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The Very Short Film competition was launched in partnership with The Guardian in October 2012. The longlisted entries are now available for the public vote which will produce four finalists. After a live final in March, the winner will receive £9000 towards their university education.

By Chloe Foster

After more than three months of students carefully planning and creating their entries, the Very Short Film competition has closed and the longlisted submissions have been announced.

The competition asked entrants to create a short film which would inform and inspire us. Students were free to base their entry on any subject they were passionate about. There was just one rule: films could be no longer than 60 seconds in length.

We certainly had many who managed to do this. The standard of films was impressive. How were we to whittle down the entries and choose just 12 for the longlist?

We received a real range of films from a variety of ages, characters and subjects — everything from scuba diving to the economic state of the housing market. It was great to see a mixture of academic subjects and topics of personal interest.

It must be said that the quality of the filmmaking itself was very high in some entries. However not all of these could be put through to the longlist; although artistic and clever, they didn’t inform us in the way our criteria specified.

When choosing the longlisted entries, judges looked for students who were clearly on top of their subject. We were most impressed by films that conveyed a topic’s key information in a concise way, were delivered with passion and verve, and left us wanting to find out more. By the end of our selection process, we felt that each of the films had taught us something new or made us think about a subject in a way we hadn’t before.

The sheer amount of information filmmakers managed to convey was astounding. As the Very Short Introductions editor Andrea Keegan says: “I thought condensing a large topic into 35,000 words, as we do in the Very Short Introductions books was difficult enough, but I think that this challenge was even harder. I was very impressed with the quality and variety of videos which were submitted.

“Ranging from artistic to zany, I learned a lot, and had lots of fun watching them. The longlist represents both a wide range of subjects — from the history of film to quantum locking — and a huge range in the approaches taken to get the subjects across in just one minute.”

We hope the entrants enjoyed thinking about and creating their films as much as we enjoyed watching them. We asked a few of the longlisted students what they made of the experience. Mahshad Torkan, studying at the London School of Film, tackled the political power of film: “I am very thankful for this amazing opportunity that has allowed me to reflect my values and beliefs and share my dreams with other people.  I believe that the future is not something we enter, the future is something we create.”

Maia Krall Fry is reading geology at St Andrews: “It seemed highly important to discuss a topic that has really captured my curiosity and sense of adventure. I strongly believe that knowledge of the history of the earth should be accessible to everyone.”

Matt Burnett, who is studying for an MSc in biological and bioprocess engineering at Sheffield, used his film to explore the challenges of creating cost-effective therapeutic drugs: “I felt that in a minute it would be very hard to explain my research in enough detail just using speech, and it would be difficult to demonstrate or act out. I simplify difficult concepts for myself by drawing diagrams, often spending a lot of time on them. For me it is the most enjoyable part of learning, and so I thought it would be fun to draw an animated video. If I get the chance to do it again I think I’d use lots of colours.”

So, what are you waiting for? Take a look at the 12 films and pick your favourite of these amazingly creative and intelligent entries.

Chloe Foster is from the Very Short Introductions team at Oxford University Press. This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk.

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You Are My Wonders
by Maryann Cusimano Love
illustrated by Satomi Ichikawa
Philomel Books, 2012
this book was a gift from a former student

My love of 5th graders is a little on-again off-again these days. You know how they get; what it's like to try to keep their focus. But you also know about their razor-sharp wit and their amazing insights.

I need to read this book every day so that I can remember that they are truly my wonders.

"I am your teacher;
you are my school child.

I am your welcome;
you are my running wild.

I am your bell;
you are my ring.

I am your notes;
you are my sing.
.
.
.
I am your story;
you are my wide eyes.

I am your lesson;
you are my surprise.

I am your stillness;
you are my jiggle.

I am your straight line;
you are my wiggle."


Really. I need to read it every day.

And did I mention how much I wish I had written this book?

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By Eric Rossen

In the wake of another national tragedy, it is more apparent than ever that our schools must embrace a stronger role in supporting the mental health of our youth by developing trauma-sensitive schools. The mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut that killed several staff and 20 elementary school students came less than two months after Hurricane Sandy, a storm that brought devastation and displacement to tens of thousands of people in the Northeast. Both events offer stark reminders of the acute stress our students may face when experiencing cataclysmic events. However, even in the absence of such tragedies, many of our nation’s children are in chronic distress.

Despite our collective efforts, youth continue to have adverse and traumatic experiences, such as chronic child maltreatment, domestic and community violence, homelessness, natural disasters, parental substance abuse, death of a loved one, and the list goes on. These experiences can significantly undermine the ability to learn, form relationships, and manage emotions and behavior; all critical components of succeeding in school and in life. To improve our country’s education system, we must first address these barriers to progress; and schools remain the most logical place to do it.

