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Scooped by
Jim Lerman
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Many celebrated writers have championed the creative benefits of keeping a diary, but no one has put the diary to more impressive practical use in the creative process than John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902–December 20, 1968). In the spring of 1938, shortly after performing one of the greatest acts of artistic courage — that of changing one’s mind when a creative project is well underway, as Steinbeck did when he abandoned a book he felt wasn’t living up to his humanistic duty — he embarked on the most intense writing experience of his life. The public fruit of this labor would become the 1939 masterwork The Grapes of Wrath — a title his politically radical wife, Carol Steinbeck, came up with after reading The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Howe. The novel earned Steinbeck the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 and was a cornerstone for his Nobel Prize two decades later, but its private fruit is in many ways at least as important and morally instructive.
Alongside the novel, Steinbeck also began keeping a diary, eventually published as Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath (public library) — a remarkable living record of his creative journey, in which this extraordinary writer tussles with excruciating self-doubt (exactly the kind Virginia Woolf so memorably described) but plows forward anyway, with equal parts gusto and grist, driven by the dogged determination to do his best with the gift he has despite his limitations. His daily journaling becomes a practice both redemptive and transcendent.
Steinbeck had only two requests for the diary — that it wouldn’t be made public in his lifetime, and that it should be made available to his two sons so they could “look behind the myth and hearsay and flattery and slander a disappeared man becomes and to know to some extent what manner of man their father was.” It stands, above all, as a supreme testament to the fact that the sole substance of genius is the daily act of showing up.
Over the last couple of months I've found and written about a number of really great tools and resources to help improve our students' writing skills. This is a collection of links to reviews of ten of the best.
Via Nik Peachey
Video games are suspected of inciting violence in youth, but a subgenre of literature borrowing narrative structures from video games suggests that they can instead boost youth empowerment and activism. These ludic (game- or play-oriented) stories also suggest ways storytelling can evolve to engage youth in a world where technology is not an add-on, but an essential way of being. Through a close analysis of Salman Rushdie’s (2010) children’s novel Luka and the Fire of Life, this study demonstrates the potential of integrating technology and storytelling to develop young people’s problem solving skills and civic engagement.
Visual marketing expert Shlomi Ron discusses how brands can better leverage the power of visual storytelling to drive impact. Jim Lerman's insight: Visual storytelling can be an important element in education as well.
Via Dr. Karen Dietz, Jim Lerman
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Jim Lerman
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Social Innovation Leadership Sabbaticals, a 2017 LRNG Innovators Challenge grantee in Antioch, TN, provides the space and resources for students to pursue their wild ideas, revealing a desire to do work that connects and contributes to the local community and local environment.
Something was wrong: the pumpkins were dying. Some sort of fungus had infected most of the field, and no one was sure what it was, let alone what to do about it. The man in charge, middle school teacher Jay Renfro, was as clueless as his students about how to proceed, but luckily this was no ordinary class assignment.
The students, determined to save the pumpkins that they had put so much time, energy, and learning into growing all summer, sprung into action. Soon, one of them had identified the fungus and found a cost-effective, organic way to treat it: milk. A few days later, armed with several gallons of milk that the school cafeteria had been about to throw out, the students were back in the field, rescuing their crop. “I don’t know how they thought of that but it worked! It was awesome!” Renfro says.
This pumpkin project was only the first in a series of interest-driven Social Innovation Leadership Sabbaticals, one of 10 projects across the country supported by a 2017 LRNG Innovators Challenge grant. The project, housed at Knowledge Academies in Antioch, TN, a community just south of Nashville, aims to give groups of students and teachers the time and support they need to pursue ideas and interests that might otherwise get lost in the broader curriculum, sparking the learning and connections that deep interest and ownership create. “During the normal school year you cover so many topics, but sometimes there’s one where it’s like, ‘we’re fired up about this.’ What if they could do something about it?” explains Renfro.
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Jim Lerman
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"Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) scholars Erica Hodgin and Joseph Kahne collect resources for deeply and meaningfully assessing students’ civic learning, as part of Teaching Channel’s Educating for Democracy Deep Dive.
"Are you integrating civic learning experiences into your classroom but unsure whether it’s working?
"One common concern with civic education is that it’s often hard to determine whether it’s really deepening students’ civic knowledge, capacities, and commitments.
"Assessment is one way to identify, inform, and move toward deeper learning. Even though there are many assessments available for reading and math, when it comes to civics, assessments often only hint at civic knowledge. While knowledge matters, the aims of civic education go far beyond that. And yet, teachers often lack resources for measuring students’ civic learning in ways that encompass these broader aims and are authentic and meaningful.' Jim Lerman's insight: Numerous excellent resources here for learning assessment...certainly for Civic Engagement, but related topics as well, including Language Arts and Social Studies especially.
