Literacy Now

As a nonfiction children's author I'm often asked, "How do you find new book ideas?" Students are usually surprised when I explain I don't have to look for book ideas—they find me! For example, when I visited Washington D.C. during a summer vacation in 2011, I checked out the annual Folklife Festival on the National Mall lawn. With a long list of story ideas waiting to be written on my desk back home, finding a new book idea was the farthest thing from my mind, until I saw it—a colorful plastic wall, three feet high, sparkling in the afternoon sun.

As I approached the plastic structure, I noticed children stuffing plastic bags and trash into soda bottles with sticks. They placed the trash-filled bottles inside a frame made of wood and chicken wire. Nearby, a poster held photos of children constructing tall plastic walls—an entire building—out of trash!

The display explained how the tiny Guatemalan town of Granados (population 847) was facing two problems in 2007: their trash piles were too big and their elementary school was too small. The village had no garbage dumps. No recycling centers. No place to put the soda and water bottles, plastic bags, and trash created by products arriving from other countries. Also, their elementary school, the Escuela Oficial Urbana Mixta de Granado, had become extremely crowded. Two grades shared one classroom. Two students sat at one desk.

The situation looked hopeless. Then the villagers got this crazy idea. Could they build new schoolrooms out of their trash? No one knew if the crazy idea would work, but everyone was willing to try.

Over two hundred children, along with teachers, parents, and grandparents, helped with the project. They worked seven days a week, collecting, cleaning, and stacking bottles. After fifteen months of hard work, they miraculously turned their ugly trash into a beautiful school. One problem had solved another. I couldn’t believe it! And that’s when it happened—goosebumps. (I always get goosebumps when a new story finds me.)

I was inspired by this incredible project, and immediately wanted to share it with young readers. Yet, I wasn’t sure I could find enough time in my schedule for the in-depth research this story would require. (And I did have that long list of story ideas waiting back home.) Then I considered the extraordinary teamwork it took to complete this huge project. I looked at the determined, smiling faces of the children in the photos, and suddenly, the Soda Bottle School moved to the top of my writing list.

I introduced myself to the woman in charge of the exhibit, Laura Kutner, and explained I was a children’s author. Laura turned out to be the teacher who had initiated the building project, and she was excited about the idea of sharing the school’s story. After I returned home to Chicago we chatted more over the phone, and Laura accepted my invitation to co-author a children’s story about the bottle school.

Laura’s personal connection with the project and the villagers was invaluable during the writing process. She patiently answered hundreds of my questions. She explained the building project in detail. First, the students collected over six thousand bottles. They carefully washed every one and set them in the sun to dry. Then the students filled each bottle with about two hundred and fifty old grocery and chip bags. Two hundred and fifty! They called the stuffed bottles eco-ladrillos, or eco-bricks. The bottle stuffing process took six months and most children ended up with blisters on their hands. Then the students stacked the eco-ladrillos between chicken wire fastened to a metal frame to create the walls. After local masons covered the walls with a thin layer of cement, students painted the outside of the school their principal’s favorite color, orange.

When the school was finished, the village threw a huge fiesta complete with streamers, signs, and traditional Mayan dancing. Their new school had started with one crazy idea, but became a reality due to teamwork. It was a truly inspiring story. Now Laura and I had to figure out the best way to tell it.

After several weeks of writing, we had a solid first draft. Then we rewrote the story from several points of view in search of the most meaningful way to share it with children. Somewhere around revision 138 (seriously) we decided to try telling the story through the eyes of a student—a fourth grader named Fernando who was especially enthusiastic throughout the long, grueling building project.

With Fernando and his mother’s permission, we began revising again. Right away we felt this version was different—special. Critiquers confirmed it conveyed the Granados school project in an engaging, personal, and authentic way. Before long (in publishing time), the story was picked up by the perfect publisher. The publisher selected an illustrator, and months later Laura and I were asked to review preliminary sketches. Everyone wanted to make sure the book was inspiring, engaging, and of course, factually correct. While the final illustrations were being painted, we did a few more manuscript revisions.