As a school psychologist, I have had the privilege of working with students, parents, and fellow educators to help students learn, develop, and grow in a healthy environment. I have also had the challenge of identifying the mental health problems that impede learning where all too often, the initial question is, “What’s wrong with you?” rather than “What happened to you?” or “How can we help?” Some believe that schools are in the business of educating, not mental health. On the contrary, supporting student mental health is a pre-requisite to learning, not an afterthought.

Interestingly, while only a fraction of kids who need mental health care actually receive it, 70-80% of those that do receive it get it at school. Schools often have a cadre of health and mental health supports available. For example, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the NYC Department of Education mobilized their staff with an all hands on deck approach. However, even with the most talented and ambitious group of mental health professionals in a school system, it’s unlikely that they can provide the full range of mental health supports to every student in need. A main challenge is first identifying students in need when a stressor is not as obvious as a hurricane or a school shooting. Moreover, some symptoms of childhood trauma may not fully manifest until adolescence, at a time where some may view that behavior as an unrelated outcome of that early experience.

Trauma-sensitive classrooms and schools provide an environment where all adults in the building have an awareness and sensitivity to the potential impact of trauma and adverse experiences on students’ lives. The initial thinking behind low academic performance or bad behavior is not automatically that the student is willfully disobedient, unmotivated, and unintelligent. Trauma-sensitive schools are places where all youth feel safe, connected, and supported — not just the youth who don’t need mental health care or those that need it most. Trauma-sensitive schools augment and supplement the herculean efforts of the school-based mental health professionals and in a sense, provide a continuous and universal mental health intervention system.

Creating trauma-sensitive schools requires a great deal of commitment. First, we know that most, if not all, teacher preparation programs don’t include training to prepare teachers to identify, teach, and support traumatized students. This is a problem, particularly given the demands on teacher preparation programs, and teachers themselves. The duties of a teacher are added on with regularity, and rarely removed. Therefore, we must infuse some content on the impacts of trauma and mental health on learning throughout teacher preparation and professional development programs.

Second, we must leverage the existing mental health professionals that exist in schools, including school psychologists, school counselors, school social workers, school nurses, and other school-based mental health providers. Utilizing them more effectively could include more regular consultation with teachers and administrators on developing trauma-sensitive strategies and perspectives. These individuals can also provide in-services to staff at no additional cost. Meeting this demand also means properly funding enough positions to provide these services along with the intensive direct services to students in need.

Finally, this requires a culture change — often more easily said than done. Luckily, some groups have emerged as leaders in creating trauma-sensitive schools, including the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the State of Washington Office of the Superintendant of Public Education. Much can be learned from the efforts of these pioneer systems.

Many of our kids are in distress, and our schools remain our frontline opportunity to support them.

Eric Rossen is the co-editor of Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students: A Guide for School-Based Professionals with Robert Hull. Eric Rossen, Ph.D., is a nationally certified school psychologist and licensed psychologist in Maryland. He currently serves as Director of Professional Development and Standards at the National Association of School Psychologists. Robert Hull, Ed.S., MHS, is a school psychologist in Prince George’s County Public Schools, Maryland, serves on the faculty at the University of Missouri, and holds a position as adjunct faculty at Goucher College.

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Hurricane Sandy caused much devastation to the East Coast. Families lost their homes, buildings were heavily damaged and countless children, families and schools lost libraries full of books.

The students at Union Elementary School in Farmington, CT, decided to take action.

Some Union Elementary students came across First Book’s initiative to raise money to provide new books to children affected by Hurricane Sandy. They wanted to contribute to First Book’s effort, so they collected loose change for a month.

Mrs. Banta, the school’s main office clerk, hauled a big bucket of change to Farmington Savings Bank, and got a check for more than $400, enough to provide 160 brand-new books to children affected by Hurricane Sandy.

“The leadership, staff, teachers, students and families of Union School strongly share First Book’s belief that books are among the critical resources that children need every day, and we were so pleased with the strong response we received from everyone in collecting change to turn into dollars, then a check, then lots of books for kids,” said Jessica Lister, a Union Elementary School mom and publicity co-chair of the PTO.

Although the storm has passed, many families and children are still living in shelters and have lost many of their personal belongings. You can help just as the kids at Union Elementary did, by clicking here. Every $2.50 you contribute will provide a new book to a child affected by the storm.

