Hooray for Diffendoofer Day by Dr. Seuss

My friend Carol has written a lot lately on our state’s “big” event.  As we all know the pressure put on teachers and students over this test is counterproductive to what we should be doing:  teaching, and learning. 

One of my student’s father works for a rocket company.  Kindof cool.  I can say “What, you think your dad is a rocket scientist?  And he can reply “Why, yes he is!”  Well, anyway his company goes to schools and builds rockets out of two litre soda bottles, and other fun stuff.   After they are “built” we take the third graders out and they shoot them off.  Last year it was the best memory of the year.  Given the company’s busy schedule, and our science unit about space the logical time for this activity was set for the Thursday and Friday before the “big” event.  Like I said this has been planned for months.  Everyone from the principal to the other third grade teachers knew the dates and time commitment.  Well, today came the realization that it is days before the “big” event, and even worse it takes time away from mathematics.  There is concern that by a few kids missing two days of instruction it will negatively impact their test scores.

I read the email multiple times to see if there was fine print saying “just kidding!”; but alas it was not there.  Now to be blunt a few things entered my head, and some were said with my door closed at lunch; but for the sake of this being a blog I’ll just censor my thoughts:  “What the…..” Really!  If they aren’t ready now what will two more******* days do?”  After calming down I decided that I would do what I always do when I need to be calm in front of my class.  I READ A PICTURE BOOK.  Not any book, but one that told them what I really thought.

I read Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! by Dr. Seuss.  I have read this book many times.  I use it as a mentor text when we discuss using our brains to think, and that we are capable of doing so much.  In third grade they split up the “big” event over two months.  ????? We take Reading in February and Writing and Mathematics in March. In our class we discuss how we started preparing for these test the day our first story was read to us, the first time we knew a number, and the first time we wrote a letter.  In other words we know what is on the test, so sit back and show the state what you can do. 

In my heart I, truly, believe this.  I am, also, not naïve enough to believe that I don’t need to teach these wonderful students the formats of the test.  The format of the editing paragraph on the writing test is enough to put anyone over the edge. What will the results show?  They will show that some students still struggle, and some fly.

What won’t the results show?

·      laughter

·      compassion

·      deeper thought

·      questioning

So in the words of Dr. Seuss:  “Miss Bonkers teaches a pig to put on underpants, and ducks to sing.  Mr. Kimmal teaches your shoes are untied,  and what's on your shirt?  Mr. Kimmal, also, teaches EVERYTHING!  He’s different-er than the rest.”

Bigger Than A Breadbox and the Joys of Read Alouds

“NO!” 

“You can’t stop!”

“Read more!”

These are just a few of the many comments I heard when I tried to finish my read aloud the other day.  We were so very close to the end of Bigger Than a Bread Box by Laurel Snyder.  When this happened I, again, was stunned at the intensity children listen to what we read to them.  I promise to not get on a soapbox and write about the importance of Read Alouds.  Instead, I will share the pure joy I felt while reading this wonderful book to my class.

Full Disclosure:

Bigger Than a Bread Box is not a guy’s book.  I can’t imagine most boys picking it up on their own accord and actually reading it.  Now, that is not to say that a boy would not enjoy it because 13 third grade boys listened intensely to the beautiful words of Ms. Snyder.  But to be blunt:  girl on cover, girl main character, grandma, and mom.  Not a lot of dudes!

Back to read aloud time.  I do it daily after lunch, and it last about 15 minutes.  Trust me when I say that it could easily go longer.  That is why there were groans and protest the other day.  I try to find new books each year.  It is not that the cannon is not filled with great read alouds, but I want to make sure kids get a well-rounded literacy experience.  I try to have a mixture of male and female protagonist, genres, and lengths.  That is how we ended up with Bigger Than a Bread Box.

The story is about a family going through problems.  Mom splits from Dad and takes Rebecca and her little brother to Atlanta to stay with Gran.  While there Rebecca finds a breadbox that grants wishes.  A couple of catches:  one it must fit in a bread box, two it won’t get her parents back together.  Along the way Rebecca learns some important lessons.  I’m not going to give more way because it is a book that must be read and enjoyed.

Like I wrote earlier this is not a soapbox post about the importance of read alouds, but more a statement about the love I have for this daily routine.  Every summer I start the quest for the first read aloud of the year.  (Yes, that is the dictionary definition of DORK!)  I email friends, talk to people at The Bookies, read blogs and find the perfect first book. 

There have been times where the book is not well received, so that leads to a discussion about it is OK to stop reading a book.  Luckily this rarely happens.  And, so on to picking our next read aloud.  I have a couple of ideas.  I am toying with reading a classic.  I might read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, or The Phantom Tollbooth, or something new.  I still have some time to decide.  One thing I do know is that what ever it is will be a wonderful time in my room.

