If you're a student in one of my classes, you're probably wondering why I didn't return any emails last week. The truth is, I was preparing for and recovering from the Wisconsin State Reading Association Annual Convention. This year, I went as both a learner and a presenter and walked away from the experience having gained from both roles. On Thursday I attended two workshops, both of which offered practical information and web-based resources. For a description, keep reading...
The first was Doug Buehl's presentation on Inquiring minds in literacy comprehension instruction. His presentation style includes very facilitative modeling of the teaching behind the strategy, but also the thinking behind the idea. That is, "Everything [he] does is generic." What impressed me most was how well he adapted the work of others and skillfully synthesized multiple methods into one "quick and easy" template for classroom use. Find more of his work at the WEAC "Reading Room" site.
The second workshop I attended was called "Into the Book," which is a collaborative project developed by the Wisconsin Educational Communications Board with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and a team of experienced educators. Supported in part by Wisconsin's Reading First U.S. Department of Education Funding, it offers an in-depth look at the most notable comprehension strategies used by proficient readers. Each strategy is accompanied by an icon for visual cueing, video clips, text resources, lesson plans, and a plethora of other resources. I highly recommend checking it out.
Perhaps my most favorite part of the convention this year was that Patricia Polacco was invited to be the keynote speaker on Thursday. She is a gifted storyteller whose talk and texts have impacted my teaching and caused me to get teary-eyed on more than one occasion. More importantly, however, her presence signifies the unified stance that the reading community is taking against the NCLB legislation. Just a few years ago, Polacco was "uninvited" to speak at an IRA event because of her then controversial opinion of the largest standardized test publisher in the country, CTB/McGraw-Hill, so the fact that she was so eagerly heard says a lot for the turning tide of those taking action to right the wrongs of the current administration on educational accountability.
Conventions and conferences offer multiple opportunities to refresh your pedagogy, learn new research, and network with colleagues. If you've never been to a professional convention, I suggest you begin to explore the options now, while you can still get student rates for membership and attendance. And now...I have a few emails to return.
11 February 2008
02 September 2007
Kozol Strikes Again
I do much of my lesson planning and thinking in the car traveling to and from the numerous outreach sites where I teach. As of late, my thoughts have drifted to what I should include in a blog related to literacy instruction. I found the answer for the topic of my first post tonight as I drove to Target. As you may already know, my car radio never leaves NPR. Tonight as I tuned in, Alternative Radio was broadcasting a repeat of Jonathan Kozol's address to Portland teachers on his 2005 book tour, The Shame of the Nation.
For those of you who don't know who he is, Kozol is one of my heros who has been working towards educational equity in America for over 50 years. He began as a substitute teacher in the Boston Public Schools just post the monumental Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas decision of 1955 and after graduating from Harvard. Having grown up in privilege, Kozol was amazed at the conditions of the school where he served as the 13th substitute that a fourth grade class had had that year. Though he did not have a background in education, he did his best to connect with his students, who were poor and underserved. He was eventually fired for using a Langston Hughs poem, The Ballad of the Landlord, which provided the backdrop material for his first book Death at an Early Age. He has since written over a dozen books including Savage Inequalities, Illiterate America, and Amazing Grace, in which he details the realities of metropolitan school systems.
I was fortunate enough to hear him speak in Milwaukee the fall after Shame came out, and later participate in a book club with my current colleagues and some teachers from Stritch's Masters in Urban Education students. During his address, he criticized the Bush administration for the perils of NLCB, particularly related to the inequity of quality early childhood programs and the unfairness of using the same methods of accountability testing for all kids, regardless of whether they were denied entrance to Head Start or attended a "Little Ivy" preschool. Milwaukee actually gets a shout out in thebook for its dedication to providing four year old kindergarten to most of our young urban students. (However, he does not mention that these classrooms often have underqualified teachers and up to 25 kids in each class, so the quality of the program can't be guaranteed.) He also provides data that compares the per pupil spending of urban vs. affluent community districts.
So what does this have to do with literacy? Listening to the voice of conviction made me want to reread the book and reminded me to sign up to see him this year when his new book is released. Everything about the book was meaningful to me that year. When I stood in line after his talk a few years ago, he asked me what I teach. I told him where I taught and how my school mirrors those he describes in his book, especially in that it was 99.5% African American (the subtitle of the book is "The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America"). I also shared with him the mantra students are expected to recite on a daily basis, which is another topic in his book. He looked up at me and said, with no sense of irony, "You must be very tired." It was one of the pivotal moments in making the decision to change my career path to involve direct contact with pre- and in-service teachers.
How many books have had an impact on your life in this way?
For more information about the broadcast, see: http://www.alternativeradio.org/programs/KOZJ003.shtml
For those of you who don't know who he is, Kozol is one of my heros who has been working towards educational equity in America for over 50 years. He began as a substitute teacher in the Boston Public Schools just post the monumental Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas decision of 1955 and after graduating from Harvard. Having grown up in privilege, Kozol was amazed at the conditions of the school where he served as the 13th substitute that a fourth grade class had had that year. Though he did not have a background in education, he did his best to connect with his students, who were poor and underserved. He was eventually fired for using a Langston Hughs poem, The Ballad of the Landlord, which provided the backdrop material for his first book Death at an Early Age. He has since written over a dozen books including Savage Inequalities, Illiterate America, and Amazing Grace, in which he details the realities of metropolitan school systems.
I was fortunate enough to hear him speak in Milwaukee the fall after Shame came out, and later participate in a book club with my current colleagues and some teachers from Stritch's Masters in Urban Education students. During his address, he criticized the Bush administration for the perils of NLCB, particularly related to the inequity of quality early childhood programs and the unfairness of using the same methods of accountability testing for all kids, regardless of whether they were denied entrance to Head Start or attended a "Little Ivy" preschool. Milwaukee actually gets a shout out in thebook for its dedication to providing four year old kindergarten to most of our young urban students. (However, he does not mention that these classrooms often have underqualified teachers and up to 25 kids in each class, so the quality of the program can't be guaranteed.) He also provides data that compares the per pupil spending of urban vs. affluent community districts.
So what does this have to do with literacy? Listening to the voice of conviction made me want to reread the book and reminded me to sign up to see him this year when his new book is released. Everything about the book was meaningful to me that year. When I stood in line after his talk a few years ago, he asked me what I teach. I told him where I taught and how my school mirrors those he describes in his book, especially in that it was 99.5% African American (the subtitle of the book is "The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America"). I also shared with him the mantra students are expected to recite on a daily basis, which is another topic in his book. He looked up at me and said, with no sense of irony, "You must be very tired." It was one of the pivotal moments in making the decision to change my career path to involve direct contact with pre- and in-service teachers.
How many books have had an impact on your life in this way?
For more information about the broadcast, see: http://www.alternativeradio.org/programs/KOZJ003.shtml
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