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Even if you don’t work in a school media center, I’m guessing your life still tends to run on an academic schedule when you work with teens. So welcome to the new school year! Here’s what I think might be interesting, useful, or intriguing to you and your patrons this month.

• If your teens are interested in what’s new in the going green movement, have them look more globally to see what’s going on. In coastal Ecuador, young people from farming families are heading up efforts to save, cultivate, and redistribute heirloom seeds to revitalize the environment and help farmers prosper. Part of an organization called FOCCAHL, 20-year-old Cesar Guale Vasquez travels throughout nearby areas collecting seeds from farmers and also hosts swapping events so that farmers can trade seeds with each other in order to have more vibrant and diverse crops. Now take that for inspiration and add to it your own library’s resources on climate change, farming, and nutrition and plan an interesting program that combines science with activism and see what your advisory board wants to do with it. Many libraries now are creating their own seed libraries, and whether they’re for wildflowers or corn, they can be a great way to bring communities together, get young people to work with older people, and freshen up your local environment while doing your small part to keep the world cleaner and greener.
  Matthews, J. (2012). Ecuador’s seed savior. World Ark, May 2012: 10-15.
• At the beginning of the school year, many teens are interested in refining or experimenting with their personal style. There is generally no shortage of mainstream fashion and beauty advice in the magazines and books you have in your collection already, but there might be a population you’re missing, and they’re getting bigger and more vocal. While the natural hair trend has been growing for years, the recent O Magazine cover presenting Oprah Winfrey with her hair relaxer-free has sparked a lot of talk. The social news web is blowing up with discussions of hegemony (the prevalence of hair relaxers in the African American community has been linked to unrealistic standards of white beauty), harassment (nearly everyone with natural curls, regardless of race, has experienced strangers touching their hair without asking first), and self image (who decides what’s beautiful, and is it more important to do what you think is pretty on you or to make a political statement with your hair?). Take a look at the reports of the Oprah cover at Sociological Images and Jezebel (it’s worth taking a look at the comments, too, but they’re probably NSFW and can get heated), and then consider hosting a discussion club or making a display of books on beauty. If you’re not sure where to start, I suggest Naturally Curly, one of the premiere websites (with social components, news, and shopping) for natural hair of all textures.
• STEM, STEM, STEM. Everybody wants students to engage with science, technology, engineering and math. Federal money is pumped into it. Grants support it. But do teens and tweens care for it? In a study of middle school students, researchers analyzed both boys’ and girls’ wishful identification with scientists on television shows to see what factors influenced positive feelings (possibly indicating an interest in pursuing a science career or hobby). They found that boys were more likely to identify with male scientists and girls with female scientists, which is unsurprising. What was more interesting is that the genre of the television show affected the positive feelings. Scientist characters on dramas were more likely to elicit wishful identification than those on cartoons or educational programs. What can you do with this information? Plenty. For your next film screening, try a drama or documentary that presents scientists in a good light, like Cool It, And the Band Played On, or Einstein and Eddington. If you want to take a crack at those who think that being good at science or math makes you a loser, connect STEM with the things teens already love, like working out, YouTube, and the Web by taking a look at the 35 fittest people in tech, videos by Vi Hart, who turns mathematical concepts and history into snarky audiovisual narratives, or how-tos at Lifehacker.
  Steinke, J., et al. (2011). Gender Differences in Adolescents’ Wishful Identification With Scientist Characters on Television. Science Communication, 34(2): 163-199.
• Whether you’re in library school or you’ve been working for years, you might find Hack Library School’s new starter kit series interesting, especially their post on services to children. Anyone want to volunteer to write the starter kit for youth services? On a related note, Teen Librarian Toolbox has a post on what to do about all that stuff they don’t teach you in library school (I’m taking notes).
• If you’ve been trying to find a way to collaborate with nearby schools, see if you can get an advisory group to have a meeting with local teachers (it might be a good idea to make sure that the teachers are not teachers of the teens in your group so as to encourage openness and honesty) and start a dialogue. The topic? Standardized tests. Students may feel like teachers are against them, while teachers probably feel as if it’s administrators who are forcing them to be uncreative. So how do you get all sides to understand each other when schools are still tied to federal standards? For background information, try the journal Rethinking Schools‘ spring 2012 issue, which featured a special section on standardized tests. After a good discussion, maybe everyone can take fun “standardized tests” on personality types, books, or any other fun topics. Then see if students, teachers, and you can work together and form some sort of coalition that bridges the gaps between inside- and outside-of-school education, engagement, and issues. Start a collaborative blog. Take turns hosting book clubs at different places that feel like home to the different stakeholders in your group. What might be an interesting year-long project is to get everyone in the group to develop their ultimate standardized test to replace the ones they’re taking or proctoring in school. What skills do teachers and students think are most important to have before leaving the K-12 system? What topics do people in the real world need to know? Is it better to test knowledge orally? With essays? With student-led, student-designed creative projects? With their perspectives and your skills with information seeking, along with your vast collections, you should be able to create a really interesting partnership. And if you need more inspiration, check out these roundups of education blogs by both students and teachers, both here and here.

