Raising Readers and Writers

Today, J. Patrick Lewis visited our writing camp to share his experiences. I couldn’t help but think about how lucky our young writers were to get to listen to him in such an intimate setting.  Most impressive is that he treated our campers with the respect given to real writers. It was as if he was speaking to them as writer to writer.  He sure got me thinking about myself both as a writer and a writing teacher.  I ended up taking 4 pages of notes.  Here are just a few of my thoughts on what he said:
In order to be a writer, you need to be a reader.   Check.  I wholeheartedly believe that to be true.   

You have to love words.  The library is the hospital to the mind.  I love this analogy…the library being the hospital to the mind.  I believe that it is my job to immerse my students in words; to help them become curious about, oberservers of, and playful with language.  My goal is to take time to gather these gems in my own notebook. I don’t know how many times I tell myself that I need to remember the certain way an author says something and it’s gone the next day.  Or the times when I’m at a loss for words  and I wish my vocabulary was a little broader.

Make the dictionary and thesaurus your best friend.  What better way to learn more words?  And no, I don’t mean copying definitions out of the dictionary.  When was the last time you did that in your real life?  We need to teach our students in an authentic manner how to use, when to use, and why to use these references.  There are also  many options available on the web that give the same information as the dictionary and a thesaurus.  I think it’s important that we introduce our students to the myriad of possibilities.

Show, don’t tell.  Capture the moment in words, not pictures.  I have a filing cabinet of ideas on ways to teach this to my students.   I have example after example of “showing, not telling” in  other authors’  published work; however, I’m not very good at it in my own writing.  So, one of my goals this summer will be to work on painting a picture with my words when I am writing for myself.

Write every day.  Just like those in sports practice every day, so should writers.  Jane Yolen calls it the BIC method (Butt in Chair).  Pat writes from 6:00 a.m. until 4 or 5:00 in the afternoon every day.  There is a dichotomy between what I teach and what I practice (and yes, I  just used dictionary.com to make sure I used the word dichotomy correctly).  My students write every day because Writing  Workshop time is sacred in my room.  I know that in order for them to become better writers, they need time to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from other writers.  I do not afford myself the same opportunities.  Life starts speeding by and before I know it, a chunk of time has gone by and I have not put pen to paper.  This summer gives me the chance to slow down a bit and focus on my writing.  I am going to make it a priority to have some BIC time each and every day.

These are just a sampling of my notes…I will continue with more of Pat’s thinking tomorrow.  You can learn more about Pat here.

Everyone should have a Dr. Bloome in their professional lives. Dave is the director of the Columbus Area Writing Project and he meets with our teacher writing group every month. I tag team with Dave for the meetings. I do the writing prompt and read around and Dave helps us move our thinking forward by talking about writing instruction. Tonight’s meeting was another one that took us a bit out of our comfort zones, but will only improve our teaching.

Dave challenged us to take a risk in our teaching. He explained that risk taking is at the heart of learning. Not all learning is safe and predictable, but we don’t grow unless we take risks. So, our assignment is to take a risk in our teaching of writing. We answered the following questions as we planned: What is the “risk” you are proposing to take? Why is this a risk? What do you hope to learn or accomplish by taking this “risk?” What do you need and need to do to prepare yourself to take this risk?

The people at my table shared their plans: A kindergarten ELL teacher wants to give her students more control over their writing. She’d like them to be able to make a decision about their writing and name the craft or mentor text they are using. Our literacy coach wants to be more present as a writer when she is doing instruction and share her own writing. A K-5 resource room teacher wants her students to be able to try some new genres and document their writing journeys. Her frustration lies in trying to meet everyone’s needs across all the grade levels. I want to work alongside my students to become more independent in publishing their work digitally. I just received The Digital Workshop, so that may give me some ideas. I’d also like to try Voice Threads…so we’ll see. I have a month to try something out.

