65 Weather Disaster Books: K-9

Informational (Including narrative accounts)

1. Berger, Melvin. (2000). Scholastic Question & Answer: Do Tornadoes Really Twist? New York: Scholastic.
2. Branley, Franklyn M. (2008). Volcanoes (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2). Illustrated by Megan Lloyd. New York: HarperCollins.
3. Branley, Franklyn M. (2005). Earthquakes. Illustrated by Megan Lloyd. New York: HarperCollins.
4. Carson, Mary Kay. (2010). Inside Tornadoes. New York: Sterling.
5. Carson, Mary Kay. (2010). Inside Hurricanes. New York: Sterling.
6. Demarest, Chris L. (2006). Hurricane Hunters!: Riders on the Storm. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books.
7. Fradin, Judy & Denis Fradin. (2011). Tornado!: The Story Behind These Twisting, Turning, Spinning, and Spiraling Storms. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Kids. 
8. Fradin, Judy & Denis Fradin. (2010). Volcano!: The Icelandic Eruption of 2010 and Other Hot, Smoky, Fierce, and Fiery Mountains. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Kids. 
9. Gibbons, Gail. (2010). Hurricanes! New York: Holiday House.
10. Gibbons, Gail. (2010). Tornadoes! New York: Holiday House.
11. Grace, Catherine O'Neill. (2004). Forces of Nature: The Awesome Power of Volcanoes, Earthquakes, and Tornadoes. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Kids. 
12. Gregory, Josh. (2013). The Superstorm: Hurricane Sandy. New York: Scholastic.
13. Hopping, Lorraine Jean. (1998). Wild Weather: Blizzards! New York: Scholastic.
14. Hopping, Lorraine Jean. (1995).  Hurricanes! New York: Scholastic.
15. Kops, Deborah. (2015). The Great Molasses Flood: Boston, 1919. Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge.
16. Kostigen, Thomas M. (2014). Extreme Weather: Surviving Tornadoes, Sandstorms, Hailstorms, Blizzards, Hurricanes, and More! Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Kids. 
17. Lauber, Patricia.  (1993). Volcano: The Eruption and Healing of Mount St. Helens. New York: Simon & Schuster Books. 
18. Lauber, Patricia. (1996). Flood: Wrestling with the Mississippi. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic.
19. Murphy, Jim. (2006). Blizzard!: The Storm That Changed America. New York: Scholastic.
20. O'Meara, Donna. (2007). Into theVolcano: A Volcano Researcher at Work. Tonawanda, NY: Kids Can Press.
21. Prager, Ellen J. (2007). Jump Into Science: Earthquakes.  Illustrated by Susan Grenstein. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic.
22. Prager, Ellen J. (2007). Jump into Science: Volcano. Illustrated by Nancy Woodman. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic.
23. Richards, Marlee. (2014). The Johnstown Flood: Core Events of Deadly Disaster (What Went Wrong?). North Mankato, MN: Capstone Press.
24. Rusch, Elizabeth. (2013). Eruption!: Volcanoes and the Science of Saving Lives (Scientists in the Field Series).  Illustrated by Tom Uhlman. Boston, MA: HMH Books for Young Readers.
25. Simon, Seymour. (2007). Hurricanes. New York: HarperCollins. 
26. Simon, Seymour. (2006). Earthquakes. New York: HarperCollins.  
27. Simon, Seymour. (2006). Volcanoes. New York: HarperCollins. 
28. Simon, Seymour. (2001). Tornadoes. New York: HarperCollins. 
29. Stewart, Melissa. (2011). Inside Earthquakes. New York: Sterling.
30. Thomas, Rick. (2005). Whiteout! A Book about Blizzards. Illustrated by Denise Shea. North Mankato, MN: Picture Window Books.
31. Watts, Claire. (2012). DK Eyewitness Books: Natural Disasters. New York: DK Books.

Mythology

1. Hausman, Gerald. (2013). The Otter, the Spotted Frog & the Great Flood: A Creek Indian Story. Illustrated by Ramon Shiloh. Bloomington, IN: Wisdom Tales.

