Engaging Education

In my eight years of teaching, rarely had I encountered a project that gave students as much ownership and motivation as the Young Writers Program for National Novel Writing Month…  Or as lovingly referred to by its participants, NaNoWriMoYWP.

Today commences the 2012 month of novel writing.  Students around the world are choosing a personal word count goal and launching on an adventure to tell a long narrative tale by November 30th.

Not only does this project significantly boost the quality of student writing through hours of deliberate practice and give amazing opportunities for powerful writing mini-lessons that students can immediately put into practice, but NaNoWriMoYWP also provides an appropriate learning environment for demonstrating  to students the power of setting and working toward a challenging goal.  Completing one’s first novel at the age of 8, 12 or 16 is something that belongs wholly to that student and can never be taken away.  It represents a lifelong transformation from writing student to author.   The message of empowerment is undeniable.

Click to download .pdf version.

So, I encourage you to take join my students, colleagues, friends, writers around the globe and me in taking the NaNoWriMo challenge in 2012.  Just because it is November 1, doesn’t mean it is too late to jump in. In fact, I am attaching a .pdf adapted from NaNoWriMo materials that can help you shortcut your planning time, turn your ideas into a true story concept and even connect with other NaNoWriMo-ers.  Plus, this month, I will be continuing to share writing resources, tips and student stories to keep your writers engaged and motivated along the way.

So, take the challenge yourself, integrate the program into your reading and writing instruction over the next month, or at least send a Twitter message to the many students on their way to becoming authors!

Let the novel writing begin!

“NaNoWriMo – I am an Author” – Video

Click here to read more about our 2011 NaNoWriMo experience!

With World Read Aloud Day just around the corner, it’s not too late to use your technological resources to enhance your celebration and bring reading to life for your students. Here are seven ways to do just that!

1. Guest Readers & Audiences – Using Skype, iChat, Facetime or other applications, classes can bring in virtual guest readers. Guest readers come in all shapes and sizes. LitWorld and Kate Messner both provided a list of published authors who are willing to Skype with students on WRAD, which you can find at
– LitWorld.org/WorldReadAloudDayChats
– KateMessner.com/skype-with-an-author-on-world-read-aloud-day-2012
Yet, guest readers can also be students’ parents or grandparents, volunteers from local businesses or organizations, or even students and teachers at other schools. If you would like to connect with other educators who are interested in Skyping for WRAD, visit this wiki created by John Schu and Shannon Miller – ChangeTheWorldStoryByStory.wikispaces.com/Skype+Schedules+and+Projects.
By the way, don’t miss out on the opportunity to allow your own students to serve as the Guest Readers for other classes or schools as well!

2. Podcasting – Get your students excited about reading by using voice-recording applications to record themselves reading aloud. Vocaroo.com or the Voice Memos app on various iDevices are simple ways to implement this… or use a more robust program like Audacity, Aviary or Garageband, which would even allow students to add mood music or sound effects to their productions. Play these finished masterpieces for the class or publish them online to share with others!

3. Talking Avatars – Using the voice recording function at Voki.com, students can use their voices to create an avatar that can read aloud to the class. Whether Abraham Lincoln is reading the Gettysburg Address or a cat is reading Carl Sandburg’s famous Fog poem, this activity will delight students of all ages.
Bonus: Students can read their own poems and compositions aloud as well! Check out this elementary Voki project by Samantha Lewis that promotes literacy and writing through Dr. Seuss inspired rhyming poems.

4. Voicethread – Voicethread is a dynamic digital media tool that will allow your students to write or record comments. For World Read Aloud Day, create a Voicethread with slides for various figures of speech or genres and allow your students to read aloud to audio or video record examples that they discover in literary works. (Learn more about this tool’s potential at Voicethread.com.)

5. Digital Storytelling – To celebrate both reading and writing, consider allowing the students to create Digital Storybooks using the Web 2.0 application, Little Bird Tales. This application allows students to compose a written piece, draw original illustrations and record themselves reading the book aloud. Best of all, they are easy to share with the class, e-mail to parents or paste on your class website.

6. Puppet Shows or Reader’s Theater – Lights! Camera! Action! Bring reading to life with a little drama! Use your document camera to create live or recorded Read Alouds of Reader’s Theater or other works with engaging images of student-created popsicle stick avatars, finger puppets or other manipulatives. For example, read Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar with a large popsicle stick avatar of the caterpillar and real versions of the red apple, two green pears, a cupcake, a single leaf and more.

