Welcome to Session 14: We Host Maberry UNDEAD in the Bookhenge!

Jonathan Maberry has visited the Bookhenge in preparation for our live event on Monday, December 5, from 8 to 9 pm EDT.

He ran, flew, walked underwater, and basically made himself at home.  All the while, groaning and waving his hulk arms as we dodged him.  It’s as he said, “The big writer guy is here to eat your brains.”

I asked Jonathan if he’d like to see our questions and he opted for the surprise element.  And even though we think we’re prepared with our question bank organized — this is really our backup.  We draw from the bank to keep the flow going and make sure that our burning questions are answered.  There will be lots of questions from our guests and questions we’ll all be inspired to ask by Jonathan’s responses.  The question bank and structured interview as such gives us lots of freedom with enough structure to make sure we make the most of our time with this terribly busy yet tremendously generous author.

I’ll work up the question list from those the groups have prioritized, make sure all have names for questioner, and send that later in the week.  I’m expecting more advance questions as the media blitz from the NC Department of Public Instruction and Simon & Schuster goes out.

So for this week, prepare yourself to contribute to the production of the event and have lots of fun.  Remember our principles:
1.  Do your homework!  Try not to ask a question the author has been asked a million times before or that you could simply google.
2.  Do ask simple, direct questions.  Your commentary, though interesting, is not as vital as giving Jonathan time and space to explore your question.
3.  Follow the flow and be prepared to ask one of “your questions” that may have been planned for later when it best fits.  Or a completely different question inspired by the conversation.
4.  Have a sense of drama!  If we’re winding down and it’s time for the last question, make sure it’s a big question that gives us a satisfying closure.
5.  Watch your mic 😉  Chances are we’ll have lots of newbies in the Bookhenge and we need to set a good example, not to mention keep the distractions to a minimum.

So we’re pretty much ready for next week’s event.  You’ve two solid weeks to complete your ALPs, produce your ALP multimedia report, and post it to your blog along with any additional information you think helpful and with your reflections and self-assessment.  You’ll find all the details on the ALP Project Specs.

End-of-Course Checklist

December 5th — Contribute to Maberry UNDEAD in the Bookhenge.

December 7th — 8 am. EDT. — Please complete ClassEval at https://classeval.ncsu.edu  Thanks for your feedback!

December 12 — 8 am. EDT. — Post your ALP Multimedia Report to your blog and tweet.

December 13 — 11:59 pm. EDT — Complete your Post-FOKI.  Be sure to have met with me for a brief exit conference by now.

Highlights of Session 13: The Change Project & Prepping for Maberry UNDEAD in the Bookhenge

We’ve booktalked our Change Project speculative fiction choices.  It really was much like an Eva Perry Mock Printz Club meeting only there would be much more chatter since there would be more readers who had read the same books by now and would share their opinions.  It’s also fun in the club when we learn about everyone’s literary likes and dislikes and can predict their responses.  Some love to dis a book with quite the drama ;-).

All of our books are dystopian, though interestingly, Ashley noted that M.T. Anderson’s Feed wasn’t the result of some apocalypse as the others.  Perhaps Bradley’s Human.4 might fit in that category of an evolutionary dystopian novel, too.

One of our challenges in reviewing the books was to find one or more that could make good additions to Kim’s Project Justice.  Project Justice is a creative, inspiring middle school project on learning about social justice, what contributions other young people have made towards working for social justice, interviewing community leaders to see what the needs may be, and creating and implementing a project themselves.  What we felt might make a contribution would be some compelling YA books, fiction or nonfiction, that could inspire students to think deeply about important issues, perhaps through the eyes of someone far different from themselves.

Here are the books we discussed with links to wikis with resources for each book.  Kim, we found two books that look promising for your project — The Last Book in the Universe and Human.4.  See what you think!

