As simple as a laptop?

I am a fan of using technology to enhance learning for students. I truly believe that the tools that we are provided on the web will engage students, are authentic to the world that awaits them, and in many ways are tools they are already familiar with. You can really focus on the content if student have mastered the tools.

So I was interested to read study that was done as a result of Maine's program to give every student a laptop computer. According to the Boston Globe article, the program sought to eliminate the "digital divide" between wealthy and poorer students and provided more than 30,000 computers to seventh and eighth grade students in public schools in 2002 and 2003. The study focused on the results of the Maine Educational Assessment to see if the standardized test scores backed up the perception that the laptops helped improve student writing.

The results?
- 49% of eighth graders were proficient in writing in 2005, up from 29% in 2000
- math scores remained unchanged, while science went up 2 points
- reading scores dropped 3 points

Additionally, teachers noted that the writing improvement was the same whether the students used the laptops or pen-and-paper - apparently the good habits of writing transferred over.

The study has me wondering - was it really the laptops? Did teachers change how they taught writing? I wonder what the students say about writing before and after the laptops - is it easier, more fun? Why an increase in writing and not in reading?

Candle On the Water

I've always wanted this blog to be a place where people who felt as passionately as I did about writing could find a friendly voice. And selfishly, I wanted to learn from others - from their struggles, from what they did with their students. And, of course, I wanted to write with a purpose. So I've changed the look and feel (I hope) of this space to focus on Why Write?

Writing is a passion of mine because there is incredible power in the written word. We send messages that last for ages, manipulate two dimensional words to create multi-dimensional meaning, draft each paragraph until it is exactly what we want to say. We can savor it, rage against it, copy it.

And it can help us find our voice - who we are, what we want to be.

I've always felt that teachers were the lighthouses for our students - inspiring them, lighting the way. I want this blog to do the same thing for the writer inside all of us.

I'll be your candle on the water
My love for you will always burn
I know you're lost and drifting
But the clouds are lifting
Don't give up you'll have somewhere to turn

- Candle On the Water, Helen Reddy from Pete's Dragon

Finding Your Voice

At the urging of a friend who knows how I appreciate reading books with compelling voice, I picked up Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. In a nutshell - it follows a woman's journey through Italy, India, and Indonesia in order to find herself. My friend was right - I was hooked, page after page. The writing is descriptive and engaging and I could picture myself in each of the places the author wrote about - both physically and spiritually.

This post is my 99th on this particular blog. Bloggers tend to make a big deal about their 100th post - but I have been delaying that milestone for sometime because I feel like I am still trying to figure out what this blog is all about. It started as a place to continue conversations about writing with participants in my workshops. It evolved into the development of my own thoughts about writing and the writing process in general. And now - I am no longer sure what it is!!

I had pushed the notion of really reflecting about the blog to the back of my mind until I read this extrememly compelling post by Konrad Glogowski. He writes about his struggle to find his role as "blogger" with his eighth grade students.

"In other words, I want the students to see me as yet another blogger in their community, as someone whose reason for being there is not only to support and instruct but also to learn. To learn from and with my students."

In a very compelling way - he takes us through how he has changed not only the appearance of his blog, but the content as well in order to make it more of himself. I am undergoing a similar type of reflection - thinking about why I blog and who I am. And so I leave this 99th blog with this thought:

"I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me." - Anna Quindlen

Connections all over the place...

I know I shouldn't be blogging right now....My "to do" pile only seems to be growing this Friday afternoon, I have been creating data reports all day, and the sun is shining. But as I take a break to sit upright and read, I am finding connections all over the place!! And from just one email newsletter from NCTE!

First - a blog post about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. I was introduced to this site by a wonderful fifth grade teacher last year and blogged about it then. More recently - I had an opportunity to use it with teachers in talking about what makes a "good" website.

Then - I read an article about SE Hinton and the fortieth anniversary of "The Outsiders." I used Cris Tovani's Literary Histories this week in an inservice and more than one teacher brought up this book as an important piece of their past. I still remember reading it - and more importantly remember re-reading it with one of my eighth grade students who was a struggling reader. You go Devon!!

