A Promise Kept: More NCTE 2009

It’s getting late and I present at 8:30 tomorrow, but I had to share! Another over-the-top day at NCTE. My morning session was spent listening to and chatting with the sisters, Gail Bushey and Joan Moser. If you get a chance…go see these two dynamos present! Their audience is typically elementary, but if you have any skills at adaptation, their ideas will take you throughout the learning continuum! Their “Daily Five” is an approach to structure literacy instruction that addresses individual needs and classroom management. Their newest addition, the CAFE menu, is intended to incorporate system of assessment and a guide for future instruction among a menu offering Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Vocabulary strategies.

Following that session, I attended the Secondary Luncheon and was surprised to run into several Illinois State

What a thrill...sitting and talking with Joyce Carol Oates!

friends and acquaintances, among them, Kathy Clesson who was being recognized at the luncheon as Illinois’ English teacher of the year. We were all privileged to have our pictures taken with Joyce Carol Oates, one of my favorite authors. While we were posing in front of Oates’ table, she invited us up to sit beside her and I had a chance to talk with her about an essay I assigned as part of my Frankenstein unit: “Frankenstein’s Fallen Angel” and we discussed that piece of literary criticism Oates had written many years ago!

Oates, a petite woman with a silken voice and a sense of humor that is delivered as matter-of-fact in perfect diction had the ballroom of English teaches ballroom laughing in a combination of surprise in her wit and agreement with her description of the male ego, which like a balloon, “stretches large but thin.” She spoke honestly about the recent loss of her husband and with a controlled but emotional candor, spoke of the struggles faced at the loss of a lifetime love and burden of facing life unexpectedly alone.

Cathy Clesson receiving the NCTE Illinois Teacher award

And there was still the rest of the day to go!!! There is so much at an NCTE convention…I urge all English teachers to find a way to get to Orlando next fall and Chicago in 2011. I spent most of the afternoon at the Middle Level Mosaic, a phenomenal mosh of English educators and researchers and published authors sharing in teaching and learning and interpreting and considering the possibilities of where literature can go and how to get there! Speakers like Jeff Wilhelm, Nancie Atwell, and Teri Lesesne (rhymes with insane) spoke on topics of student engagement and the need to teach good literature which is not synonymous with classical literature.

Getting kids engaged in reading takes meeting them where they are…and that may mean that teachers need to move beyond 19th and 20th century literature and into the burgeoning field of YA, young adult literature, in order to get authentic reading rather than pretense activated in the English classroom. More on that tomorrow!!

What a thrill…sitting and talking with Joyce Carol Oates!

Cathy Clesson receiving the NCTE Illinois Teacher award

NCTE 2009 Convention

What a day!

Julie Andrew, Alfred Tatum, Linda Rief, Jim Burke, Stacy Somppi, Tiffanie Goff, and Tom Lynch not to mention all the other inspiring educators that I met between and within the NCTE sessions at this year’s annual convention in Philadelphia.

To provide you some flavor of my day, let me share some of their words and ideas. Julie Andrews credited her father with giving her an appreciation of nature’s wonders.  I didn’t know Andrew’s father was a teacher. She spoke of the education she had as a performer and the education she didn’t have as a performer…you know…no formal schooling. But, she pointed out, she was and is a voracious reader, a quality she asserted was instilled by her tutor. Did you know that she has been writing children’s books for 40 years? And for the last ??? years, she has been co-authoring with her daugher–how cool…to write books with your own daughter!!! I didn’t know that. Their newest book is a Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies with illustrations (paintings) by world-renowned James McMullan.

In addition to promoting their newest publication, Julie and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, spoke of the need to broaden human experience through literature, including poetry and nonfiction, and as Walton Hamilton put it, “balance education’s overuse of realistic fiction (the problem novel) with texts that provide an ‘open destiny’ and offer hope to our young readers.” Walton Hamilton spoke of the anxiety her own son had faced when overwhelmed by the heavy ominous nature of much of the texs we share as literature with our young folks. That has always bothered me….too many poems and stories of oppression and depression without comic relief…or any relief!! And that’s my unvarnished opinion after spending 20 years in the high school classroom. Sometimes I got depressed from all the depressing texts we read…no wonder kids turn off…we are committing readicide!! (see Kelly Gallagher).

Following today’s keynote, I attended a presentation chaired by Linda Rief and featuring the work of Roger Essley, an artist who emotionally told stories of his own struggling school years. Actually, this was my third appearance at this presentation, having seen it at previous IRA and NCTE conventions–though always reformatted. What I appreciate about the updating of this work is the expansion of thinking into high school arenas and written words to amplify the illustrations of cognition. The premise of Essley and Rief’s collaboration is that people think in pictures before they formulate and construct communication in words–so why not build on that cognitive style and allow students to draw, chart, graph, whatever…their understanding visually before sharing them either aloud or in writing.

If you know a bit about me, you know that this premise is akin to my own and, frankly, the basis of my proposed three stage instruction that pairs think alouds with images as well as written texts…but suggests we as educators start with images as a level playing /thinking field for all of our learners. Why not teach students cognitive strategies by invoking and sharing images rather than limiting such cognition (like inference and connecting and summarizing) to the language of alphabet, syntax, and grammatical constructions?!