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson presented by Meg

“As Jenna discovers the truth about the year she was sleeping and attempts to find her place in the world in the aftermath of that truth, Pearson confronts the reader with difficult questions about the nature of life and humanity. The Adoration of Jenna Fox not only asks the reader to think about what makes us human and where our humanity lies, but also to quantify the issue. What percentage of a person can you replace and still call them human?” — Meg

Feed by M. T. Anderson presented by Ashley

“The ultimate social justice message of this novel is mindfulness. Titus’s society got to be the way it is because people weren’t mindful – of the environment, of their consumerism, of politics. While some of the consequences may seem extreme, Anderson’s point is quite clear: we need to pay attention.” — Ashley

Genesis by Barnard Beckett presented by Michele

“Genesis belongs on the shelf of every high school science teacher. In fact, it is my husband’s winter reading assignment (per me), and I am almost certain it will become the new class novel for his Future Decisions in Science course. It raises so many interesting questions about evolution, humanity, artificial intelligence, and the destruction of our planet’s ecosystems. While the philosophical questions raised by the novel will probably make it a tough journey for reluctant readers, it will enthrall the STEM-oriented students in the room and will help them consider issues that will inevitably come up in their future careers.” — Michele

*Human.4 by Mike A. Lancaster presented by Bradley

“The story seems to comment largely on the ideas of the digital divide that exists in our current society. The gap between those who have the technology and those who don’t. The story comments on living different existences because of the divide and what it is like to live without. There are many possible ways of discussing this issue that develops within the story and it would make an interesting class topic to discuss.” — Bradley

*The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick presented by Cris

“This story mirrors what is happening in our current world far too well to leave any reader unaffected. With an uber-rich, elite class emerging while others suffer from poverty and lack of opportunity, Phibrick tells a post-apocalyptic-dystopian story that forces us to consider the essence of what it means to be human and what are the basic human rights. Social justice means equal opportunity to what it takes to not only survivebut live in hope and believe in a future.” — Cris

The Uglies by Scott Westerfield presented by Annie

“For me, the novel’s power–and I believe rise to acclaim–lies in Westerfield’s aility to do so much so effectively.

Not only does he tackle the issue of uniqueness being a positive thing, and attractiveness being largely culturally-bound, but he also forces readers to question whether other social constructs are empowering, limiting, or both.

How much freedom do any of us have?

Westerfeld, in short, poses the age old rhetorical question of “if your dreams came true, would you be better for it?” with a shockingly new–and dystopian–twist.” — Annie

Interesting aside, Westerfeld has written a commentary on dystopian novels in which he describes the power and control issues as of particular interest to teens.  He defines a dystopian novel as “usually about a society [often post-apocalyptic) where individuals have almost no freedom.  The characters in these novels must fight against the status quo and because the authoritarian control is total, they’re always the underdog.  We root for them to win in their struggle, while being thankful our world is not so harsh or creepy!  In a weird way, these stories make us feel good about our future, because if they can fight, survive, and overcome, well, then so can we when we face completely normal, regular-world junk.”

Prepping for Maberry UNDEAD

We’ve gathered, discussed, and prioritized questions for Jonathan into four categories:  Jonathan’s Writing Life, His YA Books, His Take on DysLit (Dystopian Literature), and His Teaching of Writing.  More on our plans for the event will be in the Welcome to Session 14 post.

Welcome to Lucky Session 13: Preparing for Maberry UNDEAD in the Bookhenge

Excitement is running high for our hosting of Jonathan Maberry in the Bookhenge on December 5th from 8 to 9 pm Eastern US Time.  Here’s a wiki devoted to the event with all of the details about participating, including Jonathan’s Wall for posting questions in advance — Maberry UDEAD . . .  Please invite all the Maberry fans you know.  No need to join Second Life — we’ll stream on UStream as we do every class.  Do encourage those who opt for this venue to create a UStream account and join in the “way-backchannel.”  For John Green’s live session in the Bookhenge a few years ago, over 90 Nerdfighters kept the way-backchannel hopping.

We’ll use our next class to plan our program with Maberry and discuss the dystopian novels that we’ve read for The Change Project.  I’m imagining that we’ll share our books much as the Eva Perry teens do in their book club meetings.  Usually, there’s a sharing of the basic plot summary along with a personal response.  It would be good to also hear your ideas on how you see this book potentially finding a place in the English Language Arts curriculum.  If it would fit in a larger project related to social issues, and social justice in particular, then that would be great to hear about.