And THEN - I find a lesson plan to one of my favorite books to use with vocabulary: Miss Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster!! Vocabulary was a topic of my inservice earlier this week - and it seems to be a thread that ran throughout the entire week. Each and every day of this very short, yet somehow incredibly long week, featured a discussion on vocabulary!!

And finally - I am intrigued by the ingenious teacher who decided to give the parents of his students homework by asking them to read the same things their children were and complete assignments on his blog!! Some interesting nuggets to chew on there!!

In a few more hours I will be connecting again - with my family and my couch and my weekend. In the meantime, I hope this finds you all well and rested!!



Photo from Jupiter Images.

Making Memories

As many readers know, my grandmother suffers from Alzheimer's Disease. Some members of my family and I walked in the annual Memory Walk in order to help raise funds for research, and even more importantly, for respite care. Each day, it seems that we lose more and more of my grandmother's stories and although my own Treasure Book tries to catch the snippets as she brings them up, I know there are many more that I have already missed.

The quote of the week comes from Ken Burns, who is referencing his latest WWII movie:

I'm in the memory business, and each time a person dies, it's a whole library of memories that leave.

Besides our writer's notebooks, what else could we do to help students capture memories - their own or those of others?

Quotation of the Week

Bloggers seem to have many carnivals and traditions in their blogs and I thought I would start one here on Writing Frameworks. I would often use quotations with my students to have them think about and make connections between their learning and their lives. Ironically, our NYS Regents exam asks students to do something similar in their "Critical Lens" essay. So I thought that I would post each Sunday/Monday the quote of the week - something that spoke to me and followed a theme. And you - dear readers, have the opportunity to reflect and post your thoughts on the quotation in the comments section.

Inspired by the "official" arrival of Fall and my reading of the book, Change or Die, this week's quote is about change:

We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.
Lynn Hall, Where Have All the Tigers Gone?, 1989

Your reactions?

Chicken or Egg?

Readers of this blog know that my Second Grade niece, Amelia, is a budding author. In reviewing her first grade writing folders with her this summer, I came across an entry that had text but an incomplete picture to accompany it. I asked Amelia what happened and she said they ran out of time in class to finish it. I asked her why she draws the pictures last in school, when she always draws them first at home. Her answer? "Because that is the way we are supposed to do it in school."

In sharing that story with teachers this week, we entered the great debate of drawing to help inspire text. One camp believes that drawing pictures helps the students visualize what they want to write about and thus, provides richer text. The other camp believes that if the students are allowed to draw first, they will spend so much time on the drawing that the text won't get written.

There is some evidence of a strong link between drawing and writing. After a five month observation study in a kindergarten classroom Dyson found that as children's drawings become more elaborate, so do their texts. DaSilva writes about her own experiences connecting drawing to writing and reminds us that when drawing is a part of the reading and writing process, "it can help give ideas for writing and teach skills of observation, skills that encourage reading the world and reading the image. It can help propel thinking and revising."

I think about the details in Amelia's picture above - from the circles in the tree stumps to the multi-colored grass - and how powerful her writing would be if she captured them all in text. Is it worth the class time to allow students to develop those pictures and then conference with them to develop the details in writing?

Untold Stories

I just returned from a weekend trip to Boston. I have lots of blogs in my head - but for this post, mostly pictures. It is of the Holocaust Memorial in that city. Each glass tower represents a concentration camp and is etched with the serial numbers of the prisoners. The walkways have facts about the horrors of the concentration camps and inside each tower are parts of stories from survivors. It was a powerful memorial.

Treasure Books - Part 2

“Every moment in our lives is a treasure worthy of being written down.”
- Shirl Hawes, Primarily Writing (2001)


This is the quote that really hit home for me and has prompted me to change what I previously called Writer's Notebooks. While I was unsuccessful this past weekend in finding the perfect notebook - I thought a great deal about what to put inside it!! Weekends are my time to be with family - and in particular with my grandmother who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's three years ago. Now - truth be told - we did not always get along. She was a strong minded, strong willed, strong Polish woman who told you exactly what she thought when she was thinking it. Of course - that did not sit well with this strong minded, strong willed, strong Polish-Irish woman!! Growing up, I was my DziaDzia's baby and that didn't sit well with her either!

