Yearly Archives: 2010

Books, Boys and the Phantom Tollbooth

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Phantom Tollbooth

Phantom Tollbooth

I am a bit jealous because tomorrow night, the Mother-Son book group that my wife and middle son are part of are going to be discussing The Phantom Tollbooth …. with author Norton Juster, who wrote this classic book and who works as an architect in a nearby town. One of the moms is a former journalist and she picked up the phone on a whim, called Juster up and asked if he might be willing to sit down with a bunch of boys to talk about his character, Milo, and the strange journey he goes on.

Juster said yes, and so, tomorrow night, they are meeting at a local restaurant. Pretty neat. I can’t make it because of other family events, but I sure wish I could be there, too.

I loved Tollbooth as a kid, and I use it in the classroom as read-aloud in some sections when talking about idioms and other figurative language techniques. The inventiveness of the language as it weaves around the story remains interesting, I think.  I am always surprised that very few kids even know of the book anymore, and I hope my reading of it in class sparks some interest. I know the book used to be a regular part of a fourth-grade curriculum, but not anymore.

Remember the movie version created by Chuck Jones? It used to be available at YouTube, but not anymore. It may have run into copyright problems. Someone did post it on Vimeo, so you can find it there, if you want.

A sample from the script:

Officer Short Shrift: Now then, would you like a short sentence or a long sentence?
Milo: Well, I suppose a short one, if I have a choice.
Officer Short Shrift: How about “I am”? It’s the shortest sentence I know.
[Writes “I AM” on his pad and hands it to Milo]
Milo: It’s very kind of you to give me… such a short sentence.
Officer Short Shrift: And when do you think you can go to prison and start serving it?
Milo: Serving it? I guess I can’t, not until I get back from Dictionopolis and the Castle in the Air.
[Thunderclap]
Officer Short Shrift: The what in the what?
Milo: Why, the Castle in the Air.
[Thunderclap]
Officer Short Shrift: Boys are guilty of everything! Guilty, guilty, guilty…

Peace (in the tollbooth),
Kevin

Video: Kids Talk About Bullying

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Our local newspaper — The Daily Hampshire Gazette — ran an outstanding piece this morning (and another one coming on Monday) in which they convened a cross-section of kids to talk about bullying. This comes in the wake of the local high school girl who killed herself after being bullied and the district attorney pressing criminal charges against some of the kids who bullied her. (You may have heard about it on every tv news station in the world). The students in the article here are thoughtful, articulate and need to be heard by every adult.

One message that I heard loud and clear in the article is that kids feel that teachers often wait too long to address issues, acting only when the bullying has gotten big and not stopping it when it starts small. These things can snowball easily within social circles, the students note, and they feel frustrated and abandoned when teachers don’t act right away on complaints.

The newspaper shared a video of the interview session, which is worth sharing.

Peace (in the hallways),
Kevin

The Super-Duper-Alley-Ooper-Zooper-Gooper Play

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My student teacher is teaching a unit on paragraph writing and we introduced a writing prompt the other day in which our students had to design and then explain a play in our game of Quidditch (see the tutorial video for more info). We are working on strong topic and closing sentences, and use of transition words. We also had them diagram out their play (which reminded me of a video from fellow National Writing Project friend Bee Foster around the literacy of a football play)

It was a blast to hear some of their ideas and talk about engaged in writing … they were intent and purposeful, for sure. I also wrote and designed a play with them. My play is the Super-Duper-Alley-Ooper-Zooper-Gooper Play (and I made them say it with three times fast), and like theirs, it requires some background knowledge of how we play our game of Quidditch. But you’ll get the idea.

If your Quidditch team really wants to score with style, then you need to learn the Super-Duper-Alley-Ooper-Zooper-Gooper play. First, the seeker, beater and chasers have to work together as a team. This play begins after your seeker catches a snitch. Second, when the opponent seeker sets up to make their own catch on the next possession, your beater should be ready to knock them out of the game for five seconds. Meanwhile, one designated chaser should be moving near your team’s seeker, who catches the snitch away from the opposing team. The beater now moves along with your chaser, who sets up to catch the quaffle pass from a teammate. Finally, the beater knocks out any defenders as the chaser scores a goal by hitting the high corner — scoring three points in a matter of seconds. Repeat this play as often as necessary and your team is sure to emerge as victors at the Quidditch Championship.