Your wiki page devoted to your dystopian novel should be completed by Monday am.  That will give me (and, hopefully, others) a chance  to review and be ready with questions to ask about the book and the resources you’ve curated.

Ian mentioned zombie avatars.  Ajax is looking for free “skins.”  Let me know if you’re interested — I know Ian is 😉

We’re definitely in the homestretch.  Please plan on a short “exit conference” between now and Tuesday, Dec. 13, 11:59 pm.  We can meet early to talk about your ALP or later to do a brief review of your work this semester.

Here’s the End of the Semester Checklist:

Nov. 28 –

__ Questions for Maberry LIVE, No, UNDEAD &

__ Wiki for speculative novel and prepare to “pitch” for discussion.  A creative response in the form of a bookcast, etc. is optional but highly recommended for anyone who still needs to demonstrate mastery of this objective.  If you have demonstrated mastery, then consider doing simply because you enjoy it or to add another to your exemplar collection.

Dec. 5 – Mayberry UNDEAD

__ First hour we’ll finalize plans for conversation with Maberry then we’ll welcome Maberry to the Bookhenge

Dec. 12 — ALP MultiMedia Report & ALP Celebration

__ Your video/audio slide show should be no more than 5 minutes.  Plan a brief introduction to your multimedia report and plan to answer questions afterwards.  Be sure and post your multimedia report to your blog with any additional information you think might be helpful.

Dec. 13 — Final Tasks

__ Do plan on meeting for an exit conference sometime before this.

__ Your Post FOKI aka final exam is due before 11:59 pm.  What I’d recommend is that you revisit your Pre-FOKI and copy to a new post.  Then for each of the three big goals — development of professional self, literary self, and virtual self — review what you have written and reflect on how that may have changed over the course of the semester.  Do the same for personal goals that you identified.  To distinguish the Post-FOKI additions, click on the last icon in the toolbar above your textbox (it’s known as the “Kitchen Sink”) and you’ll see the A with a line below it.  Click on the dropdown and select the color you’d like.

Highlights of Sessions 11 & 12: The Multicultural – Bold Choice Connection

When we talked about multiculturalism, we first, of course, had to define culture.   I shared the Wikipedia definition and noted that the third option — “set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization, or group” is usually what we think of when we think of culture but that the second — “an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for symbolic thought and social learning” — has a special significance for us as English teachers who are all about developing “the capacity for symbolic though and social learning.”  The first, “excellence of taste in the fine arts and humanities, also known as high culture,” is right up our alley, too, though we don’t usually think of ourselves as teachers of high culture.  And those not familiar with YA lit might question if there’s any high culture involved.  Know I’m smiling as I write.

On the question of identity-based awards, Bradley acknowledges it as a “question to generate controversy to make us think.”  It proved to be a good question in this respect and led us to each think deeply about what culture is, whose culture might have the edge in publishing, and what cultures should be represented in the literary canon from which we might draw selections for our classes.

Interestingly, when the question becomes what cultures should be represented in the literary canon, then we may be led to reexamine our assumptions about what’s appropriate text to include.  We decided that literature that may even seem repugnant and contrary to our beliefs about basic human rights — Michele offered Hitler’s Mien Kampf as an example — could have value in some teaching contexts.  This could be especially valuable in becoming critically literate and understanding where the power of movements comes from.

I shared a collection of “multicultural novels” and everyone agreed that it was a bit of a “culture shock” to see Kay Gibbons’s Ellen Foster listed first in the table of contents.  It’s as ethnobotanist Wade Davis describes in the extraordinary film, “Schooling the World: The White Man’s Last Burden”: we tend to consider our “model of reality” to be the “real world” and those of others are cultures.  It’s, he said, a form of cultural myopia.

So it makes sense that the more “cultures” we’re exposed to that the more we begin to understand that these are all part of the real world.  It follows then that in communities where there is not a diversity of cultures that it typically is more difficult to bring stories of diverse cultures into the English Language Arts classroom.

That’s the multicultural-bold choice connection.  Just as Mrs. Benson, my senior English teacher, made what would have been considered “bold choices” in selecting books like Richard Wright’s Black Boy for a small, rural Southern high school, we will want to think boldly and wisely about the stories that our students need to hear to better understand the diversity of cultures and develop global awareness.

