December 31, 2008

Poetry Pathfinder with Diigo & Thinkfinity

  • Some activities to support poetry teaching with Thinkfinity, a remarkable archive of lessons and other resources. 

    Miquel Guhlin shares poetry resources using the slide share capability of diigo a social bookmarking service. He creates an effective stand alone learning object, a slide show of poetry pages from Thinkfinity. Many librarians would call a 'path finder'.  Each page screened by the slide show can be searched, clicked, or simply read. I'm sure the readers of this blog will find Miquel's work useful!

    Guhlin is one to watch on the educational uses of diigo... he's digging deep into diigo. 8-)

    tags: poetry, thinkfinity, 6-traits


Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

December 14, 2008

30 New Ideas That Work (From the National Writing Project)

New 30 Ideas That Work

November 9, 2008

National Writing Project: Letters to the next president

Letters are a great way to teach voice. The audience is focused on a single person. The writer is having a conversation with words with an audience of one. The Letters to the Next President Project began with a specific audience of two possible presidents. Now the audience is a little more defined! This great idea is sponsored by the National Wrtiing Project

Check out a short video on the topic: Letters to the Next President: Writing Our Future

Let's keep writing!

October 18, 2008

Conventions in the ESL Classroom


At the end of each 6-traits online class I ask participants to revisit their weekly reflective journal and assemble a refection that covers the full span of the class. In this excerpt, Tim D. synthesizes his insights about Grammar and English. ~ Dennis

When I was teaching at a middle school in Asia the administration decided it would be a great idea to break up "English" into two categories: Grammar and English. While I was teaching short stories and poetry in my room the teacher next door had these thick text books full of sentence diagrams and editing worksheets. What really struck me about this is that the grammar portion was never utilized when the students wrote for my class. They knew how to do the diagrams and edit sentences but when it came to their own writing it was still full of errors.

I didn't handle this very well and took to marking up papers with red ink. The truth is most of these students had only been speaking English for a couple years. Their parents had pulled them out of the local school and plopped them into a sub standard "American" school. Not only were we dealing with middle school students, but we were dealing with second language learners as well. Honestly I think listening to American music and watching American movies was as helpful as anything. It allowed them to "hear" English.

Spandel offers a lot of very interesting ideas in this lesson. The ones that struck me were teaching the editing marks in the beginning and then having them use them on progressively more difficult work. Instead of using worksheets she suggests using others' work. This is brilliant. Especially if its done in front of the class because it allows students to see things that they might not have caught on their own. Finding errors in everyday samples like newspaper, ads, and mailings is also a great idea because it teaches them to look for those things. (I would suggest the Dunn County News as a great resource for this…)

Comments: This lesson really solidified in me that I need to combine teaching conventions with other material because it allows me to point out examples within good writing instead of using arbitrary examples that the students aren't familiar with. Actually, reading the posts by the other teachers was very enlightening on how they weave grammar into their programs.

October 13, 2008

New 6-Traits / Writing Process poster available

New product from the NWREL: Help support their great work!

Get your poster here!

Here's a question for you all to ponder! Where do Web 2.0 concepts and tools like information fluency, blogs, wikis, and e-learning environments fit in the dynamic 6-Traits / Writing process landscape?

Information Fluency Skills (the ability to efficiently search, evaluate and ethically use digital information) certainly fit in the Ideas/Pre-writing area. This is particularly true for modes of writing like the expository, persuasive and research.

What about Blogs, WIKIS or Google Documents?

Where do you see these 21st Century tools fitting in the diagram above?

Anyone willing to take a stab at creating a poster with Web 2.0 integrated into it all?

Let us know?

October 3, 2008

National Poetry Week: October 9, 2008

National Poetry Day (October 9) (Resources from Annenberg Media/Learner.Org)

Watch beautiful hour-long documentaries about the lives and works of 13 American poets in Voices & Visions <http://www.learner.org/resources/series57.html>. Featured poets include T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, and William Carlos Williams.

Literary Visions <http://www.learner.org/resources/series41.html> offers mini-lectures, dramatizations, and poet interviews to illustrate the most important elements and devices of poetry. See Programs 11 through 17 to explore the role of imagery, tropes, symbolism, theme, character, and much more.

Observe high school English teacher Chris Mazzino teaching about stereotypes by having students interpret and edit a poem in Teaching "The Children of Willesden Lane" Program 12, "Gaining Insight Through Poetry" <http://www.learner.org/series/cowl/ch13-19/>.