"Creating poetry on the iPad is the perfect way to celebrate National Poetry Month and there are many engaging and useful apps for creating poetry available! Slip some technology integration into your poetry activities this month with these 10 iPad apps for creating and sharing poems."
Via John Evans, Tania Gammage
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Jim Lerman
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Via The Scout Report "Memoir Monday is a weekly newsletter dedicated to the genre of life-writing. The newsletter is "curated" by Narratively, Catapult, Granta, Guernica, Longreads, and Tin House and features the best life-writing published in all six publications. In doing so, the team behind Memoir Monday make it easy for readers to find high-quality, humorous, and poignant stories. Each selection is accompanied by a short description. Visitors can sign up to receive Memoir Monday in their email inbox for free. Alternatively, readers can explore all past newsletters on this website."
"Imagine the public’s reaction to these newspaper headlines: Almost 60% of Children Cannot Read Classroom Material 50% of High School Graduates Not Prepared for College-Level Reading Reading Remediation Costs Businesses $3.1 Billion a Year Parents, grandparents, business leaders, college presidents, and politicians would be incensed, demanding immediate action to rectify this alarming situation. Well, if we substitute the word write for read and writing for reading this accurately represents the state of affairs for writing in American society. It is time to take action. All students need to learn to write effectively now. "
Via Dennis Swender
I've published quite a few posts and "Best" lists related to teaching writing, and I thought it would be useful to me and to readers to bring them all together: The Best Posts On Writing Instructio...
Via Tom D'Amico (@TDOttawa) , Liz Bujaki
Create storyboards with our free storyboard software! Filmmaker, teachers, students, businesses all love Storyboard That, easy online storyboard & comic creator
Via Nik Peachey
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Scooped by
Jim Lerman
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A Handy Infographic Featuring 28 Web Tools to Help Students Enhance Their Writing Skills
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Jim Lerman
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Engaging, multimedia-rich digital stories can capture the attention of students and increase their interest in exploring new ideas.
Combining storytelling with powerful digital creates a truly authentic learning experience that helps students develop a wide range of intellectual skills.
Hope you like my Facebook Page full of knowledge-sharing goodness https://www.facebook.com/sociallearningcommunity/.
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[You owe it to yourself to read this. Despite what I thought I knew, I found it harrowing. -JL] "When I downloaded a copy of my Facebook data last week, I didn’t expect to see much. My profile is sparse, I rarely post anything on the site, and I seldom click on ads. (I’m what some call a Facebook “lurker.”)
"But when I opened my file, it was like opening Pandora’s box.
"With a few clicks, I learned that about 500 advertisers — many that I had never heard of, like Bad Dad, a motorcycle parts store, and Space Jesus, an electronica band — had my contact information, which could include my email address, phone number and full name. Facebook also had my entire phone book, including the number to ring my apartment buzzer. The social network had even kept a permanent record of the roughly 100 people I had deleted from my friends list over the last 14 years, including my exes.
"There was so much that Facebook knew about me — more than I wanted to know. But after looking at the totality of what the Silicon Valley company had obtained about yours truly, I decided to try to better understand how and why my data was collected and stored. I also sought to find out how much of my data could be removed.
"How Facebook collects and treats personal information was central this week when Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, answered questions in Congress about data privacy and his responsibilities to users. During his testimony, Mr. Zuckerberg repeatedly said Facebook has a tool for downloading your data that “allows people to see and take out all the information they’ve put into Facebook.” (Those who want to download their own Facebook data can use this link.)
"But that’s an overstatement. Most basic information, like my birthday, could not be deleted. More important, the pieces of data that I found objectionable, like the record of people I had unfriended, could not be removed from Facebook, either."
Via Jim Lerman
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Scooped by
Jim Lerman
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Josh Allen began his career teaching kindergarten abroad in a completely analog classroom; flashcards, a laminator and a weekly visit to the local print shop were as high tech as it got. And while he felt students were making positive gains, they were lacking a real voice in the classroom and choice in their learning. Today, Josh is an Education Associate at Buncee ; the creation and presentation tool for K through 12 learners across the globe. Buncee turns students of all ages into digital storytellers able to engage with and visualize their learning in infinite ways. Josh Allen was joined by Eda Gimenez to discuss and demonstrate Buncee at the EdLab seminar in February of 2018.
Watch the full seminar on Vialogues.
Of all the resources we publish on The Learning Network, perhaps it’s our vast collection of writing prompts that is our most widely used resource for teaching and learning with The Times.
We’ve published iterations of this post in the past — 200, 401 and even 650 prompts — but never before have we gathered all our prompts, for both personal and argument writing, into one categorized list.
Admittedly, the list is huge. In fact, there are 1,225 questions below on everything from video games and fashion to smartphones and parenting, and each prompt links to a Times article as well as to additional subquestions that can encourage deeper thinking.
