The Hunger Games Book Club

I just finished reading The Hunger Games on Friday night. It's one of those books that I can't believe it too me so long to read since so many people have raved about it. One of the most recent people telling me that I just had to read the book was a classmate in my summer YA lit class. She was talking about how it has been a really great cross over novel appealing to teens and adults. When I realized that I needed to get a few more book club sets for my 8th graders, The Hunger Games was at the top of my list. Right now I am reading it with a group of five students - a mixture of boys and girls.

When we were dividing up the pages, one of the boys was complaining about the amount, but I told him that would not be a problem because he would not want to stop reading. Sure enough, the next day he had already read to where he needed to be in a few days.  Before our first book club meeting one of the girls asked if we could just finish the book, which gave me an idea. 

At our meeting I proposed that we just finish the book and roll right into Catching Fire, which is what the group decided to do. They do not have to finish until after Thanksgiving because we are going to be in a Spanish week, but I know that some have already finished it. When I read the last page Friday night, I decided to pull out yet another proposal. If they want to have Catching Fire for the break, we could have a lunch time book club to wrap up The Hunger Games and pass out the second book. 

The book is rich with discussion points, and I just downloaded the question guide off the Scholastic website, as they will be interesting questions to ponder. I love that it also includes background information from the author's point of view. The link at the top of the post on the title goes to my review of the book if you would like to see my thoughts on it. 

Lucky Day

Today at lunch I checked my university email and found out that my class was cancelled for the night. While I was looking forward to class, I was thrilled to save myself the two hours of commuting. It is also a chilly fall day, so I was able to come home to have the lentil soup I cooked in the crock pot over night.

Then, to make it even better, just as I was getting ready to sort through my data again, the doorbell rang. It was the UPS man with my copy of Day by Day! Now I am even more excited that I didn't have class so that I have a chance to start skimming the book.

Update (about ten minutes later): And now I just saw that Nancie Atwell has some new resources coming out! Fabulous...

Make Me a Story

Since technology integration into reading and writing workshop has been a main area of interest over the last couple of years, I was excited to see that Lisa Miller's Make Me a Story: Teaching Writing Through Digital Storytelling was a new Stenhouse title this fall. I was equally excited to see that Linda Rief wrote the foreword and that Miller is a professor at the University of New Hampshire. At the Boothbay Literacy Retreat this summer there were brochures available about UNH's summer writing institutes. Since then I have been more and more aware of just how many of my favorite writing leaders have connections to UNH, so I knew before I even started reading that it would probably be an excellent resource, closely aligned to my writing instruction philosophy. I was not disappointed.

In this practical guide aimed at K-5 teachers, Miller breaks down the nuts and bolts of digital storytelling, as well as highlighting the benefits. She focuses on Photo Story 3 (free for PCs) as an example program for classroom integration; however, she also briefly mentions other options. Always with a clear picture of quality writing instruction in mind, Miller walks her readers through the process of what to consider in planning and implementing lessons with digital storytelling with plenty of resources for images and music on-line. Toward the end of the book she includes a detailed step by step explanation with Photo Story screenshots, which I loved. Thus, it is a comprehensive book for those who truly are starting from scratch in order to implement digital storytelling. Yet, for those who are already familiar with Photo Story or other similar programs, the book still provides plenty of practical advice on important concepts to take into consideration when thinking about the role technology should play in literacy instruction and how to scaffold students with digital storytelling. In addition, the book comes with a CD-ROM with examples that are referenced at different points in the text.

I am thrilled to add this book to my literacy resources and to share with colleagues. Though I just learned about Photo Story toward the end of last year, I only used it once with my students. This book was a great reminder to think about where I can weave it in to my curriculum.

*Copy provided by the publisher

Vocabulary, Vocabulary, Vocabulary

I have not been able to do nearly as many blog posts as I would have liked to lately. More than ever I am constantly walking around with multiple potential posts in my head but can't seem to find enough time to get my thoughts down. I knew starting my doctoral program that blogging would be one of the areas that I would not be able to dedicate as much time to, and I have been missing it.