Peace (on the Quidditch field),
Kevin

Some Quick Thoughts on Digital Composition

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A few friends of mine — Troy Hicks, Andrea Zellner and Aram Kabodian — are doing a virtual presentation for NCTE, and they asked folks to create a short video about our thoughts about writing in the digital world. Here is what I gave them. (More information is here about the session, which takes place on April 15. Bonus: Bud Hunt and Sara Kajder are also on tap for the day’s sessions — too bad the three-day-conference costs $250, though. That’s half the cost of an iPad, for goodness sake.)

Troy and others are building on his work in the book, The Digital Writing Workshop. And over at the Ning site for his book, Troy has started a conversation around ways to use technology with poetry. I added the ideas of using webcomics and also of creating hyperlinked poetry books. Maybe you could add your own ideas?

Peace (on the digital canvas),
Kevin

PS — Hey, this was the first time using my relatively new Mac laptop for recording any kind of video and using iMovie at all. I like it, and need to really find more time to delve into my classroom Mac.

Bud’s Picture Poetry Month

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Radio Daze

Well, just as Slice of Life ends, so begins poetry with pictures over at Bud the Teacher’s blog. Each day, Bud posts an interesting photo, with a little bit of guided thoughts, and asks for folks to submit a poem.

Today the photo and idea around breaks inspired me to write this poem:

I’m breaking in
so you can break out
with those dance moves you’ve been working on
with the Wii.
I hear you down there at night,
with speakers on low,
your feet pound-pound-pounding to the beat
while I am deep in sleep,
dreaming of the microchips that carry the rhythm
of you.

And I am trying to use Vocaroo to record my poems with Bud.

Peace (in the night),
Kevin

Tech Access in Public Libraries

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A new report out (funded by the Gates Foundation) tries to quantify the impact that our library system in our country has on providing access to technology to its patrons, including those who live at or below the poverty line. If you think about it, for many, the library remains a vital spot not just for books, but also for use of computers.

The report is called “Opportunity for All: How the American Public Benefits from Internet Access at U.S. Libraries” and the summary of the findings are available as a PDF online. The researchers combined phone calls, on-site interviews and web-based questions to gather their data.

Here are some of the things they found:

  • There are about 77 million users of computers and technology in public libraries, or about 45 percent of the library patron population.
  • About 44 percent of people and families living near the poverty line regularly use the library as a space for technology. (This is an important piece of information, I think, as we worry about people being left behind by the advancements in technology. Libraries may be their own access to computers.)
  • About one-fourth (25 percent) of library patrons who use the computers there are between the ages of 14 and 24, which is a huge number to consider, I think.
  • More than 32 million patrons used their library to further their education or to support educational projects with technology (homework, projects, online courses, etc.)

The report also offers up some recommendations:

  • State and local governments must push for more broadband access;
  • Businesses should work closer with libraries for job education programs;
  • Municipal libraries should forge stronger bonds with local school districts to allow more seamless flow of resources for students.

And the report notes:

Over the years, libraries have made significant investments to keep pace with digital developments, but surging demand quickly wears out equipment, taps available bandwidth, and strains library resources. As resources and services increasingly migrate online and devour greater bandwidth, more patrons will need access to fully participate in the digital age. That means libraries will require more resources, not less, to meet this growing need.

So, let’s hear it for our libraries (and librarians), whose budgets keep getting slashed and whose hours keep getting dwindled in a time when they are probably needed the most if we are to address the problems of the Digital Divide among the haves and the have-nots in this world.