Novels (Grades 4 - 8)

1. Duey, Kathleen & Karen A. Bale. (2015, Reissue). Survivors: Flood Mississippi, 1927. New York: Aladdin.
2. Kehert, Peg. (2004). Escaping the Giant Wave. New York: Aladdin.
3. Kehert, Peg. (1998). Earthquake Terror.  New York: Puffin. 
4. Kehert, Peg. (1998). The Volcano Disaster. New York: Aladdin.
5. MacLachlan, Patricia. (2014). Fly Away. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books.
6. Paley, Jane. (2011). Hooper Finds a Family: A Hurricane Katrina Dog's Survival Tale. New York: HarperCollins.
7. Philbrick, Rodman. (2014). Zane and the Hurricane: A Story of Katrina. New York: The Blue Sky Press.
8. Ruckman, Ivy. (2003). Night of the Twisters. New York: HarperCollins.
9. Smith, Roland. (2012). Storm Runners. New York: Scholastic.
10. Smith, Tamara Ellis. (2015). Another Kind of Hurricane. New York: Schwartz & Wade.
11. Trueman, Terry. (2008). Hurricane: A Novel.  New York: HarperCollins.

from River Friendly, River Wild

from River Friendly, River Wild

Novel-In-Verse  and Poetry (Grade 7+)

1. Engle, Margarita. (2011). Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck. New York: Henry Holt.
2. Kooser, Ted. (2006). The Blizzard Voices. Lincoln, NE: Bison Books/University of Nebraska.
3. Kurtz, Jane. (2006). River Friendly, River Wild. Illustrated by Neil Brennan. New York: Simon & Schuster.
4. Rose, Caroline Starr. (2014). May B. New York: Yearling.
5. Williams, Julie. (2004). Escaping Tornado Season: A Story in Poems. New York: HarperTeen.

from Hurricanes by David Wiesner

Picture Books

1. Coleman, Janet Wyman. (2013). Eight Dolphins of Katrina: A True Tale of Survival. Illustrated by Yan Nascimbene. Boston, MA: HMH Books for Young Readers. 
2. Danticat, Edwidge. (2010). Eight Day: A Story in Haiti. Illustrated by Alix Delinois. New York: Orchard Books.
3. Kajikawa, Kimiko. (2009). Tsunami! Illustrated by Ed Young. New York: Philomel.
4. Kroll, Virginia. (2012). Selvakumar Knew Better. Illustrated by Xiaojun Li. Shen Books.
5. Larson, Kirby and Mary Nethery. (2008). Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship, and Survival. Illustrated by Jean Cassels. New York: Walker & Co.
6. Lee, Milly. (2006). Earthquake. Illustrated by Yangsook Choi. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
7. Lewis, Suzanne.  (2015). A Penguin Named Patience: A Hurricane Katrina Rescue Story. Illustrated by Lisa Anchin. Ann Arbor, MI: Sleeping Bear Press.
8. Miller, William. (1997). A House by the River. Illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu. New York: Lee & Low Books. 
9. Oatman-High, Linda. (2004). City of Snow: The Great Blizzard of 1888. Illustrated by Laura Francesca Filippucci. New York: Walker Childrens.
10. Peters, Lisa Westberg. (2010). Volcano Wakes Up. Illustrated by Steve Jenkins. New York: Henry Holt.
11. Rocco, John. (2014). Blizzard. New York: Disney-Hyperion.
12. Rose, Caroline. (2015). Over in the Wetlands: A Hurricane-on-the-Bayou Story. Illustrated by Rob Dunlavey. New York: Schwartz & Wade.
13. Sutton, Sally. (2013). Farmer John's Tractor. Illustrated by Robyn Belton. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.
14. Watson, Renee. (2014). A Place Where Hurricanes Happen. Illustrated by Shadra Strickland. New York: Dragonfly Books.
15. Wiesner, David. (2008). Hurricane. New York: Clarion.
16. Wright, Betty Ren. (2005). The Blizzard. Illustrated by Ronald Himler. New York: Holiday House.

Wordless

1. Villa, Alvaro F. (2013). Flood. North Mankato, MN: Capstone Young Readers.

On Learning: Twitter, College, Frames, and the Accidental

A Certain Stillness (M.A. Reilly, Wales, 2014)

I. 