To help you navigate this page, here’s an index of topics:
Today my students did one of my favorite speeches of the year; the very best book they have read this year. They have highlighted, enticed and persuaded others to fall in love with their selected book. And I have taken note. It turns out my students have very good taste when it comes to books. Some of these are fine for all 7th graders, some are more mature, I am including them all so that you can make your own decision. All parents are informed of the range of books that are present in our classroom library so that students can choose something that speaks to them. It was interesting to see just how many of these books I myself had read and booktalked, as well as how many have been favorites two years in a row. So what are the must have or add books in a 7th-grade library for 2017? Behold the entire list…
The National Writing Project is thrilled to announce to educators across the country that it has launched a Writing Our Future youth publishing project in partnership with Citizen Film, the makers of the PBS documentary American Creed. This project invites educators to bring the film to their classroom or learning center and to support young people in joining the film’s conversation through their own writing, art, and media responses.
Teens (13+) and young adults are invited to share at the youth publishing website supported by their teachers and guided by a set of 5 prompts from the film to inspire their responses. Educators are provided guidelines for mentoring this process as well as a range of resources created by Writing Project teachers who have used this film in their own classrooms.
Visit https://writingourfuture.nwp.org/americancreed to learn more about this project and to get involved.
"Grass Valley Elementary’s schoolwide shift towards connected learning and maker education, supported by an LRNG Innovators Challenge grant, is letting students shine by giving them opportunities for authentic expression while connecting to their passions and communities.
“We often think of Grass Valley as ‘The Little School that Could.’”
"This is how Paula Mitchell, a teacher at Oakland, California’s Grass Valley Elementary School begins the story of her school’s embrace of student choice and connected learning. The shift began in earnest in the 2016-2017 school year, as four of Grass Valley’s classrooms implemented a new project-based learning curriculum. This year, the transformation has gone schoolwide, thanks to a grant from the 2017 LRNG Innovators Challenge.
"The LRNG Innovators Challenge grants stem from a partnership between LRNG, powered by Collective Shift, the National Writing Project, and John Legend’s Show Me Campaign to help educators extend time and space for Connected Learning. The Connected Learning theory posits that learning happens on a continuum—in school, as well as at home, work, and among friends—and is driven by students’ own interests and life experiences.
"Through this project, called Linked Learning with Maker-Centered Education, Grass Valley Elementary is expanding its makerspace and leveraging that maker ethos to transform the whole school with school-wide projects, crowd-sourced afterschool events, and support for individual pursuits and tinkering."
Author and professor Adam Grant said, “Good communicators make themselves look smart. Great communicators make their audiences feel smart."
Via Laura Largo
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Scooped by
Jim Lerman
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Via The Scout Report "Made for poetry lovers, Jacket2 is an online magazine dedicated to "modern and contemporary poets and poetics." Hosted by the University of Pennsylvania, the magazine is edited by poetry scholars and poets from across the United States. The magazine publishes reviews, interviews, essays, and a podcast (PoemTalk). One recent essay, published in the features section, explores the topic of Canadian avant-garde poetry, accompanied by video clips of discussions at a recent conference on the topic. Another recent essay explores Kokoomoteos, a form of visual poetry that emerged in Finland and provides links to ten poems that are part of this unique genre. Jacket 2 began as a print magazine, published between 1997 and 2010. Visitors can check out the print magazine's archives via a link in the about us section."
The many benefits of having a penpal as a child
Not only does having a penpal from abroad open children’s eyes into different cultures it also encourages them to write. So much is done on the IPad or equivalent these days, including at school, the need to write letters and postcards is lost. The world we live in now mostly communicates via emails and text messaging and heavily relies on slang and shorthand (such as lol, rofl, thx). Everything is auto corrected (thankfully!) but the art of spelling, punctuating and grammar has gone out of the window.
iFake Text Message is a great tool for creating authentic looking materials to engage students and shift materials design into a genre that’s both relevant and familiar. The tool enables you to create a screen image of a text conversation.
Creating a fake text is easy just go to: https://ifaketextmessage.com/
Type your message into the field on the left and you will see it appear on the screen on the right.
Then just add more text and build your conversation.
You can customise most of the features of the screen to make it look more authentic.
When you have finished just click on the ‘Create Image’ button. You can then download it and add it to your materials.
Our goal with Fable is to give you a whole new way for expressing yourself virtually. Use your own avatar in augmented reality to tell stories, express feelings, share moments and create memories. This is the new generation of emoji and the next step in making virtual communication more personal. Emojis are old, create a Fable!
Via Nik Peachey, Jim Lerman
Website design has really evolved over the past few years to include interactive experiences that provide depth and movement. Parallax scrolling is a technique that involves objects and layers with…
Via Dr. Karen Dietz, Iñaki Cano
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