Nick's Picks
Selected Resources from TeachingBooks.net
Nick Glass, TeachingBooks.net for Curriculum Connections -- School Library Journal, 11/8/2007
Thanks to the Web, authors can now make virtual visits to any school. In this month’s column, I’ve highlighted some online multimedia materials to help teach writing in your classroom. In the offerings below, Jack Gantos articulates his journaling process, and a multimedia punctuation exercise is presented in conjunction with a reading of Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn-Dixie (Candlewick, 2000). In Linda Sue Park’s author-name-pronunciation audio clip, cultural authenticity is emphasized, and the lesson plans on Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (Harcourt, 1982) will guide conversations about the use of dialect in written works.
Technology can help us personally connect with literature, and it allows teachers and students to explore an author’s works in a novel way. Invigorate your writing lessons with the resources provided below.
Jack Gantos
Teaching journaling? View this engaging movie featuring Jack Gantos sharing his notebooks and thoughts on writing
The audience for Jack Gantos’s books spans a range of ages and grade levels. His "Rotten Ralph" titles (Farrar, Houghton, and HarperCollins) have entertained beginning readers for almost 30 years, while his "Joey Pigza" novels, including the most recent addition to the series, I Am Not Joey Pigza (Farrar, 2007), are read by elementary school students across the country. The "Jack Henry" stories (Farrar), for slightly older readers, are based on Gantos’s childhood experiences (many of which were recorded in his journal entries), and his Michael L. Printz and Robert F. Sibert Honor award-winning memoir Hole in My Life (Farrar, 2002) tops the list of favorites among high school students.
Practicum: As your class begins its writing activities, watch this online program. Viewing it, students will get a peek at the stack of notebooks Gantos has kept over the years, and hear the author talk about specific strategies for transforming entries into mapped-out stories. Discuss different formats and styles of keeping journals with your students, and reiterate Gantos’s observation that journal entries can be incorporated into writing activities.
Linda Sue Park
Listen to the Newbery Medal-winner Linda Sue Park pronounce her characters’ names
Linda Sue Park’s parents came to the United States from Korea, and many of her books explore life in that country, including her award-winning title, A Single Shard (Clarion, 2001).
Practicum: Encourage students to write with cultural authenticity. In this recording, you’ll hear references to Park’s Southern childhood, and listen as she pronounces the names of her characters. Cultural connections are treasures for all writers, and the correct pronunciation of names is one way to honor the cultures we read about.
The Color Purple
Explore the use of language and language patterns in The Color Purple
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (Harvest, 2003), a standard title on high school reading lists, is an excellent example of successful writing with dialect. The online lessons, “What Did They Say? Dialect in The Color Purple,” from the Thinkfinity.com-supported read·write·think Web site, provide guidance for discussing the use of dialect.
Practicum: After reading The Color Purple, incorporate these large- and small-group activities into your lesson plans. The reflection and journaling activities are particularly thoughtful, and the set offers correlations to the IRA/NCTE standards.
Punctuation Lessons with Audio Books: Kate DiCamillo’s Because of Winn-Dixie
Here’s a way to incorporate technology and a contemporary classic into a punctuation lesson. This activity, shared with me by Nancy Pelser-Borowicz of the Orange County Public Schools in Orlando, FL, can be used with any book, but is demonstrated here with Kate DiCamillo’s Newbery Honor title, Because of Winn-Dixie.
Practicum: Prior to class, identify two minutes of an audiobook recording that will resonate with your students. Transcribe the text, removing all capitalization and punctuation marks. During class give every student a copy of the transcript, and play the audio. Ask students to listen to the recording and mark where sentences begin and end, note which parts are emphasized, and fill in the appropriate punctuation marks.
Nick Glass is the Founder of TeachingBooks.net. If you have any comments about this column, or have tips on how you’ve integrated technology and literature in your lessons, please share them with him at nick@TeachingBooks.net