Occasionally, I read tweets that argue how Twitter can be a source for professional learning.  I too have found tweets that lead to interesting learning. Most often these are to blogs or particular sites. Rarely, though do chats on Twitter require me to think deeply, differently, or to work arduously. When a chat does lead to an A-ha moment, I find these insights fade, quickly forgotten against the rush of the day. Twitter chats are more about being in the moment and there's a beauty to that.  

There are different types of learning with different intensities. 

Sometimes I'll read tweets that accompany these 'chats about PD that state rather emphatically how Twitter is the superior method for learning in comparison to college courses/programs, reading/viewing, and outside-provider professional 'development'. These tweets are often met with a round of retweets--a Twitter form of marginalia that affirms, says, "Yes!" At these times, I wonder about the Twitter-Tops-All sentiment.  What rests beneath these assertions? What assumptions are being made/unmade?  Is the subtext here more about asserting one's agency, rather than quality? When it comes to learning, can there be a single method that is somehow superior to other methods?  Does that even make sense? Are those who send such tweets telling us a truth, a type of truth? 


II.

A few days ago, Rob shared an email from a former student that mentioned an interest in a course being taught at the University of Rochester. After reading the course description, I contacted Professor Paul Duro and requested permission to post the description here. He agreed and sent me an updated version for the course, Rhetoric of the Frame, which appears below: 

The task of any discussion of frames and framing in literature and the visual arts is first and foremost to counter the tendency of borders, boundaries and frames to invisibility with respect to the work they contain. We see the work, but we do not see the frame. It is against this tendency to overlook the paregonal aspects of the work that this seminar is directed. Starting from a close reading of the foundational texts of frame theory in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment and Jacques Derrida’s celebrated study The Truth in Painting, we will explore the boundaries of the artwork from the point of view of its material, discursive, and metaphorical borders. Topics to be considered range from Edgar Allen Poe’s short story ‘The Purloined Letter’ to Martin Heidegger’s essay ‘The Origin of the Work of Art,’ and from Nicolas Poussin’s comments on the role of painting to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s meditation on the limits of painting and poetry to the textual frame of literature in the work of Gerard Genette. 

After reading the description, Rob and I agreed that this was a course we would enjoy taking.  We each lamented the distance from home to Rochester.  I've long been interested in what we (un)frame and fail to frame and how frames alter how we see. Shift the frame and the artwork contained alters too. The uncertainty and ambiguity of it all intrigues me as does the way we see when peering through frames and how we see in their absence. A week ago, I bought a used copy of Derrida's The Truth in Painting and plan to crack it open during the weekend and see what sense (if any) I make of it. This may not be a book I can initially read well on my own as I find Derrida's work dense and sometimes obscure. Sometimes, I enjoy a more knowledgeable other to help me get anchored in a text. This may be one.

III.

I've been fortunate having learned with and from teachers, professors, and fellow students--in and out of school.  As an undergraduate and while earning a doctorate, I was encouraged by teachers and family to learn, not for a specific utilitarian purpose, but more often for the art of it. I can recall my doctoral adviser saying to me to slow down, take my time. "When will you have the time to learn this way again?"  When indeed?

Take courses that interest you was a mantra I lived by and one I could live by as the college degrees I earned were paid for through generous scholarships. The most memorable of these programs were ones where I was able to select the majority of courses and design independent studies as opposed to following an pre-established curriculum. I didn't recognize then how significant such freedom could be. Learning at college has afforded me the opportunity to ponder deeply--to struggle with complex ideas and to compose theory that was most often connected to my work as a teacher, artist, and professor. It has afforded me the interest and opportunities to set into words what these theories mean/fail to mean and to then publish these works. Such study has helped me to coauthor written and visual texts.  Frankly, it's hard for me to imagine learning such depth, such contradictions in an hour-long chat regardless of the participants. The preparation for such study required a very different use of time and resources. I think of this now as I am working with two friends who are each completing their dissertation and I am serving on their respective committees. The work and curve of learning these women do is so significant, challenging, and brave. It is these experiences that make me question the belief that Twitter represents the apex of professional learning.  It so often feels so fleeting.

IV.

Perhaps what I am struggling to articulate here is the idea that a multiplicity of ways to learn may be superior to a single method, and may be more truthful of how we compose ourselves professionally. I think that different types of learning require different degrees of responsibility from us and perhaps we are the better for such differences. What may be more important than method is the privilege of saying yes and/or no to what is being learned.   