I have gotta tuck myself in!! I am exhausted. Read more tomorrow and see about my presentation!!! The room was large and it was full!! 270 people…and if I do say so…my largest audience yet. But…know this…I was not alone. I co-presented with three very astute educators for New York, New Jersey, and New Mexico. I guess I was the only not “New” there…being from ILLinois.

I promise the details tomorrow!!

NCTE San Anotonio–Shift Happens

The river was one reason the Alamo was located amidst what is now modern San Antonio...

Saturday morning at NCTE was a tough one for me.  I was exhausted and as a result, I missed the 8:000 am presentation by Karl Fish–a major regret because I use his youtube.video (posted at the bottom of today’s blog) as a wake-up call to teacher and others who just don’t get the power of technology in a rapidly changing world. By the way, the posted video is an update of the original, so don’t assume you’ve already seen it! Which causes me to reflect again…where was Vicki Davis? I wonder if the NCTE organizers approached her about representing the practitioners’ view of edtech pedagogy as it intersects the field of English studies: reading and writing in the vast and uncharted territories of Web 2.0?

Saturday’s highlight came late in the day at the 10th Annual Middle School Mosaic. Sara Kajder shared some marvelous edtech ideas and though the crowd was rather despondent (evidently exhaustion was not a unique experience), everyone valued her sharing. There were no roundtable discussions, atypical of the middle school mosaic, but those who voiced their absence also expressed their satisfaction with the session as a whole. Kylene Beers addressed us with the frankness and sincerity that is her hallmark as she voiced her passion and pledged her dedication to work towards change in the social inequities of education and learning opportunities.

Especially poignant were the student multimedia presentations from the 2007 California Teacher of the Year’s Hispanic students. I am not surprised by the quality and the depth of their creativity and emotional sensitivity. You see, I have seen this before; I have taught this way for years, even before the widespread availability of technology. We can do it teachers… but we must make the attempt. Enthusiasm and well-placed intentions will not get the job done. You, yes you, must dig your heels in and give it a try, even when it feels uncomfortable….and it will. Admit to your students this is a trial run and lighten the constraints of fore-knowledge on your teaching. Get into the “flow” of learning beside and among your students rather than in front of them.

And there was more…Sara Holbrook who not only writes for kids, but actually visits classrooms and teaches kids how to become writers themselves. Always uplifting, her poetry is at the same time physical and emotional….just what kids need. And let’s see…Robert Probst who I have never seen in a more amusing state. Of course I don’t know Robert except as a speaker (or rather sage) on the stage or the writer of respected texts…but this evening he was amusing as he poked fun at his age through the evolution of technology. I think I could pass his PowerPoint off as my own…I too began with pen and paper, only later to welcome the technologic advance of a weighty and stiff machine that looked like a minature upright piano and we called a typewriter. I feel so blessed to no longer compose by hand!!

I am far too long and haven’t mentioned everyone who was there…but some I’ve already blogged about…like my among my favorites, Teri Lesesne who must be reading in her sleep to keep up with all of the YA literature she critiques for those of us in the field!

Catching Up at NCTE

I have fallen a bit behind in my blogging; today is Monday, November 24, 2008 and I am sitting in one of the NCTE post-conference workshops. Meeting the Challenge for 21st Century Literacy for All Learners was organized by one of my favorite researchers for practitioners, Janet Allen. I’ve attended her workshops before—look back into my archived blogs.

Judith Langer, who I have cited in much of my doctoral work, was the first among a litany of intellectually stimulating speakers who are really talking to us about how to up the ante on motivating all readers, struggling readers and gifted learners as well. Judith has a great soothing voice; she spoke about significant concepts relating to the psychological development of adolescents.

Langer asserts that we must help kids learn how to 1.) develop cognitive flexibility; 2.) initiate generative thinking; 3.) cultivate openness to change; 4.) learn how to adapt. We all know that today’s new technology is tomorrow’s archaic tool. Langer warns us that new literacies require both technical skills and control of langague and thought, both as receivers and senders. We must use technologies of the world in the classroom or we will have a bifurcated society….those who have used the opportunities of education to become critical thinkers and those who were turned off by archaic practices and irrelevant content of education. That then, will deepen the gap between social classes and the ability of certain populations to acquire the kind of jobs that can support families and provide
self-esteem.

Interestingly, Carol Booth Olson just shared an interesting statistic: an estimated 85% of current jobs and 90% of fast-groewing nd best paying jobs now require a post-high school education.

Right now, Jim Burke is sharing some the 21st technologies he is using…have you used Google Docs? I haven’t, but he showed us how his kids work on an essay and share it through Google Docs and comment on one another’s work simultaneously. The only problem I have, and this is not out of experience, is that our kids are getting more and more removed from people and to remove them from the kids sitting in the very room with them seems a bit….distancing. However, the goal is engagement and writing improvement through peer editing, so I can see how using Google Docs in this way could really help build a community of learners.

