vessel to house items relevant to the family in Toning the Sweep: Newspaper article, letter, mother’s day cards, and more genres.

There’s a map in the container because Ola travels from Alabama to Littlerock, CA. Diane takes the carving her father created with her.

  

*When I use initials, I am trying to protect a person's identity for privacy purposes.

The Expressologist

“Get a little love with your latte,” boasts the cover of The Expressologist.


Wouldn’t that be interesting?

You go into your favorite coffee shop like the characters do, order a drink, and someone (in this case, the protagonist, seventeen-year-old Jane Turner) examines your order and tells you who is likely to be the man or woman of your dreams.

What a cute book idea!

It’s a lighthearted look at frappycaps, love, and friendship that will probably have you chuckling, or at least craving for caffeine. The recipes, interview with the author, Kristina Springer, and sneak peek at the first chapter of her book, My Fake Boyfriend is Better than Yours, which was published in 2010, were a bonus.



Disclosure: I asked the publisher for a copy of this book. You can see the book trailer on the author's site.

Golden Lines

"...[F]ind out what you do well as a writer and do it a lot; find out what gives you trouble as a writer and do your best to avoid it."

~~Bret Anthony Johnston qtd. in The Very Telling by Sarah Anne Johnson

You Can Do a Graphic Novel

Writing a graphic novel (GN) isn’t in my plans, but I was drawn to this book because I was curious about the process and how the process might be described to younger writers. The chapter devoted to plot is my favorite because it offers the clearest directions for plotting a story that I’ve come across in all of the writing how-tos I’ve read for young people. It describes how to layout language, including the use of balloons, and how the drawing indicates how the speech should be delivered. (e.g., If the balloon looks like a curvy cloud, the speech represents what the character is thinking.)

I didn’t know about splash pages until I read this book. A splash page is usually the first page in a GN, and it often includes the setting, narrative voice, and mood. You Can Do a Graphic Novel has a glossary, and the author shows the process of making a comic from layout and design to after it has gone to the penciler and inker. Finally, the author shares six student samples that will appeal to readers.

Looking for something new to introduce students to during *poetry month?

Try Poetry Speaks Who I Am.

As the title implies, the poems were selected to encourage the reader, in this case the young adult reader, to enjoy and puzzle over poems about the things that really matter during adolescence: identity development, kisses, dreams, boys, girls, friends… you get the point. Although I am a few years past adolescence, some of my favorites were in there, especially the Lucille Clifton poem I wrote about a few months ago. Here, you can find poems by YA authors, like Ron Koertge and Nikki Grimes, and traditionally studied poets like Poe, Angelou, and Harjo. In fact, it doesn’t seem like any poet was omitted; you get a taste of almost every poet you’ve ever heard of, and, of course, some that you haven’t.


The book is accompanied by a CD that includes forty-four poems, some of which are original recordings read by the poets. One year at NCTE, I went to Sonia Sanchez’s presentation and she talked about the haiku that is included in this collection so I was happy to hear it on the CD. My only wish for the CD is that each speaker would have introduced the poem by stating the title and author before reading it. I listened to the CD in my car and in my office, and both times I did not have the book with me so I could see exactly who wrote each poem and what it’s called.

The final pages of the book include blank pages that encourage readers to try to craft a few poems of their own.



*Of course I’m not suggesting that we should only share poetry during April. I like to read poems that are important to me whenever I need them, and I encourage students to do the same.

#blog4nwp --Blogging to support NWP

Teachers across the nation are blogging to support the National Writing Project (NWP) in a campaign called "Blog for NWP." The goal is to reach 1,000 blog posts to support NWP.


NWP supports teachers as learners, writers, and leaders. I am so glad I found this organization. I hope you will help us save this treasure.

For more information about #blog4nwp please visit the NWP site.

Guyku by Bob Raczka

The haikus in this book (organized by seasons) tickled me and reminded me of what it was like growing up: playing outside, riding bikes, enjoying nature. I gave the book to Z and he read it in 2 seconds. He said he liked it, too, for the same reason I like it.


One of his favorite haikus from the collection reads:

With baseball cards and
clothespins, we make our bikes sound
like motorcycles.

My favorite is the one when the boy says it must be winter because “Every time I open my/ mouth, a cloud comes out.”

The author, Bob Raczka, also wrote Lemonade.

Our Questions

1. What are some of the benefits of graphic novels?
2. What are the six traits?
3. Why should we integrate reading and writing?
4.  How should developmental levels influence writing instruction?
5.  What are some benefits of doing an I-search paper over a traditional research paper?
6. What are the parts of an I-search paper?
7.  What cognitive processes are involved in reading and writing?
8. What is shared, guided, and independent writing?
9. What is the difference between revising and editing?
10. What gives a book text appeal?
11. What are some strategies devoted to teaching revision?
12. Why are read alouds important to writers and students?
13.  What are the benefits of authors as mentors?
14. What types of literature can help with establishing a comfortable writing enviroment?

Z's Corner

Hey, what’s up? I recently read One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. It’s a pretty good book and I like the story. It’s about three girls who live in New York without their mother who moved away to California when they were younger. This particular summer they are going to visit her and they expect her to be so happy and joyful to see them. It’s actually quite the opposite.

