Author Archives: dogtrax

Slice of Life: Tears from ‘Wonder’

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So, there I was, on my way from home in Western Massachusetts to Birmingham, Alabama, relishing the time I could finally spend reading Wonder by RJ Palacio. I had actually won it in a blog contest through my teacher network (thanks, Colby!), and passed it along first to my son, who gave it back up to me for this trip. (He wants it back). I started the book in Hartford, continued it via my layover in Baltimore, and finished it en route to Birmingham.

It brought me to tears, this book did. And I found myself wishing fervently for a more private place than an aisle seat on an airplane, surrounded by strangers as I was caught up in the emotional ending in which the power of “kindness” hit me like a punch to the gut. This wonderful book is about a boy entering fifth grade, about what it means to be different, and what it means to find your place in the world where good can bubble up in expected places. I won’t give the plot away. I won’t say more about why I was tearing up, choking back emotion. You’ll have to read Wonder to figure that out (and you should.)

What I will say is that, every now and then, a book crosses my hands that reminds me of why I read and why I keep on reading — and why I sometimes suffer mediocre books in hopes that a jewel will surface. Wonder is one of those books. I know there more of these jewels out there. I’ll just have to keep on reading to find them.

Peace (in the slice),
Kevin

 

Developing a Keynote: Why Literacy Matters

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screenshot of Literacy Matters Presentation
It seems like a long, long time ago that I was invited by my friend Ben Davis to give a keynote address to the Red Mountain Writing Project’s 21st Century Literacies Conference. And yet, here it is. Tomorrow, I will be presenting my thoughts and stories on what it means to be teaching in a world dominated by shifts to the Common Core, and technology as tools for writing, and more. (Today, I travel). I’m excited about the opportunity to visit Birmingham, Alabama, and of course, a tad bit nervous about the responsible of giving one of the keynote addresses (the other is by writer Sharon Draper). I hope what I have to say resonated with the crowd, and I hope I am not boring.

As I have been developing the ideas to present, I have been working hard to connect what I teach to not only what is expected of me as a teacher in this standardized environment (ie, Common Core influence), but also, how I can best engage my sixth graders as writers in this digital age when our definitions of writing is in the midst of some shift, and just what that may mean to a classroom teacher.  My aim is to share my own classroom experiences, and to relate how I try to “pay attention” to what my students are doing with their literacies outside of school. I’ll work to weave those stories together into a narrative that (hopefully) inspires others.

I named my talk “Literacy Matters” because it seems to me that now, more than ever, writing and literacy is at the heart of all that our students are doing — in school and out of school. When they communicate via text messaging, they are engaging in literacy. When they shoot a video and post it online, they are engaged in literacy. When they play a video game, they are engaged in literacy. When they write a story or an essay or a poem or a reflection, they are engaged in literacy. The technology aspect of composition sometimes hides the literacies taking place, however, and we need to make those ideas more visible, bring them to the surface.

That’s part of my intention, anyway. I hope it goes well.

🙂

Here is a handout that I developed to accompany my talk.
Literacy Matters Handout

 

Peace (in the keynote),
Kevin

 

Slice of Life: Snow Day Activities

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(This is part of the 2012 Slice of Life Challenge with Two Writing Teachers.)

Here is a rundown of what happened in and around our house yesterday as the first (and last?) snowstorm of 2012 caused schools to close for the day:

    • Three games of chess between my 7 year old and myself. I won all three. But I did give strategic advice on a regular basis. It may not be long before he is beating me. I need to stay sharp!
    • My 11 year old played games of Parcheesi by himself. In honor of the upcoming March Madness College Basketball Selection Sunday, he has been charting games between “the pieces” on the board, conducting an entire tournament of animal pieces versus animal pieces. He refuses to let anyone of us play with him, much to the frustration of his younger brother. But, tournament rules are tournament rules …
    • An impromptu brunch party gathering at our house for some neighbors and family who live close by. We also showed a premiere of my younger son’s movie project: Robbers on the Loose. It was widely hailed as a great piece of work, except from the older brothers who laughed at it. You know how that goes …
    • My nieces and son built a snowman in the back yard. They worked on it for close to an hour. Then our dog went out and peed on it. You know how that goes …
    • A new version of Monopoly was invented. Money tossed into the air, falling like confetti. Houses and motels were lined up along the floor. The dice — left alone in the box. It didn’t end in tears, so you know it was a good game. And no parents were involved in the rule making or enforcement, although we did watch with fascination for a spell.
    • I brought up the “wooden city” from the basement. This is not easy to describe. It’s a plastic tray filled with wooden blocks, assorted super hero figurines, plastic animals and tons of, eh, junk that become the basis for imaginative play. My son and nieces literally sat there, inventing stories for about 45 minutes before moving on. I put it back in the basement, forgotten until another day.

woodcity2

  • Visitors all went home, and the older boys went off to hang out with friends — one to go sledding and the other to engage in a boys’ snowball fight on the lawn of a friend.
  • Reading time as my youngest son and I kept on reading Gregor and the Marks of Secret. We agreed that this series gets darker as it goes along. What will happen to the Nibblers? We still keep reading.
  • A little Wii time. Star Wars, to be exact. We have to keep shouting to our son, “step away from the screen,” as if we were police officers barking out some commands. Watching him play is like watching a dance in the living room. He shuffles around the floor as he plays.
  • More Gregor.
  • We shoo the kids upstairs for the night and my wife and I snuggle in for an episode of Boardwalk Empire.
  • Sleep time.

Peace (in the slice),
Kevin

 

Exploring Pinterest 1: Books About Technology and Learning

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I’ve been reading so much about Pinterest that I finally got into the site to give it a shot (thanks to an invite from a friend on Twitter). It’s OK. I like the visual element of sharing, but it seems like navigation is sort of tricky and not very intuitive to me.  The homepage of the site is a visual mess. I do like how easy it is to create a project in Pinterest, and the javascript button now in my tool bar sure is handy for adding new elements (oh, excuse me, a new “pin”) to existing sites (eh, they are called “boards”).

Still, I created some “boards” around some themes that I am interested in. Here is one: Technology and Writing.
Pinterest book board

Technology and Writing: Book Reviews

Peace (on the board),
Kevin

 

 

Slice of Life: Building Bridges

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(This is part of the 2012 Slice of Life Challenge with Two Writing Teachers.)

Yesterday, our superintendent called for a half day, due to the snow storm on the way (which is now here, leading to a day off today – our first since the blizzard hit us in the fall). Half days don’t leave us a lot of time to teach because our sixth graders have their specials (art, music, etc.) in the mornings. By the time they arrive back to our classroom, we have short periods. It can be a wasted day, in some ways.

bridge collage

Yesterday, my science colleague decided to take advantage of the half day by declaring it “Bridge Building Day” in the sixth grade. They do a toothpick bridge design project for their engineering curriculum, and so we transformed each of our four classrooms into a construction zone for about 90 minutes. It was fun to watch the collaboration and listen to the chatter as my kids were working. I put on some pop music with Pandora and a few times, the whole class broke out into song while gluing toothpicks together. (It was like they were in Glee or something).

While I had to delay the start of a project myself, it was worth it. They had sustained science time and I got an opportunity to see them working in another subject area (I see them for ELA). And I got to hear them sing once or twice.

Peace (in the zone),
Kevin

 

The Slice of Life Challenge Begins Tomorrow

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If you are looking for a way to get yourself writing every day, and connecting with a supportive community of other teacher-writers, I urge you to consider joining in the Slice of Life challenge. Now in its fifth year, Ruth and Stacey at Two Writing Teachers encourage you to reflect on a moment of your day — bring a small slice into focus, and consider it as a writer.

