Have you read the most recent Newbery winner yet? Have you heard the author read it? Listen and watch as Neil Gaiman brilliantly weaves his own tale on a tour of his book. Each chapter was read at a different location on the tour. The site allows you to choose to hear the story read, chapter-by-chapter. How cool…a free, audio version of The Graveyard Book, read by the author himself! Teachers and librarians should definitely share this with your students.
The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) recently announced their 25 Best Websites for Teaching and Learning. On the official ALA press release, Pam Berger, Chair of the AASL Best List Task Force, said, “the task force worked very hard to target websites that support learner-centered, inquiry based curriculum. In the hands of knowledgeable educators, these innovative and versatile Web 2.0 tools and resources can be used to engage and motivate students in the learning process and to develop 21st century skills.” For internet resources that creativity, active learning, and collaboration, check out AASL’s list of websites. You can also find the connections to the Standards for the 21st Century Learner listed above the corresponding websites.
Check out Penguin Group USA’s, “The Screening Room.” In their, “YA Central” category, listen and watch some of your favorite children’s books read during a storytime session at a public library, watch interviews of your favorite authors (like Laurie Halse Anderson and Jon Scieszka), and watch video trailers of books like Skippyjon Jones. Sure to be a favorite of teachers, librarians, and even parents who want a great site for promoting literacy.
Wondering why you should bring technology into your classroom? Read this. Shelly Blake-Plock, a high school Latin and Art teacher has written a thought-provoking post on this topic. He argues that, “students should expect at the very least that their schools are as socially viable and aware of the times as a burger joint offering free Wi-Fi.” Teachers shouldn’t bring technology into their classrooms for technology-sake, but because students are living in a connected world and are accustomed to using technology in their everyday lives. Teachers should model how to be responsible “digital citizens.” He makes some good arguments while acknowledging, to a degree, the issues teachers face of certain social sites being blocked and even email being forbidden. I think this post definitely brings some important issues that many teachers are struggling with to the forefront: how to incorporate technology and sites that can be of educational value to teachers and students into the classroom and how to be an advocate for these often controversial resources.
Teachers who are looking for a resource of ideas on using picture books in their classrooms, particularly those who teach grades 3-8, should check out Keith Schoch’s Teach With Picture Books blog. A New Jersey educator and professional development provider, Keith has excellent ideas on how to incorporate picture books into various curriculum areas and different grade levels. Throughout the blog you will find vibrant book covers along with their summaries and curricular connections. At times Keith even provides cross-curriculuar connections for a particular book. There are lesson plans with “extension ideas,” in-depth looks at recommended authors, and even a bibliography of content-area picture books. If you are looking for a blog to follow that is relevant to your teaching, I think this is one to consider.
This month’s issue of The Reading Teacher is packed full of great articles. In one article, “Making Science Trade Book Choices for Elementary Classrooms,” the authors discuss a rubric that can assist teachers as they seek to make appropriate choices for quality science trade books in their classrooms. When I do instruction sessions for the BIO 102 classes here at EKU, I talk to the students about why to use trade books and suggest ideas for how to use trade books. I am sure that the professors talk to the students, though, about the criteria they should use to evaluate trade books. The authors offer evaluation tools, including some that I mention in my library session, as a starting point for how to choose the best books for the classroom. There is also mention of the NSTA website as the basis for criteria for an evaluation rubric, which is included in the article. Both scientific and literacy value are considered in the evaulation process. The authors even explain how they used their rubric with publisher recommended trade books.
If you are an elementary school teacher who wants to incorporate trade books into your science curriculum, I encourage you to take a look at this article. While the rubric may be a bit intimidating, I think you will certainly glean many ideas and good suggestions from the authors on how to incorporate quality literature into your science curriculum. Includes a nice bibliography at the end, too.
I must admit it was pretty exciting to be there when they announced this year’s winners of the ALA Youth Media Awards. You can always read about them, yes, but to be there in a large ballroom full of librarians who are all so passionate about books and young people…Anyway, it was great. I got up extra early to be first in line and got a great seat right behind all of the committees. I admit I had a few favorites I was secretly pulling for, including Kadir Nelson, who is one of my favorite illustrators. I was not disappointed. He was recognized twice, both for Coretta Scott King illustrator (Honor–We Are the Ship) and as the the Coretta Scott King Author Winner for the same book. (YAY!!!) I was also pleased that M.T. Anderson’s work, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. II (which I literally just finished on my plane trip to the ALA conference here in Denver), was recognized as a Printz Honor book. A collection of poetry was recognized as a Newbery Honor book this year, which is exciting (The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom) and Mo Willems was acknowledged again for his work, Are You Ready to Play Outside? (Theodore Seuss Geisel Award Winner). There was great variety in this year’s choices, and I encourage you to take a look at the winners. Go to the Youth Media Awards site to see the complete list of winners. (Be warned…it may take a minute to load if you go there today. Everyone is hitting the site on Monday since the announcements were just made.) You can even see a replay of the awards being announced.
Check them out here. The movie is set to open in October 2009. Rumors about sneak peeks have been mixed; some say that this movie looks a little too dark for the children whom the book was originally written for while others feel that fairy tales have a wider intended audience and are pleased with some of the images they are seeing. No one is certain what the movie will be like, but with Sendak involved, it should be interesting.
Looking for free electronic books online? Try these sites:
Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
Contains over 27,000 free books in over 50 different languages. Users can browse by author, title, or language. You can even do a full-text search of words from the ebook in their database. There is even a browseable Top 100 list. Users can also do an author or title search of that information is known.
Children’s Books Online: http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/
“The largest collection of illustrated antique books online,” according to their website. Users click on the “library” link and can browse by reading level (very early readers up to adult readers), by using the Super Index, or by using the built in search engine. As a review in School Library Journal (Dec. 2008, p. 50-51) points out, there is lots of scrolling and clicking, but this is a rich and unique resource.
Big Universe: http://www.biguniverse.com/
“Big Universe is an award winning web community devoted to beautiful children’s picture books.” (Big Universe website) What is neat about this site is not only can users find a wide variety of picture books to read, but this is truly a community where users can connect with other parents, authors, kids, teachers, and others. Community members can even get tips and create their own books on the website. (To create a book, a user must sign up for an account, which requires a person to be a minimum age of 13.) Users can leave comments can see feedback left about books and who has added books to their virtual bookshelves.
For more information, see the article in December 2008 issue of School Library Journal,“The Inside Story,” by Anna Adam and Helen Mowers.
I just finished reading an interesting article in the December 2008 issue of School Library Journal. “Wanted: Male Models,” by Gail Giles, takes a no-nonsense but honest approach as to why boys don’t like to read. (She even offers a disclaimer that her article is not “one of those scholarly articles packed with facts and percentiles” but rather is her opinion and “comes from a lifetime of teaching and writing for the ‘I won’t read’ student, who, the majority of the time, ends up being a boy.”) She says that although boys liked being read to as children, somewhere between third and fifth grade something changed. She argues that boys like to “be what they see.” And, she points outs, what boys see is not men reading, but women. Giles main suggestion for getting a boy to read is to find a good male role model who will read to him.
Article info: “Wanted: Male Models–There’s a good reason why boys don’t read.” By Gail Giles. School Library Journal, Dec. 2008.