What are your plans for this upcoming academic year? As always, your questions, comments and suggestions are welcomed and encouraged!

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By Alice M. Hammel and Ryan M. Hourigan

While standing at the local superstore watching my children choose their colorful binders and pencils for the upcoming school year, I saw another family at the end of the aisle. Their two sons had great difficulty accessing the space because of the crowd and they were clearly over-stimulated by the sights and sounds of this tax-free weekend shopping day. One boy began crying and the other soon curled into a ball next to the packets of college-lined paper. My daughter, empathic to a fault, leaned down and offered her Blues Clues notebook in an effort to make the boy happier. When we finally walked away, I saw the same pain and embarrassment in the eyes of the parents that I have often seen at parent-teacher conferences and IEP meetings.

For many families, the start of a new school year is exciting and refreshing. The opportunity to see old friends, meet new ones, and the ease of settling into a fall routine can be comforting. For families of students with special needs, however, the start of a school year can be anxious, frustrating, and filled with reminders of the deficits (social and academic) of their children. This dichotomy is clear and present as some children bound off the school bus with their shiny new backpacks hanging from their shoulders, while others are assisted off different buses as their eyes and bodies prepare for what sometimes feels like an assault on their very personhood.

These differences are apparent to parents as well as teachers and administrators at schools. Professionals often ask: “What can we do to be the best teachers for these students?”

Consider what school can mean for students who are different and how to create ways to welcome everyone, according to their needs. Before the school year begins, these longstanding suggestions still resonate as best practices for parents and students:

(1) Contact the student before the school year begins to be sure the student and family are aware that you are genuinely looking forward to working with them and have exciting plans for the school year! Everyone learns differently and wants to be honored for their ability to contribute. In the Eye Illusion not everyone is able to see the changes in the dots as they move around the circle. What you see isn’t better or worse — just different. When we think of students and children in the same way, by removing the stigma of labels and considering the needs of all, we become more of a community and less of a hierarchy.

(2) Be aware of all students in the classes you teach. Know their areas of strength and challenge, and be prepared to adapt teaching strategies to include them. We cannot expect students and children all to be the same. Use a fable to illustrate that everyone has strengths and can become an integral part of the learning experience.

(3) Review teaching practices: modalities, colors, sizes, and pacing. All students enjoy learning through various modalities (visual, aural, kinesthetic), love colors in their classroom, appreciate sizing differences to assist with visual concepts, and can benefit from pacing that is more applicable to them. Find ways to include these practices in an overall approach. Universal design (applied to the classroom) means that all students receive adaptations to enhance their learning experience, and no one is singled out as being different because of the adaptations applied.

(4) Create partnerships with all professionals who work with special needs students. A team approach is a powerful way to include everyone effectively. When we work as a team, everyone benefits and the workload is shared by all. This community of professionals creates a culture of shared responsibility and joy.

(5) Provide a clear line of communication with parents of students with disabilities. Often children cannot come home and tell their parents about events, assignments, announcements, and other important parts of their school day. Parents may not be able to gauge whether their child had a good day or if there are concerns. A journal between teacher and parent(s) can be a comforting and useful tool. This communication may also be done electronically through a secure Google or Yahoo group. Reading Rockets provides other useful tips in this area.

(6) Leave labels out of the conversation when communicating with parents. Parents can be sensitive to their child being known only by their diagnosis. In addition, some parents may be still processing the life change that comes with raising a child with special needs. When entering into a conversation with a parent, focus on your classroom and the needs of the student. If there is a concern, try to put the concern in the most positive light as possible. The Parent-Provider network at Purdue University offers some great tips as well for communicating with parents.

(7) Let parents know of student accomplishments even if they are small. Students with special needs often encounter failure. Parents attend countless meetings that remind them of all the challenges their children face. A note home when something goes well can make all the difference.

(8) Allow the parent and the child to visit prior to the start of school if the child is new. Students who are enrolling in a new program or a new school may have difficulty with this transition. Often this transition can cause anxiety that will hinder a child from seeing school as a comfortable, safe place. Walk them through the routines: where they sit, where materials are, etc. Social stories (short stories written in third person to illustrate an everyday situation) can also be useful in this circumstance. When read prior to beginning school, these stories help them move through their transition.

