The Book Whisperer

Ah, The Book Whisperer. I just read it over the weekend and had been looking forward to it for awhile. As a preservice teacher, I am woefully ill-equipped in the finances division, so this is not a book I own. Yet. I borrowed it from my lovely library, which I regret to say I haven't used as much as I should (especially since I want to be in the library services).

First off, let me say that I am extremely passionate about literacy and reading. Reading is the entryway to learning. I saw The Book Whisperer at my place of employment several months ago and have browsed through it a couple of times but it wasn't until this weekend that I actually spent time going through and reading it. One word: Wow.

If you're unfamiliar, The Book Whisperer is a teacher's account of how she encourages a love of reading in her sixth grade class. It's so well written that it makes me want to teach sixth grade. And that's a little frightening. Miller discusses her 40-book requirement for a school year and the importance of a good reading role model and a well-stocked classroom library. She deemphasizes classroom novels and suggests alternative ways to teaching literature and language arts. I love it.

I'm sure a lot of the book is fantasy land for a first year teacher, and I will be focuses on getting through ADEPT, but I long to have that kind of literacy environment one day.

Article Review #1

Okay, so the words "article review" conjure up memories of middle and high school science classes, when I was forced to write a one page (double spaced) reflection on a current science event and why it was important. I distinctly remember not hating these, even though the general consensus among my classmates was that it was the worst, biggest waste of time any teacher could inflict. Perhaps you share those sentiments, and I don't blame you if you did (or do). In my college career, I've done a handful of article reviews - mostly just to prove that I can in fact keep up with the research, without really absorbing much information.

I think keeping up with current trends and ideas is very important, and with so much being published digitally, there's almost no excuse for not being well-informed. Of course, not every idea is a good idea, and there's a lot of differing opinions. At the very least, I feel educators should have some kind of basis in current research and ideas and know both sides of arguments.

That's where my article reviews come in. One of my goals was to read more literacy related articles, so I will be doing two of those every time I do an article review. I will also throw in other topics that I find interesting. This is mostly for me, so if you're not interested in reading the article or think this kind of thing is nerdy or boring (or both), feel free to skip on ahead, that's totally fine by me.

1. Article #1: "E-Readers Help Spread Literacy, No Apps Needed"  

I picked this article mainly because I'm really interested in the ebook/e-reader debate. I have been a bookseller at a prominent bookselling establishment for nearly two years and my main job is to sell our store branded e-reader. Now, I myself am a fan of e-readers. I think anything that helps someone read or promotes literacy in any fashion is at least worth trying. There has been all kinds of hoopla surrounding ebooks and e-readers, but I think they are a good thing, and that's the stance I'll take until definitively proven otherwise.

MindShift doesn't delve too deeply into the debate between print and ebooks, instead it focuses on another issue on the rise in our ever more digital world: the disparity between those who have access to apps and digital educational media and those who do not, usually lower-income students who are already struggling. However, MindShift does not suggest that every student have an iPad to bridge this gap. Instead, it discusses the merits of a simple, black and white e-reader with minimal "other" features. It might have a web browser or wifi capability, but the most important thing that it does is give students access to books that they might otherwise not have the ability to read.

Anything that helps bridge the literacy gap and bolster the success of systematically disadvantaged students is worth a shot in my book (no pun intended).

      2. Article #2: "5 Tips for Helping a Student Find the Right Book"

For more experienced educators, this might seem like a strange article. You are most likely already familiar with these steps, but for a newbie like me they are critical and important. The article itself is geared more towards older students, but I find that it has helpful ideas even for elementary grades. "Read and tease" is something I find interesting because it takes little time and is a way you can introduce new books or authors to the class. Taking a few minutes a couple of mornings a week allows for me as the teacher to give the students a peek into a book they might never have looked at before.

I'm also really interested in incorporating "book talks" into my classroom, perhaps in addition to book clubs. I believe it's so important for students to have a chance to talk about their reading experiences and while guided reading groups are great, I don't know that they provide that experience to it's fullest extent. 

     3. Article #3: "Hidden Strengths of Emerging Bilingual Readers"

In my practicum classroom, eleven of twenty-four students are ESOL. Two speak minimal English, while the rest get by just fine. What I find fascinating about this study is how it brings to light the actual reading strengths that some of those students may have. Many of our ELL kids are in lower level reading groups, mainly for comprehension (though some of them do need help with fluency). Many read adequately but often struggle to put into words the answers to comprehension questions. 

Unfortunately because I don't speak much Spanish (or Vietnamese, or Arabic) I don't know how much I could incorporate these techniques into the general-ed classroom. I am interested in trying to bulk up my Spanish, however. 

