Under what rock have I been living? That's a question I asked recently over at my
How to Teach a Novel blog. A couple readers emailed and suggested I repost here, since the reason for that rhetorical question would be of interest to teachers here as well.
I simply wondered how it took so long for me to discover
Tracie Vaughn Zimmer. She's an author, and I do recognize
a couple of her titles. But somehow I missed that she has also created this
awesome site (absolutely
no hyperbole intended) containing
original teaching guides for
picture books (over eighty of these!),
YA books, and
poetry. All for free! All Tracie asks in return, if you like what you see, is that you buy a copy of one of her recent books. Pretty good deal: free resources
and one of her critically acclaimed titles for your library.
Personally I found teaching guides for many books I'm hoping to include in future blog posts including
Abe's Honest Words,
Daniel Boone's Great Escape,
River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, and
Mama Went to Jail for the Vote.
So in a rare move, I'll shut up now. I'll let
Tracie's web site speak for itself (and you can check out
her blog as well). Thanks, Tracie, for your terrific resources!
Many teachers, especially at the lower grades, enjoy making books with their students as a follow-up activity to sharing picture books. To this end I highly recommend you visit
MakingBooks with Children, Susan Kapuscinski Gaylord's elegant website on creating simple books with children. (And yes, my fellow English teachers, it is, indeed, MakingBooks, without a space between the two words).
In addition to her
free activities, she also offers teachers
tips on the teaching process, tools, and materials. Her
MakingBooks blog offers other terrific ideas, many of them related to the holidays.
Check it out. You'll be surprised how easy it is to create such wonderful books with your students.
When I picked up
A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades
, I really intended to just skim it over. After all, I now teach only sixth grade (this book is aimed at teachers of lower elementary grades) and I teach only reading and language arts (whereas this book, at first glance, seemed to be pretty much about science). Well, I read the introduction, and about two hours later discovered that I had read the whole thing from cover to cover. Not just read it, but thoroughly enjoyed it, and
couldn’t wait to pass it on to a teacher of those grade levels so that they could put its ideas into action in their classroom.
First, know this: Georgia Heard and Jennifer
McDonough don’t write in the world of the
hypotheticals. Every idea they share for helping children make nonfiction discoveries comes from their real-life experiences with kindergartners and first graders. Every lesson plan has been implemented in “real time,” and it shows through the anecdotal stories, the authentic and very funny student dialogues, and their suggestions for practitioners based upon their experiences.
This
isn’t another book of themes or centers; this is an easy-to-implement series of lessons which will assist any teacher, in any school environment, in opening the eyes of curiosity. And while some will argue that children are naturally curious, I would point out that schools have a way of stifling that curiosity. Not purposely, not systemically, but simply through neglect.
A Place for Wonder shows how to take that natural curiosity and channel it toward authentic and purposeful explorations of nonfiction topics. What particularly impressed me was the plans for children to write their own nonfiction books, complete with table of contents and glossary!
My wife is a kindergarten teacher so she’s already laid claim to my copy. Looks like I’ll be getting another for my daughter’s teacher.
It’s that good! I recommend you check it out
online at Stenhouse, and
get a copy for yourself
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