Day Two at NCTE

Friday was another great day at NCTE. I’m not sure how many colleagues are here at the convention, but I’ve seen figures ranging from 6,000 to 10,000. With a crowd this size, you can meet people and run into them throughout the day…and that really builds community. First session: Marc Prensky! He was not only a motivating techie speaker, but he was funny, too! He reminisced about his own high school English teachers and opined about the canon. Actually, his thoughts parallel many of my own–we may be from the same generation. Like Marc, I don’t remember much of my high school literature, except here and there for some titles…oh, I did enjoy a couple of pieces of literature, like Thornton Wilder’s By the Skin of Our Teeth, but too many of the novels we read were canonical and without the cannon bang, at least for a teenager of the 1970’s. My best memories of literature are connected to texts from my drama class. I probably remember that one because we were engaged in dramatic representations of the text–my drama teacher did remark on my report card that, “Dea has a flair for the dramatic!”

After that, I was off to a presentation by the Grammar Goddesses–they have several books and are NCTE presenting queens. They used to give out tiaras to those attending their presentations, but have recently gone to golden stickers. Coincidentally enough, while there, I met Carla Beard, Web English Teacher. Everyone at the table was in absolute jaw dropping awe! Even after she left, teachers around the table continued to rave about herextensive web page. If you haven’t been there, take a look. She has compiled a repository of materials and links arranged by text title, content area and thematic approach. Several of the teachers at the table confessed to visiting the site daily.

The highlight of my day, if not Marc Prensky (and I’m not sure it wasn’t) was the session with Ellin Keene. The room wasn’t full so I had the pleasure of being front and center. Ellin has more energy than any presenter, with the exception of myself, I have ever seen. She talks a mile-a-minute sharing family anecdotes connected to school traumas and successes. She is confessional (we have a lot in common) and openly challenges the audience to broaden their view of the educational landscapes and horizons our profession.

Ended my day with a writing workshop presented by a group from Northern Illinois University. One aspect of the presentation addressed getting kids to move from the generalities of writing to specific detail using images. I love that! I believe all teaching begins with images. Another part of the presentation introduced a method to collaborate with engaging data that becomes a decision making process and culminates in a written text. Visit their site for more: talkinginclass.org

gotta run…I’ll add more links later.

Evening at NCTE in San Antonio

What a day!!! Although I was a bit hurried at first, the late afternoon and evening shared with fellow English teachers and educators from around the world made up for lack of food and sleep.

I spent two hours with Teri Lesesne, who shared two hours of reading vignettes of YA literature sure to enthrall even the most reluctant of readers. Teri always does a super job and her presentation was a MUST for me. Unfortunately, I was few minutes late after having to return to the registration line to pay for a Monday workshop with another of my all-time literacy favorites, Janet Allen. And then, wouldn’t you know…I arrived too late for the handout and on top of it all, didn’t have a pen to record Teri’s wisdom in directing kids toward the book that would make them beg for more…so I just listened in. If you go to her blog or to her slide share, you too can get “up-to-the-minute” reviews from Teri’s session today.

Let’s see…and after that…the secondary session with guest speaker Francine Prose was awesome! She spoke about how NCTE had been an impetus in her career…in a serendipitous manner, but nevertheless…NCTE had noted her prowess with language long before she began her career as a woman of letters. She’s got a great voice and although she spoke primarily about her book, Reading Like a Writer, you can hear her speak about her newest novel, Goldengrove, which we each received as a gift. I venture here and now that Reading Like a Writer will become a resource for every writing teacher’s repertoire. I intend to share the wisdom and examples of this text with my own teaching groups as we work to build reading and writing curricula that use authentic texts to make the experience and action of reading, writing, and thinking relevant and powerful!

And finally, back at my hotel looking for a quick snack before bed, I met up with two interesting educators who live worlds apart yet both teach through an innovative non-profit program, International Baccalaureate or IB. We ran into each other in the hotel lounge…each traveling alone but interesting, all of us from the midwest. However, one of the group was now teaching in Spain, in an IB American school. The other of the group is the Director of an IB program in an Indianapolis magnet school and will be presenting on Saturday. Serendipity…I love it!! IB, as an educational approach began, I believe, with the development of American Schools overseas and has recently shown itself as an effective program of study in domestic communities. Based, to some degree in inquiry learning, the premise is centered on Wiggins’ systematic approach to Undertanding by Design, a framework in curriculum development. Check them outon Saturday morning in a session entitled “Seeing the World Through Author’s Eyes.” More on that later.

San Antonio–I Have Arrived!

I have arrived at my hotel and ambled down the River Walk to register for a Monday workshop at the NCTE convention. At this moment, all Monday sessions still have availability, so if you were like me and chose not to preregister for Monday and now are having second thoughts, get your credit card out and get yourself down to the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center Exhibit Hall C. But bring a MasterCard or Visa because as I just found out, they don’t take American Express. That is what brought me back to my room sharing this tidbit with you!

Oh, and by the way, there are sessions going on today…they start at 2:30, so shut your computer down and enjoy a walk to the Convention Center!!