Dave asked us to try the risk, see how it goes, and write about what we’ve learned. The important part is not whether or not the “risk” is successful, but what we learn from it.

On a side note, when we met with the technology teacher today to plan future projects, she told me that several teachers talked about “taking risks.” Should be interesting.

My first graders are so excited about our new genre study.  We’ve been reading lots of nonfiction and they have so many questions.  After reading Flip the Flaps:  Animal Homes on Tuesday, I gave the kids time to ask their own questions.  Each child was given several index cards to write their wonderings.  Their questions covered so many topics like:  How high can a dragonfly fly?  How did God make people?  Why does a rainbow come out when it rains?  How does electricity work?  One of my emerging writers drew a picture  of a dragonfly to help him remember his question.  A is just beginning to string letters together that represent the sounds in words.  He copied 2 wonder words from the chart (how and why) and the word dragonfly (another student had asked for that word to be put on the chart) and then turned the card over and drew a rudimentary bug to represent a dragonfly.  When he shared, I told the class how smart he was to draw a picture to help him remember what he was wondering.  As soon as I said that, several others started to draw pictures to support their questions.  It is very important to me that each student in my room feels his work is honored, from the very beginning writers to those whose work is more conventially written.  Each student made an “I Wonder” envelope in which to keep his or her questions.  I got this idea from Debbie Miller’s Reading with Meaning (she used Wonder Boxes).  The students will continue to add to their envelopes and we will use these questions to guide their research.

Our next step was to begin to organize the wide variety of informational books we have in our room.  Early the next day before the students came in, I strategically grouped informational books together for students to categorize.  Each pile had a few books in several categories.  My mini-lesson focused on looking through a pile of books and deciding what the book was mainly about.  The students are familiar with the labeled book baskets in our classroom library, so it was easy to make the connection by thinking about what kind of label we might put on different piles.  The students worked in small groups of 2 or 3 to sort their pile of books.  The conversations were amazing.  C looked at the book The  Wild Side of Pet Cats.  First he thought it would be about pet cats, but as he looked through the photographs, he decided that it wasn’t really about pets.  It was more about cats that live in the wild.  Conversations like this were happening all around the room!  After the kids had time to sort their books, we gathered again in the meeting area to create our baskets.  Again, there was a lot of thoughful conversation in the group.  I am always amazed at what six year olds can do when you give them the opportunity!

Our final step was to make labels for each of the baskets.  We decided that our labels should have the words as well as a pictures for each category.  I am going in early tomorrow morning to attach the labels so that we can put the baskets in our classroom library. 

What a week it’s been.  My kids have loved exploring all of the new books.  I always begin a new genre study by just reading lots of books.  One of the first books I read was Flip the Flaps:  Animal Homes by Judy Allen and  Simon Mendez.  I chose this book for several reasons.  First, the detailed illustrations draw the reader right into the book and the text is engaging for young learners.  My emerging readers are sure to find information in the pictures if they read the book independently.  Secondly, each habitat (pond, stone, tree, etc.) is a short chapter that includes a flap to be lifted.  Don’t all kids like “lift the flap” books?  The authors list 3 questions on each flap, which can be lifted to reveal the answers.  This book led to more questions from my students.  It was the perfect segue into the students writing their own “I wonder…” questions (an idea I got from Debbie Miller’s Reading with Meaning).  More about that later.  I know that I will go back to this book again and again.  Not only is there is a lot of information to be learned,  it is also a great model for writing informational books.

I am a huge fan of Steve Jenkins’ books.  I have quite a few in my classroom and was happy to add some more and other books that reminded me of his style.  He always takes an interesting look at his subject that keeps kids captivated, instead of the traditional take on animals (habitat, appearance, diet, etc.).  I love that my students can look at his books and envision a wide variety of possibilities for their own writing.

