Carol Baldwin's Blog

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Put Pizzazz into your Students’ Writing: Using Fiction Techniques to Write Grab-You-by-the-Collar Expository Essays

Lured by my title, twenty-seven elementary and middle school teachers joined me yesterday at NWRESA in Wilkesboro, NC. With the common goal of improving students' test scores (the specter which haunts many language arts teachers), we looked at how students can improve their essays by adding voice, using "show don't tell writing", and utilizing effective syntax. Along the way we detoured into "the land of critical thinking" as we analyzed low-scoring narrative and expository essays (from Jane Kiester's book, Blowing Away the State Writing Assessment Test) and re-wrote them in a student's voice. Collaboration ruled the day as teachers enjoyed the interaction with their peers, were further validated in their teaching skills, and learned a few more tricks of the writing trade to bring back to their classrooms.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Is there a Children’s Book in You?

On Monday, Joyce Hostetter and I were welcomed to NCCAT, the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching. This retreat center, which snuggles into the Appalachian Mountains across from Western Carolina University, is a teacher's dream come true. For one week out of the year, North Carolina public school teachers are given the opportunity to study, relax, and rejuvenate tired minds. This particular week, Joyce and I had the privilege of leading twenty-three K-12 teachers through the process of writing for the children's market.

As we listened to the teacher's goals when we assembled together on Monday afternoon, many repeated the same theme: "I'm coming here to see if I have what it takes to be a writer." Joyce and I were expecting them to state that they wanted to write a picture book or a young adult novel. As we found out, their goals were far more personal: they needed permission to "open a vein" and write which was bubbling just beneath the surface. After that initial session, I advised the group that beyond the ability to write (which they all demonstrated beautifully), they each needed two greater skills: the ability to receive rejection and the ability to persevere.

As I anticipated, Joyce and I complemented each other. It is as if we have each been developing our skills in anticipation of crossing paths at the MidSouth Reading and Writing Institute last June. Joyce, as the middle grade author of BLUE, brought her knowledge of writing dialogue, historical fiction, and personality types (both of the authors and characters!). I brought Teaching the Story: Fiction Writing in Middle School, 15 years critiquing manuscripts for the SCBWI Charlotte group, and my experiences teaching teachers. We were delighted to discover that not only our laptops full of powerpoints dovetailed, but our personalities worked well together also. Joyce gently chided me that I was the one who made sure we stayed on our schedule and was ready to improvise in front of the group; I envied Joyce's well-designed powerpoints that had cars and characters careening on and off the screen.

On Thursday afternoon the group gathered to share how NCCAT had refreshed and challenged us both personally and professionally. That evening, as we met to hear everyone's work, I felt like a midwife as I listened to poems, picture books, magazine articles, and the beginnings of several young adult novels. It was a privilege to be a part of the birthing process of so many stories for children–and of the writers themselves.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Getting Ready for NCCAT

Yesterday, Joyce Hostetter and I had a flurry of e-mails between us as we prepared for our seminar this week at NCCAT on "Is there a Children's Book in You?" We are excited about this opportunity to work together. Although were both brain dead by the time we called it a night, she one-upped me with a great blog about the event. Go to her live journal and see her take on how she got ready for the week. (Don't you just love the color coordinated crates of books? My collection is not nearly as organized as hers!)Technorati Tags:
NCCAT, Joyce Hostetter, blogging
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Thursday, January 3, 2008

Writers & Teachers-- Take a Break!

Joyce Hostetter, my fellow author and presenter next week at NCCAT, forwarded this movie clip on writers. We'll be using it as an ice breaker; you can use it for a writing break or to show your students. Either way, it's guaranteed to bring a smile to everyone's face!

Saturday, December 29, 2007

A blog about blogging

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Up the Down Staircase

Why don't you use one of those Barnes & Noble or Borders' gift certificates you just received and treat yourself to a picture of a NY public school circa 1960. I first read Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman (Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1964) as a teenager. Recently, my teenage daughter Lydia, brought the familiar pink and orange book home from the library after reading about it in Now, all we need is a Title. Kaufman's insights into the labyrinth of rules which teachers daily negotiate as well as the voices of the adolescents (who are the reason that teachers keep teaching) are timeless.

Written as an epistolary novel, the office memos, intraschool communications, and students' comments from the class "Suggestion Box," etc., show a novice English teacher's struggles between her desire to reach her students or the pull to accept a more comfortable university position. Here are some snippets to entice you into reading the entire book:

From the Suggestion Box (spelling & grammar are as they appear in the book). These are in answer to the question, "What did you get out of English so far?"