I’m so grateful the idea for “The Soda Bottle School: The True Story of Recycling, Teamwork, and One Crazy Idea” found me in 2011. Three years later, the book has finally been released! You can learn more about that here.

While the story shares an inspiring message of creative recycling and teamwork, the book itself will help to keep our planet clean. I’m donating my proceeds from the book to help fund new bottle school through a nonprofit organization called Hug-It-Forward. Laura is donating her profits from the book to Trash For Peace, a nonprofit organization which promotes environmental education and ideas for upcycled/recycled projects such as these awesome recycle bins made out of plastic bottles (Download the free instruction manual here.)

Suzanne Slade is the award winning author of more than 100 nonfiction books for children. Her recent picture books include "The House That George Built" (a Junior Library Guild Selection, a Bank Street College Best Book of the Year), "Climbing Lincoln's Steps" (Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People, Paterson Prize for Books for Young People), and "Multiply On The Fly" (California Reading Association Eureka! Silver Award, ILLINOIS READS selection.) Look for her new 2014 releases: "The Soda Bottle School," "Friends for Freedom," and "With Books and Bricks: How Booker T. Washington Built a School."

Jenny Rich with Brian Floca at IRA 2014

Dear Colleagues,

This was my first year at the IRA conference. There are a lot of reasons why I didn't go before, but, mostly, there was this: it felt like a lot of money, and I didn't know anyone else who was going. Those things were still true this year (though—full disclosure—I had a friend/colleague/mentor there on the first day) but I decided to give it a try anyway.

Here is what I can tell you: Attending IRA 2014 was one of the best professional experiences of my life. I wish I had done it sooner. It might have changed the course of my career (really!) because my teaching and my network would have been so different.

You see, what I didn't know is that IRA is a celebration of the profession of teaching. Walking into the first opening session (to see Jeff Kinney speak, no less!) felt like walking into a concert, complete with flashing lights, fun music, and giant beach balls sailing around the room. I knew immediately that this was going to be like nothing I had experienced before.

Jeff Kinney set the tone for the conference, telling a room full of teachers that he believes "putting books in the hands of kids is a sacred act." This was after he explained that he walked away from being a cartoonist for a while—that he needed to put in his 10,000 hours to become an expert at writing and cartooning.

It was a moment of revelation: if even Jeff Kinney had to work this hard to be an expert, well,it's okay that writing doesn't come easily. Not to us, sitting in the audience, not to the kids we teach…. He was one of us! We were a room full of writers, united for a moment by the hard part.And Jeff Kinney made the hard part okay.

And that's when I realized that IRA was a place that would bring teachers together. It would make the hard parts of our days, our challenges, a source of camaraderie rather than isolation.

The conference continued this way, bringing teachers together in the most unexpected ways.We stood together in lines to get the most incredible swag. Leather tote bag from Scholastic? Got it! A tiny little speaker that plugs into my phone or tablet from Amplify? Yes, got that, too! How about the pounds and pounds of free books, many of which were signed by the authors? Got so many of those that I had to ship them home.

(I mentioned that one reason I had waited to go to IRA was because I was concerned about cost. Well, I am fairly certain that if I were to add up the value of just the swag alone, the conference would pay or itself.)

The best part about the lines, though, was talking to the people I was waiting with—the coming together of teachers.

I got everything I needed from IRA, and found things that I didn't know I wanted. I met teachers from Kentucky and Kansas, from Minnesota and Canada. I met authors, both because I sought them out, and because they were everywhere, signing books and leading sessions. I listened to research from some of my personal heroes like P. David Pearson and Tim Rasinski, and then heard classroom applications of research from literacy rockstars, including (but not limited to) Chris Lehman and Donalyn Miller (though not together, though that would be REALLY cool.)

I walked away each night unable to fall asleep. At IRA I spent days surrounded by people who not only "got it," but who were inspiring. Dav Pilkey, the incomparable author of the Captain Underpants books (a favorite in my house) told a packed auditorium that "our job is to help kids discover the clues to the universe in what they choose to read." He also said, "There is a reading revolution going on under our noses, we just have to get out of the way. "Well, all right! That's the way to start a day, isn't it? As I walked out of his opening session, I overheard one teacher say to another, "I've always kept his books out of my classroom, but now I want to buy every single one!" That's the kind of impact IRA had.