We're quite close now - or at least I number among the seven people that she still remembers. That might sound harsh in re-reading it but I consider it to be something of a badge of honor. While she often makes me her fifth daughter instead of her eldest granddaughter - the rest of the stories stay the same. My memory remembers them a bit differently, but I have started to write them down so that they cannot be forgotten. And, of course, we continue to make memories...each and every day.

So - the thought of being able to help students (and teachers) begin to think about their memories and experiences as nuggets of stories to mine is pretty important to me. My mom found an old school paper of hers the other day and shared it with us. It was written in September, 1953 on one of her first days of school. Along with the picture - the text told about how she spent her summer. Because she was about the same age as Amelia (eldest niece) is now - Amelia got the biggest kick out of it. She compared her writing (Amelia's is neater), the details in the drawing (Mom wins on that one - but only by a hair), and of course the topic of how they spent their summer (swimming vs. jump roping). My mom shared many stories of her summers growing up as we compared the pictures, which made me think about how we spent our summers growing up. I came right home and jotted down my top five favorite things we did when growing up:

1. Spending days at my parents cabin in the Alleghany region creek-walking and catching crayfish.

2. Swimming at my grandparents house and in particular, sliding down what seemed at the time to be the highest, steepest slide ever into the water.

3. Visits from cousins who lived in other states. Because our family is so big and close, we made little disctinction between first cousins and second cousins - the ages seemed to blend together. But it was always a treat when relatives came in from Ohio or Arkansas or Indiana to visit.

4. Surprise visits from my Uncle Billy. My father's brother - he always just seemed to appear from out of nowhere. He lives in California and these once a year visits were not only unpredictable but caused severe upheaval to everyone - he was loud, told incredible stories (that age has taught us were quite exaggerated), and he did whatever he wanted, when he wanted. It drove my mom crazy - but it was an incredible week!! And then, as soon as he came, he disappeared. (PS - nothing has changed!)

5. Playing "raisins" with the neighbor kids. Raisins was a game that we made up and the rules always changed - so that we would win of course!! We jokingly try to play it with the nieces and nephew now but they don't let us get away with it.

What would your top five summer memories be?

Treasure Books

Whew! The first week of school is now officially over and somehow - summer has turned to fall. It isn't the weather - I woke up this morning to a very muggy 73 degrees out - but the feeling is definately fall. At least, that is what I have been scribbling about in my treasure book.

I am going to get a new treasure book today - I don't love the one that I picked up years ago to use. It doesn't "speak" to me and make me want to go running to it. Now that I am trying to be more conscious about the decisions I make with my treasure book so that I can work with others, I want to be able to say why a particular notebook called to me. I was inspired to do that after reading Chapter 1 of Aimee Buckner's Notebook Know-How and her story of Chance's notebook.

I've read this book before - but all by myself. Now I will be participating (or lurking) in a book study online with a RealWriter's Yahoo Group that I have belonged to for quite some time. It helps me to read and reflect with others, I am a better reader that way. And I am hoping this helps me to become a better writer.

I am also wondering how I can use Treasure Books with the district that I work in two days a week. I will be leading the Literacy strand of our professional development days but they have been shortened this year from three days to two because of a regional event. And - these aren't always the folks who are the most open to the idea of reading/writing in the classroom. But I think that I can hook a couple - it's finding how to start....

Speaking of a nation of writers....

What a great writing topic - blogs or not!! Let's write!

A Nation of Writers

I love to be with people who have a passion for education. Yesterday, I was able to meet with some leaders of my organization to plan for an upcoming series we will host on "Changing Perspectives: 21st Century Learning." We've been reinvigorated in our region with some initiatives and it was great to collaborate and harness our collective wisdom.