Graphic Novels Part 2

After my last blog post I reflected on my statement that there are many teachers that don’t let students read graphic novels.  As I kept replaying the words in my head I realized that students must be taught how to read a graphic novel.  It isn’t just looking at the pictures or reading the fewer words on the page.  Readers must closely look at the pictures, reread the words and infer what is happening in the “white” space between the pictures.  Teacher must realize that the graphic novel may be shorter or with more pictures, but if kids are reading them we must encourage more of the same behavior. 

In the new Choice Literacy newsletter there is an article that reinforces this.  Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan  write a wonderful article entitled Is "Just Right" Still Just Right?: Helping Children Select Appropriate Books   that addresses this fact.  We as teacher get so caught up in “levels” that we no longer see the reader.  Langrigan and Mulligan eloquently write that “just right” books are what we enjoy. (Sorry I know there is more to it than that, but that is my one sentence summary!)

Last week I had morning duty.  It is a fun 25 minutes outside on the playground where I get to visit with students. During my time outside I asked a student, from another class, what she was reading.  Her response, “I read a level 38!”  I replied, “Oh, but what is the title of the book?”  Again, “I’m a level 38.” When did Level 38 become a book?  Why are we as educators so concerned about reading levels and not joy of reading a book? (OK in reality educators that follow book blogs don’t fit in this category, but still….)

Stepping down from my

 I want to talk about two books from the Cybil’s Graphic Novels I received.  One is very much a guy book the other will be a hard sell, but totally worth it in the end.

I love the story of King Arthur, but in reality it is usually done by watching the story on TV or at the theatre.  Currently there are two versions on TV.  BBC is in its fourth season of Merlin, and Showtime has Camelot.  Guilty pleasure watching.  I was excited when I received Excalibur The Legend of King Arthur by Tony Lee and Sam Hart.  It is a great read.  The background story is told quickly, so that we can get right to the action. The illustrations are interesting and I really got into reading the story.  It is definitely a YA book.

When I was a kid my mom read me the Oz trilogy.  They were hers from when she was a little girl.  I remember looking forward to being read the stories.  Another book I really enjoyed during my judging was Ozma of Oz L. Frank Baum by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young.  This will be a hard sell for boys.  There is a girl with a large bow on the cover, so right off the bat there is a major hurdle to get over.  Trust me it is worth it.  The illustrations are fantastic.  Dorothy is definitely not a sweet little girl in this book.  Her ornery expressions made me laugh throughout the book.  Boys will kike the adventure part and the robot.  

Graphic Novels Part 1

For the last three years I have been lucky enough to sit on a CYBILS panel.  I feel honored to be able to add my opinion on what is great children's literature.  It is a daunting task.  I am responsible to read as many books as I can and narrow it down to my top five.  This year I was on the graphic novel committee.  There are two sections.  The first is middle grade graphic novels and the second is young adult graphic novel.  Since I teach third grade I am much more comfortable reading middle grade fiction.  There were wonderful books nominated, but I was surprised that there weren't more choices.  Last year I did middle grade fiction and there were over 125 books.  Even though my comfort level is in middle grade I LOVED the YA graphic novels. 

As I was reading I kept thinking about all the teachers out there that don't let kids read graphic novels.  I am sure they have their "good reasons", but the truth is teachers that don't let students read graphic novels are short changing them.  There were some phenomenal books nominated.  They spanned the range of books.  There were graphic novels based on literature, ones on superheroes, some vampires (some not bad!), ones on robots, and even current events.  In other words there were graphic novels that met the needs of every reader.  Some of my favorites made the short list and some didn't.  Originally I was just going to blog about "boy" graphic novels, but I think that some of the "girl" ones have guy appeal.   

Two books that did make the short list were two of my favorites.  The first one is Sidekicks by Dan Santat and the second is Level Up by Gene Luen Yang.  I can't wait to share many of them with you and my class.  Happy New Year.

The book trailer for Sidekicks by Dan Santat was one of my favorites of the year.  With any trailer the hope is that people (teachers) will preorder the books and share with their class.  Well it worked because I did and I did!   Sidekicks is a wonderful superhero story about an aging superhero (just like me without the cape or gadgets!).   Captain Amazing is tired.  He needs help, so a call is placed to find a new sidekick that could eventually take over. 

This is where it gets fun.  His animals decide they must and will be his sidekicks.  I still laugh thinking about a hamster, dog and chameleon coming to the rescue of anyone.  I mean really who can’t laugh seeing a hamster in a USA, Red, White, and Blue superhero costume.  The story is charming and the graphics make me think of older comics.   It is very popular in my third grade class.