Living Color tells the reader how animals use color to protect themselves, call to other animals, attract mates, or warn predators.  The vibrant illustrations are textured cut paper collage.  The animals virtually pop out of the page.  Each double page spread focuses on one color and what it means for different animals.  Text also flows around the illustrations, another technique that students can do in their own writing.  For instance, “Red says…This is my space. The male hooded seal marks its territory – and tries to impress female seals – by inflating a sac of loose skin that hangs from its left nostril, blowing it up like a big red balloon.”  Who knew that could be attractive?  The book is filled with interesting facts about some very uncommon animals and insects.  The end of the book tells more about the role of color in an animal’s life and as is typical in Steve Jenkins’ books, the last pages give a bit more information about each of the featured animals (size, habitat, diet).  I know the kids will love this book as much as the other Steve Jenkins’ books.  I have enough now that I’ll be making a Steve Jenkins basket.  I will use this book as a mentor text to discuss all the possibilities for presenting information in an interesting way.

This next book, Hello, Hello by Miriam Schlein, looks at the different ways animals greet eachother.  Eight of her books have been honored as Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children.  Again, I chose this book because it gives lots of information about animals in an unusal way.  We learn that “Elephants are very, very, very, very, friendly.  They touch trunk tips or they put the tips of their trunks in one another mouths.”  Zebras take a different approach as they stretch out their necks and sniff eath other’s noses.  Then they make little chewing noises.  The books ends with the ways humans say hello.    I can see kids using this book as a jumping off point to research other ways animals greet each other.  The illustrations, oils on textured paper, are bright and give the reader a glimpse into each animal’s habitat.  Students will learn that much information can be gleaned from illustrations and that they will need to think about what kind of information they want to portray in their own final illustrations.

I have the books packed up ready to take into school tomorrow.  I’ll be sure to post about how the kids react to all of the new books.  I’m sure to hook everyone with something!

Today was a great day!  I went to Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore to purchase more non-fiction books for our non-fiction genre study.  Melissa, the doctoral student who will be doing research in my room, received a grant that enabled me to buy books for my classroom.  Can you think of a better way to spend a Saturday?  It was way better than fighting the crowd at the grocery store, which is what I usually do on Saturday.

As I drove to the bookstore, I was thinking about the kinds of books I wanted to buy.  My wish list fell into several categories.  First and foremost, I wanted a wide variety of books that would be interesting to my students.  That meant books about cars, construction machines, sports, creepy crawly insects, how to make things, space, etc.  I also wanted books with beautiful photography, detailed illustrations, and ones that used a variety of non-fiction conventions (labeling, diagrams, bold print, index, table of contents, captions…).  Added to that I wanted books that had rich language that would support my students’ writing.  Next, I looked for books that we could use in our content studies.  I chose books at a variety of reading levels.  Some of them my students will be able to read by themselves, and some will be read alouds.  My emerging readers and writers will be able to glean information from the illustrations and photographs when they are not able to read the text.  Finally, I wanted books that gave information about a topic in interesting ways.  Steve Jenkins’ books always fit the bill for that category and I was able to find other great examples. 

I can’t wait to share these books with the kids on Monday.  I bought more book baskets for my room so we can sort through them and decide how we want to categorize the books.  We already have many nonfiction baskets, so the task won’t be too daunting.  Here are a few of the books I bought.  I’ll share more later along with why I chose the books.  I’ll also be sharing our genre study, especially how the kids grow as writers and researchers through the process.  I think life has settled down enough that I will have time to keep up with my blog!

One World, One Day by Barbara Kerley is a beautiful book recently published by National Geographic.  It depicts a day in the life of children all over the world from waking up and eating breakfast, to going to school, to doing chores and playing after school, to eating dinner, to settling in for the evening and finally going to bed.  The photographs’ rich details give the reader an insider’s look into life in different cultures.  The last pages contain the author’s notes and thumbnails that give more details about each of the pictures (specifically where the photograph was taken and more information about what is happening in the picture).  Some even show the photographer’s notes.  This book shows the reader that even though we live in different parts of the world, we all have many things in common.  The author writes at the end of the book, “…the more we can embrace our commonality, the more tolerant we can be of our differences.”  I knew I had to have this book for our “Children Around the World” basket.  My kids will be able to relate to the every day happenings in the photographs.  This book also shows one way to organize text…making a comparison.   I can also show them how they can add more information at the end of their writing  just like Barbara Kerley. 

