#SOL18: March 4
Idea borrowed from Mary Lee Hahn’s Poetry Friday – Chocolate Cake (here) (and I don’t even like chocolate cake!)
Abecedarian #TCRWP Saturday Reunion Love
Articulate,
bedazzled
community
descends.
Energized,
frantically
gobbling
high
intensity
just-in-time
knowledge;
learning
more.
No
one
paid.
Queries
redirected.
Solving
troubles,
uniting
vociferous,
waxing
xenials…
yearning
zealots!
Thank you, Betsy, Beth, Deb, Kathleen, Lanny, Melanie, and Stacey for this daily forum each March. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here. 
Note: I had visions of productivity after my NYC flights were cancelled, but all of Friday was misspent on pursuing unproductive, alternative options. Saturday meant following along on Twitter. So that leaves Sunday – newly found time. Maybe I can plan to read the book that was scheduled for flight time? Two books at least? One going and one coming home?
What is an abecedarian? Link
Poetry Dances Link
#DigiLitSunday: Digital Poetry
What is digital poetry?
As technology evolves so does digital poetry. The sky is the limit in poetry creation. Form, shape, music, movement, color . . . all of these add special dimensions to the written words of poetry.
The dance
The twist
The music
The tone
The lift
The chorus
The melody
The coda
All contribute to poetry!
Do you need further inspiration?
Check out this progressive poem and the new line added by Mary Lee Hahn –
poetry created digitally!
Resources to learn more about digital poetry:
Poem Farm – Amy Ludwig VanDerwater
Poetry
What thoughts run through your mind when you hear the word “poetry”?
Love Poetry?
Hate Poetry?
Like to read it?
Hate to write it?
Ambivalent?
Those thoughts are probably directly connected to your previous experiences. If you remember “being required” to write in iambic pentameter for example, you might not be on the “love” side. If you believed that free verse or the way poetry “looked” was as important as what it said like Anastasia Krupnik, poetry may not have been your favorite writing unit. (Creativity week excerpt from Lois Lowry’s Anastasia Krupnik here) Encountering a real-life Mrs. Westvessel may have harmed the poetry writer in you. But don’t despair! You can still read, write and enjoy poetry and yes, even change your attitude about poetry!
April is National Poetry month. I hope that poetry is embedded into your English Language Arts work every month of the year because poetry is included in CCSS.Reading Anchor 10. April might just be that month to “Celebrate” the joy of poetry and turn to poetry writing as another way for students to share specific work with language, rhyme and rhythm.
Amy Ludwig VanDerwater has a whole month of celebration going on that includes song at Poetry Farm here. Continue to scroll down the left hand side of her blog for the vast resources available including the Poetry Friday links.
Mary Lee Hahn at Poetrepository is another great source of poetry ideas for teachers and students. Her April Po-emotions series is quite fun!
Steve Peterson also is posting poems here at Inside the Dog.
One of my favorite posts from Reading At the Core is this one featuring Walt Whitman.
Who are some of your favorite poets?
What poetry anthologies do you recommend?
Are you celebrating Poetry Month?
#SOL14 Friends + Family = Framily
Tuesday is the day to share a “Slice of Life” with Two Writing Teachers. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here. Thanks to Stacey, Anna, Beth, Tara, Dana and Betsy for creating a place for us to work collaboratively.
During a weekend of exhilarating conversations and sessions at #NCTE14, someone mentioned the word “Framily” based on our personal and professional relationships.
So what does this really mean?
So what does this look like?
Friday
On Friday, it looked like this after our presentation . . .
and we also had to capture this sign that was posted saying our session was full!
The conversation continued and our “Framily” grew at Aloft . . .
Saturday
Saturday evening our “Slicer Dinner” also provided more conversation and a larger group of “Framily”.
And the fun continued out on the beach at National Harbor.
Do you know the story of this art work?
How many “Slicers” can you name in these pictures?
How did your “Framily” grow as a result of #NCTE14?
#NCTE14: Story as the Landscape of Knowing
All good things must end. But must they really?
What if we added another day to NCTE?
What if we wrote another chapter?
What was the story of NCTE14?
Everyone at NCTE14 was the author of their own story: where they came from, why they came, what they wanted to learn, and what they learned. Each person was able to write his/her own story to share (or not) upon return to classrooms, colleges, and family across the country.
What story will I share?
Members of NCTE are dedicated teachers who spent an entire weekend soaking up knowledge from their peers. They laughed (a la Lester Laminack), they cried (Marian Wright Edelman) and rejoiced as stories boldly claimed learning paths for the children of this great nation. Our students are our hope and our future. We must nurture them and encourage them ALL to grow.
What if?
A theme of inquiry filled the hearts and souls of participants. Everyone was seeking knowledge and affirmation and yet also questioning that we are on the path of learning – that right path for our students.
Our panel presentation
The Storytellers
What if?
Vicki Vinton asked what if teachers explored their curiosity?
I (Fran) asked what if Know and Wonder charts were used with text to explore understanding (and not text dependent interrogations)?
Julieanne asked what if students were asked how read alouds helped them in their independent reading?
Steve asked what if students search for theme and bigger ideas in informational texts?
Mary Lee asked what if students blogged to increase community?
(See Steve’s post here or Mary Lee Hahn’s for additional information about our session as well as Kim and Jan’s post here!)
Have you asked “What If?” lately?
How are you embracing your curiosity?
#NCTE14: First-timer Report
What a day!
What a day!
What a day!