A culture of acceptance and compassion must permeate our educational institutions. By categorizing, labeling, and noting differences, we are often putting children in boxes that can then, unfortunately, define them for the rest of their lives. Every child wants to be part of the school experience and seeks to participate to the best of his ability. When the class and school culture are created to honor the personhood of every child, and each child is considered valuable to the success of every school experience, all children begin to enjoy the same childhood experiences.

Alice M. Hammel and Ryan M. Hourigan are the authors of Teaching Music to Students with Special Needs: A Label-Free Approach. Alice Hammel teaches for James Madison and Virginia Commonwealth Universities, and has years of experience teaching instrumental and choral music. Ryan Hourigan is Assistant Professor of Music Education at Ball State University and a recipient of the Outstanding University Music Educator Award from the Indiana Music Educators Association. The companion website to Teaching Music to Students with Special Needs provides more resources.

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Image credit: Having fun in a music class. Photo by SolStock, iStockphoto.

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Cathy Dreyer - a student on Oxford University’s Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing - posted her suggestion here in a LOL short story that won a £50 prize. Students do not copy! (the story or the way the protagonist handed in homework).

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I just saw this posted on Boing Boing's site and and to repost it. It is a wonderful speech and Laurie Anderson is an amazing speaker. In a way, she says a lot of the things that are said in the Neil Gaiman speech that went viral a couple weeks ago. (I posted it on the Cincinnati Illustrators Blog)

One thing they do not mention in either speech however (and perhaps that would not be the appropriate venue for such commentary) is the crippling amount of student loans that art students have these days (and students in general). It is almost impossible to start a decent art career $40,000 to $100,000 in student loan debt.

Usually as one gets older and further along in their art career, the younger generation is nipping at their heels (as it should be). Now these kids are completely hobbled by this incapacitating debt and it is a shame...

I feel really lucky to have gone to school when I did and it was still affordable. It seems like a number of forces have made that no longer the case and that needs to change.

I am not sure of the solution, but my heart goes out to those just starting out.

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Here’s a spot I did in the recent issue of Highlights magazine (March ’12). Part of it even made the cover (speaking of, nice cover there by Tim Foley!). I’m being silly with the “Lookity!” comment, but it is cool to see it displayed on the cover.

Below is the final spread. I knew the AD planned to drop it on a color background so I had to think about that.

Below: The first round of roughs I sent of the kids with NO instruments! Not sure what I was (or wasn’t thinking) at this point. I was more concerned with how I wanted to show the kid-conductor and the orchestra. I think I thought I was doing a choir. Silly me.

Below: After the AD kindly pointed out the need for instruments and notes, I went back and reworked it. Much better, yes?

Below: The above rough was approved and I didn’t deviate much from the rough. Only a few changes to the kids and cleaned it up. But I wanted the line work to be loose and easy and not over-worked, which I think I achieved. It’s usually something I feel inside me as other people can never tell when I over-work a project.  My thanks again to Cindy for the project, her patience and the fine job she does/did with the magazine!

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Here’s another thing to get you geared up for ALA’s Annual Conference in Anaheim this June. The Library Research Round Table is looking for presentation proposals related to three areas of library research. Abstracts must be submitted by December 20, 2011, and notification of acceptance will be sent in late February, 2012. Accepted proposals will be presented at the ALA Annual from June 21-26. If you have recent or in-progress research relating to users, problem solving, or innovation, consider submitting.

LRRT defines their three categories as this:

Research to Understand Users: Issues and Approaches – How do people go about using libraries? If your study addresses the hows and whys of patron usage, it’ll fit here.

Research into Practical Problem Solving in Libraries – If you have been investigating a specific challenge or problem, your research or case study will fit into this category.

Research: Creativity and Innovation – If your study looks at how librarians approach information and reference queries, or if it proposes innovative ways of doing research or solving problems, it will fit here.

Papers will be chosen based on their topic and its relevance to library science, creativity of methodology, and ability to fill a research gap or build on existing studies. You do not have to be a member of LRRT to submit a proposal, and students are welcome to submit as well.

If you have questions or would like full information on submission guidelines, contact the chair of LRRT, John M. Budd, at [email protected]. Again, proposals are due by December 20, 2011.

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I asked all the students in my writing classes to make their weekly assignment notebooks special in some way. I wanted them to make it an enjoyable book to write in and also be quickly identifiable so they will be easier to hand back. One of my favorites is Maureen’s. I will definitely never mistake it for anyone else’s. 