One of the pieces that we will be hosting will be on educators as writers. It has long been interesting to me that many educators don't consider themselves writers. And it makes me wonder about what the definition of a "writer" is. The Free Online Dictionary defines a writer as (1)writes (books or stories or articles or the like) professionally (for pay) and (2) a person who is able to write and has written something. It seems to me that most of us fall under the category of (2) - although we might not practice it much!

In a recent blog post by Roy Peter Clark (one of my favorite feeds), Clark lays out ways for us to create a "nation of writers" as inspired by the late Donald Murray. In the words of Clark;

"Murray left us -– students, teachers, writers all –- a path to follow. He dedicated his life to a simple proposition: that the act of writing was not a magical power possessed by a precious few. Writing was a process, a craft, a set of tools within reach of us all."

I know that lots of folks are worried about the state of writing. And many blame technology for some of that - "look at the kids IM'ing - it's not even a real language", "no one cares about spelling anymore - they just use spellcheck" and on and on. But I liked the take of a recent news article that argues that "rapid fire lingo" actually shows that our language is evolving!

As my team and I have learned more about the new technologies available to us, we have begun to adopt them as a matter of doing business. We all have tried our hand at blogs and wikis, we use Google Docs and more recently Google Groups. We are trying to find out how they "fit" into our work - as opposed to just adding them on. Some have adopted these easily - for others it is a bit of a struggle. But it has helped us grow as a team and interestingly, as writers.

Embracing the new technology is not easy. But we are educating our students for a world that we are not experiencing today, and in fact are not even sure what it will look like. Integrating the technology is not throwing out the old, looking at screen still requires reading and typing an email still requires writing. We just need to find a balance and teach our students which language is appropriate when.

Relaxing Friday

I'm taking a personal day today as I am just burnt crispy by my schedule and to help out my mom - who, caring for four children under the age of six and my grandmother with Alzheimer's each day this summer, is similarly crispy. But before I head over to corral the children, I thought I would blog.

I've had writer's notebooks on my mind since last week and in reviewing my own entries it's interesting to see how some of my entries have changed. I've been jotting things down but rather half-hearted it appears, as more recent entries are richer in details and bigger nuggets to mine. I'm debating getting a new notebook to serve as my own "action research" piece about what I write and trying some of the ideas that teachers are using before I put the workshop together. Borders is on the agenda today so I am sure that one will leap off the shelf at me.

Lots of folks in the blog world participate in something called Poetry Friday, where they share their favorite poems and how they use them. It is hosted by a different blog each week and is here this week. Poetry has not been one of my favorite things but when I am touched by one it is amazing. I don't think I have enough to really share and participate but I do read all the posts and am increasing my collection.

This poem, posted at Two Writing Teachers, really struck me given the topic:

My Writer’s Notebook by Brod Bagert

It’s a black and white composition notebook,
A hundred pages
with blue line
that await my words:

Diamond Search

My life lies before me
Like the bed of a shallow river.
My fingers sift sand and gravel
For the rough diamonds that lie hidden.
And as I find them
I put them in this notebook.
I write… I cut… I polish…
And they shine.

My words on an empty page
In an ordinary notebook,
The silver setting for the jewels of my life.

Happy Friday!

Just Read It!

I can't do it better than they do and I certainly can't write like they do....so hook up your RSS feed and read Two Writing Teachers!! And read it often!

Word Counting

During law school, in a particularly long and over-crowded class, a group of friends and I used to play bingo. We'd create a chart of the words that certain folks in class liked to use a lot : jurisprudence, estoppel, caveat, in toto, controlling decision. You get the picture. The words that lawyers use as code and are generally what my students would call "dollar words." It was a tradition that I carried on after I left the legal profession to opening day speeches from superintendents, BOE members, and outside consultants - only this time we counted educational jargon. Probably not the most mature way to spend my time in either scenario, but I like to spin it now that I have always had a fascination with words. (See what law school will get ya??)

The words we choose when speaking or writing are what helps to define our voice. Do YOU have a signature word or phrase? If you aren't sure - ask your family or colleagues and I guarantee that they will let you know. For example, I have a good friend who expresses her surprise or shock at something by saying "Holy (fill in the word) Batman!" It makes me laugh every time I hear it - and I tend to repeat it often when I am with her. Holy secret code, Batman!