Last night when I was skimming my blog roll I came across this vocabulary post on the Catching Readers Before They Fall site. It really captures what has been a recent focus with our staff lately, so though I am not able to share all of my thoughts on it right now, if you read it, you can get a glimpse of one area that has been on my mind lately.

Waiting for Superman

Tomorrow I will be going to watch Waiting for Superman with my curriculum class. I am excited to see it because I had originally looked to see if it would be playing anywhere close, and it was not. I was glad to see that it was going to be playing after all. I would be curious to hear what others who have seen it think. I will post again after seeing it.

This is also the last week of the first quarter! I will probably be doing a post toward the end of the week/weekend reflecting on the year so far.

Learning from Personal Narratives

I am down to the last two weeks of the first quarter. Students submitted their Spanish and English personal narratives, and I have been able to give all students feedback on their Spanish narratives via email. I had them email their published copies as a Google Docs attachment. It was so convenient. That coupled with having a web based gradebook this year made the whole process so much more feasible.

Being able to sit and really look at their writing as a group has been beneficial in many ways. First, it is a great feeling to see how my 7th and 8th grade students continually grow, remembering back to where they were as 6th graders. With my 6th graders, I am constantly trying to remind myself to slow down and remember the natural evolving process of where they are now and where they will typically be at the end of the year, next year, and the year after... It is easy to forget how the process evolves at times - almost like watching my own children grow. Since I am with them all the time, the daily changes build continually but since I watch the different steps along the way I sometimes lose sight of the drastic changes they have made over time.

This is my first year having 6th-8th, and it is a great opportunity to really focus and reflect on this process and how to best scaffold student growth. On the flip side, seeing where the 6th graders are at right now reminds me more of how much there is to celebrate about my older students' growth. Certain students across grade levels remind me of each other, so not only do I love to think about their own personal growth, but it also helps me to be mindful of the different components that led to that growth.

Teaching is such a journey.

Vocabulary in Context Focus Lesson

I often feel like the focus lessons that have the most impact are those that weave in personal experiences. One of our focuses this quarter is on vocabulary in context, so I decided to have some post-it notes sticking to the inside front cover of Cruzando al Pacífico while I read it this week. Reading in Spanish gives me even more examples for understanding vocabulary in context since it is my second language. While marking down words that I thought about as I read, I noted the word and page number on my sticky note. Once I completed the book, I went back through and made some notes of different strategies that I used while reading to make meaning of the text. Some of my processes were obvious and that I had thought of frequently before, while others were slightly different and I felt like reflecting on my own process helped better highlight the complexities of what goes on in a reader's mind.

Here are the strategies that I shared with my students, each with examples from the text to link the concept to a text. I know that some ended up straying from the "context" and were other types of strategies to figure out unknown words, not necessarily limited to context.

• Think about what has been happening in the text. 
• Think about the connections you have with the topics discussed in the text.
• If you are unable to imagine exactly what the unknown word is, at least try to figure out which category of word it is, such as: person, food, location, game...
• Notice if an unknown word is mentioned more than once. Test out your developing theories of what the word means. See if your definition fits for the new contexts in which it arises. 
• Think about how the word or a part of the word is similar to other words you know to see if that can help you figure out the meaning. 

While sharing my processes with words I encountered in Cruzando el Pacífico, I emphasized that strategies work together in order to make meaning. After sharing the strategies and my examples, students recorded examples from their own reading during reading workshop and/or while reading at home. 

Being an avid reader and writer has had such an impact on my ability to enjoy teaching reading and writing. While there are many, many areas where I still want to improve, dedicating time outside of class to read and write for pleasure and pay attention to my own processes to convey to my students has helped me to better understand how to be a reading/writing teacher. I can't imagine just following along a teacher's guide and disregarding my own experiences.