One of the tools that veteran English teacher Valerie Pearson recommended to me years ago at an NCETA conference was the book rationale.  Both groups last night reviewed samples of Valerie’s rationales and came up with three major elements:  information about the book itself — overview, summary, essential questions/themes; how the book will contribute to the class, including the relevant instructional standards; and thoughtful considerations of potentially controversial elements of the book.  Both groups worked on a rationale for Maberry’s Rot and Ruin and discussed that the violence should be addressed and explained as never gratuitous but necessary to tell the story well.  Meg suggested Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth as an alternative selection with less violence though it also contains fewer of the serious themes than Rot and Ruin does.

When we discussed what might be wise to include in a book rationale, I mentioned the State’s Standard Course of Study/Common Core for English Language Arts and that the NCTE / IRA Standards for English Language Arts complement these and may be especially helpful for beginning teachers.

We decided that the wise English Language Arts teacher would publish these book rationales on her class website with an invitation for parents to join in the reading. Michele added in the chat that “My favorite parents are the ones who read along with us.”  I have had a student (Cynthia) create an intergenerational project that included an online discussion for students, parents, and grandparents.  The texts were books about WWII and the grandparents (probably great-grandparents by now) could share of their first or secondhand experiences.

Another thing to include on your website might be the state’s recommended “Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials” (see Nov. 21 session)  that Frances mentioned in her discussion on intellectual freedom and censorship in a participatory culture.  The purpose is to encourage parents to read the book in its entirely and consider the rationale you’ve provided for the book before they question its appropriateness.  All of these are efforts to open the communication lines, build trust in your judgement as a professional, and encourage a thoughtful dialogue.

Creating Social Justice Projects

Kim Wilkins shared at the recent Global Education Conference her Justice Project.  This middle school project includes a WebQuest with tasks that have students learning about what other students have accomplished with real-world projects designed around social issues, interviewing individuals and organizations within their communities to learn of their work and the communities’ needs, creating their own plan, and implementing it.  It’s a wonderful project and one we can learn from.  What we’d like to do at our next class is consider the dystopian novels that we’ve read (and others) to think about YA lit that might make a contribution to Kim’s project and imagine other projects inspired by our books.

I also shared my all-time favorite social justice project — the Empty Bowls Project.  The project itself has been around for years — begun in the 70s by an art teacher and his wife — and has gone global.  The implementation that I know and love is done by Asheville Middle School.  The unit focuses on world hunger and food insecurity to make students aware of inequalities and hunger in their own community as well as developing countries.

Strategies for Collaborative Reading of Texts

We also in our Session 11 LIVE Class discussed one of the most researched reading strategies of all times — reciprocal teaching.  It’s much more structured than a book club and more focused on developing reading skills than a literature circle.  Students learn through practice the big four reading processes of predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing and practice them in their groups until they are self-sufficient and internalize these processes.

Next class we’ll enjoy sharing our dystopian novels, ideas for how they might be included in the curriculum, and prepare for our meeting with Jonathan Maberry.

Welcome to Session 12: Making Bold Choices

When I first developed this session over ten years ago, Frances Bradburn, our speaker, was the chair of the first-ever Printz Committee and she spoke to our class, face-to-face, on-the-ground, on-campus.  Intellectual freedom was all about a reader’s right to read and an author’s right to create.

My, how things have changed!

In this session, you’ll see Frances aka Reid Nitely present in our virtual world as our avatars gather in the Bookhenge and we’re talking not only about the author’s right to create but the students’ also.

Session 12 (Nov. 16 – Nov. 22) Making the Bold Choice — Intellectual Freedom and Censorship in a Participatory Culture

What is our responsibility to our students, our profession, and our world when it comes to students’ right to read and the intellectual freedom to both consume and create media?

Activities and Action Items:

• Prepare for the live, virtual seminar by reading and viewing to contribute to the Bold Choices VoiceThread by Friday, Nov. 18, and then reviewing the contributions and adding an Open Mic comment by Monday, Nov. 21, class time.
• Participate in the live, virtual seminar (Monday, Nov. 21).
• Review and reflect upon your work this week in your RAP (Reflective Assessment Process) by Tuesday, Nov. 22, 11:59 pm.