I credit a blend of accidental and planned learning for much of the professional knowledge I've composed and forgotten and am grateful for professors, colleagues, teachers, fellow students, friends and family who have taught me and learned alongside. 

I'll let you know how the Derrida book goes.  

Leaning on My Reading Life When I Write: Let's Make Mentor Texts Kid-Determined

Walter Dean Myers (M.A. Reilly, July 3, 2014)

I. What We talk About When We Talk About Reading

A lot of what I write about begins while I'm reading/listening to text. Imagine that's true for you too. I read daily, often, a significant amount.

It's difficult to think about wanting to write, let alone doing it, without being a reader.  Let me say here that I use the term, reader,  in its broadest definition and I do so on purpose. I'm not talking about the close reading that is the mandate being acted out in schools as if that single method represented all of reading. So not true. There are so many ways to read and little reason to be stingy.  We ought to broaden our ways, not shrink them to a single method. It's actually kind of foolish to read in only one manner. No one I know does this.  Different texts, different purposes, different moods shape how we might want (or need) to read. Why keep this a secret from the kids? Let's teach children that power, not keep it from them.

I'm not limiting reading to putting eyes to a page, either. It's 2015 and the ways we can read continue to grow. So before we go further, think of reading as interacting with a text be it with your eyes, fingers, or ears. Think of reading as a full body act. Think of it more as co-authoring the work, rather than just consuming it. 


II. Learning in Grade 4

There's this boy in one of the fourth grades where I am working who I understand has had some struggles with reading and writing. 

He intrigues me. 

He appears to be at a critical turning point, putting together what he knows as a reader to help him with his writing and leaning on his writing knowledge to help him read better. 

Smart kid.

A couple of critical noticings:  

He has a teacher who doesn't shy away from the challenging-to-teach child. I have observed at other schools, in other classrooms children who are instructionally ignored.  They sit doing some form of busy work. This boy's teacher is not like that.  He's all about best ensuring that this youngster learns to read in credible ways and privileging the work most needed to help the child gain the skills, strategies, dispositions and muscle to read and write well.  The teacher's insistence and attention are paying off, as is the child's work. He is gathering his literacy confidence and skills around him like the cape of a superpower.

So one Tuesday morning, I was leaning over the boy's shoulder at his invitation and reading a passage he had recorded in his notebook. You couldn't miss the pride in this young boy's face.

"Really good piece. Its got such voice. You know who that writing reminds me of?" I asked.
"Who?"
"It sounds like something Water Dean Myers might write. Do you know who he was?"
The boy smiled, lifted his notebook and uncovered a Walter Dean Myers' book. "He's my favorite author."
"Not surprised you are reading him given the voice I hear in your work."

I'm reminded watching this child how important our reading lives are to the work we do as writers.

III. Mentor Texts

I read a lot about mentor texts and much of the time the domain of mentor texts belongs to teachers. There are countless books and blogs dedicated to explicating mentor texts that teachers can use with students. 

I love reading about these books and at the same time I think limiting mentor texts to teacher tools is largely a mistake. Yes I can and do share texts (print, digital, audio) I love. I share ones that have helped me to write and/or inspired me to write or forced me to write. But I don't share these as texts for my students.  I want them to simply know I lean on what I read to write.  More important: I want them to understand the habit of how text leads on to text--be it as reader or writer.  I want them to feel and know that power. I don't want them to experience that through me.  That feels too much like a form of servitude.

So I'm thinking about asking this child to co-present when I introduce his class to the idea of leaning on reading as writers. I am hoping he'll join me and perhaps talk a bit about the way he leans on Walter Dean Myers' works when he writes. I know I plan to bring a ton of books, comics, audio and visual texts with me that I hope the children might enjoy and find inspiring, perhaps--necessary. I'll leave these for the year so that they can take their time with these works. I'm hoping we have time to learn some of the ways children lean on their reading lives when composing.

In the interim, I ordered a copy of the print I made that tops this post that I'll be leaving in the classroom for this child and his peers. It was a collage I made last July when Myers died. I'll let you know how the lesson goes and the many things I learn from these kids and their teacher in Newark. 

The Bricoleur: Speaking through the Medium of Things

I.