Growing up most of us feel we need to meet our parent’s expectations.  For boys it tends to be living up to what we believe our dad’s hopes are.   Given that I couldn’t throw or catch a ball I knew I didn’t live up to what I thought my dad wanted.  In Level Up by Gene Luen Yang’s new graphic novel the main character Dennis Ouyang didn’t come close to what his parents wanted for him. 

Dennis’ father dies when he is young and he never really gets over the death.  He starts college and soon becomes so engrossed in video games.  This leads to dropping out of school.  Along the way he finds that he can live up to the expectations. 

I really enjoyed Level Up.  The graphic novel is split up into video game levels.  (Get it level up!)  The illustrations are interesting.  At times they are very vivid and others times very muted.  The text in the bubbles is easy to read and forces the reader to really think about what is happening.  This is definitely a YA  book.

Why We Teach!

Last year I was lucky enough to have Milo as a student.  He is a wonderful young man full of curiosity, and a great sense of humor.  He comes from a home filled with love.  This morning his father, Ross, sent me an email that was a tribute to his elementary school teacher.  He has given me permission to post it here.  Yesterday I spent the day with Sharon Taberski and today this letter.  Two extremes that demonstrate why I am a teacher.  Thank you Ross.  You, Milo and every other kid is why we do what we do.

TO ALL THE TEACHERS OF THE WORLD:


I just got word that my elementary school teacher passed away on Saturday night. Flowers are not enough. Donations are not enough. The only tribute I can even remotely imagine great enough is to reach out to the teachers of the world and encourage you to be Mrs. Koontz for your students, as Deleta Koontz was for me.

I had the life-enriching privilege of spending three years in the classroom of Mrs. Koontz. No, I didn’t have to take fourth grade over three times. You see, in the small Lutheran school in the Missouri prairie town of Lockwood where I grew up, our classrooms were divided into grades 1–3, 4–6, and 7–8.

Those three September-to-May voyages in Mrs. Koontz’s classroom shaped my destiny more than any other time in my life. I didn’t learn a thing. I DISCOVERED everything.

When we read the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, we dressed the part, built a real log cabin with our dads over chilly autumn weekends, and spent a whole day at Mrs. Koontz’s farm around a cast-iron pot, waiting for the miracle of apple butter to occur. To this day, a simple spoonful of that gooey apple goodness transports me back to that day of butter-churning, apple-peeling, fire-stoking magic.

And let’s not forget the Boston Tea Party Day when we pushed all the chairs against the wall and set up a mom-staffed tavern that served spiced tea to a mad band of grade-schoolers fed up with taxation without representation.

There were annual Sadie Hawkins day races, teepees erected on the school lawn, and commemorative trees planted to mark our nation’s bicentennial. Speaking of celebrating 1976, Mrs. Koontz spent most of 1975 assembling a red, white, and blue wardrobe so she could wear our nation’s colors EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE BICENTENNIAL.

She was a patriot for sure. A Christian. And an angel at the right time in my life. When I transitioned mid-semester to this small Lutheran school from the local public K-8, I struggled to fit in. She created opportunities that allowed me to stand out, as she did for all her students. She identified our gifts and allowed each of us to give them back to the world.

I always loved to make stuff. I still do. So creating bulletin boards for the classroom was a task she handed over to me. Sometimes, I chose to forgo recess in order to bring her classroom’s cork boards to life.

Every two years, the Lutheran school staged amazing youth theatrical productions. Jack and the Beanstalk was my first. When I, cast as the giant, proposed a pair of shoes made from stacked 2x4s to make me taller, she immediately shared my vision. When I suggested an extension ladder wrapped in painted paper with oversized leaves as the beanstalk, she knew exactly how it could work. And her greatest theatrical accomplishment was an all-community production of The Sound of Music. It had been her dream forever to bring this alpine blockbuster to our predominantly German farm town. To create the abbey bells that beckoned Maria down from the hills, Mrs. Koontz once again pulled sheer genius from her bag of tricks. A coat rack of suspended cake pans and skillets created the perfect auditory illusion of the echoing bells she remembered from her European travels.

Mrs. Koontz’s German heritage lay just beneath the surface in so many things she did. We practiced Christkindl-giving in her class every Christmas, a tradition many know as Secret Santa. She taught us to sing Christmas carols in German. She fully embraced the town’s annual Strassenfest weekend festival every year. And when she retired from teaching, she picked up the accordion and formed a polka band that toured and performed at German folk festivals.