Mystery Vine: A Pumpkin Surprise by Cathryn Fallwell is actually a fictional story about a family planting  a garden and waiting to see what grows from the mystery vine.  (If I had written the story, it would have been non-fiction because I was certain that the pumpkin plants that I put in the garden this spring had died.  Imagine my surprise  when I found pumpkins growing in August!  I probably wouldn’t be so surprised if I marked my plants and actually kept up with the weeding.)  Anyway, I digress.  Sally Oddi, the owner of Cover to Cover shared this book last week at a book talk she gave for the Columbus Area Writing Project.  (One Day, One World was also featured).  What drew me to the book was not only the story that is very engaging, but the fact pages in the back of the book.  The author gives recipes for roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin apple bread (you know how I love to bake…can’t wait to make it with the kids) in the “Pumpkin Recipes” section.  In the “Gardening Fun” section, she tells how to grow grass hair in an empty egg shell and how to start bean seeds in a glass jar so you can watch the seed sprout.  She also gives directions on how to plant seeds from the fruits and vegetables you get from the grocery store and how to start a sweet potato vine.  The final page tells how to make a book vine where the kids  write the title of each book they read on a cut out leaf and create a vine around the room.  I will be able to use this book to show kids how to write “how to” pieces. 

There are so many more books to share!  However, I have an article waiting to be read before I meet with Melissa next week.  I’ll post more tomorrow about my great finds.

We had our first writing celebration on Friday afternoon.  The kids were so excited…they have been working on their writing for only 22 days of school and they truly view themselves as authors.  That makes me VERY happy!!  We started out by charting everything we had learned about being a writer.  They mentioned, “Writers write about what is important to them. (Yes, that means we have choices in what we write about.)  Writers get ideas from things that happen to them and from other people.  Writers can write about what they are feeling.  Writers go back and reread what they write to make sure it makes sense (first steps in revision).  Writers put spaces between their words (very important in first grade).  Writers spell word wall words correctly (the first steps in editing).”  I was pleased that they could verbalize all of the hard work and thinking that we had been doing in writing workshop.

I then told them that I was going to hang the chart out in the hall and put their writing all around it.  Well, the excitement bubbled over and this is the best part…their voices clammored as they said things like, “Maybe other authors at Avery will get ideas from our writing.”  (Isn’t that the best?)  “I think that kids will tell their teachers and there will be a long line down the hall so everyone can read what we wrote.”  (That’s from one of my sweet ELL girls who is so excited about sharing her writing with all the other students at our school.  She is continually giving me tips for my mini-lessons…her last one was  “if you have to staple papers together, it’s a good idea to put numbers on your pages.”  She learned that in kindergarten. )  These comments tell me that my first graders take their roles as authors very seriously.  They know that writing is important and what they have to say matters.

I’ve come a long way in my thinking about publishing first grade writing.  Coming from the intermediate grades, I was adamant about published work being mostly free of errors.  Imagine my dilemma when I started working with 6 year-olds and I saw the wide range of writing.  I had kids who drew pictures and told elaborate stories to go with the pictures, to kids who wrote a string of letters with some primitive drawings, to those who could use some inventive spelling and had a few high frequency words under their belts, to those who could write several sentences, add some details, and their writing was able to be decoded.  My first year, I started by putting interactive writing out in the hall in the beginning of the school year or typing any work that went into the hall.  Last year, I had an insightful conversation with 2  colleagues who used to teach first grade which broadened my thinking even more.  At the time, we were publishing books that would go into our classroom library.  Because other first graders would be reading these books, I decided to type  the pages so that readers would be reading conventional spelling.  Of course, all illustrations were original!  I realized that my final decision about publishing had a lot to do with my purpose for the finished work.  This year, I had enough confidence in myself to decide that I was going to put these first attempts at writing in the hall for all to see, even if it wasn’t perfect.   My purpose is not to showcase how perfectly my kids can write.  Instead, I want to honor all of the hard work they’ve done.  I want them to know that I think they’re smart and that what they have to say is a big deal.  Everyone deserves a voice, including our youngest writers.