7. Video Book Reviews – Students can use a webcam, Flipcam or Doc Cam to record a review of a favorite book, including sharing illustrations and reading their favorites passages aloud.
Bonus: Upload these video book reviews online and connect their URLs to QR codes (qrcode.kaywa.com) that can be printed and affixed to the cover of the book for other students to watch throughout the school year!

Using Technology, you can easily use your World Read Aloud Day event to ignite a passion for reading in your students and allow it to spread far beyond your classroom walls.

World Read Aloud Day takes place on Wednesday, March 7th. For more ideas, activities resources, visit LitWorld.org/WorldReadAloudDayActivities. You can even download their original picture book, New Day, New Friends, to share with your class!

The countdown has begun… Only nine more days until the 2012 World Read Aloud Day!

Sponsored by LitWorld, World Read Aloud Day is “about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people. World Read Aloud Day motivates children, teens, and adults worldwide to celebrate the power of words, especially those words that are shared from one person to another, and creates a community of readers advocating for every child’s right to a safe education and access to books and technology.” (via LitWorld.org)

So, how can you participate?

First, register your class at LitWorld.org to participate as part of this amazing global event to promote literacy.

Second, plan Read Aloud activities for your class or school, whether students are reading their own writing aloud, inviting a guest reader, or using technology to connect your readers. (Check back for WRAD 2012: Part 2 this week for a great list of class WRAD activities!)

Third, consider contacting an author to Skype with your students.
– LitWorld has partnered with dozens of authors who are excited to read and share with your classes on March 7th. That list can be found at http://litworld.org/worldreadalouddaychats.
– Author, Kate Messner, shares a list of authors who may be willing to Skype with your students at http://www.katemessner.com/skype-with-an-author-on-world-read-aloud-day-2012.

World Read Aloud Day 2012 will be a powerful opportunity to get your students excited about reading… and celebrate their place in the global learning community. So, what are you and your students going to do to participate??

Keep checking back this week for further resources for World Read Aloud Day (3/7)
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Need an educational, yet fun, elementary or middle school activity to get you through the last days of school before the holidays? Try making greeting cards with original student poetry inside.

Students can create folded cards by hand, drawing images or adding pictures cut from magazines or holiday newspaper ads. For a technological spin, use the templates in Microsoft Publisher or Microsoft Word, allowing students to add their own personal message and customizing clip art.

Once you have the basic greeting card, it’s time to add the original poem. In this case, I recommend a Diamante poem. They are simple to create and enable a great review of parts of speech during a creative activity. Since the students are able to choose their own topics, it is easy to diversify this activity for students who celebrate various winter holidays, or even for those that do not celebrate holidays. Some topics that have worked well for our students are: Snow, Christmas, Santa, Family, and Love.

To instruct the students in composing their Diamante, use one of the following technology resources while students are synchronously composing their own pieces:

-       Use the Diamante interactive poetry creator at readwritethink.org, projecting the live composition of a collaborative poem.

-       Use your Document Camera to project a live collaborative composition, systematically working through each line. This method can be enhanced by using a different color to represent each unique part of speech represented in the poem (as shown in the picture to the right). Additionally, encourage students to use prediction to guess what type of line should follow to complete the diamond.

Here are a few samples, created by third graders at McKeel Elementary Academy.

McKeel Elementary Academy loves our Ladibug Document Cameras! Here’s how we used them to enhance our participation in World Read Aloud Day 2011.

During the week prior to the event, 3rd-5th grade gifted students composed original poetry and designed pop-up illustrations to go with them. On World Read Aloud Day, students used Garageband to create mp3s of themselves reading their creative poems aloud. Then, we used our Ladibug 3D Document Camera to share the poems and illustrations on our interactive white board (and screen capture the images) in both 2D and 3D! Finally, the students collected the pieces into a Pop-Up Poetry anthology using iMovie… which will be shared with the whole school – and you!

This was our first time creating with the Ladibug 3D document camera and here is a snapshot of their work! My students LOVE hearing feedback from their online audience, so please let us know what you think.

Pop-Up Poetry 3D Edition
(Viewed with red-cyan anaglyph 3D glasses; red lens over left eye)

Pop-Up Poetry 2D Edition

To find out more about our World Read Aloud Day, check out this blog entry.