See how poetry teaches about American societal trends with "Rhythms in Poetry" <http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit10/>. This program in American Passages: A Literary Survey features the poetry of Langston Hughes and William Carlos Williams.

The American Passages archive <http://www.learner.org/amerpass/slideshow/archive_search.php> contains artifacts related to poetry and poets such as Phillis Wheatley, Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, and Marianne Moore, as well as poetry related to specific eras and social movements. Search by keyword and/or era and/or ethnic group to explore the archive.

Consider different approaches to teaching poetry with Write in the Middle: A Workshop for Middle School Teachers, Workshop 3, "Teaching Poetry" <http://www.learner.org/channel/workshops/middlewriting/prog3.html>.

Teaching Reading K-2: A Library of Classroom Practices
<http://www.learner.org/channel/libraries/readingk2/> presents ways of working poetry into language arts lessons at the early elementary level.

In Engaging With Literature: A Video Library, Grades 3-5, watch a fourth grade poetry lesson based on poems from "Baseball, Snakes, and Summer Squash" by Donald H. Graves and "Hey You! C'Mere: A Poetry Slam" by Elizabeth Swados. See Program 3, "Starting Out" <http://www.learner.org/channel/libraries/engagingliterature/starting/>.

September 25, 2008

6-Traits Spanish Laguage Resources from NWREL


The 6-traits of writing hold true for all languages. The early research was conducted in multiple languages and found to apply. I did a quick search for Spanish Language resources on the NWREL site. (To see everything click here.)


The Highlights:

NWREL has a Spanish language scoring guide for you right here:

http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/scoring.php?odelay=3&d=3

Here are Spanish language lesson plans:

http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/lessonplans.php?odelay=2&d=3

There is also Spanish language scoring practice at:

http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/scoringpractice.php?odelay=3&d=3

Spanish teachers! I know this approach, combined with a writing process based workshop will work for you!

September 20, 2008

NCTE's newest policy research brief "Writing Now"

NCTE's newest policy research brief "Writing Now" explores what writing means in our changing world. The brief defines key terms, debunks common myths about school-based writing, outlines our understanding of writing now, and shares research-based recommendations for effective writing instruction and assessment. For the next step, try any of the following ReadWriteThink lesson plans, which all explore ways we write and teach writing now:

Elementary Level Lessons

Middle Level Lessons

Secondary and College Level Lessons

NOTE: Free access to journal articles mentioned in this INBOX is provided for 21 days. After this free access period expires, articles are available to journal subscribers only. This Inbox Idea was published 9-16-08.

Initials in annotations indicate academic level of the resource (E=Elementary, M=Middle, S=Secondary, C=College, TE=Teacher Education, G=General).

To subscribe to INBOX, NCTE's free weekly e-newsletter, visit http://www.ncte.org/forms/lists/inbox.asp.

September 16, 2008

6-Traits Online



Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6 Traits: Classes are are Filling Fast!

WRITING COURSE:

EDUC 744 920F Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6-TraitsElementary (Gr. K-4) - 3 gr. cr. begins September 22, 2008.

EDUC 744 909F Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6-Traits - Middle/High School (Gr. 5-12)
3 gr. cr. begins September 22, 2008.

Learn to teach and assess writing with the 6-Traits of writing (voice, ideas, word choice, organization, sentence fluency and conventions). Learn to use the 6-Traits with the writing process to teach revision strategies. Help learners meet higher standards and improve test scores.

Please forward this announcement to teachers in your district.

Earn graduate credits via online courses that support your professional development goals for licensure renewal, salary advancement and advanced certification.

Sign up soon to reserve your spot! Registration closes this week!

to allow time for assigning user names, passwords and ordering/shipping the textbook.

Classes are TOTALLY ONLINE. You may participate from your home or school computer. Registration is limited to 20 participants per section.