Synthesis of Session 9 & 10: Cultivating Empathy on the Way to Radical Change and Social Justice

Empathy as a creative element?  That’s how Dan Pink sees it and explains in A Whole Mind that empathy or the ability to see from another’s perspective can make all the difference when you’re trying to reach out to them on an emotional level whether to design for them, work with them, or for our purposes, learn with them.   Cultivating empathy is a goal of Shelley Wright’s work in teaching for social justice.

I think empathy is one of the most important attributes for young people to develop. We need to cultivate in our students from a young age the gift of empathy; the power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another person’s feelings.

And so empathy is much about perspective-taking.  Perspective-taking seems to be a hybrid element of creativity — a combination of both empathy and story.  When we begin to understand the story of another, then we can feel empathy.  Visual and social artist, RagakavaKK has created a children’s book for the iPad designed to “shake things up” and help us begin to look at the world from multiple perspectives and imagine different stories.

I’m also contemplating a different perspective on empathy.  What if empathy seemed a little less miraculous as Thoreau asked:  “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”  Barrack Obama suggests that empathy is a little more accessible when he describes it as “to recognize ourselves in others.”  It would follow that we must also come to understand ourselves in the process.

How to encourage creativity, empathy, perspective-taking, and self-awareness through literature?  Rosenblatt’s reader response theory seems to offer much promise by offering us a way to engage and encourage personal responses to literature.

Also, Henry Jenkins and the Civic Paths team have been studying forms of activism that involve popular culture, participatory culture and youth.  Two literary-inspired groups under study include John and Hank Green’s Nerdfighters and the Harry Potter Alliance — two groups that do good work for others.  Jenkins ended his TEDx in NYC speech by asking, “If we think this (participatory culture plus activism) works on an organizational level to mobilize citizenship, shouldn’t we bring it into the classroom?”

Here’s an evolving theory of how this might work in the English Language Arts classroom.  You’ll see that I’ve connected our work in bookcasting which provides through reader response an opportunity to share a personal response through self-expression — two elements that Oldfather and Dahl (cited by Guthrie et al., 2004) suggest are often missing from the English Language Arts classroom and may be in part responsible for the decline in reading for pleasure by many young people.

What’s the connection to Eliza Dresang’s Radical Change theory that seems to grow more and more relevant each day of our digital age?  With the increased interconnectivity, connectivity, and access that Dresang sees as common attributes of many digital age children’s books and the resulting changes in form/format, perspective, and boundaries, we are seeing books, whether traditional “dead-tree” or of a new ebook/audiobook/hybrid web-enhanced experience, that use the visual and the verbal synergy to engage us both cognitively and emotionally.

We are all asked to develop new literacies, what the New London Group called, multiliteracies, to be successful at both consuming and creating as literate individuals across many modes of communication and a growing cultural and linguistic diversity.  Henry Jenkins uses the term “transmedia” to describe being able to tell stories across multiple platforms using digital technologies.  First we must be “transliterate” or able to map meaning across different media.

J. K. Rowling may have single-handedly inspired a generation(s) of readers, and now she’s creating a new offline-online experience that may usher these readers into a new world of transliteracy.  Welcome to Pottermore!

Welcome to Session 9 & 10: Sequential Art: A Sign of Radical Change?

Are you a doodler?  If so, stand up and be proud!  Doodling has been validated as a valuable intellectual tool.  As Sunni Brown explains in her TED video, “Doodlers, Unite,” doodling engages us in all four of the decision-making modalities — visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinesthetic.

This session we’ll focus on an art form that brings the visual and the reading/writing together — sequential art.  Legendary comics artist Will Eisner coined the term that refers to graphic storytelling by arranging a series of images in sequence.  The American Library Association prefers the term graphic novels for longer works of sequential art and in 2006 recognized Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese with the Printz Award for Literary Quality — the first graphic novel to win the award.  Art Spiegelman won the Pulitzer for Maus in 1992.  Of course, it was described as a Pulitzer Prize Special Award because the judges couldn’t decide which category it represented.