During dinner, a week ago, I realized that Rob and I are raising a bricoleur. Our son makes stuff from found things.

He repurposes.

He tinkers.

He's in the process of altering a computer he built a year ago in order to make it more energy efficient and when I asked him what he planned to do with the components he's removing from the computer, he told me matter-of-factly that he would keep them on hand so he could (re)use them in new ways.

Bricoleurs make do with materials they have at hand.


II.

I've wondered about bricolage for a long time and thought about its potential as a way of being at school and owning your learning be it as student and/or teacher. Some years ago I likened bricoleurs to certain types of teachers.  I explained there:

In The Savage Mind, Lévi-Strauss (1962/1966) referred to bricolage as the make-do activities a handyperson employs while working. The bricoleur is one who tinkers with the materials at hand. Lévi-Strauss explained that “the materials of the bricoleur are elements which can be defined by two criteria: they have had a use...and they can be used again” (p. 35, italics in original)...Lévi-Strauss wrote that the bricoleur "derives his poetry from the fact that he does not confine himself to accomplishment and execution: he speaks not only with things...but through the medium of things. Throughout the year, Mr. Krantzman uses the work he and his students create as a means for further inquiry and dialogue. Resituating and transposing ideas, hunches, and products is the modus operandi in this class.” (2009, p.376).

The idea of speaking through the medium of things interests me and I wonder how often children and their teachers are afforded such permissions, especially in these days of overly scripted curricula. It's hard to teach reading or writing well when tied to someone else's language, some company's sense of pace, or another person's selection of texts.  Attending to such commitments actually pull us away from the here, the now and in their place substitute an epic sense of teaching.

One truth of an epic world is that you cannot alter the events. They are sealed. Delivered whole. Untouchable.

There is little emphasis on learning in scripted programs--as these methods tend to see the complex world of teaching and learning largely through the teacher's eyes. The teacher is being told what to say. The child is held mute.  Such schema is most often arranged within the epic world where the script an be transferred whole, untouched for others to enact.  The clash comes when we notice that the world where scripts make sense is in conflict with learners and fine teachers who reside in the present.

Fixing NCLB

Below is a letter a friend and colleague, Jane M. Gangi, wrote to Senator Alexander in response to a request for suggestions and insights into fixing NCLB. You can write your own letter and send it to: fixingNCLB@help.senate.gov. 

I have included Jane's letter as I found it to be so informative and helpful.  Thanks Jane for the permission to publish this letter.

You can also read recent commentary by Jane (and a student of hers, Nancy Benfer) that Valerie Strauss published in The Answer Sheet in The Washington Post here: "How Common Core’s recommended books fail children of color" 

Dear Senator Alexander,

I am writing to urge you to repeal the testing requirements of NCLB. We do not need a standardized test for every child in America, nor do we need to throw away billions of tax dollars by funding corporations that make tests and make computers. We have the NAEP, which disaggregates data by ethnicity, income, and so on. The NAEP is given to pockets of children throughout the country, which statisticians say is enough. It is what is done in Finland; Finland does not test every child.

Instead, use the money we can save by stopping the harmful-to children practices of standardized testing to ensure equity in access to the arts, libraries (including lots of multicultural texts), librarians, field trips, school nurses (children have died without them), labs, playgrounds, infrastructure--those things and people that directly impact children. Provide professional learning for teachers to learn how to help children whose culture and socioeconomic status they do not share. Jan Richardson and Mary Ann Reilly have done phenomenal work with children in high poverty areas (and I can make other recommendations of professionals who are succeeding).

We also need to stop VAM, which the American Statistical Academy labels as junk science. We can tell whether teachers are doing their jobs through growth models such as, in literacy, running records. In our work in Newburgh, we expect children to make gains by starting from where they are and continually growing—instead of, as the common core expects, starting from where children aren’t, which only leads to sad consequences.

Please do all you can to stop Race to the Top—as pathetic a metaphor for education as ever there was. Instead, read this post for what education might be--passion-based. . Under President Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan, common core promoters have made money hand-over-fist while children suffer.

There were no early childhood educators who helped develop the common core and they must be brought on board. Please see Defending the Early Years: http://deyproject.org/. There were no special educators, who also must be brought on board.