"What I got out of it is Litterature and Books. Also some Potery. And just before a test—a doze of English. Having Boys in class dis-tracks me from my English. Better luck next time." (p.74)

"I hate to think back on all my English years except one teacher I will never forget because when my note book wasn't so good (it was mostly in pencil) instead of telling me to do it over in ink she just told me to put renforcements on the holes and that will be enough. The next day she asked me did I put renforcements in. When I said I did she didn't even look she just said she'd take my word for it. That gave me a warm feeling inside because it was the first time a teacher took a pupil's word without asking to see if it was true. Most the of the time they don't even know your name." (pp 74-75)

"Dribs and Drabs. McBeth one week Moby Dick next, a quotation mark, oral debates on Should Parents be Strict? Should Girls Wear Jeans? The mistakes I made in elementery school I still make. I hope to achieve correction." (p. 80)

"I want to thank you for giving me your time after school, for encouraging me to write, for trying. But with 40 others in the class, whose problems are so different, I realize how little you can do, and I feel we are both wasted."(p. 114)

And on integration (p.212):

1. How stupid can you get?

Bussing kids to school miles away.
1. Just to juggle it around.
2. Then got back to the filthy slums.
  (After school)
3. Can't be juggle like different color marbles.
4. It takes time.
  1. Lincoln (Slaves)
  2. Rome (Wasn't build in a day)

You'll laugh, you might cry, and if you're a teacher you'll nod your head and wonder along with the author of Ecclesiastes, "Is there nothing new under the sun?"

Monday, December 24, 2007

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

I love it when my 16-year-old daughter Lydia, recommends a book to me. As she predicted, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Random House Inc., 2005) is a compelling, and at times disturbing, story about Chinese women in the 19^th century. Unlike other popular young adult novels, this book is written as a personal narrative as the main character, Lily, tells her story directly to the reader. In this way the reader accompanies Lily on her journey as she is paired to another seven-year-old girl who becomes her laotong, her soul mate; undergoes the painful rite of footbinding; learns nushu the secret written language of women; is betrothed, married, and raises children---all within the strict rules of Chinese society.

In the course of the book, the reader learns about the shame, fears, superstitions, and traditions that ruled Chinese families as tightly as a seven-year-olds' bound foot. But it is also a book about love, asking the reader: what is true, unconditional love between friends that accepts without question a beloved's barbs and attacks? At the end, Lily confesses that her pride prevented her from loving rightly and gives the reader much to think about.
Technorati Tags:
books for girls, young adult books
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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Readinking

"Real reading is reading and thinking at the same time," Ian Carle, fourth grade elementary teacher, Kansas City, Mo.

In a recent letter to the editor in Reading Today, Mr. Carle argued that it is time to invent a new word for reading which engages the reader. "...reading is more than just saying the words correctly. With that in mind, I combined elements of the words reading and thinking and readinking was born…Readinking is the act of specifically thinking while we are reading."

Quoting David Pears, Laura Roehler, Janice Dole, and Gerald Duffy in their chapter "Developing Expertise in Reading Comprehension," which appeared in What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction (2^nd edition) in 1992, Carle lists five activities vital to reading comprehension:

Questioning: What readers are asking before during or while they read.
Synthesizing: How readers continually change their mind as they read.
Schema: How a reader uses background knowledge to understand the text.
Visualizing: The pictures that are formed in a reader's head while reading.
Determining importance: How the reader is able to identify what is important.

This list compliments the presuppositions and themes of How to Read a Book, a book which I have blogged about and am still working through. (Some books require a lot of readinking!)

Sunday, December 9, 2007

A Physician who is Passionate about Literacy

Here is a novel idea. At each annual visit for thirty years, Dr. Pete Lemaster of Fayetteville, N.C. has asked his patients to read and write for him. "I start them with a drawing when they are four and continue until they're 18," he explained to me recently. By that time he's asking his high school patients to write about their life aspirations. Passionate about literacy, Dr. Lemaster also speaks to every parent about the importance of training their children as lifelong readers and writers. He sets an example to other pediatricians and physicians: take the time to not only check your patient's physical health, but take their intellectual pulse too.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

A Gift of Words

"If I could have written any book, I would have been happy to write yours." That was the response I received last night when I introduced myself to a fellow writer and told her about Teaching the Story. "Look at how many kids you'll be able to reach through your book…and middle school students, no less!" she continued. It was an encouragement to see my book through a total stranger's eyes. And I realized she's right: if my book enables students to express themselves creatively and write the stories inside their heads and hearts—then I will have accomplished a significant purpose. And that gift makes me happy.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Lunch with Joyce Hostetter

You know you're having lunch with another author when she turns to you and says, "I'm sorry. Can you say that again? I was listening to the conversation at the table behind me." The mark of a true writer—always listening to dialogue, even if it's eavesdropping on a conversation about gastrointestinal clinics!

Over soup and sandwiches at Panera Bread, Joyce and I finished planning our week workshop at the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching on "Is There a Children's Book in You?" With her experience as a novelist (her third book Healing Water is coming out soon!) and mine teaching teachers about writing fiction, we're expecting this week to be a great marriage of our talents.

I met Joyce last summer at the Mid-South Reading and Writing Institute in Birmingham. We both agree that our working relationship and friendship is one of the unexpected blessings of attending that conference.

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