Art forms and genres are blurring in this digital age.  This session we’ll study Eliza Dresang’s Radical Change theory to learn more about how digital technology may be influencing the evolution of literature as we have known it.  We’ll also view a session with Lauren Nicholson, founding member of the Eva Perry Mock Printz Club and now a librarian working toward her Masters in Library Science.  The club’s influence in her life is easy to see.  What wasn’t so predictable is that she would fall in love with graphic novels in college.  You’ll enjoy hearing her talk about them with lots of passion.

So enjoy your sequential art book clubs and prepare to meet on Monday, Oct. 31 with your club.  You’ll present your Change Project page and response on Monday, Nov. 7th.

Session 9:  Activities and Action Items:

___Plan to meet with your book club in class on Monday, Oct. 31.
___Prepare for the live virtual seminar by reading the articles, blogging, and commenting on the blogs of class colleagues.  Blog and tweet by Friday, Nov. 4, 11:59 pm.  Comment and tweet by Monday, Nov. 7, class time.
___Review and reflect upon your work this week in your RAP (Reflective Assessment Process) by Tuesday, Nov. 2, 11:59 pm

Session 10: Activities and Action Items:

___Collaborate with your book club to plan/create your collective response.  Response is to be shared during LIVE Class on Nov. 7.
___Prepare for the live virtual seminar by reading the articles, blogging, and commenting on the blogs of class colleagues.  Blog and tweet by Friday, Nov. 4, 11:59 pm.  Comment and tweet by Monday, Nov. 7, class time.
___Review and reflect upon your work this week in your RAP (Reflective Assessment Process) by Tuesday, Nov. 2, 11:59 pm
___Prepare for the live, virtual seminar by reading the articles, blogging, tweeting, and commenting.  Blogging and tweeting due by Friday, Nov. 4, 11:59 pm.  Comment by Monday, Nov. 7, 8 am.
___Complete your Sequenial Art/Graphica Book Club so your bookcast (or other multimedia artifact or experience) is ready to debut at our live, virtual seminar (Monday, Nov. 7, 8 am).
___Participate in the live, virtual seminar (Monday, Nov. 7, 7 pm).
___Review and reflect upon your work this week in your RAP (Reflective Assessment Process) by Tuesday, Nov. 8, 11:59 pm.

Synthesis for Session 8: Nonfiction, the Neglected Stepchild?

The first book club products of The Change Project are in. First category of books: Nonfiction.

Nonfiction books selected by the clubs were . . .
Jeanette Walls’s The Glass Castle (click for project page)

Susan Kuklin’s No Choir Boy (click to see project page)

On the project pages, you’ll learn about the social justice connection the clubs identified in each book and see some similarities and differences in the clubs’ approaches based on their responses to the books. The Glass Castle Club was impressed by how important geography was for Jeanette’s nomadic family and chose to create a Google Lit Trip. While the No Choir Boy Club shared personal interviews reflecting the interview format of their book. Both responses were creative and empathetic. And very much in keeping with our Learning Through Literature With Young Adults Framework with the principles of “teach the student and not the lesson,”” teach each objective so it’s accessible to different learning styles,” “use technology to allow students to create,””express your creativity in your teaching,” “make a real world connection to the literature” front and center.

The Change Project is off to a great start with sequential art YA books (book clubs) to be added and speculative fiction (independent projects).  We’ll culminate with an interview with speculative fiction writer (horror, specifically zombie apocalypse) Jonathan Maberry on December 5th in the Bookhenge.

We also culminated our nonfiction collaborative critical inquiry by discussing themes and essential questions for each book and how we might cultivate creativity, empathy, and social justice through our teaching with the book.

Theme and essential question:

The Glass Castle

Theme:  Poverty

Essential Question:  How would a teacher make the poverty (and really the rest of Jeanette’s life) real to students?  How to help them empathize?

No Choir Boy

Theme:  Justice and current limitations and issues of our current capitol punishment

Essential Question:  Is our justice system fair?