After returning from a trip to Europe and enchanting us with vivid anecdotes of all the wonders she had experienced, she told us that one day we would all most likely get to Europe. I thought she was crazy. She was right. I have been six times. And in all those travels, nothing has given me more joy than a sprawling Alpine meadow or strolling through a quaint, half-timbered town marked by crooked doors and window boxes overflowing with scarlet geraniums. Without a doubt, the joy, I feel, is directly linked to that love for storybook European nostalgia she instilled in me.

I live in Colorado now, where I’m a Creative Director for an advertising agency, a job that allows me to channel Mrs. Koontz just about every day. And every September, as the aspens begin to turn, my wife and I take our sons up into the hills to experience as many Octoberfests as we can. And I don’t see a pair of lederhosen, dance a polka, or devour a giant pretzel without sharing in some quiet personal communion with Mrs. Koontz. I think to myself, “She would LOVE this.”

Dear teachers everywhere, as you stand in front of your classrooms tomorrow, and every day after, look into the eyes of your students and wonder: thirty-seven years from now, which one of these brilliant little souls will write a tribute like this about me? Am I making eyes sparkle, hearts sing, minds wonder? Not wander. Toss convention into the wind. Think about the imaginative ways in which you can encourage those future-shapers entrusted to you to savor the wonders in the world that lie outside your classroom window–all that’s come before them and all that lies ahead of them.  Ask yourself, “What can I do so my legacy of discovery and learning will outlive me one day?” How can I be… like Mrs. Koontz? The greatest teacher that ever lived. Next to you, of course.

Auf Wiedersehen,

Ross Snodgrass

Another year of Guys Read

The afternoon was filled the roar of boy voices, clamping of feet up the stairs, faces filled with excitement, food (no spilled juice!), laughter, visiting, a little discussion of Rewind by William Seator, more goofiness, voting on the December book (Belly Up by Stuart Gibbs was the easy winner), and getting the next book (Guys Read Thriller).  That was how my first Guys Read Book Club started.  I missed the first one because I was home with a high fever, a lovely UTI and kidney infection.  Since kids read this blog I won’t get into the details. 

Anyway back to the boys.  At one point I had a flash back to five years ago and the eight little third graders that made up that first book club.  (Yes, you were little!)  I am fortunate to work in a school with so many male teachers.  Yep, I’m not alone with the 30 monsters that make up this years Guys Read Book Club.  I figure that about 25% of the boys in grades 3-5 attend the book club. (In five years we have read only ONE non-fiction book.) It is exciting and overwhelming to think about what long-term effect the book club will have on these young readers.

Due to the shear number of boys we split them up into three groups.  It is very scientific.  I count the number of boys and make little slips with numbers, and they draw.  Well, that part is going to change for next month because a few fifth graders figured out what group I was going to have and sorted through the numbers to find the #1.  Nicholas, another fifth grader, was more blunt he said, “I didn’t even pick a number I was going in group no matter what!”

Yet, again the discussion was not deep, but it was a fun time. Teachers are expected to do many things, most of choose to do even more.  As I begin another year with these boys all I can think about is that no matter what, spending time with this ever growing group of knuckleheads makes my job as a teacher even more special.

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

I just finished Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick! My mind is racing, and all of my thoughts are not in order over this spectacular book.  However, I am afraid if I don’t write right now I will never put down those thoughts in writing.  Awestruck comes first.  Through out the book I constantly stopped and re-read sections to take in the beauty of Mr. Selznick’s prose and illustrations.  I know my writing will not do justice to this book.

Wonderstruck is a story told in text and illustration.  It is a hybrid novel, picture book and graphic novel.  Unfortunately, these labels do not do truly fit this book.  There are two principle characters in the story. The section on Ben is done in text and takes place in 1977, and the section on Rose is done in illustrations and is set in 1927.  Eventually the two stories collide. 

The inside flap says,  “both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing.”  We the readers are fortunate to travel with them on their quests.  At the end we are get as much out of the journey as Ben and Rose.

I use Hugo Cabret in my higher guided book clubs because Mr. Selznick ability as a storyteller makes students slow down and REALLY think about what they are reading, and everything is not always as it seems.  I will use this book the same way.  It will be easy to challenge students to find the clues of how the characters are connected.  What type of items would they put in their own wonder cabinet?  What will I put in my wonder cabinet?

Sorry for jumping all over the place, but I am excited about this book because I have a new student that is severely hearing impaired and I can’t wait to share this book with M and her mom.

To stop my ramblings I will end with just a couple more thoughts about Wonderstruck.  First, one of the reasons I am passionate about getting children to read is, so they can experience books like this.  Second, this book is for people 8 and above. (YES adults must read this book.)  Finally, Brian Selznick should come to the CCIRA Conference!

Wonderstruck is nominated for the CYBILS in the graphic novel.  I did not receive a copy from the publisher, but it is worth the $30.