The Slice of Life Challenge starts tomorrow (the first day of March) and goes through the last day of March (so, you could do 31 pieces of writing). Sure, you may not write every single day — or you just might! Slicers post their links to their writing at Two Writing Teachers every day, and Stacey and Ruth encourage folks to visit the writing and add comments and reactions.

Oh, and there are prizes for Slicers! (Including a copy of my book — Teaching the New Writing). And teachers are being encouraged to consider the Slice of Life Challenge for students, too.

Learn more about Slice of Life

Peace (in the slices),
Kevin

 

Three Tech Tools for the One-Computer Classroom

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This weekend, I am heading down to Birmingham, Alabama, to give a keynote address to a conference hosted by the Red Mountain Writing Project. The conference centers around the Common Core, 21st Century learning and more. I have been asked to also lead a short session that shares out some tools that teachers in a one-computer classroom might find valuable. While I am fortunate to have access to a cart of PCs on a regular basis (though they are aging now and showing their age), I realize that a lot of teachers must make do with a single computer.

It’s difficult to fully embraced digital literacy if that is your situation.

Anyway, here is the handout for the three tools that I want to share with teachers that I think could have an impact on a classroom: Cinch, Wallwisher and Make Beliefs Comix. (I also went for “free” since I assumed paying for something would be out of the question).
Three Free Tools for the One Computer Classroom

What would you put on your list?

Peace (in the sharing),
Kevin

 

A Little Bassman Recognition

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Bassman23
Sometimes, my blog will get link backs that I think, who the heck is this? And why are they linking to me? Most of the time, it is some autoblogbot site, just grabbing keywords to generate traffic. This morning, though, I found a link back to a site that mentioned my old Bassman comic series. Cool. I checked it out, and the post in question is all about composer John Cage, and I had done a few strips once in which the Bassman decides to do some experimental music with some odd objects.

See the post: John Cage Lives

It’s funny to see Bassman at the post with all of the videos of John Cage and John Cage-inspired content. Bassman lives!

Peace (on the bass),
Kevin

PS — oh, what the heck, here is the entire Bassman collection

 

 

Mapping out a Curriculum, Online

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Atlas Curriculum Mapping

My school district is deep into a project to begin mapping out our curriculum using an online tool called Atlas Rubricon. Actually, this first year, the focus is mostly on math and then we will begin diving into ELA next year. This “backwards design” curriculum project is slated to be a three-year venture, which connects our teaching goals with the new Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks (aka, the Common Core). The plan by our superintendent to have to a district-wide curriculum map from which one can see the development of ideas and sharing of resources from whatever school you happen to teach in. (Needless to say, there are some concerns about this kind of standardization approach to curriculum development)

For the most part, I have been watching from the sidelines, since I don’t teach math. I tinkered around with Atlas a bit and helped with the math curriculum. The site is fine. Atlas is built around Essential Questions, and Learning Standards, and Skills, and Resources.  You can make direct connections to the new Massachusetts frameworks through a series of pull-down menus, which is handy. The math work has been relatively easy, since we have been using a pretty standardized math program with a strict curriculum flow.

The ELA will be much trickier, since there is no ELA curriculum program, and meshing what I do with what my colleagues teaching the same grade level in the other schools in our district are doing is going to require a lot of finessing, and collaboration. I worry that we won’t be given to the time we need to do that kind of collaboration correctly. We’ll see.

This past week, I finally dove into Atlas and began “mapping out” how I see my sixth grade ELA curriculum. I’ve mostly started my focus on literature and have been slowly fleshing out the ideas. I will say this: this kind of activity does make you think and reconsider the goals that you have in mind around lesson plans and unit development, and I struggled at times with coming up with Essential Questions (those overarching ideas) that are the foundation of the teaching. It’s been interesting, and I’m glad I finally started into it.

You can even “test drive” Atlas yourself.

Peace (in the curriculum map),
Kevin