Syllabus and other details:

http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/traits.shtml

REGISTER ONLINE
or
REGISTER BY FAX
Fax: (715) 232-3385

July 29, 2008

Northern Nevada Teacher In-service Courses Centered around WritingFix


The Northern Nevada Writing Program & Writing Fix (The best 6-traits website on the Internet) are offering in-service workshops. http://writingfix.com/about_us/inservice.htm





Here is a quick description of the workshops they offer:
  • Workshop: Using Picture Books as “Mentor Texts” for Writing Lessons
  • Workshop: Using Chapter Book Excerpts as “Mentor Texts” for Writing Lessons
  • Workshop: Using Literature Excerpts and Classic Poetry as “ Mentor Texts” for Writing Lessons
  • Workshop: Song Lyrics, Video, and Podcasts to Inspire Powerful Writing
  • Workshop: Writing Across the Curriculum Techniques: Wacky We-Search and Deeper Student ThinkingHere is the current listing for NNWP sponsored In-service Fall 2008:
http://www.unr.edu/educ/nnwp/inservice_fall.html

Here are the Spring 2009 offerings:

http://www.unr.edu/educ/nnwp/inservice_spring.html

Do yourself a favor: Attend one of these workshops and improve your craft!

Conferenceing for conventions

Be specific about what is working:

  • "You've used some lower case letters."
  • "I can see that you know that there are spaces between words."
  • "You remembered that I is always capitalized."
  • "Look at the capitals at the beginning of each sentence!
  • "You ended each sentence with a punctuation mark. That tells me how to read your writing."
  • "Wow! Quotation marks! Now I know when someone is speaking."
  • "Look at this word. You heard the beginning, middle and ending sound."
  • "These words are all spelled correctly."

As questions to extend meaning:
  • "What mark would you like to place at the end of this sentence?"
  • "How would this sentence change if you placed an exclamation mark here?"
  • "Do you know the marks we use to show that someone is speaking?"
  • "Which words do you think you spelled close to the dictionary spelling?"
  • "Listen as I say this word. What sounds do you hear?"

July 25, 2008

Jonathan Harris Collects Stories



This piece is about collecting stories and ideas from life and from the internet. Writer Jonathan Harris, in this TED Talk explains his unique vision of how stories can be found in the artifacts left on a street corner, harvested from blogs with with bots, or captured by camera while exploring Inuit whaling camps in Barrow Alaska.

The talk ends with a photo essay themed on happiness and wishes found in the Kingdom of Bhutan. Harris interviewed over a hundred folks found along the paths of Bhutan. He asked each to write one wish on a balloon. The imagery and ideas are good to think about.

This man creates technology generated mind-maps that go way beyond the solo clustering we sometimes teach as idea generation.

Harris is a traveler, thinker, and creator. Spend some time with his mind by watching this TED lecture and then exploring his unique site: We Feel Fine

video: http://ted.org/index.php/talks/jonathan_harris_collects_stories.html

Jonathan's website: http://www.wefeelfine.org/

June 6, 2008

Huge list of online links to Writing Project Sites

Thanks goes to Bud Hunt (Blogger, Bud the Teacher) for compiling a remarkable list of writing project sites. This is from his delicious social bookmarking account.

http://del.icio.us/budtheteacher/writingproject

An interesting evening of web surfing dedicated to writing instruction awaits!

Enjoy!

~ Dennis

May 18, 2008

New 6-Traits Board Game From NWREL


Pirates, Treasure, Adventure, and …Word Choice?

Your students will love learning about the traits of good writing as they sail the high seas in this action-packed, pirate-themed board game. Doubloon Island: The Traits of Good Writing Board Game is the fun way to teach students about the six traits and how they contribute to good writing.

  • Accommodates two to eight players
  • Can be played in 40 minutes
  • Easy to learn, fun to play
  • Helps build vocabulary
  • Teaches kids fun facts about oceanography, geography, and pirates
  • Game is set up so teachers can develop their own questions and game cards
  • Applicable for grades five through nine (three through four with adult assistance)
Available from the NWREL At:

http://www.nwrel.org/pirate/

May 4, 2008

Pass the word? Help make it a 6-traits online summer!



Please forward this announcement to teachers in your district.

This summer teachers from around the nation and the world will join online to exchange ideas and share best practices. The conversations are rich. The community is real. If you've never taken an online class before... this is the one to start with!


Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6 Traits

EDUC 744 920 Elementary (Gr. K-4) - 3 gr. cr. begins June 16, 2008 EDUC 744 909 Middle/High School (Gr. 5-12) - 3 gr. cr. begins June 16, 2008

Learn to teach and assess writing with the 6-Traits of writing (voice, ideas, word choice, organization, sentence fluency and conventions). Learn to use the 6-Traits with the writing process to teach revision strategies. Help learners meet higher standards and improve test
scores.