And so I found this link from Cool Cat Teacher's del.icio.us tags very interesting. Using tag clouds (a visual depiction showing the frequency of word use), someone charted the words used by the Democratic presidential candidates in an April 2007 debate. The type size of each word varies according to how often it is used - with the largest words being used most often. Even more interesting are the comments that follow about how the readers were surprised about which words were used and which were not - showing that those who closely follow this type of thing already have an expectation of the words certain candidates will use. (NOTE: This is not a political stance - I couldn't find a tag cloud of Republican candidates or I would link to that as well in all fairness.)

It got me thinking about word choice as a writing trait and how we could use tag clouds with kids. Perhaps the students could focus on parts of writing - like leads or conclusions - to see how often they use certain words. Or perhaps students could use one or two different pieces of writing to find the words they tend to use often. I also wondered about taping the conversations we have with students about their writing to see which words we use most often.

It's not that using words repetitively is bad - it would just be interesting to know and be able to point out. By the way, using the free service at TagCrowd, I made a tag cloud of this post:

batman candidates certain clouds code democratic em friend interesting law school strong students surprise tag tend type used words writing

created at TagCrowd.com

All Written Out and Powering Up

I had four straight days of writing workshops last week so you would think that I have plenty to blog about. I am sure that I do - but I am still trying to process some of the questions/issues that the participants raised as well as what I learned. The reason that I love teaching about writing and teaching writing is that I learn something every single time. So, in the spirit of a new blog that I am reading, I will consider this a Writer's Notebook blog entry. I like their style so much that I'll tag all Writer's Notebook entries as they do- WN - so that I can be sure to come back to them later.

Power of Picture Books: I pulled a number of them off the shelves and brought to share with the teachers. I haven't taken time to really organize them with the lessons but will be fast-tracking that soon. The picture book with the greatest impact was Not a Box and my colleague Chris helped me with an extension activity using pom-poms. Great fun!!

Power of Conferencing: Early in the week, the teachers wanted help with what a writing conference would look like, particularly as young writers bridge pictures to text. Lucky for me - I have a ready and somewhat willing niece who loves to help her aunt and we created a video for the teachers that night. I was far from perfect and Amelia had no problems letting me know when I crossed the aunt line! But I learned a great deal from that conference and the teacher reflection that followed!!

Power of Voice: I am always asked how to "teach" voice - and I answer that it isn't something that can be taught, it needs to be uncovered. But that is not a good answer. The last two days spent with upper elementary teachers has be pondering what comes first - voice in the abstract or the more concrete traits that help to make up voice (sentence fluency, word choice, conventions). I am chewing hard on this one.

Power of Collaboration: The best part of the four days was each time the teachers worked together in grade level teams to make plans for the upcoming year and using their new K-5 writing rubric. They did amazing work and asked incredible questions. Made me miss my classroom more than ever. But I did get to spend all four days with a colleague and get valuable feedback and ideas. We don't take the time to do that often enough and I am putting it on my work plan to do more often.

Power of Writer's Notebooks: I actually chose to call them Treasure Books (as I learned from Primarily Writing). I like that turn of phrase better - makes them be more than just a class assignment and an exercise in compliance and more personal, more authentic. Chris and I brainstormed a workshop on just using treasure books and I think we purposefully integrated them much better in the last two days. While I keep a writer's notebook myself, I haven't spent much time thinking about what I keep or how I keep it. I need to do more of that to model for teachers.

Power of Re-Charging: Seriously - I was exhausted by the end of the week and it felt good to re-charge my batteries. I didn't do anything monumental - cleaned two of the seven downstairs rooms, loads and loads of forgotten laundry, watched movies with the family. I took a break from writing, from the gym, from work - all the things that while they make me happy, also tend to stress me out. I dread Mondays - but maybe this one won't be quite so bad.

Happy Writing!