I’m curating a Scoop It that I think will be helpful for thinking about the creativity-empathy-social justice connection — “Cultivating Empathy”

Finally, to synthesize our inquiry into nonfiction, specifically the boys and reading connection.  I think we all agree with Ryan’s statement that “a good memoir has an edge that fantasy never will.”  Many of us accept to some degree Aronson’s theory that boys need to have more books that help them act forcefully on their worlds.  And we reviewed the recommendations from Guys Read, a project to encourage boys to read created by former Children’s Laureate and renowned children’s book author, Jon Scieszka.  Foremost might be in what are often female-gender-centric schools, role models for guys so they can overcome what Annie describes as some of the “social conditioning” they receive that reading is not cool.  We also considered that it’s not always that guys are turned off to the topics of books but that the pedagogy may not meet their needs.  Recommendations from the Ontario Ministry of Education’s synthesis of the research on boys and reading were shared.  Specific strategies included making the learning more social (collaborative learning), incorporating music, adding a strong visual language component, making the learning “exportable” or of value in the real world, engaging with powerful ideas, and facilitating opportunities to experience  “flow” or total immersion.  We also touched briefly on Siddulph’s (cited in the Ontario report) theory that boys are often positively influenced to become more literate because of their relationships with their teachers.

We had fun with the recommendation to integrate popular culture as a way to engage guys.  Here’s a video that uses popular culture to generate interest in the founding fathers of the United States — “It’s Too Late to Apologize: A Declaration” by Soomo Publishing.  This is what this generation’s Schoolhouse Rock looks like”

One way to integrate nonfiction and, hopefully, make it more palatable, is to use fiction as a bridge.  An excellent example is Katie Moore’s interactive WebQuest (WebQuest plus Web 2.0 tools for student media production), Dr. Benjamin Rush:  Philadelphia’s Savior or Vampire Doctor, that includes both Laurie Halse Anderson’s YA fiction, Fever 1793, and Jim Murphy’s An American Plague.  A spinoff project by Krystal Chambers demonstrates effective pedagogy for boys (and girls) with group projects using Dipity to create digital timelines of the period.

More next time on “writing as the most open space in the curriculum” (Newkirk, 2001) and its connection to creativity and empathy.

Video archive of the class . . .

Synthesis for Session 7: Preparing for Our Nonfiction Collaborative Critical Inquiry

Beginning class with a poem is a tradition that I’d like to encourage you to consider for your own.  Former Poet Laureate Billy Collins founded a site called “Poetry 180” — a poem a day selected for high school students.

I wondered if anyone had written a poem about book clubs and true to my theory that someone has written a poem about almost everything — I found this lovely poem by Joy Huott (1993) on GoodReads:

The Gift

Each month we gather together, looking
forward to sharing our thoughts.

We face each other, having come willingly,
to express ourselves
and to share the joy
we derive from reading.

We are each different and that is the draw,
the draw of diversity,
the difference of opinions,
the variety in personality…

Like multi-faceted gemstones,
open to receive each other’s glitter,
non-judgmental and seeking the good,
delighted by each other’s offering.

This openness is our gift to one another.

*****

Unfortunately, none of us, with the lone exception of my participation in the Eva Perry Mock Printz Book Club, have ever been in a book club. Meg, I know, spoke for most of us when she said that she “wished” that she had been in a book club.

My participation in the Eva Perry Club has convinced me that we’re missing out on a valuable experience for our teens if we don’t provide book clubs in the English Language Arts classroom. I’m recommending that we incorporate both the common book clubs where clubs are formed by choice around certain books and the more independent model with teens selecting, reading, and sharing books of their choice. I think there’s a need for both. The common book clubs serve the goal of helping students engage in collective learning where they learn to work creatively and collaboratively together toward a common goal of curating resources about the book and facilitating an experience for the class that shares their own response to the book in some way. So these are more structured. While the independent reading book clubs are wide open just as the Eva Perry Club is. Teens choose their books, read at their own rate, and then share their response in a whole class discussion.

Did I mention that these book clubs can and should be blended so there are actual and virtual components? For example, the common book clubs may work both synchronously and asynchronously online as well as in class. The independent reading book clubs may also include an asynchronous online forum where readers can share their responses.