Earn graduate credits via online courses that support your professional development goals for licensure renewal, salary advancement and advanced certification.

Sign up soon to reserve your spot! Registration closes this week! to allow time for assigning user names, passwords and ordering/shipping the textbook.Classes are TOTALLY ONLINE. You may participate from your home or school computer. Registration is limited to 20 participants per section.

Syllabus and other details: http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/traits.shtml REGISTER ONLINE or REGISTER BY FAX Fax: (715) 232-3385

For more details e-mail Dennis O'Connor: oconnord@uwstout.edu

April 16, 2008

Free Writing & Research Curriculum from Intel

FREE GOLD:

6-Traits Video (Schools brew writing videos)

March 22, 2008

Free Tools for Thinking, Researching, Writing

Intel is creating great tools for educators. You'll find real treasures on their education website.

Here's a link to Intel's Thinking Tools:

http://www.intel.com/education/tools/index.htm?iid=teach+tools

Here is the Education Site Map that provides access to all of their resources:

http://www.intel.com/education/site_support/contents.htm

Bookmark these pages if nothing else. This is an amazing free resource.

I recently reviewed Intel's Technology Literacy Curriculum for alignment to ISTE NETS-S standards.

http://www.intel.com/education/technologyliteracy/

If you're looking for a carefully designed curriculum to teach research and writing skills, this is it. Again this is a free resource. In my opinion it is more than detailed enough to work at the college level. These could be the basis for a very strong semester of instruction.

The curriculum was written for kids 11 -15 years old. Don't let the Technology Literacy title throw you. This is about how to research and write using online and traditional sources.

Dennis

Melody's Real World Editing Lessons

Melody Brennan was my co-facilitator in the Spring 2008 edition of the 6-Traits online writing class. She did a terrific job! Here's bit of advice she offered during our module on conventions. ~ Dennis

Thinking in terms of modeling and practicing, technology spell checking, and just plain teaching how to edit.....

While in the classroom I used our weekly classroom newsletters rather than DOL.

Here's how:

Each week I would type our newsletter that would be sent home to update the parents about what happened that week and what was hopefully going to happen the next week (one can never be 100% sure...even though we plan!) I would add errors, especially ones that spell check would not change or highlight. Students would look it over (peer editing), work together after looking individually, and then we would all come together to create our "final" draft. I would make the revisions and hand-out the final draft for copying. I would then ask a co-worker to come in so that I could ask them in front of the class if they could find some time to edit my work. I know what I want my newsletter to say, but sometimes that is the biggest problem....my brain is thinking one thing and my paper or newsletter is really saying something different. The students saw me asking another peer to look it over one more time before submitting the newsletter as the final draft.

This worked great! Life lessons in the making! I had parents searching to see if they could still find an error with their students at home. Of course, they were not always perfect and I would sometimes be greeted on Monday morning with a big circle around something. However, they all appreciated the learning that went behind the weekly newsletter.

March 3, 2008

South Aftrican Poetry Slam


This just in from Jayne in Jo-berg!

We had a poetry slam last Friday. It was awesome.

My class and I had invited parents, the librarian, the elementary
principal, and the school counselor. There were about 30 people for this
event. I moved all the tables and desks out of my classroom, and we put
the chairs, the couch, and a few pillows in a big circle. I called it
"Poetry in the Round." In the middle of our circle I setup a small table
with candles, flowers, and a big hat for names. In our invitation we
encouraged our guests to bring poems they would like to share.

Round One: Memorized Poems

Anyone who had memorized a poem could put their name in the hat.
I had all of my students and one parent participate in round one. To
start I picked the first name out of the hat. When I read the name out
loud, everyone had to say "YES" enthusiastically. The reader would
stand up and say their poem. Instead of applause, one girl had suggested
we snap our fingers a bunch of times. It worked great. Then person who
had just said their poem would pick the next name out of a hat, and we'd
all say "YES" enthusiastically and so on till all the names were picked
and poems said. I would make a big deal out of finishing each round and
we'd have a minute or two break and then dive into the next round.

Round Two: Poems You Wrote

Anyone who had written a poem they wanted to share could put
their name in the hat. My students had recently put all their poems
into a book so they had lots to choose from. It was fun to have a few
parents join in this round too as well as all of my students and my
student teacher.