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I spent a couple of FANTASTIC days this past week at Austin Academy for Excellence, a magnet middle school in…

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This past semester I gave all my writing classes a choice for their final project. They could write me piece of creative writing in any style, or we could create a magazine together as a class. They would do all the writing and basic article designs (one article per student) and I would put it all together and get it professionally printed. It turns out only one class, Class 095 (one of my best and most adventurous classes) was interested in creating a magazine. The other classes wanted the path of least resistance, and they knew what to expect from a creative writing piece.

Well, I think Class 095 would all quickly agree that creating the magazine was a much harder job, even though it was a lot less writing. But I think they would also agree that the other classes missed out on a more interesting experience. First of all they quickly found that writing something shorter is not easier when you are trying to do it well, and secondly they found out that design does not mean slapping a couple of pictures and a title on an article. Yes, you may look at this and say, “Well, that is not very professionally designed, and there are lots of mistakes.” I’m sorry you couldn’t see all the work the students put into this then, because in the process you would see the improvements through multiple drafts and how much they learned with each one. These are mostly students who had never written an “article” before, and they certainly had never designed one. 

I will be truthful and say that I was disappointed in a number of them for being lazy with their articles at the beginning (and yes a couple of them made it through to the end being lazy), but I really pushed them and made them realize that because I had a lot of experience with creating a magazine I wasn’t going to let them off easy. Then they put in the work, although I hear they bitched about me a lot online and in their dorm rooms. Anyway, I think they were very proud of the final product and I’m proud of them for following through and trying something new. Although, I am really glad only one class chose to do it because it was a hell of a lot of extra work for me. 

NOTE: In typical Chinese fashion a lot of students just ripped their images off from the internet, but I at least tried to enforce that they had legitimate credits for all of the images they used (and they learned that a www. or website name is not an art credit). But I am very happy to point out that a number of students created their own photographs or artwork. All the big photos and the cover art are student work! 

Good Ol’ Class 095!

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I introduced my Art Club group to egg decorating this week in honor of Easter. Most of them didn’t really know about egg decorating and no one had ever thought to try it before, yet they all were excellent at it. I consider myself a pretty decent egg decoration type guy, but many of these first timers blew me away. I think part of it was that they had no preconceived notions of what an “Easter Egg” was supposed to be like. Here are some pics of students and their eggs on a stick.

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College romance at the park. A very common sight here at school, but this is about as scandalous as most Chinese couples will get in public (even public kissing is very rare). 

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Fantasy Book Reviews

Picture Books

1) Where The Wild Things Are -This picture book by Maurice Sendak and  a very popular book. I highly recommend it if you did not read it yet. The book is a classic and has been for years.  It was published originally in 1963 and won the 1964 Caldecott Medal for most distinguished picture book of the year. When a boy named Max misbehaves his mother sends him to his room where his fantastic journey begins. After his journey he comes home to discover that barely any time had passed even though his trip seemed to take place a very long time. This book is a wonderful read not only for children but adults as well. It explores the possibilities of other worlds and so much more.

2) The Egg- This picture book by M.P Robertson is less known, but also a great read. It was published in 2001 by Dial books. It is about a boy named George, who one day discovers a huge egg under one of his barn chickens. When the egg is warmed and hatches a dragon is born. It is then when George's adventure begins. His adventure takes him for a special training and eventually to another world where dragons live. The book has amazing illustrations and a great fantasy story line that any child or adult will enjoy. It is a great read for everyone. Make sure to look for this book and to share it with your children in the classroom or by a sizzling fire.

3) Sweep Dreams- This picture book came out in 2005. It is by Nancy Willard and Illustrated by Mary Grandpre.  It was published by Little Brown and company. It is about a man who fell in love with a magical broom. The mystery started when the lady at the register had no idea where this broom was from. Since it had no cost on it she gave it to the man as a gift. The man never used the broom to sweep and this made her sick. As soon as started using her to sweep the floors and etc.. the broom became very happy and danced outside in the street.  A bad man saw it and kidnapped her. As the book goes on many magical adventures take place. I believe children will get right into the story. The book has all kinds of wonderful pictures that almost everyone will enjoy. Please pick up a copy.

Middle Readers

1) The Phantom Tollbooth- I read this wonderful book back in elementary school. It was written Norton Juster and illustrated by Jules Feiffer who I had the pleasure to meet and talk to a few months ago. It came out from Random House in 1961. I love this classical book that teaches many things to children. It is about a boy named Milo who is bored of everything in his life. One day a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room. Milo drives through it in his toy car because he has nothing better to do. This leads him to a different world. It is here that Milo's whole view of life changes. he takes on several amazing quests and meets fantastic creatures including a ticking watch dog named Tock.  I loved this classic fantasy book as a young lad and I truly believe your son or daughter will as well.