Peace (in the stacks),
Kevin

Anna Quindlen: The Lamp of Self

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In the recent edition of Newsweek, Anna Quindlen sounds off about where the world of books and reading may be heading, particularly in light of the oncoming bus known as the iPad (which writer Daniel Lyons writes about in an interesting way in the same magazine, pointing out the benefits and dangers of Steve Jobs/Apple’s closed systems).

Quindlen notes that there “is and has always been more than a whiff of snobbery about lamentations that reading is doomed to extinction.” Books in book form are still everywhere, and most of us are still in the transition from paper and digital form, and that transition may be around for quite some time.

I am a digital guy, for sure, but I have not yet made my way to the Kindle, Nook or iPad or any other (although I have read books on my iTouch and on my XO computer, just to see what it was like).  I am still attached to the  physical substance of the book, even though, I understand the interesting aspects of eReaders and am fascinated by the possibilities of multi-layered composition.

I liked this point made by Quindlen, too:

“Reading is not simply an intellectual pursuit but an emotional and spiritual one. It lights the candle in the hurricane lamp of self: that’s why it survives.”

I imagine that this holds true, whatever the “container” the book comes in.

Peace (in the digital world),
Kevin

Slice of Life: Refuge from the Rain

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Slice of Life(This is the last part of the Slice of Life project at Two Writing Teachers)

The rain has been unbearable the last two days or so. Just deluges of downpour and along with keeping an eye on the rivers — the one down the street is near the edge of the bank — and the flow of water into my basement sump pump — it’s churning out a near constant stream, worrying me about the motor — we are just plain bored out of our skulls. And the kids have been at each other’s throats, too, as we wait for what they say will be record-high temperatures and sunny days ahead.

So, last night, we went to Blockbuster and rented The Fantastic Mr. Fox, which one of the few Roald Dahl stories that I don’t think I have read, although all three of my boys know the story of the wily fox who is torn between being the “wild animal” that he is and the family member he has become.


I love stopmotion movies and I sort of like Wes Anderson as a director, and while I was not blown away by Mr. Fox, it was rather quirky and likeable, and it definitely had that Wes Anderson feel to it. His movies always seem off-balance to me, in a good way.

It was nice just to have the four boys hanging out in the living room, with us cracking jokes and watching the flick. (My wife is away this week). I realized later that we never got the popcorn going. What I thinking?

Peace (in the last slice of the month),
Kevin

Bullying and the aftermath

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It’s been hard to make sense of what happened in our neighboring South Hadley where it appears now (after our district attorney levied criminal charges) that a group of popular high school kids targeted a girl from Ireland to the point where she took her own life a few months ago.

It’s sad all around, really. Sad that the girl had no concept of where to turn to for help. Sad that any kids could act that way towards another (verbal, emotional, physical abuse). Sad that this went on too long in a school where teachers should have seen the signs (I’ll withhold judgment since we really don’t know that whole story). Sad that online sites like Facebook and others were used as part of the bullying. Just sad all around.

The headlines on our local paper were blaring about the criminal charges against the high school bullies whose actions led to the death of a classmate. The charges include some counts of rape. It’s one of the only days that I consciously hid the front page of the newspaper from my own children. We’ve talked about the situation in that neighboring town, and we’ve talked about bullying (we’ve had our share of both sides of that coin here), and we’ve talked about an appropriate response. I am not putting my head in the sand, but I am not ready to talk about rape charges, either.

I noticed on Twitter that Kathy Schrock had started to compile some resources for dealing with bullying and cyberbullying issues, and I appreciated that and I wanted to share it out, too. I do talk to my students about this issue and we have some pretty far-ranging talks about how words have power, for good or bad.

This resource by Kathy comes as our state is moving towards enacting a law against bullying which is far-reaching in scope. (Kathy works on the other side of the state). I’m not sure if the law will be effective. The way to stop such action is at the moment it happens, but it may spur administrators to be more pro-active in education around the issues of bullying. Certainly the death of this girl has opened up a lot of eyes.

Cyberbulling Resources from Kathy Schrock

I hope I never see headlines like the ones I have been seeing, ever again.

Peace (please),
Kevin