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Got in from a long drive…consulting out–of -town, winding down by watching Letterman with Michael Keaton….putting down Twitter agree…disagree….Well, I don’t know, but everyday, more and more people are following me on Twitter…but I’m not going anywhere to follow.

I’ve been working on this post since April, so here I go…posting ‘cuz I’m not moving ahead on this. And my life works like this…Make public–do better.

I’m confident that once I get this posted, my Twitter will evolve–however slowly from nothing to something…Watch me…but better yet…give me ADVICE!!

And  before I even posted, I TWITTERED!!!!!!!!!!!

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 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!!

Humph…you might say…how can the opinions expressed in a blog not necessarily be those of the author? Well, “here’s the deal ” (as my good friend Tom always says)…the post you are about to read, see, hear, is not my own work, but the alleged work of a school in Queensland. However, I find it very amusing…even the parts I personally don’t agree with. I can understand other people’s frustrations and laugh rather than rant about the ways they choose to exercise their rights to expression. So, listen in the spirit the video is offered…lighten up and have a laugh.

Which leads me to my next video…I noticed that many of the comments regarding the answering machine message and logged through YouTube were more than critical of teachers and of parents. My advice, accept that everyone gets to the point where they “just can’t take it anymore.” Remember Howard Beale’s famous lines…having revisited that thought, I see YouTube has that clip available too. I just couldn’t resist.

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As a reading and teaching consultant, I have the opportunity to begin each year with a new set of colleagues and students alike. Of course, I still have my work with schools of previous years, but just as our goal as educators is to graduate students from our schools, my goal as a consultant is to help teachers and schools become independent of my services.

But the point of this entry is to describe the feelings of my first days in an entirely new building with a group of new teachers and their equally unfamiliar students. I am working in the St. Louis area and the middle school teachers I met yesterday are the most enthusiastic teachers I have ever met. As a consultant, to step into a new culture can be intimidating. I wonder if they will like me– I wonder if what I bring to them will be useful and new– I wonder how our time together will be spent–will they listen attentively or will they interact engagedly. Pleasantly for me, they dove into the work and really almost literally dove.

My high school teachers, who can sometimes bereserved, are meaningfully involved in our work, which for this month is focused on vocabulary skills, in teaching and in learning. My week has been one of the best in my career…the week began with a sense of uncertainty in the newness of the challenge, yet the week ended in the assurance that we will make a measurable difference in the achievement and persistence of our students! Bravo teachers!!

Back from a week above the “tension line” otherwise known as Washington Island,  a 30-minute ferry ride away from the over-commercialized Door County.  We stayed at Cascio Cottages on the waterfront and loved every waking and sleeping moment! Lots of biking and campfires, talking with the locals at the bars and grocery stores. RELAXATION!

Can’t say I don’t enjoy “North Door,”  as some call it. The series of communities boast as many shops as full-time inhabitants and there I always find unique purchases. One of my “must shop” visits is Sister Bay’s Chelsea Antiques and Blue Willow Shop where I like to pick up one antique novelty (sounds oymoronic) each year. This year it was an antique English cheese dish, last year a mahogany crumb duster–you get the picture. Another preferred stop is at Fish Creek’s Bungalow by the Bay next door to Pelletier’s Restaurant, grandfather of the Door County Fish Boil. Bungalow by the Bay offers really unique home decor and bargains on artwork as well as cool furniture, modern and antique.  My other antique must shop is Egg Harbor’s Bay Trading Company with its seemingly endless collection of architectural antiques. Terance, the owner, is willing to find anything you aren’t able to put your hands on in his already burgeoning antique mall and make accomodations to ship or deliver to your door. Last year, we bought some brackets for our Victorian style home and he sent them to us via another customer who lived only 15 miles away from us. Worked great for everyone! This year, I brought home a Captain’s Wheel among my treaures. I thought it was pretty cool…now each of my kids wants one too!

Of course, we dined at Al Johnson’s famous restaurant and gorged on Swedish pancakes covered in his special maple syrup and Lingonberries. Al wasn’t there and I don’t think he is of late, but I have fond memories of his pouring bottomless cups of coffee for his patrons and that custom still continues. Al’s absence isn’t the only change in the county, but Door County continues to retain a charm that speaks to not only moms and dads, but brothers and sisters who grow to become the moms and dads of tomorrow. All in all, Door County is a worthwhile vacation destination. Of course I’m a bit biased–we have taken our familyin its evolving form to Door for twenty-five of the last thirty summers!

Reflective teachers consider individual consequences and deliberate ethical and moral implications

Last Monday and Tuesday, I worked with the Matteson District 162 teachers at Huth Middle School in Matteson, Illinois. Matteson is a large elementary with a sixty-percent low income demographic among an enrollment about 3200 students. However, the seven schools consistently make AYP, with more than 80% meeting and exceeding state standards in 2008.

Reflective teachers consider moral and ethical implications!

Teachers need time to talk and practice problem solving issues of buildings and classrooms

How do they do it? Being a newcomer to the district, I can’t say “for sure” but after meeting more than one-hundred of their teachers, I believe part of their success is grounded in an educational willingness to look through new eyes at what might seem to be recurring issues. One of the workshops I led was entitled “Becoming a Reflective Teacher.” More than 60 teachers signed up for the workshop and that says something about the willingness of an educational staff to see things in new ways. We had fun in the workshop solving the age old problem of which way to place toilet paper on the roll; the fun was an entryway into reflecting on classroom methods, building and facility considerations, and climate and culture: discipline issues. If you are interested in pursuing Reflective Teaching with your staff, in your building, or within your department, a practical text I recommend is Promoting Reflective Thinking in Teachers: 50 Action Strategies by Taggert and Wilson, published by Corwin Press.

At the end of every school  year, the teachers are offered a series of professional development workshops to attend over a period of five days.  The offerings range from technology to mentoring to professional reflection to differentiated instruction. Because the district is K-8, the sessions are also designed for specific grade-level teachers. The second day, I offered workshops in differentiated instruction: 12 Effective Differentiated Methods. For the most part, this a “bang! bang! bang!” workshop.  I quickly introduce the activity or method and the group practices how it plays out through some authentic text or mathematical problem.

Teachers practice the strategties for a real feel of engagement level.

Word sorts can also be used as a preassessment of background knowledge and a formative assessment for progress

My roses have never been so beautiful! Although I have been bemoaning  the cool rainy days of June, my roses, once silent, are shouting in bloom their pleasure with this year’s spring.

Even clippings from faded blooms arrange themselves for a portrait shoot!

I am a bit behind the announcement, but Gcast no longer provides a free podcasting service via your telephone. I don’t have the facts on why the April change in the way of business was made, but I do know that now, to use Gcast as your podcasting upload service via telephone interphase (like that language?), it will cost you about $100. Bummer for me and for kids. Of course, you can use Audacity or other open source audio recorders for free downloading of podcast capable text, but Gcast was so simple….I mourn its loss.