Their mother’s name is Cecile, and she acts like she doesn’t want them and doesn’t allow the oldest sister named Delphine to cook dinner. Instead, they have to get take-out every night. During the summer the three sisters named Delphine, Fern, and Vonetta, attend a Black Panthers summer camp where they learn about Black Panther tactics and customs and begin to feel apart of them. At first they thought they (the Black Panthers) were crazy, much like they thought of their mother. Over the story they begin to get used to and like Oakland.

Their mother gets arrested for helping the Black Panthers print flyers in the kitchen which is part of why she won’t let the girls in for a while. She also prints her poetry she writes in there and doesn’t want to be disturbed during her work. Eventually she starts allowing Delphine come in and make dinner for her mother and sisters. By the end of their stay, Delphine has a heart to heart conversation with her mother in which they connect and talk for the first time which builds a strong bond between them. A bond so strong that when they were about to get on the airplane to go back to New York, they hugged their mother for the first time before getting on. They hated Oakland at first but by the end of the book, they want to go back again the next summer. All in all I liked this book and found it really hard to put down once I got into the bulk of the story, though the beginning is a little boring.
~~Z.J.

Golden Lines

“Those who tell the stories rule the world.”

I’m not sure who said the quote above. If you know, please tell me. I was watching “Literary Visions” and Sandra Cisneros was interviewed. It looked like she was working on a word processor (circa 1989) and just above the keyboard was the quote above.

C+C+WD+E =P

I found this formula for a poem in Teaching Writing in Middle and Secondary Schools and thought I'd try it: C+C+WD+E =P.

The authors say they got the formula from a book called Patterns.
C+C+WD+E =P means comparison plus comparison plus wild dream plus emotion equals a poem. I chose dreams as my topic, but I'm not sure why.

Here's my attempt when the whole class tried formula poems:

Dreams are stars shining brightly, but vast and out of reach.
Dreams are like rainbows of many colors, bright and promising
dreams of abundance and good health for all.
Dreams are an answered prayer.

My poem is filled with cliches, but I gave my best try. Since it's poetry month, I should get a pass for trying.

ForeWord Book Reviews

Finding reviews of books from independent publishers just got easier at ForeWord Review's site. If you click my name, for example, you can see all of the books I've reviewed.

Z's Corner

Hey everybody. So I meant to review this book Back of the Bus by Aaron Reynolds, but before I got a chance, my mom took it back to the library. I was really mad about how I didn’t get to look at the book to review it, but I’ll just give you all a basic background of what happened. So this young black boy is on the bus with his mother in the back seat and Rosa Parks, yes the Rosa Parks, comes onto the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and sits down in the front.  The boy is looking at Rosa the whole time and when more people come onto the bus he continues to watch her. The bus driver tries to make her move but she refuses just as she did in real life. The whole time the boy is watching in fear. As the police come, he asks his mother if they are in trouble, to which his mother replies, “Be quiet.” The police ask why Rosa won’t move and Rosa just sits firmly. Eventually they arrest her and take her away to jail like in real life. This whole incident is seen through the eyes of this boy who was scared but by the end of the book, his fear is kind of turning into courage to stand up for what is right like Ms. Rosa Parks did.
~~Z.J.

Ron’s Big Mission

Ron’s Big Mission is a fictionalized account of an incident that happened to astronaut Ronald E. McNair when he was nine years old.


What’s the difference between the authors’ fictionalized story and the one Ronald McNair’s brother Carl tells on StoryCorps?

What is Ron’s Big Mission saying about segregation and attitudes toward it? Why? Were blacks allowed in that library (Lake City Public Library) in South Carolina at all in 1959?

I remember hearing Carl McNair tell the story on NPR in January and rushing home to see if a book had been written about it and I found Ron’s Big Mission. I am itching to know if people pick up on what I noticed about the book. Just curious. I would love  to read your thoughts.

Z's Corner

Happy March madness!

What’s going on, everybody? I had to work on a project this weekend despite watching basketball. We read Whirligig by Paul Fleischman and we had to make one.

In the beginning I was really lazy and I didn’t want to do it at all. Some of the directions were a little hard, but I had guidance from my mom which made it easy.

Here are the directions; I think we came pretty close to the one on the site.

~~Z.J.

Why We Get Fat

I picked up this book after I read Taubes’s article in *Reader’s Digest about the same topic since my doctor mentioned it when I took Z in to see him a few weeks ago. Here’s what I am stuck on:


1. I can’t exercise my way to skinniness. Taubes calls it the “elusive benefits of exercise”.

2. Maybe I need to reduce some of the carbs that I am madly in love with.

3. No one can convince me that vegetables and fruits should be reduced and possibly replaced with meat.

4. Carbs are hidden and I need to look for them.

5. Heredity is a factor in how fat I get, but I can do something to fight it.

After I finished reading this book, I decided I have been eating too may carbs and I do want to limit them. I’ve been doing it for two weeks, but it has been hard because I love the mobility a sandwich allows.

Have I lost any weight?

I don’t know.

I’m afraid of scales.



*A condensed version of the article is available on the RD site, but I suggest reading the book so you don’t jump to erroneous conclusions and say good-bye to exercise and all carbs.