Between the By-Road and the Main Road: literacies

Showing posts with label literacies. Show all posts

Friday, December 27, 2013

What I'm Reading in 2014: Not The Usual Fare

Image by Robert Adams.

A few books I have either started to read or will be reading soon. An eclectic set of books about art, photography, poetry, genocide, education, and anthropology.

Adams, Robert. (2012). Skogen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery.

Brown, Lee Ann. (2013). In the Laurels, Caught. (Fence Modern Poets Series). Pittsburgh, PA: Fence Modern Poets Series.

Image by Doug Rickard. from Doug Rickard: A New American Picture.

Campany, David. (2012). Doug Rickard: A New American Picture. New York: Aperture.

Elkins, James. (2000). How To Use Your Eyes. New York: Routledge Press.

Image by Mary Ann Reilly from Jane Gangi's Genocide in Contemporary Children's and Young Adult Literature: Cambodia to Darfur.

Gangi, Jane. (2014). Genocide in Contemporary Children's and Young Adult Literature: Cambodia to Darfur. New York: Routledge Press.

Poem by Noelle Kocot from Soul in Space.

Kocot, Noelle. (2013). Soul in Space. Seattle, WA: Wave Books.

Cover to Saul Leiter: Early Color.

Leiter, Saul. (2008). Saul Leiter: Early Color. Steidel.

Morris, Errol. (2011). Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography. New York: Penguin Press.

Mullen, Harryette. (2013). Urban Tumbleweeds: Notes from a Tanka Diary. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press.

Image by Jimmy Nelson. From Before They Pass Away.

Nelson, Jimmy. (2013). Before They Pass Away. New York: teNeues.
Ruefle, Mary. (2013). Trances of the Blast. Seattle, WA: Wave Books.
Ruefle, Mary. (2012). Madness, Rack and Honey: Collected Lectures. Seattle, WA: Wave Books.

Image by Sebastiao Salgado from Sebastiao Salgado: Genesis.

Salgado, Lelia Wanick & Sebastiao Salgado. (2013). Sebastiao Salgado: Genesis. New York: Taschen.

Image by Klett and Wolfe from Reconstructing the View - The Grand Canyon: Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe.

Senf, Rebecca A. (2012). Reconstructing the View - The Grand Canyon: Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe. University of California Press.
Trethewey Natasha. (2003). Bellocq's Ophelia: Poems. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press.
Vasudevan, Lalitha & Tiffany DeJaynes (Eds.). (2013). Arts, Media, and Justice: Multimodal Exploration with Youth (New Literacies and Digital Epistemology's).
Wells, Liz. (2002). The Photography Reader. New York: Routledge.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

When Joy, Play & Learning are Deliberate: Learning in K-2

This is such an inspiring look at literacy that is intentional, play-based, and artful. From the UK.

Reading, Writing and Drama Playing

Lesson Plans Related to the Video:

Reception – The Gruffalo

Introducing the new story

Learning Objective: To listen and respond to a story.

Context of Learning: Linked to our context of Monsters and Dinosaurs we will be using the book The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. The children will be developing their ability to listen and respond to the story, the sequence of the story and explore the setting, characters and theme of the story.

Success Criteria: All children to be able to talk about what they can see in the pictures. All children to be able to say if they liked the story and why.

Key Questions: Where is this story set? What is it like in the woods? What is a Gruffalo? What does the word gruffalo make you think of? What does the gruffalo look like? Did you like the story? What was your favourite part? What did you notice about the story?

Whole Class teaching

Explain we are going to be reading a new book and finding out about new characters. Show the title page of the woods, where is this story set? What is it like in the woods? Discuss with talk partner what they can see and record comments around the picture.

Introduce the character of the mouse and read the blurb. What is a gruffalo? What does the word gruffalo make you think of? Discuss children’s thoughts and feelings. Show the children a picture of the gruffalo. What does the Gruffalo look like? Tell your partner.

Read the story - Stop at varies intervals ask questions Why do the animals think the mouse looks good? Look at the animals faces and discuss feelings, How is the animal feeling now they have seen the gruffalo?

Booktalk – Ask children to share their thoughts about the story - Did you like the story and why? What was your favourite part and why? What did you notice about the story? (rhyming words etc) Was their a pattern? How did the mouse describe the gruffalo?

Independent learning activities:

Painting the gruffalo.

Retelling the story using a variety of props in a large builders tray.

Reception – The Gruffalo

Exploring Characters

Learning objective:

To talk about the main characters in the story and how they are feeling.

To think, say and write simple sentences for a thought bubble.

Success Criteria: Children will be able to explore the different feelings of the characters by using their facial expressions and words.

