Category: Excellence

Compelling Nonfiction for Kids: This Title Has a Double Meaning

11/3/2019

Last week my post "The New Era of Children's Author-Driven Nonfiction" discussed children's nonfiction literature that is finally coming into its own. It had a HUGE response!
I was presenting it as something new but, I must confess, nonfiction children's trade books have been noticed for quite a long time. Who, exactly, has discovered these wonderful books? First, the creators of standardized tests. They excerpt our writing for reading comprehension passages. Second, educators of kids with learning challenges and the gifted. My question is: if these books are used by educators at each end of the learning spectrum, what are the great masses of "average or normal" kids in between compelled to read in school?

Textbooks with worksheets, study questions, and quizzes
Schoolbooks with worksheets, study questions and quizzes.

I put an illustration above from Wikimedia commons to show you what these books look like. Compare it to the picture I used last week. (It's not far; scroll down.)

How come this is happening?

If we're going to give standardized tests to compete with the way kids perform in other parts of the world, we have to standardize education, right?
In order to standardize education we have to make it teacher proof. We have to assume that teachers can't be trusted to seek out their own study materials to fit curricula. We've stopped giving them creative autonomy. (Ask a public school teacher, " So, how's that working for you, lately?")

What happens when you give kids a taste of writing that is compelling, (not compelled)? Let's experiment and find out.

(Drum roll) Presenting the Nonfiction Minute --Short, self-contained essays written by award-winning children's book authors with an audio file so that the more challenged readers have access to content. Make them multi-media by including art and video as appropriate plus information about the author so students can get books at the library by an author whose Minute has whetted their appetite for more.

What are the results?
Five million page views and counting. Lots of letters and comments from teachers and students. We've added a Transfer to Teaching for each Minute (T2Ts), giving suggestions for using the material with students. (Don't know if any real kids actually went to the library, maybe someone can fill me in.)

March is Standardized Test Month. It creates so much anxiety that teachers are given instructions on how to preserve test answer-sheets with vomit on them. We hear our Minutes are used for test prep. That was not our intention.

Magic in the Classroom: One Teacher's Guide

12/7/2018

Dr. Pamela Davis

Dr. Pam Davis is a friend of mine and a consummate teacher. I asked her if she created magic in the classroom and in her blunt straightforward manner she said, "Not really. I just capture the magic that's there!" So I asked her how that happens and her responses are the basis for this blog.

Is magic in the classroom the norm or not?  "I think magic in the classroom is overlooked and when it's harnessed that's the exception."

How often do you experience magic in your classroom?  "To me teaching and learning are both magical so I experience magic quite often?"

What do you do to make this magic happen? "First, I prepare by deciding how to share myself through the material. For example, I have a natural sense of humor and I love to read and listen to music. If I can find a way to share any of my passions with my students through the mandated content, that's the first step in inviting them into a safe learning space. So when I teach social studies to 6th grade, the kids need to learn about the term, the "golden age." I introduce them to Jill Scott who wrote a song called "Living Life Like It's Golden," which I believe represents a golden age in popular music. Then I invite them to debate the properties of a golden age in history by comparing my generation's music to theirs. This leads to discussions all kinds of golden ages and gives the students ownership of the term."

What do you look for in the material you use to connect to your students?  "I have to look for outside material to supplement the mediocre required texts, which gives kids facts but doesn't inspire interest. I can say honestly, that in order to connect to my students and have them connect to each other and eventually connect to the material, I have to be some kind of voice--an author's voice, a musician's voice, an artist's voice that transcends diversities and keys into common humanity."

How have you used the Nonfiction Minute? "When we were learning about the Medieval Period in history, I used the Nonfiction Minute called "Gong Farmers." I then posted the link on my class page with the warning, "Read at your own risk. This is disgusting. I don't want to talk about it."Of course, most of them read it but then I had them lead a small group discussion about some of the pros and cons of the feudal system from the peasants' perspective. And several children brought up the idea of a gong-farmer and explicitly explained what the job entailed while I barely contained my composure."