Both book club types are included in the “Evolving English Language Arts Classroom” model that we’re exploring. Aronson (2003) encourages us to open up literature so we offer teens a diverse collection. So what is literature is expanded to include the Web and everyday reading sources while we’re also opening up the types of literary experiences in the English Language Arts classroom. You’ll see both types of book clubs plus the traditional whole class and a classroom library for reading for pleasure, pure and simple.

Our Change Project combines both the common book club and the independent reading model. Common book clubs have been formed around nonfiction books that touch on the need for social justice or other positive social change. The two books selected are Jeannette Wall’s ALEX winning book, The Glass Castle, and Susan Kuklin’s gritty No Choirboy selected as a 2009 Best Books for Young Adults.

Another important part of the class was the screening of the Middle Creek High School mini-documentary on “Creating an Actively Literate School Culture” (videotaped in 2007). We see four important cultural elements at Middle Creek: first, an extremely enthusiastic, cheerleader of a librarian who created strong relationships with students and teachers and opportunities for them to become more literate together; second, a mock Printz Book Club; third, a teen and teacher YA lit club; and fourth, a literature in the content areas effort represented by Earth Science Teacher, Johnny Gatlin’s integration of a YA novel, Karen Hesse’s Newberry-winning Out of the Dust, to help students understand the devastation of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. The librarian served as a co-teacher on the project.

“Becoming a lifelong reader” has become almost cliche and is usually associated with helping students to develop a “love for reading.” Reality is that students will invest time in what they find adds value to their lives, and reading can serve as both “escape and empowerment” (Eva Perry teens'”Why I Need My Library video). Vivian Howard, a Canadian researcher publishing in the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science (2011), describes pleasure reading as helping “to prepare young adults for adult roles in an information society.” She shares findings from the National Endowment of the Humanities that adults who read for pleasure are more civic-minded and involved in civic affairs while also participating more in their communities’ arts and other cultural opportunities. Reading for enjoyment is strongly correlated then with an improved quality of life for all — not just the individual.

The Change Project continues with nonfiction presentations next week, and we also culminate our collaborative critical inquiry into nonfiction and its role in the curriculum.

References:
Aronson, M. (2003). Beyond the pale: New essays for a new era. Oxford, UK: Scarecrow Press.

Howard, V. (2011). The importance of pleasure reading in the lives of young teens: Self-identification, self-construction and self-awareness journal of librarianship and information science. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 43(46). [Available through NC State Libraries. Simply search for title on library homepage.]

Welcome to Session 8: Nonfiction, the Neglected Stepchild

We’ve been building up to this session for awhile. Our Change Project book clubs have begun with nonfiction titles, and it’s exciting to see the plans that you’re making to share your selected books with us. And with the world! Hopefully, the Change Project will become a resource for teachers looking for YA books dealing in some way with positive social change and your contributions will be much appreciated.

You’ll enjoy Aronson’s take on nonfiction (which is really one level up from a genre, isn’t it?) and on boys and reading. I’ll be curious to see if you agree with him on the gender differences in literary tastes.   Be sure to take a look at former Children’s Laureate Jon ScZieska’s site to encourage boys to read — Guys Read.

Finally, Johnny Gatlin, the Earth Science teacher in the “Creating an Actively Literate School Culture,” has given us  a good model for integrating nonfiction across disciplines.  That teens might read an award-winning work of narrative poetry like Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust to learn about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s that devastated the MidWest is a powerful way to learn and teach.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

Session 8 (Oct. 19 – Oct. 25): Nonfiction, the Neglected Stepchild Collaborative Critical inquiry Culminates

What is the role of nonfiction literature in learning through literature with young adults?

Activities and Action Items:

• Prepare for the live virtual seminar by reading the articles, blogging, and commenting on the blogs of class colleagues.  Blogging and tweeting due by Friday, Oct. 21, 11:59 pm and substantive comments to at least three other bloggers by class time on Monday.
• Complete your Nonfiction Book Club so your bookcast (or other type of multimedia artifact or experience) is ready to debut at our live, virtual seminar (Monday, Oct. 24).
• Participate in the live, virtual seminar (Monday, Oct. 24).
• Prepare to pitch a sequential art/graphica YA book for a book club.
• Review and reflect upon your work this week in your RAP (Reflective Assessment Process) by Tuesday, Oct. 25, 11:59 pm.