Every session, every moment spent in that convention center was one of inspiration, innovation, and collaboration. I have a notebook full of ideas waiting to be implemented, from how I communicate with students to ways in which I hope to get more involved with IRA going forward. My Personal Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter has expanded, which means that the learning that started at the conference will keep going for me. And, of course, I am already looking ahead to next year in St. Louis, a mantra at this year's conference.

So, you see, going to the conference was a game changer for me. I am so grateful that I took this opportunity to attend this year, and—again—wish that I had done this sooner. For years I was an elementary school teacher, and, at times, I felt isolated in my practice (because, of course, this was before Meenoo Rami wrote her brilliant book Thrive:5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching, which I read in my hotel room in New Orleans). Now I teach preservice teachers, and want to make sure that they don't go through those periods of uncertainty in their own practice.

And so I write this letter to my current students who are about to enter the field, and for the teachers who, like me, are unsure if the IRA conference is really for them. It is.

You will leave enriched, connected, engaged, and eager to return home to your colleagues, students, and classroom.

You will remember why you became a teacher in the first place.

You will remember, as Jeff Kinney and so many others reminded us, that you are not alone in feeling challenged, and that the good stuff lies on the other side of those challenges.

I hope to see you next year, in St. Louis.

Jenny

Jenny Rich is an adjunct instructor in the School of Education at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and a doctoral student at Rutgers University.You can find her on Twitter at @jdrich219, and will see her at IRA 2015 in St. Louis.

You’re off to a big conference and you know it’s gonna kick butt! Great speakers, diverse workshops, lots of people geeking out over things you yourself love to geek out about.

Indeed, good times are on the way. Best of all, it’s perfectly fine to break your diet. After all, conferences and dessert go hand-in-hand like, well… dessert and conferences. You can skip the molten fudge chocolate lava drama cake back home when it’s just a regular ol’ out-to-dinner night but when you’re advancing your pedagogical skills at a ferocious clip, it’s practically your academic duty to plunge in your fork, both wide and deep.

After all, you’re not doing it for yourself; you’re doing it for the kids!

To help maximize the benefits of attending this year’s brain exchange, here are five tips that can assist you to get the most out of this year’s shin-dig—steps to take AFTER you arrive home (and renew your vows to go to the gym).

Experience has taught me that managing the conference is fairly straightforward; managing all the information/follow-ups/things to do and people to contact afterwards, however, is a valuable skill worth knowing.

Note: All of these tips are unified by the critical belief that you must carve yourself out a few uninterrupted minutes—not hours, but minutes—after you leave the conference to maximize your attendance benefits.   

Tip #1: Plan for a Sift Through (10–15 uninterrupted minutes)

Conferences are like an all-you-can-eat buffet where a ton of the food is good, good, good. And while you are there it is often wise to gobble, gobble, gobble as much as you can. But once you touch down on the home front, not every last bit of material you took home with you is going to meet your post-conference needs.

That’s why you plan for a sift-through.

After all, lots of presenters hand out materials, lots of Exhibit Hall folks give out informational brochures, and lots of people say things at lunch, while riding elevators, or while waiting in the bathroom lines. (That would be the ladies room, mind you—there is never a line for the guys, a chronic issue of conference gender bias decreed by no less than Mother Nature herself.)

Give yourself ten to 15 uninterrupted minutes (I really can’t stress the UNINTERRUPTED part) to thoughtfully filter through your take-home material and notes.

Don’t be afraid to categorize either:

• Pile 1: AWESOME stuff! For sure has value.
• Pile 2: Good stuff, worth keeping
• Pile 3: The jury is still out on this stuff
• Pile 4: Bzzzp! Why did I bother to schlep this home? 