Key Questions: How is the … feeling? How do you know? Why is the … feeling like that? What is the mouse thinking? How many words in out sentence? What is the first word? What does it begin with? What do we put at the end of our sentence?

Whole Class teaching

Show pages from the story and discuss how the characters are feelings and why. Can you use your face to show that feeling?

Explain that they are going to help to retell the story and that they must become the different characters using their bodies and faces to show how they are feeling.

Retell the story with the children joining in using a drum to indicate when to freeze frame. Use a microphone to interview the children in role about how they are feeling and why.

Model writing

Now we have thought about how the characters are feeling we are going to write a thought bubble. Show the last page of the mouse eating a nut, what is the mouse thinking? Share with your talk partner, ask children to share their ideas to the class. Choose a sentence to write, say the sentence, count how many words. What is the first word? What sounds can we hear in it? When we have written the sentence count the words has it got the correct number of words? Reread does it say what we wanted it to say?

Independent learning activities:

With teacher children to write their own thought bubbles – think, say, write a sentence.

Using their own puppets and the theatre to retell the story.

Planned activities to support learning

Of the Gruffalo

Throughout the week planned activities both adult led and independent for the children to develop their knowledge and understanding of the story further.

Drawing other characters using pastels
Props to retell the story
Puppets and a theatre to retell the story
Puppet making
Book making
Using computer programs to draw the Gruffalo and parts of the story
www.gruffalo.com
Collage a gruffalo
Label body parts
Created storymaps and used them to retell the story in their own words
Using instruments to add sound effects
Writing speech bubble for what the characters say throughout the story
Learn the Gruffalo song and actions
Pairs/snap game using character pictures also children can describe or say a sentence about that character
Sand tray – props to retell story
Reading The gruffalo’s Child

Whole class teaching sessions –

· The children listened for the repeated phrases and joined in.

· Shared writing – labeling around the gruffalo how the mouse describes him. Comparing the mouse and gruffalo.

· Explored the theme of who was the scariest creature? Was the mouse clever?

· Split into groups, each groups was a different character and we retold the story and the children acted out their part.

· Learnt The Gruffalo song and made up actions.

II. Guided Writing: Experienced-based

Guided Writing Strategy Guide

Recommended Professional Resources

Corbett, Pie & Julia Strong. (2011). Talk for Writing Across the Curriculum. London: Open University Press.
Corbett, Pie. (2008). Storyteller. London: Scholastic.
Heard, Georgia & Jennifer McDonough. (2009). A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades. Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Remix: Composing Education Futures/Getting Ready for #Literacies Chat on 10/18/12

Part I: #Literacies Chat

On Thursday, October 18 from 7 PM (EST) to 8 PM, I will be hosting a discussion about remix on #Literacies chat via Twitter. I hope you will join me.

HOW TO JOIN #LITERACIES

You can find the #literacies chat on Twitter every Thursday from 7-8 PM EST. Search for the hashtag #literacies in Twitter. We’ve learned from our friends and colleagues you participate in#engchat that another tool like TweetChat can help you follow the discussion.

In preparation for the chat I am posting some initial thinking on the topic and a few questions here, as well as some general resources about the topic. When I think of remix, I think of it as a method for making meaning and (re)presenting meaning based in part on someone's work that is resituated into a *new* composition. It reminds me of Mikhail Bakhtin's (1981) notion of language as heteroglossia: the unofficial forms of a particular national language; a hybrid of utterances.

Remix is a hybrid of utterances.

Lawrence Lessig (2005) defines remix as: someone mixes things together, and then someone else comes along and remixes what they have created.

There's a lot of space to explore in these definitions. During the chat, I want to think with you about remix in two specific ways that I see as being connected. Remix

as a means of social and rhizomatic composition, and
as a playful method to (re)design concepts about living, learning and schooling.

To situate the discussion, I hope you will take 11 minutes and watch an animation by DML Research Hub of a John Seely Brown (@jseelybrown) lecture that helps to frame these questions. Take a look:

Some questions then that I am thinking about and might use during the chat:

How do you currently understand the term, remix?
What confuses you about the idea/practice of remix? What do you wish you had more clarity about?
Are there rules to remixing? Do you need to tinker and build in order to remix?
How does remix produce content and context and connections?
How does remix shape thought? Consider this video produced hours after the first presidential debate.

In what ways is remix social? Rhizomatic?
What are potential relationships between play and remix?
What spaces of permission are required in order for students to tinker, build, and remix at/during school?
How might our definitions of schooling alter if we think of learning as remix?
Can school redesign be influenced by remix? How might that work?

Part II. Some Resources

1. Video

Remix the Early Years

Everything is Remix

Copying is Not Stealing

Steal Like an Artist

A Response to Steal Like an Artist

Words

Julia Child Remix

2. Print, Blog Posts, Websites

Hitrecord