All A Twitter About Reading and Writing

The world is what you make it. So is Twitter. I am a willing participant in the world of twitter. I use it to be informed and to share information. I have shaped the feed I receive to include those voices that will grow my understanding of life and learning -well mostly. I use it as a conduit for thinking.
The reading I do informs my writing. It is a place I go to to gather a little treasure among the trite and the tasteless.

 A boy once asked his father, 'What is Twitter? The father responded, 'Well you know how annoying it is when the neighbour's dog starts barking in the morning, well Twitter's like that, except it goes all day and all night.' 

 Some educators I meet perceive Twitter in this way and as a result have no part of it. Others dabble occasionally. There are also many who, like me, have jumped right in.

 I  see Twitter as a tool for learning, a resource for reading and learning. Opportunities exist for information sharing invaluable to my literate existence. Like any tool, it must be used with due diligence for amongst the treasure to be found, there is equally, a  heck of a lot of rubbish and trivia. The skill lies in being a savvy sifter. 

 This weekend I have been following the events and participant's postings coming from the 2017 NCTE (National Council for Teachers of English) Conference in St Louis, USA. I have been interested in this conference since presenting some years ago in Pittsburgh. It is a conference that attracts great educators with meaningful messages. All the way from far away Australia, I am engaged as a curious learner. It is distance education in the digital age.

 So, here is a sampling of some of the messages gleaned from Twitter  over the past two days. Hope they stimulate your thinking and maybe you might consider becoming a 'Twit' like me.

‘Reading is controversial because it reflects life. We cannot sidestep issues of race, gender, culture, and experience.’
Michelle Picard

 ‘A child is not a level. And, seriously, how many of you reading this right now, choose a book you want to read because it is at some level?’
Kylene Beers

 ‘When teachers continue to learn and grow, students benefit.’
Carol Jago

 ‘Reading gives us the chance to figure out tough issues within the safety of a book.’ 
KyleneBeers

 ‘We should be diversifying the literary canon. What’s a classic to you might not be a classic to me. If I’m Chilean, your classics aren’t my classics.’
Jason Reynolds

 ‘When students are provided that mirror — when they see characters like themselves described in the pages they are reading—they are often more drawn to and interested in the texts.’
S.L. Osorio

 ‘We English teachers do not teach happy literature. We teach life.’
Jocelyn A Chadwick

 ‘We need diverse books. Classroom shelves should reflect our nation.’
Laurie Halse-Anderson

 ‘If the rules of the classroom were the rules of the world, would you want to live there ‘
Kristine Mraz

 ‘Writing was a way to create the worlds I couldn’t enter myself.’
Ralph Fletcher

 ‘Don’t know the Lexile levels of my books any more than I know the BMI of my children. They’re healthy. Stop trying to put numbers on them.’
AS_King

 ‘When we [teachers] stop reading, we stop being as effective as we can be.’
Carol Jago

 ‘The future depends on all people having access to literature.’
 Dick Robinson

 ‘When you put out highly engaging books they want to read, and then give them time to talk about them, well that’s how you build an independent reader.’
Lucy Calkins

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular With Other Visitors

Writing Opposite Poems

Image
 O pp o s ite  P oem s In his book, ' How To Write Poetry,'  Paul Janeczko presents the idea of opposite poems. Paul suggests they could also be referred to as antonym poems. This is wordplay and it's fun to try. Here are some examples Paul provides to help us see very clearly how these short little poems work. I think the opposite of chair Is sitting down with nothing there What is the opposite of kind? A goat that butts you from behind Paul Janeczko You will  notice the poems are written in rhyming couplets. They can be extended so long as you remember to write in couplets. Paul shows us how this is done. What is the opposite of new? Stale gum that's hard to chew A hot-dog roll as hard as rock Or a soiled and smelly forgotten sock You might notice that some of Paul's opposite Poems begin with a question. The remainder of the poem answer the question posed. Opposite poems are a challenge, but it is a challenge worth trying. Not every thing has a
Read more

Writing About Reading - Reading Reflection Journals:

Image
UPDATED February 2022 Writing in response to literature can be a great way for students to organize their thoughts, explore what they think, and generate ideas. One of the strengths of writing in journals is that it allows students to capture all of those great ideas that generally float off into the air during the discussion.  Journal writing can also become drudgery if students are asked to write too often, given little choice or inspiration in what to write, or if they simply don't have anything to say. While some students eagerly share their impressions about selections they have read in class discussions, others are less comfortable and keep their thoughts to themselves. In an effort to encourage all students to think more about what they read and confidently share their observations and opinions, some teachers are turning to the reading reflection journal and are gaining insights they never anticipated.  The Value of Reflection Journals   Journals assist teachers to gain i
Read more

Learning How to 'Zoom In' When Writing

Image
It is important for young writers to understand that not all parts of a story are equal. There are parts through which a writer moves quickly, and important parts where the writer slows down and lingers a while. This is where the writer might intensify the action or reveal the character’s reactions in greater detail. Young writers need to know that this is a deliberate strategy on the part of the author. The author consciously zooms in. The writer uses a magnifying glass to view a part of the story more closely; to focus on a moment and to slow down time. When an important part of the story is enlarged upon, it   is a signal to the reader, that this part of the story is important. The strategy of ‘zooming in’ goes by many names: ‘exploding a moment’ ‘magnifying a moment’, ‘hotspot’ ‘snapshot’, ‘adding detail’ or ‘slowing the action.’  What ever the name, the idea is the same. The author writes in a way that expands a significant part of the story with the intention of drawing t
Read more

Answering Questions Posed by Young POETS

Image
UPDATED, May 2020 As a frequent visitor to schools I have the great pleasure of working with groups of young, enthusiastic poets and their teachers. When I arrive in a classroom, young poets are often pre-loaded with questions, and most keen to have them answered.  I try to answer as many as I can, but we frequently run out of time, and the poetry caravan moves on to the next classroom. So I am here to answer some of those questions -right here, right now. So here goes: When you were little did you love writing? The short answer is yes. I have always enjoyed words and language. I can't recall a time when I wasn't doing some kind of writing. When did you write your first poetry book? I have had poems published over the years, but it wasn't until 2014 that I had an entire book of poems (an anthology) published. When I looked back through all my notebooks I realized I had hundreds of poems from which to choose. So, 'Searching For Hen's Teeth-Poetry From The
Read more

Slice Of Life Story-The Trials Of A Left Handed Writer

Image
Amazingly I learnt to write using my left hand. An achievement against the prevailing beliefs of the day. My very first teacher saw it as her mission in life to ‘fix’ the poor, wretched little boy suffering from what she clearly diagnosed as left handed disease. She must have thought, 'This child must be re formatted! If he remains left handed he will be forever condemned to writing in a scrawl that no one will be able to read. Ugly hand, ugly hand.' ...They tried to say it couldn't be done, it mustn't be done. They took the pencil out of my left hand and placed it in my right hand. It felt unnatural. It felt weird. It was not right. More to the point it was not left. I was not about to conform. At least they didn't try tying my hand behind my back. Watch me I said. I may be an oddball, left handed scribbler but I am a determined oddball. I mean how boring would the world be if everyone wrote with their right hand? So I dug my toes in –and my hands to
Read more