Tip #2: Schedule your “follow-ups” (5–10 uninterrupted minutes)

There are people you’ll want to send emails to in order to say “thank you.” There are people you’ll want to send emails to in order to say in order to say “great to meet you.” There are people you’ll want to send emails to in order to say “screw you.”

Kidding! (Don’t send those.)

Thing is, it’s far too easy to get back home, slide into the piles of work that grew from molehills to mountains (or from mountains to Mt. Everest!) while you were away and neglect to do the follow-ups which you really wanted/needed to do.

Plus, doing these follow-ups in a timely manner is often important. After all, did you ever get an email from someone that said, “Hey there, remember me? We chatted about X while grabbing a quick salad on that Saturday afternoon at that really awesome, big conference… like seventeen weeks ago?

Um, no.

But since we’re all pretty much polite we respond by saying, “Oh yeah… remind me again…” And what happens is that which could have been a very real, very meaningful connection that brought real oomph to something in your world ended up fizzling out simply due to its poorly timed follow up.

Within a week after you have “landed back home” make sure you have done your “connects.” Trust me, it pays off.

Tip #3: Do a Big Picture reflection (5–10 uninterrupted minutes)

The immensely popular system of Cornell Note Taking stresses the “Summary” section with a great deal of emphasis. Why? Because after you digest a lot of new material, taking a moment to reflect, paraphrase, and summarize anchors the learning and opens pathways to deeper understanding, fresher insights and yes (to go all brain-based research on you) more dynamic connections between newly created neurological pathways.

Here are four questions you might want to try and answer:

• What was your best experience of the conference? Why?
• What was the one thing you learned that stuck with you? Why?
• What skill do you now realize you need to add to your bag of tricks? (You can’t learn everything, but you can add something.) Why?
• Who can you connect with upon returning home in regards to the conference? (i.e. maybe it’s someone you met, maybe it’s a colleague at home worth having some new discussions with, and so on.)

Tip #4: Download that New App and noodle with it (10 uninterrupted minutes)

Inevitably, someone introduced you to a cool new app that sparked your imagination… but the conference just wasn’t the right time and place to get a good grip on it.

Here’s a means by which you can ramp up your digital skill set in the world of apps (and/or new software, as well):

1. Download the app that caught your eye.
2. Set a timer for 7–9 minutes. Start the timer and DO NOT allow yourself to judge the app or your own ability to use it until the timer goes off.
3. Play with the app. Experiment, make mistakes, try things. Most importantly, refuse to judge or give up until the timer goes off.
4. Reflect. Do you want to:
1. Seek out help with the app by asking someone?
2. Seek out help by jumping online and searching for tips? (Often there are videos out there which really can move mountains.)
3. Click your heels cause you are WAY excited and now own a new tool that is gonna help a ton.
4. Trash the app and just say, “Hey, I tried… not for me.”

Tip #5:  Share! (time factor up to you)

Look, there are people who wanted to go the conference who did not get to attend for one reason or another. Go find them and hook them up with a tidbit, a piece of data, a new idea or even a tool. Conferences are all about generosity.

Did you hear about a great new book for reluctant readers? Tell someone. Did you grab a PowerPoint that you know a colleague will love? Turn them on to it. Sharing feels great and often when we come to our professions with the aim of giving we end up getting a whole lot more.

After all, these tips were free, weren’t they?

Alan Lawrence Sitomer was California's Teacher of the Year in 2007. He is also the author of multiple works for young readers, including Nerd Girls, the Hoopster trilogy, “The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez,” “Cinder-Smella,” and “The Alan Sitomer Book Jam.” He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. In addition to being an inner-city high school English teacher and former professor in the Graduate School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Alan is a nationally renowned speaker specializing in engaging reluctant readers who received the 2004 award for Classroom Excellence from the Southern California Teachers of English, the 2003 Teacher of the Year honor from California Literacy, the 2007 Educator of the Year award by Loyola Marymount University and the 2008 Innovative Educator of the Year from The Insight Education Group. Visit him online at www.alanlawrencesitomer.com.

photo credit: horizontal.integration via photopin cc

“I am not here to entertain students. I am here to teach them to learn specific content and skills,” commented a teacher in a workshop we were conducting. Imagine her surprise when we agreed with her!