2) The Book of Time Trilogy- I got a chance to read this Trilogy on my trip to FL. You can look back at my older posts to read more about it. It includes three books: The Book of Time, The Gate of Days and The Circle of Gold. They are by Gullaume Prevost and were translated by William Rodarm. The books  originally published by Gallimard Jeunnesse in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The English- language translations were published by Arthur A. Levine books in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Cheryl Klein was the wonderful editor who worked on this wonderful Fantasy Trilogy.  The books are about Faulkner family. They could be any ordinary family on the outside, but they have many secrets. Sam Faulkner a 13 year old boy discovers a sec

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Dennis Baron is Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Illinois. His book, A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution, looks at the evolution of communication technology, from pencils to pixels. In this post, also posted on Baron’s personal blog The Web of Language, he looks at Wikipedia.

Admit it, we all use Wikipedia. The collaborative online encyclopedia is often the first place we go when we want to know a fact, a date, a name, an event. We don’t even have to seek out Wikipedia: in many cases it’s the top site returned when we google that fact, date, name, or event. But as much as we’ve come to rely on it, Wikipedia is also the online source whose reliability we most often question or ridicule.

Wikipedia is the ultimate populist text, a massive database of more than 3.2 million English-language entries and 6-million-plus entries in other languages. Anyone can write a Wikipedia article, no experience necessary. Neither is knowing anything about the subject, since Wikipedians — you can be one too — can simply copy information from somewhere else on the internet and post it to Wikipedia. It doesn’t matter if the uploaded material is wrong: that can be fixed some other time. Wikipedia’s philosophy comes right out of the electronic frontier’s rough justice: write first, ask questions later.

When it comes to asking those questions, doing the fact-checking, Wikipedia depends on the kindness of strangers. Once an article on any topic is uploaded, anyone can read it, and any Wikipedian can revise or edit it. And then another Wikipedian can come along and revise or edit that revision, ad infinitum. Of course not every error is apparent, and not every Wikipedian will bother to correct an error even if they notice one. Wikipedians can even delete entries, if they find fault with them, but then other Wikipedians can decide to reinstate them.

Such sketchy reliability is why many teachers warn students not to use Wikipedia in their research. This despite the fact that a 2005 Nature study showed that, so far as a selection of biology articles was concerned, Wikipedia’s reliability was on a par with that of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. But teachers don’t want their students using the Britannica either. Wikipedia actually offers an article about its own reliability, though the accuracy of that article remains to be determined.

A study by researchers at the University of Washington finds that most students use Wikipedia, even though their instructors warn them not to. Not only that, but students in architecture, science, and engineering are the most likely to use Wikipedia. Apparently those students, whose disciplines depend on accurate measurements and verifiable evidence, don’t expect accuracy from their works cited. According to the study, students in the social sciences and humanities, subjects emphasizing argumentation and critical reading, are less-frequent users of Wikipedia. Unfortunately, the Washington researchers didn’t ask these students how much they rely on Spark Notes.

It turns out that students also distrust Wikipedia, though not with the same intensity their teachers do. Only 16% of students find Wikipedia articles credible. To

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Me: "You have a day all to yourself. Write down a to-do list. You can do anything, but you must keep it realistic. No trips to Mars."

Boy: "Okay, I'm going to start with a healthy breakfast because I've been trying to eat healthier. Bacon and pancakes will do."

Me: "In what ways have you used your imagination to ease your troubles?"

Same boy as above: "When I was little, my mom put blow-up dinosaurs in the yard and I would pretend I was hunting dinosaurs."

Another boy: "Today, I ease my troubles by looking at the truth and thinking of practical ways to overcome it."

Me: "Pipe down, Aristotle."

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Engaged Interactive Read Aloud is the best way to connect with Facebook savvy, blogging, and texting students because it mirrors that same quick, back and forth interaction, while embedding strong examples of what our brains do when we as mature readers read. I've been developing the technique for years, based on research from great thinkers like John H. Guthrie, Catherine Snow, Marilyn Adams, and S.J. Barrentine.

It takes enthusiasm, familiarity with the text, and a willingness to expose your thinking process to your students but the great news is it works with K-12th graders. And it doesn't take much time but a daily dose of even 5 minutes can make a tremendous difference in the comprehension skills of your students. That will bring a return in higher test scores, stronger reading skills and thinking students.