Pam, you are an exemplar of what I call the "artist teacher." How do you get away with it? "I get criticized by administrators and sometimes other teachers. But parents and students give me consistently high ratings, so I persevere. I get some encouragement from my work outside the classroom. I teach teachers. I evaluate content and even provide really fun robotics to kids facing family trauma. I've never seen teaching as anything but an opportunity to share magic.”

If you are a teacher who has never experienced magic in the classroom, you must first know yourself and be fully and confidently self-expressed. Next you must be constantly on the lookout for excellent content material created by others who are also fully and confidently secure in their form of self-expression. Shared humanity is at the heart of it all.

Nonfiction Minutes: Stepping Stones to Achieving Excellence

6/6/2018

Excellence. There is no shortage of exemplars. They are athletes, entertainers, entrepreneurs, activists, academics, writers. We shower them with accolades and many are rewarded with large sums of money. We call them heroes. Children can name their favorites. But to a child, and to teenagers, and even young adults these superstars may as well live on another planet. What is the journey to this pinnacle? Champions come from all walks of life. And many individuals, who are born to wealth and privilege, fall by the wayside. Excellence also shows up in less publicly aggrandized activities.   There are short order cooks, teachers, social workers, wait-staff, knitters, who are stand-outs in their less glamorous worlds.

I started iNK Think Tank because I wanted to highlight excellent nonfiction writing for children. Our genre has been a stepchild in children’s literature.   For the most part, the nonfiction children read in public schools is from standardized material that “covers” curriculum subjects. ELA classes have a long tradition of teaching classics. There is so much to be mined from their excellence that they need a teacher to help students get more from a book than just the words. Why not expose children to excellence in nonfiction writing where the author’s passion for content shines through the language?

Achieving excellence can be learned. We get there though a concept called “successive approximations.” As educators we recognize and reinforce behavior that is in the direction we want our students to go. Then we have them repeat the process but raise the bar a little higher for the outcomes. It isn’t a linear path. Failure is an intrinsic part of the process. Think how many times the champion figure skater or hockey player must have fallen on the ice in their journeys to the Olympics. The most important requisite knowledge is that it is hard-won. But at some point,individuals gets hooked. They see themselves improving. They understand the kind of work they must produce consistently to graduate from one level to another. They certainly understand it if they play video games and get really good at them. Note that test grades are not necessarily a part of the learning process and sometimes can kill it before it takes hold.

When it comes to academics the primary skills are literacy-related as defined in the Common Core Standards as listening, speaking, reading, and writing. The problem, as I see it, is that the standards come divorced from content, particularly content that may be of interest to students. If motivation is the key to learning and, let’s say, one kid is fanatically interested in some arcane subject matter, like wolf spiders in Australia, academic skills can be acquired in the process of learning about that subject. Yet all too often, we rush children through the learning ropes without considering the built-in motivations that come with each individual.

This is the concept behind the Nonfiction Minute. Children are being introduced to a diversity of topics, written by a diversity of authors who have achieved excellence in their writing from a diversity of pathways. Literacy skills are likely to be acquired much more rapidly if they must be used in pursuit of knowledge that fascinates a child. They can be the key to starting their own academic journey into content that resonates with them.

Karen Sterling’s brilliant Transfers to Teaching (T2T) helps them on the way to higher learning and academic achievement.

II hope you understand how we are trying to get to the heart and soul of the learning process that has been hijacked by too many misguided cooks in the education pot.

Compelling Nonfiction for Kids: This Title Has a Double Meaning

Magic in the Classroom: One Teacher's Guide

Nonfiction Minutes: Stepping Stones to Achieving Excellence

Vicki Cobb

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Compelling Nonfiction for Kids: This Title Has a Double Meaning

Magic in the Classroom: One Teacher's Guide

Nonfiction Minutes: Stepping Stones to Achieving Excellence

Vicki Cobb

​Archives

Categories

Links

Company

Contact

Archives