In our research on motivation and engagement, which led to creating our joyful learning framework, we discovered that the terms engagement and entertainment are often used synonymously when they are anything but alike. Below, we point out the differences and provide some student engagement suggestions. We are drawing these thoughts from our most recent work, “Engaging Minds in the Classroom: The Surprising Power of Joy.”

What is engagement?

Wlodkowski and Ginsberg (1995) defined engagement as the visible outcome of motivation, the natural capacity to direct energy in the pursuit of a goal. It usually happens when learners can sense success is within their reach, they value the outcome of the learning experience, and they feel safe in the classroom setting (Brophy, 2008).  

Attentive, committed, persistent, and meaning seekers are four characteristics of engaged learners (Schlecty, 2011). During a whole-group lesson, a teacher would look for attentive students who are focused on completing a given task and persist if the task becomes difficult because they value what they are doing and derive meaning from it.

One sure way to double-check these observations is to talk with students as they complete their work and listen to what they have to say about it. Engaged students might make comments such as “I am having trouble understanding this section but I really want to know about how gravity works. I think I need to look at more of the diagrams to help me understand.”  

So what is entertainment?

The difference between entertainment and engagement is clear if we just think about the two words. We know that entertaining students is fairly easy (remember the Friday afternoon video?). As Katz and Chard (2000) remind us, engagement involves getting students interested in the word around them.

If students become interested in their world, they will always be able to find something that interests them in their lives. Engagement draws us into our daily lives, whereas entertainment does the opposite; we seek it out to distract us from our daily lives. It diverts us from attending to important matters. In the end, entertainment is fairly fleeting and short-lived.

So why make the distinction between these two terms?

As educators, our job is to engage students rather than entertain them. We get them engaged by providing tasks that enable them to be attentive, committed, and persistent learners who strive to understand what they are learning, which leads to sustainable and longer-lasting pleasure than when they are entertained. Engaged students and teachers derive joy and pleasure from what they do; they do not need to be entertained (Schlecty, 2011).

So what does this mean for educators?

While we emphasize the importance of engagement over entertainment, we also recognize that a bit of entertainment can lead students to engagement. In these instances, we want to use entertainment. For example, we might decide to dress up as a historical figure to engage students in learning about that figure. Or we might use a humorous story to entice students to learn content.

We fully recognize that having fun allows students to build social relationships. Rather than seeing engagement and entertainment as an “either/or” issue, we suggest using both in purposeful ways to gain a full understanding of how engagement and entertainment contribute to the larger picture. Entertainment becomes a means rather than the end.

Using props, humor, and other activities that students find fun in purposeful and meaningful ways can lead to engaged students. Engaged students are more joyful in their learning pursuits. As a result, their learning is learning with staying power. In essence, joy leads students to learning rather than away from it.

You can see Michael F. Opitz and Michael P. Ford at IRA's 59th Annual Conference in New Orleans, when they present, "Using Joyous Effort to Engage Learners and Create Urgency, Agency, and Responsibility" on Saturday, May 10th, at 1 p.m.

Michael F. Opitz is professor emeritus of reading education at the University of Northern Colorado, where he taught undergraduate and graduate courses. An author and literacy consultant, Michael provides inservice and staff development sessions and presents at state and international conferences and also works with elementary school teachers to plan, teach, and evaluate lessons focused on different aspects of literacy. He is the author and coauthor of numerous books, articles, and reading programs.

Michael P. Ford is chair of and professor in the Department of Literacy and Language at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. He is a former Title I reading and 1st grade teacher. Michael is the author of 5 books and more than 30 articles. Michael has worked with teachers throughout the country and his work with the international school network has included staff development presentations in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, South America, and Central America.

Friends and colleagues for more than two decades, Opitz and Ford began working together as a result of their common reading education interests. Through their publications and presentations, they continue to help educators reach readers through thoughtful, purposeful instruction grounded in practical theory.