Really, what this article shows is that we should never underestimate our student's abilities. 

BOOK MANIA

Okay, so not really book mania so much as a minor book frenzy. I spent about three hours last night organizing my children's books by guided reading level (I discovered I have nearly every level from A-Z with a ridiculous number of J's). I don't know if this is the best organizational method - I may change my mind and organize by lexile level, but I think this gives me at least an idea of what kind of books I have. Why the inordinate number of J's? I have no idea. Also, these were only the fiction books that I have. Not pictured is the pile of non-fiction that I want to sort by subject and the pile of poetry that is going to get it's own little basket. However, I decided that while I have around 150-200 books or so, I want at least double that to feel like I have a well-stocked library.

(My boxes organized by level.) 

Literacy is one of my biggest passions and I definitely want to be a literacy-centered classroom.
However, I know that doesn't simply mean having a ton of books. I need to have quality literature and be familiar with it. As of now, I have a ton of books in there that I've never read (a lot of my collection was donated or I bought a lot of 'pretty' books at a huge book sale). I want to be able to recommend books to my students and hold book clubs and effective guided reading groups. All of which, I know, is quite an undertaking and realistically, I won't be able to do all of it in my classroom as a first-year teacher. But that doesn't mean I won't try to do some of those things. At the very least, I need to be familiar with the books I have as well as current children's literature.

So, here are some book related goals I am setting for myself:

1. Read 100 children's and YA titles a year. Most kid's books aren't extraordinarily long or difficult reads, so I should be able to accomplish this.
2. Bulk up on literacy content knowledge and read one professional development book concerning literacy a month. One a month should be reasonable. 
3. Cultivate websites and read articles discussing literacy and start a resource bank for yourself. 
4. Start collecting more diverse titles featuring a variety of ethnicities, skin colors, genders and sexualities. My second passion next to literacy is diversity and a culture of acceptance and understanding. I believe a lot of that starts with reading books that feature people of all kinds. 

These are some pretty scary goals, but I feel really confident in my ability to pursue them. Even if I don't quite reach every goal, I think that it will get me started in the right direction. 

Drumroll Please

I've never been a particularly good blogger/journal-writer/record-keeper of any kind. Filling drawers and bookshelves in every home I've ever lived in are probably about three hundred partially filled journals (partially filled meaning two or three pages) and littering the internet are dozens of blogs started and promptly abandoned. Let's be honest: I just have no time. Or, if I have time, I just get bored and move on to the next exciting project. But this is a blog I'm determined to keep up with, though I am setting some guidelines for myself.

1. Do not give yourself any kind of requirement on how much you have to blog. You hate required writing. You may think you like required writing, but really you hate it. 
2. Stay anonymous. It's better for you. 
3. Length does not matter - this isn't REQUIRED WRITING. See guideline number one.

Mainly, I'm going to be using this to talk about student teaching, success and failures, to post resources for myself and basically keep myself sane. Clearly, I like to set impossible goals. 

On to more interesting things!

I have quite the class this year. I'm in a Title I fifth grade classroom. I didn't think I'd enjoy fifth grade all that much but wow, I do, I really do. They're weird and funny and heartbreaking, though I think any class, no matter what grade, is much the same in that regard. But there's something different about older kids. They understand more about the world, they're sharp and intuitive and they don't need you all the time, but most of them still want to make you happy. 

They make me wonder if I could teach middle school (though part of me cringes at the admission). It used to be that I could never even imagine teaching middle school, but I think that was due to having a horrible time when I was a middle schooler. Who knows what will happen in the future.

Today I taught my sixth lesson this semester, leaving me with two lessons left (!!!!!!!!). Time flies absurdly fast. Graduating in May still seems so far off, even though in reality it's only around six months (holy cow). 

Today we did a hands-on lesson involving ocean currents which used a pie pan filled with water and pepper. I was nervous, I'm not going to lie. My professor was observing me, I was stressed about my non-English speaking darlings, my sweet kids who turn me inside out by not participating and the angels who have a hard time grasping most concepts. I love them all, but I really just needed them to function like a well-oiled machine in front of my professor, when most days they're usually a few screws short of a full toolbox. I personally know my trouble kids and I know who can do what and how they're going to perform, but my professor doesn't and that's a little nerve-wracking. 

But all that worry was for naught. Everything that wasn't as good as I wanted it to be was entirely my fault, which I can deal with. It's real life, I'm not going to have a perfect lesson every time. However, my professor and my cooperating teacher scored me well and I have a handle on things I need to fix for next time. 

Until next time,

Ms. Bee