On math—we have Jason Zimba, “architect” of the math standards on record as stating that these standards will prepare K-12 student only for community college, which means those who can afford private school, like the Obamas and the Gateses, will ensure their children have access to elite colleges.

Neither of the two “architects” of the English Language Arts, David Coleman and Sue Pimental, have ever taught, which leads to these serious errors:

·         of 171 recommended texts in the common core on the elementary level, there are only 18 authors of color (40% of the nation's children are of color). The proficient reader research has shown very clearly that children must make text-to-self connections. Besides proficient reading, having access to texts that represent them is also essential to identity development. Common Core Appendix B recommendations are flying off the shelves in part, possibly, because teachers think their jobs depend on those books.

·         of 171 recommended texts in the common core on the elementary level, less that 7% represent working class or poor children, when 21+ million children in the nation are poor. A recent report shows that 51% of children are poor.

·         of multiple ways to interpret text, children are confined to only "close reading,” which is one of many ways to read text. Missing are transactional reading, critical literacy, and other approaches more likely to help children love reading.

·         of a variety of genres, children must read 50% informational text on the elementary level and 70% informational text on the secondary level. 90% of writers read literary text in their younger days, 75% of genocide and human rights activists read literary text and viewed the arts when they were young (which evoked them to their life's work), and Silicon Valley geniuses read science fiction when they were young (thus America's ingenuity in creating ideas). At the very moment the US disdains fiction, which has been a key to its success, China now emphasizes science fiction--because China learned science fiction is the key to US creativity. China knows it can make things but also knows that it does not have ideas like we do, which we learned from fiction. 

·         that the common core is in no way internationally benchmarked. Finland does not begin to teach reading until children are 7; the common core has turned kindergarten into what used to be second grade. Shenzen, China, has the highest university pass rate in China: They allow free reading and choice and no tests. China is encouraging the rest of the country to follow Shenzen's lead at the very moment we do not.

Please see Lyndsey Layton’s article for an expose on how the scandal of common core occurred:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bill-gates-pulled-off-the-swift-common-core-revolution/2014/06/07/a830e32e-ec34-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

Please see Superintendent Kenneth Mitchell’s presentation on how much this federal and corporate takeover of education will cost the taxpayer with absolutely no benefit to children:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuS81wZo_yE&list=PL1h2WwSa-8dPkjIsR8MldKlcUAOvTGEI2&index=3

Thank you for your consideration,
Jane M. Gangi, PhD 

70 Possible Notebook Entries

A student composing on an iPad. (Newark, NJ)

I have been thinking about the types of entries I make in this blog (my electronic notebook) and brainstormed with other teachers and on my own and I borrowed ideas I found on other blogs and sites (here) to form this list.  Hope you can make the most of it.

Writing Notebook Entries: Try to write a sustained entry each school day that is at least one page. Date each entry. Do not remove entries from your notebook. I have included links to examples.