Round Three: Anything Goes

Besides all the students, I had lots of parents and
administrators participate in round three. The kids loved it when their
parent's name was chosen. Many of the parents put their heart and soul
into reading their poems. A highlight for my class was my student
teacher's contributions. He not only shared a number of his creations,
but as a farewell to the class, he shared a beautiful poem he wrote
called "Recipe for a Great Class." The piece included every student's
name and a bit of their personality. It was beautiful. This was his
last day with our class and so the poetry slam was also his farewell
party. After beginning teaching the poetry unit 6 weeks before, I had
asked him if he wanted to teach some of the poetry classes. He said
writing was not his thing especially poetry. I decided that every poem
the kids worked on, he would do as well. After a hesitant start, he
really got into it. He began sharing more and more of his work with the
class every day and it gave them confidence to share too. His honesty
about his feeling that he wasn't a good writer made the students
encourage him and each other more and more. It was one of those magical units that everyone can't help but grow, learn and feel good about their writing and themselves.

Jayne from Jo-burg

March 1, 2008

Where writing and music connect...

I wanted to share some ideas about the relationship between writing music and writing prose. This was written by Michael McHugh, a muscian, composer and educator currently working in Japan. Mike is also currently taking my online 6-traits class. (Thank you Mike for letting me post this for everyone!) ~ Dennis

***

It continues to amaze me, as we progress through this course, how many techniques for crafting a great paper can be related to similar techniques for writing interesting pieces of music. The lead, or even the title, of a narrative or essay can make a reader hungry for the story or message that will follow, just as a beginning melody will "hook" a listener within the first few measures of a piece. What follows, of course, will determine whether or not the reader or listener STAYS engaged.

I always tell my IB students not to attempt to title their music compositions--even if they already have a pretty comprehensive idea of where it's going to go--until the piece is at least near completion. They sometimes surprise themselves with where they actually end up in their impressions, and how they finally choose to encapsulate the piece with those few words at the top. And when their peers go to listen to the pieces, there seems to be a sense of intense curiosity about how the title applies--what's going to happen here?

What kills me is that I have never asked any of my students writing their experiential papers on their outside musical activities to attempt to do the same. There is a huge amount of character--"voice"--in much of their work, yet there in the top corner of all of the papers is the same stale "name, due date, assignment name" that I told them to put there, absent any kind of focus or hook to give the reader (which is only me at this stage) that initial jolt of anticipation. I dare say that some students might actually produce more engaging works if they believed they had the choice of giving their papers a more narrative flare (another revelation that I need to make sure to employ this semester).

Roundaboutedly related to the above, I do have a question about leads. Can they be like titles, in that sometimes a student really can't come up with a good one until they have a clearer idea about the direction of their paper? Or should a lead be a part of the student's organizational process from the beginning, as a focusing tool? Is there necessarily a right or a wrong?

Thanks much,

Mike@Kobe, Japan

February 23, 2008

A quick shot of resources!

Six Traits Search Engine








tag cloud of writing keywords

Try this Six Traits Search Engine

I built using a social search system called Swicky. You can vote for your favorite materials and suggest sites you'd like included in the search results.

Go to the site and click on the keywords in the tag cloud. See what you think!

~ Dennis


January 21, 2008

Last Call: Enroll now for 6-Traits Online!



Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6 Traits: Classes are are Filling Fast!

WRITING COURSE:

EDUC 744 920F Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6-TraitsElementary (Gr. K-4) - 3 gr. cr. begins January 28, 2008.

EDUC 744 909F Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6-Traits - Middle/High School (Gr. 5-12)
3 gr. cr. begins January 28, 2008.

Learn to teach and assess writing with the 6-Traits of writing (voice, ideas, word choice, organization, sentence fluency and conventions). Learn to use the 6-Traits with the writing process to teach revision strategies. Help learners meet higher standards and improve test scores.

Please forward this announcement to teachers in your district.

Earn graduate credits via online courses that support your professional development goals for licensure renewal, salary advancement and advanced certification.

Sign up soon to reserve your spot! Registration closes this week!

to allow time for assigning user names, passwords and ordering/shipping the textbook.

Classes are TOTALLY ONLINE. You may participate from your home or school computer. Registration is limited to 20 participants per section.

Syllabus and other details:

http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/traits.shtml

REGISTER ONLINE
or
REGISTER BY FAX
Fax: (715) 232-3385