So where are we going next?  I am reading lots of pattern books to my young authors as we prepare to create our own.  We will be making our first individual books this time!  Our audience?  Kindergartners.  What makes it even more special is that many of my students remember visiting my first graders last year when they were the youngest ones.  Now they are the older, more experienced authors!  Should be fun!

Georgia Heard and Jennifer McDonough have written a new book that I can’t wait to receive.  You can preview the entire book online here.  I’ve skimmed the first couple of chapters and I know that it will help support the nonfiction research that will be happening in my room this year.  These authors stress the importance of creating a culture where inquiry is honored and time is given to students to research answers and have conversations about their theories.  Their suggestions in the book fall right into what I was planning for my classroom.  Since we won’t actually start our nonfiction genre study until mid November, I wanted to begin now to create an atmosphere that encouraged students to ask questions and look for answers.  My goal is for them to be able to write as a real scientist would. 

To help my students begin to make careful observations, I bought some unusual looking gourds at the farmer’s market this weekend and I found some uniquely shaped peppers in my garden (one looks like a nose is growing out of it).  I’m also going to bring in some other vegetables from my garden that they may not be familiar with (eggplant, brussel sprouts, etc.)  I am going to give them a magnifying glass, a tape measure, pencil, and crayons so that they can record their observations.  In the Heard’s book, she gives examples of 2 kinds of observation records (called Discovery Sheets).  One has 4 boxes so students can draw what they see, hear, feel, and smell.  The other one, that I had not thought of using before,  gives space for students to write questions about their wonderings.  I know one of my questions will be, “How did the pepper grow to look like that?” 

Another suggestion they give is to create an “I Wonder” Wall where students can post their questions and others can respond with their theories.  The “I Wonder” Wall is easy to begin…you need a large piece of paper, sticky notes, and kids with questions.  Again, this activity will give us the opportunity to talk about our questions and theories, and do some authentic research to find the answers.  Heard and McDonough give more ideas to create a wondering environment as well as lists of books to support inquiry. 

The following chapters are called “Nonfiction Writing From the Heart,” and “Nonfiction Research Wonder Writing.”  From my quick look at the chapters, these women believe as I do, that our young writers need to be researching and writing for authentic purposes and audiences.  As Melissa (the OSU researcher I will be working with) and I have discussed the research project, neither one of us is sure where this project will take us.  Like my students, we will be asking our own questions and wandering through theories. observations, and research as we being our own inquiry  journey.

Wow!  I’m having a hard time keeping up with my blog now that I’m back to work full time.  I’m going to do better!  Today was a great day as I watched a new idea work as I had hoped it would.

  Each year, I ask the kids to bring in a lunch bag with 4 to 5 items that will help us learn more about them.  My bag held a picture of my family, a measuring cup (I love to bake), book and writer’s notebook (obvious!), a tomato (from my overflowing garden that badly needs tended), and a picture of me riding my bike.  After sharing my “All About Me” bag, I invited the students to bring in their own bag of items that represent the most important parts of themselves.  They couldn’t wait to share their bags and it was a wonderful way to build community in our classroom. 

As the kids were sharing, an idea popped into my head (isn’t that how we get most of our good ideas).  I thought that if I took a picture of their “All About Me” items, they could go back to the photo for story ideas.  For each child, I layed all of their items out on a white piece of paper, added their names (mainly so I wouldn’t forget which picture belonged to which child), and took a picture.  We then put the photos into their writing folders.  Now when students come to me and say, “I don’t know what to write about,” I can direct them to their “All About Me” photos to help them think of an idea.