There's not space here to explain the entire process but here's a taste.

Step 1: Share a purpose for reading this text aloud with students. It doesn't have to be your entire purpose because your focus for them is engagement, hooking them in. However, you do want to set the stage.

Step 2: Have students predict, talk about what they know about the subject matter, prime the pump for the new information they will gain. Make sure that you do this, not in a strictly instructional way, but conversationally. Remember that you want them hungry for read aloud so you have to be a great commercial for it.

Step 3: Read from the text, explaining out loud (and using whiteboards and other tools ready at hand to illustrate) what your brain is doing as you read the first line or two. It might be an explanation of how you decoded a difficult word (make that a joint exercise - "how did I figure that out?"), it might be an illustration of how you took what you already knew to make sense of the author's statement. It might be raising a question that you want to remember as you continue to read. It might be just a wondering, pondering moment in which you think about the meaning behind the text, in many layers.

Get the idea? Remember you have to be as much a teacher as an entertainer as an enthusiastic and passionate deliverer. Try this new version of read aloud in your classroom tomorrow and let me know how it goes!

My in-service trainings this year will be concentrating on this technique which can be taught to not only professional educators but also librarians, paraprofessionals and parents. We all need to be on the literacy team.

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Stories are so much fun. Often, I'll write the ending of a story before the beginning. Why? Because it gives me direction. It gives me someplace to go. Does my ending always stay the same? No. But it can.

Writers: Give it a try. I've written the ending of a story (one I actually wrote ages ago) below. You write the beginning and middle. A short paragraph or two to will fill in the gaps and give the ending some meaning.

After you're done, I'll tell you what the story was really about and who I wrote it for...actually, you do some writing and on Thursday I'll post my original story in its entirety. It will be fun to see the different directions we can go!

As usual, parents, you can talk this through with your kids. Let them help you. Make it a joint effort. Share the fun and love of writing together.


Here's the ending for you:

My hands were shaking like a washing machine out of balance as I reached out to hand her the crumpled up note. "We think this m-m-might be yours," I stammered. Hattie started to turn on heel and slam the door, but something made her change her mind. Her withered hand took the note from me, and as she begin to read, tears fell from her eyes and softened her wrinkled face.

"Thank you," she said.

It was as simple as that.

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Fleischman, Paul. 2009. The Dunderheads. Illustrated by David Roberts. Candlewick Press.

I'll be honest. I did not like this one...much. I know that it's intended to be funny and snarky. And irresistible too. Clever kids outwitting a mean adult, a teacher. It's not that the teacher didn't deserve it. She did. And then some. And it's not even that I am so offended by the mean-and-ugly teacher stereotype going on.

"Never," shrieked Miss Breakbone, "have I been asked to teach such a scraping-together of fiddling, twiddling, time-squandering, mind-wandering, doodling, dozing, don't-knowing dunderheads!"

Okay, so that is pretty rhythmic and catchy. If you're going to insult someone, I guess you could always do worse.

That was her first mistake: the insult. Mistake number 2: no eye for talent. An easy mistake to make, in our case.

Note the electric chair in the classroom. Perhaps because of this, the teacher underestimates her class.

Miss Breakbone hated kids.
Every time she made a student cry, she gave herself a gold star.
Confiscating was her specialty.
Rumor had it she'd bought her electric chair from selling all the stuff she'd taken away.

When the kids in her class have had enough, they plot, plot, plot a way to get their stuff back, a way to teach Miss Breakbone a lesson. Individually, no one can tackle her...and hope to win. But working together, can this team of students do the impossible? Can they break Miss Breakbone?

The premise of this is fun. And most readers will probably enjoy it more than I did. What with the plotting, pranking, and spitting. In some ways, it reminded me of one of my favorite cartoons--Recess. Man, I loved that show!

This is a picture book for older readers. (Still elementary-aged, mind you. But not for the preschool/pre-K crowd. Perhaps for third and fourth graders?) And it's nice to see an engaging picture book for older readers with a lot of appeal.

I'm not sure why I didn't like this one...excepting that the illustrations aren't to my taste. I think they're suited to the story. They match the style of the story well enough. I think this book will be appealing to others. It's just not my style.

© Becky Laney of Young Readers

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Okay. I give up. This past week (or week before last) one of you wrote a poem about the testing that our kids endure this time of year. It was thought provoking and direct. I asked if I could post it and YOU said I could.

I'm losing my mind. Who are YOU? I would really love to post your poem.

Please get back to me!

Jan

P.S. Please go check out my new blog. I just posted a story that honestly happened..... http://jan-mader.blogspot.com/

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