We're Back

It has been a very busy start to the school year for us! Not only are we busy teaching our literacy and children's/ya literature courses at Lesley University, but we are also busily writing what we consider a "prequel" to Teaching with Text Sets. It's a book that provides a bit of a back story to our Chapter Three ("Building a Text Set") and serves as a primer for the process of selecting texts for the classroom based on their quality, complexity, role in the curriculum, and the reader(s). We are looking specifically at Standard 10 in the CCSS but also addressing the larger context in which we have always talked about what makes books easier and more difficult to read. We will let you know when we know more about a release date. 

In September, we flew out to Park City, Utah to meet with educators, librarians, speech therapists, and children's book authors at the "Engaged Reading" conference sponsored by Utah Valley University. It was an honor to spend a few days sharing ideas with so many people invested in children, including authors Sara Pennypacker, Jim Murphy, and Loreen Leedy and illustrator Marla Frazee. Our thanks to our host, Nancy Peterson and the whole UVU team. 

This year, Mary Ann is continuing to write with Myra Zarnowski for School Library Journal. You can find our October column on teaching primary grade science using a text set approach at: http://www.slj.com/2013/10/standards/curriculum-connections/inquiry-and-integration-across-the-curriculum-on-common-core-2/. Finally, we are looking forward to seeing some of you at the following annual conferences this fall: Literacy for All, American Association of School Librarians, and the National Council of Teachers of English.

Learning from Nonfiction Authors

Since the advent of the Common Core Standards, we have been saying to our students and the teachers with whom we work that there is a great deal that K-12 teachers and students can learn from the process nonfiction authors use to research and write their books. While everyone works differently, there are patterns to these authors' approaches that we can identify, examine, and harness for authentic classroom reading, writing, listening, and speaking that feels purposeful and interesting to children. The nonfiction authors and illustrators at the Interesting Nonfiction for Kids (I.N.K.) blog are considering this very question this summer, as you can read in this June 25th post: http://inkrethink.blogspot.com/2013/06/recommended-book-list-and-more.html. We are very excited to see what they come up with, and encourage you to share your ideas with them. This summer, Mary Ann is using the I.N.K. blog in her graduate course Exploring Nonfiction in the Elementary and Middle School Classroom. For one assignment, students (all practicing teachers) will  explore nonfiction as a mentor text for student writing. Using posts in the INK blog as a research site, students will to examine the different ways that authors focus on their writing style and make that focus transparent in their blog entries. Students will then explore a specific book in-depth, mining it for all of the ways it can serve as a mentor text from big the picture (disciplinary writing, structure, point-of-view) to the smaller elements (use of figurative language, questions, comparisons, etc.).

Thinking About Summer Reading for Your Students?

Here's the latest (and last) School Library Journal that Mary Ann has been co-authoring this year. Reading this might help you think about the role nonfiction may play in the summer reading lists you share with your students' and their families. 

http://www.slj.com/2013/06/curriculum-connections/reading-nonfiction-for-pleasure-on-common-core/

SLJ Covers Teaching with Text Sets in NYC

School Library Journal has a story on the New York City Exploratorium conference and Teaching with Text Sets. You can find more here: http://www.slj.com/2013/05/events/nyc-librarians-glean-tips-from-tech-to-collection-development-at-does-exploratorium/.

Teaching with Text Sets Hits the Big Apple

Yesterday, New York City's Department of Education's School Library System sponsored Exploratorium 2013, a professional development workshop for teaching librarians from throughout the system.

We were honored to have two sessions devoted to Teaching with Text Sets! It was thrilling to talk with librarians about the many ways that teachers and librarians can collaborate with one another in shared curriculum development.

It was also exciting to learn about the new ways in which the New York Public Library is partnering with the public school system. Teachers who want to create original text sets will soon have access to the public library collection. Text sets will be delivered directly to their schools! The public library will also digitize pieces of its unique and expansive collection of manuscripts, art, and realia at the request of teachers and librarians developing new curriculum. In the Big Apple, there is great support for the creation of multimodal, multigenre text set, and we are thrilled.

Happy National Teacher Appreciation Day 2013!

We had the opportunity to celebrate early this year, with a group of special education teachers at Fitchburg State University in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

Nonfiction Mentor Texts: Help Your Students Write with Style

Mary Ann's co-authored School Library Journal column for this month focuses on the ways in which teachers can use nonfiction trade books as mentor texts for student's writing style. In this short article, we discuss different aspects of nonfiction writing style in various picture books and chapter books, to help you and your students identify writer's craft. You can find the article at: http://www.slj.com/2013/05/curriculum-connections/nonfiction-as-mentor-text-style-on-common-core/.