1. Select one word for 2015 that you are using to define yourself and/or your goals. Write a narrative that helps to explain it.  (Example, Example
2. Check in with a quick write about how you are feeling. (Example)
3. Write about a time when you did something wrong. (Example)
4. Select a location (ex. childhood backyard when you were x and write about it, then draw it, then revise the writing based on your drawing.
5. Study something carefully and then write about it. (Example)
6. Make an entry about music that matters to you or music that makes you remember.
7. Use the title of a poem, story and write. (Example)
8. Tell a tough to tell story. (Example, Example)
9. Lift a line from something you are reading and write.
10. Write a post about a memory you have that is tied to smell. (Sense of smell triggers most memories… What’s your trigger?)
11. First time I…. (Example)
12. Record a post about a celebration. Try to capture feelings, sense of place, time.
13. Write a Then and Now entry (Example)
14. Think about the future. (Example)
15. Dreams: Keep notebook and pen next to bed. If you can recall your dreams, record one.
16. Write a response to video or literature you enjoyed, disliked, thought about.   
17. Write a response to art or photograph.
18. Tell a family story. (Example)
19. Make a list of your favorite things.
20. Write a slice of life story. (Example)
21. Think about a time when you realized something was important. Write about one that moment. (Example)
22. Write in response to something someone else writes in their notebook. (Example, Example)
23. Think about the stories that your family tells and retells. Write about one of those.
24. Think about the traditions or special holidays in your family. Write about a memorable event that occurred during one of those.
25. Think of the events in your life that are closely tied to the seasons: summer memories, fall memories, winter memories, spring memories. Choose one and tell the story.
26. Think about an important topic and pose questions. (Example)
27. Think about the vacations or trips you’ve taken. Choose one small moment or event and tell the story.
28. Reread your notebook and find a new topics. (Example)
29. Take a stand on something that matters to you. (Example, Example)
30. Respond to something someone else said or wrote. (Example)
31. Think about all the times when you’ve gotten into trouble with your parents, siblings, or teachers. Choose one time and tell the story.
32. Think about a story you’ve never told anyone before. Retell the story on paper.
33. Write a concrete poem. (Student Example)
34. Make art to accompany a poem. (Example – adult example).
35. Make book, music, film, or game recommendations for other. (Example)
36. Think about the times when you have encouraged a friend to try something. Write about the experience.
37. Write your own Where I’m from Poem based on the model from George Ella Lyon (Example)
38. Think about the times when a friend has encouraged you to try something new. Write about the experience.
39. Write about 10 things you notice right where you are sitting. (Example)
40. Think about the things you like to do in the summer time and who you like to do them with. Write about a summer pastime shared with a friend or relative.
41. Explain an important concept through essay and story. (Example)
42. Think about school related memories. Choose one and retell the memory as if it happened yesterday.
43. 5 Things I want My Teacher to Know About Me (Example)
44. Write about an artifact. (Example)
45. Take an area or a topic from your life, like your hair, your glasses, your hobby, your pet, a relative, one part of school, your home. Make a timeline of things that have happened connected to that one topic. Choose one dot from one timeline and write a rough draft of that story.
46. Think about the firsts in your life—such as the first time you stayed home alone or the first time you stayed the night at a friends. Or, the first time you tried an exotic food or the first time you were on stage in front of a crowd. Write the story of the first.
47. Write about a controversial topic. (Example)
48. Think about your childhood. Write about a game or toy you liked when you were young. Tell the story of getting it, a time when you played with it, when you lost it, broke it, or no longer found it interesting.
49. Think about emotional moments in your past. Tell the story of the moment when you found out someone special passed away (a pet, a family member, a national hero). (Example)
50. Think about the important conversations you have had in your lifetime. It may have been with an inspiring teacher, a caring grandparent, a stern parent, or a thoughtful religious leader. Write the story of a conversation you’ll always remember.
51. Think about the last time you were scared or got butterflies in your stomach. Write the story of what caused it and how the situation was resolved.
52. Write about one thing you never want to do again.
53. Write a scar story: a time when you were injured and got that scar. (Example from the blog: Window to School)
54.  Think as far back as you can. List your earliest memories and the details that surround them.
55. Create your own Commonbook by recording favorite lines.  This is a spot in your notebook you can return to for inspiration. (Example).
56. List all the styles you can remember, the music you liked, and the TV shows that were your favorites. Try it grade by grade.
57. Think about the reality of your future. What do you think your life will be like in 5 years? 10 years? 
58. Make a list of ideas you want to write about.
59.  Add a Hot Spot (story climax) to a story (Example)
60. Think about the new year. What do you hope to accomplish this year? (Example)
61. Make an ongoing list of the things you need to do. Cross out stuff as you finish – believe me, it feels really good!
62. Make a wish list.
63. Look around. Observe the people around you. Pay attention to their behavior. Write your ideas as to why they act the way they do.
64. Observe yourself and the way you act in certain situations. Write down what you notice about yourself.
65. Observe something common that you never had the time to notice before. (People passing between periods, the lunch room, hallway behavior, etc.) Write the details of what you see.
66. Eavesdrop: Record dialogue. Try to capture how the people actually sound by the way they speak and what they speak about. Think Tech might Help here. (Example)
67. Look out the window. Observe the day. List everything you see. (Example)
68. Think about something commonly overlooked in nature, like a blade of grass, a cloud, a pebble, a bird, etc. Describe it using every detail you notice in your mind.
69. Write a love letter.
70. Write a letter to someone with power, like President Obama, Secretary Duncan, your principal. Tell bout something you want to see changed. Explain why. (Example, Example)

Remember: use student work as model as often as you can.