I cannot even count the number of times that I heard, “Oh, Fran! I follow you on twitter!” Thanks, all, for helping me out! It’s truly a pleasure to “meet face to face” and sometimes I can manage to locate folks all by myself!
Obviously, I am not matching names and faces very well. Also not very quickly. I already tweeted out that I would be more successful (if you all enabled me) and posted your pictures daily so I could just match the clothes for the day with the pictures. Or a second option would be to have name tags with shorter strings so they would be in closer proximity to the faces of the wearer. Too often the name tags become hidden under layers of clothing.
What a fabulous first full day for the NCTE14 Conference!
The day started early with coffee and a fire alarm in the hotel (and yep, no teachers followed the directions and left the building) but it was ONLY a false alarm.
The sessions ended with our presentation at 4 pm. What a privilege to be on a panel chaired by Vicki Vinton with rock stars: Julieanne Harmatz (CA) and my two new friends Mary Lee Hahn and Steve Peterson (met them both face to face yesterday for the first time). Our session was full with 65 participants who laughed and cheered with us. What a fun time as we shared a variety of “What Ifs?” based on the “Know and Wonder” charts in What Readers Really Do by Vicki Vinton and Dorothy Barnhouse.
So for three of us it was a really big “first day” of many “first times”.
- First time to meet.
- First time to attend #NCTE14.
- First time to present at #NCTE14.
But yet our evening was reminiscent of earlier times. Remember this photo from summer #TCRWP Reading Institute? Six of seven were present again tonight!
Who was missing at this evening’s Loft gathering?
Ryan
Who were some of the new faces?
- Clare and Tammy
- Jan and Kim
- Mary Lee and husband AJ
- Steve
- Melanie
- Mary E
The community of friends continues to grow and our lives are enriched by the stories shared by each new addition. What validation of the need to continue to meet face to face to share our learning and our lives!
Schedule Recap
- 7 – 8 First Timer’s Breakfast
- 8-9:15 General Session Marian Wright Edelman – “OUTSTANDING” Panel: Rudine Sims Bishop, Christopher Myers, Matt de la Pena, Mitali Perkins, Ruchsana Khan
- 9:30 – 10:45 A.06 “Revising the Story: Reluctant Readers Overcoming Shame” with Justin Stygles, Kara DiBartolo, Melissa Guerrette, and Lynda Mullaly Hunt and Lisel Shurtliff who both overcame predicted obstacles on their path as they became published authors. Shaming reluctant readers could result in students being bodily present but mentally absent.
- 11 – 12:15 B.16 “The Nerdy Book Club: Shaping Reading Identity through Community, Story and Choice” Great titles and recognition of authors and teachers!
- 12:30 – 1:45 C.13 “What the Common Core Forgot: Community, Collaboration, and Social Justice” with Harvey Daniels, Sara Ahmed, Nancy Steineke, and Steven Zemelman
- 2:30 – 3:45 D.05 “Developing Strong Literacy Practices in Content-Area Instruction to Support Reading and Writing Development and Deep Content Knowledge” with Amanda Hartman, Celena Larkey, Emily Butler Smith, and Anna Gratz Cockerille
- and of course our session from 4 – 5:15 under #teacherswonder E.09 It’s Not Just for the Kids: Stories of Waht Can Happen When Teachers Embrace Curiosity, Openness, Creativity, and Wonder in the Teaching of Reading.
The equivalence of seven sessions. No wonder I am exhausted!
Did you attend any of these sessions?
Where did you have “new learning”?
SOL14: Collaboration
Tuesday is the day to share a “Slice of Life” with Two Writing Teachers. Check out the writers, readers and teachers here. Thanks to Stacey, Anna, Beth, Tara, Dana and Betsey for creating a place for us to work collaboratively.
Collaboratively
What does it mean to work collaboratively?
Dictionary.com defines collaboratively as:
adjective 1. characterized or accomplished by collaboration:collaborative methods; a collaborative report.
noun 2. a product resulting from collaboration:This dictionary is a collaboration of many minds.
How do you work collaboratively?
Do you use Google Docs? Google Hang Out? Zoom? Skype (some form of video conferencing) Telephone conferencing? Email back and forth? Texting? How does it work for you?
Do you focus more on the process or the product?
How do your students work collaboratively?
What devices do they use? How do they use them? Does their “quality of work” improve with collaboration? Does extra “talk” up front encourage deeper responses? Does rehearsal with a partner in a collaborative environment promote higher levels of engagement?
Is their focus more on the process or the product?
Planning for NCTE14
It was truly a pleasure to join a Google Hang Out on Sunday with fellow NCTE14 collaborators: Julieanne Harmatz, Steve Peterson, Mary Lee Hahn, and Vicki Vinton. Our conversations interwove both process and product as we shared our thinking about student work and what we wanted to share. The combination of visually seeing each other and talking through our ideas was exhilarating as we added to each other’s conversations and made connections across multiple texts.
No surprise to those that know me; I have a plan that I will begin later this week with some professional development. I hope to bring in a snapshot view of how the reading/understanding/thinking goes with both teachers and students. Because I am not in a classroom on a daily basis, I’ve been thinking about a progression of events for a bit and found what I believe to be the perfect material to use. And as always, the plan will be flexible so that learning is the priority so maybe process and product will take a back seat for awhile.
When do you collaborate? When do you literally have to share your thoughts with others? How often do you work collaboratively? What are your personal benefits from working collaboratively?
Resource - Full 