Trippin' Over Myself

It's August already! Hard to believe that it won't be long before school is in session and I feel like the "to do" list has not gotten any smaller. I'm on a mad mission to conquer Google Earth as a means to link Social Studies and ELA with a frequent visitor to this site. (Hey - you visit and comment once - you're frequent!)

It started with a simple conversation about a visiting author for this spring and the fact that this Super Teacher has already signed her kids up for an essay writing contest around the book Hana's Suitcase. Since the conversation happened in a DBQ development workshop, we starting talking about Google Earth, which let to Google Lit Trips - which led to us creating one (right now - hoping to create one!)on the book.

The plan is to map the locations in the book - with the pushpins pieces to be DBQ like questions. I haven't mastered how it all fits together and it is complicated a bit by the fact that I am blocked from Google Earth at work and too hot and tired when I get home to play too much.

I know I will conquer this because as a teacher in my district shared her plan to read Judy Moody Declares Independence, I was already imagining not just the Lit Trip but how my planned trip to Boston in September could provide a wealth of Flickr activities for her.

I see this as a pretty powerful model to use with kids. Once they have taken a few lit trips - I can imagine them creating their own for the book they are reading. It gives them a global perspective and can help them make powerful connections.

So now I am wondering - what other books might make a good basis for a Lit Trip. What types of questions would teachers want to see at each stop? How can we get around the blocks that many districts have put in place around Google Earth?

Kids 1, Lunch Lady 0

I loved reading about the power of the pen in this article!

"The menu at William V. Wright Elementary School is getting a makeover after Constantine Christopulos' class went on a poignantly polite letter-writing campaign aiming to see less of that particular vegetable in the cafeteria.

"A little boy said, `Anything, anything, I'll even eat broccoli,"' said Connie Duits, the lunch lady. "So that one touched my heart."

The children were careful to offer praise as they expressed their concerns."

The article goes on to explain that the letter writing campaign began after reading Frindle, in which the boycott of the cafeteria there was deemed a bit less respectful. Students weighed in on which foods they wanted to replace the green beans (and it was not peas!)and while they may not be getting "'stake' and lobster" it does appear that the new choices will be a step up!!

In case you missed it, these kids are in second grade!!

My Mandala

My computer is back - well, at least the most important part!! Nothing was lost, the old computer was under warranty, and I made it through the first day of our DBQ Writing Institute without causing too much harm. So, without further delay, my mandala is below...let the interpretations begin!! What do you see that might reflect me?

Wandering Lost!

I guess I never realized how attached I was to my computer until the hard drive crashed (I think) this morning. Yesterday was something of a whirlwind - between sharing my musings about Web 2.0 groups with interested Fellows, to clarifying what I can do to make my Keep On Learning site a via "publishable" piece, to canoeing down (and eventually swimming in) the mighty Housatonic River I was exhausted. We have spotty Internet connection here at best, so I captured by blogs thoughts in Word late last night and go up early to post.

Alas - the computer does nothing.

Thanks to JoAnn, I am working on a computer but it isn't mine, with my scattered desktop and the comforting pictures of my family in the background. I am trying to remain calm -but the flood of work that I have created may be lost and it is causing rising panic. (I know - I should back up more often and I have learned a powerful lesson!!) Fortunately - a great deal of my work is available to me on-line through blogs and wikis so I am not totally despondent.

I have come to realize that my computer has become an extension of my hands. Pens and pencils work at times, but how I organize my thoughts and my writing is all done electronically. It is comforting to me - the warmth of the battery, the click of they keys, the glow of the screen. I am not sure how to write and organize without it.

Much of our conversation the past two days has been around the use of electronic tools - and I can see the look of confusion and trepidation on the faces of many of my Fellows. It can be a powerful way to join our two communities (Upstate and Downstate) into the one community we become in the summer - but it could also cause others to disengage. I am mindful of this as I ponder ways to integrate these tools into the Collegial Circle that I am planning for the Fall around literacy. I will need to take it slow, temper my enthusiasm to allow others to discover these tools the way that I have, ,and build the community of learners one at a time.

Cross-posted on Grand Rounds.