My heart was leaping this morning as I watched my plan take hold.  (I wasn’t entirely sure it would work).  One of my little guys was stuck for an idea and we got his photo out.  One of the things he brought was a wooden snake that his grandpa made for him.  He had shared with us that his grandpa makes him a lot of wooden toys and that he loves to do things with his grandpa.  I asked him some questions about the snake and his grandpa and all of a sudden, he said, “I know what I want to write now!”  He took off and wrote a story about going fishing with his grandpa!  Even though the story wasn’t about the wooden snake, he was reminded about a special time he shared with his grandpa.  He was so excited as he began to write and I was so glad that the photograph was able to spur his memory.

I am so glad that I took these pictures.  They give me insight into my students, and my memory is jogged about some of the stories they told as they shared their “All About Me” bags.  I know that we will go back to these pictures again and again.  We will use them to for oral story telling (very important in the primary grades) too, as we work toward building our identities as authors.  It’s a very simple idea and one that took only a few minutes to produce. 

I’m curious to hear about others’ ideas as they launch writing workshop.  I’m sure there’s a wealth of information out there!  Please share in the comments.

My classroom is buzzing during writing workshop.  I love to watch the excitement in my young learners’ eyes as they create their first pieces of writing in first grade.  They eagerly go back to their places and can’t wait to talk with their tablemates about their ideas.  I know that this “talk time” is very important to helping my writers plan their writing.  Right now, we are finding the balance between this important talk and talk that is just silly giggling.  I know with some patience we will get there.

I’ve used 2 of my favorite books this week to help my students think of important topics.  Yesterday I read The Best Story by Eileen Spinelli.  The main character in the book wants to win first prize in the Best Story Contest.  If she wins, she will be able to ride the  Sooper Dooper Looper roller coaster with her favorite author.  She’s not quite sure how to make her story the best, so she consults her family members.  Her brother tells her that good stories need action.  Her father tells her she needs humor.  Her aunt tells her that great stories make people cry and her cousin thinks the best stories have lots of romance.  (That got a lot of “OOOOHHHHS” from the kids).  Finally, her mother gave her the best advice.  She tells her that the best stories come from the heart.  So after reading the book, we discussed that authors write about what is important to them.  My students couldn’t wait to get to their spots to write.  I had stories about cooking with Grandma, playing football with friends, and going to the park.

Today, we read, Taking a Bath With the Dog and Other Things that Make Me Happy by Scott Menchin.  This is another of my favorites!  In fact, I showed it to another teacher in our building and she spent her lunch doing “one click” shopping on Amazon so she could have her own copy.  In this story, Mother notices that Sweet Pea is feeling sad (very evident by the frown on her face).  Sweet Pea decides to ask anyone and everyone she meets what makes them happy.  Her dog (dressed in a robe and shower cap) likes to take a bath.  An older gentleman enjoys stripes (he’s wearing a very loud striped jacket with a striped cat sitting beside him).  The rabbit likes running on the hamster wheel.  The story is hilarious!  The kids noticed that as the story progresses, Sweet Pea’s frown slowly turns into smile.  By the end of the book, she is feeling much better and we find out that she likes taking a bath with her dog.  The kids couldn’t wait to share what makes them happy.  They were so excited and so full of good ideas that we decided to make our own class book  about what makes Room 14 happy.  Each child wrote one page and illustrated it.  We have pages about making cookies for Dad, reading with my brother, playing with my monster trucks, and swinging with my family.  I typed the pages tonight and we will put the book together tomorrow.  It will be a grand celebration when we add it to one of the baskets in our classroom library.

The rest of the week is going to be spent focusing on where authors get ideas.  I’m looking forward to see where they take their ideas!