Lifting Lines: Making a Commonplace Book

Highways and Gesso (M.A. Reilly, 2014)

In William Least-Heat Moon's PrairyErth: A Deep Map, he begins each quadrant with quotations that he titles, From the Commonplace Book. This is his field study of Chase County in Kansas and it seems fitting that alongside his study of the land, he should also include other texts that speak to the ideas of mapping, location, geography, place--to name but a few.

A commonplace book.

Ryan Halliday nicely defines a commonplace book. He writes:

A commonplace book is a central resource or depository for ideas, quotes, anecdotes, observations and information you come across during your life and didactic pursuits. The purpose of the book is to record and organize these gems for later use in your life, in your business, in your writing, speaking or whatever it is that you do.

So here I am going to have a go of lifting lines as I read other texts and depositing them here.  Later I'll think about ways to organize them. Alongside these I'll be adding some unfinished artwork of mine from journals.

Crowd (M.A. Reilly, gesso, newspaper, 2014)

“How ... how fragile situations are. But not tenuous. Delicate, but not flimsy, not indulgent. Delicate, that's why they keep breaking, they must break and you must get the pieces together and show it before it breaks again, or put them aside for a moment when something else breaks and turn to that, and all this keeps going on. That's why most writing now, if you read it they go on one two three four and tell you what happened like newspaper accounts, no adjectives, no long sentences, no tricks they pretend, and they finally believe that they really believe that the way they saw it is the way it is ... it never takes your breath away, telling you things you already know, laying everything out flat, as though the terms and the time, and the nature and the movement of everything were secrets of the same magnitude. They write for people who read with the surface of their minds, people with reading habits that make the smallest demands on them, people brought up reading for facts, who know what's going to come next and want to know what's coming next, and get angry at surprises. Clarity's essential, and detail, no fake mysticism, the facts are bad enough. But we're embarrassed for people who tell too much, and tell it without surprise. How does he know what happened? unless it's one unshaven man alone in a boat, changing I to he, and how often do you get a man alone in a boat, in all this ... all this ... Listen, there are so many delicate fixtures, moving toward you, you'll see. Like a man going into a dark room, holding his hands down guarding his parts for fear of a table corner, and ... Why, all this around us is for people who can keep their balance only in the light, where they move as though nothing were fragile, nothing tempered by possibility, and all of a sudden bang! something breaks. Then you have to stop and put the pieces together again. But you never can put them back together quite the same way. You stop when you can and expose things, and leave them within reach, and others come on by themselves, and they break, and even then you may put the pieces aside just out of reach until you can bring them back and show them, put together slightly different, maybe a little more enduring, until you've broken it and picked up the pieces enough times, and you have the whole thing in all its dimensions. But the discipline, the detail, it's just ... sometimes the accumulation is too much to bear”  William Gaddis, The Recognition, p. 113.

Love this take on error and mistake:

Blue Rain (M.A. Reilly, gesso & pam pastels. 2014)

If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new ; to him, wandering and wondering are part of the same process , and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring (William Least Heat-Moon, 2012, pp. 215-216).

Arms Raised (M.A. Reilly, 2014)

When rain falls in these parts, in what used to be known as the Great American Desert, it falls with the weight of an astounding gift. It falls like money" (Jonathan Raban, Bad Land: An American Romance, p.15). 

Mostly White (M.A. Reilly, 2014)

I am inspired by blank white walls (Roger Ballen, Asylum of the Birds, p. 144).

2 Circles (M.A. Reilly, pan pastel & gesso, 2014)

But let us have the candor to acknowledge that what we call "the economy" or "the free market" is less and less distinguishable from warfare (Wendell Berry. Citizenship Papers: Essays p. 27).

Works Cited

Ballen, Roger. (2014). Asylum of the Birds.  London: Thames & Hudson.

Berry, Wendell. (2004). Citizenship Papers: Essays. Counterpoint.

Gaddis, William.  (1952/2012). The Recognitions. Urbana-Champaign, IL: Dalkey Archive Press.

Heat-Moon, William Least (2012). Blue Highways: A Journey into America . New York: Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition.

Raban, Jonathan. (2011). Bad Land: An American Romance. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.