Reading Ladders - Teri Lesesne

The Hawaii Council of Teachers of English (HCTE) sponsored "Professor Nana," Dr. Teri Lesesne (rhymes with insane) for their fall workshop this morning at Mid Pacific Institute in Mānoa.

Neither the $50 fee nor the fact that this was a gorgeous Saturday and we were in a 1/2-day workshop was enough to dissuade the packed cafeteria of teachers. If you LOVE, LOVE, LOVE YA and tween books like I do. . .if it's your guilty pleasure. . .if you read YA books in order to find something one of your reluctant readers will devour, then Professor Nana is the ultimate source in YA books. I first saw her in San Antonio for a literacy workshop with Kylene Beers. I have followed her blog The YA Goddess since 06, and whenever I'm at NCTE, I make sure I go to at least one of her sessions. It's true that her power points are always on her slide share account, but I always get more insight when I watch her because she book talks some of the covers that are in her slide show.

In between teaching my 9th graders and reading for my doctoral class this semester, I'd love to discuss some manaʻo from her book, Reading Ladders: Leading Student from Where They Are to Where Weʻd Like to Be (Heinemann). The gist of what I got from today's talk was that reading ladders combine elements of thematic units, vertical alignment and planning, as well as horizontal alignment and planning. It's a way to scaffold instruction as well as a way to keep students motivated to read, so that with the less secure readers, you take smaller steps.

I think this concept of having the next book ready for students, and planning horizontally and vertically around reading is one of the pieces that is missing in unsuccessful SSR programs. It's just not enough to tell the kids to read. It's not enough to take them to the library. We need to read aloud to our secondary students, and we need to carve out some time to talk books. We need to think schematically (and thematically) about books. Now if only we could get paid to read for pleasure.

Mahalo to Anna Lee from HCTE for letting me know about the workshop. They have more fabulous speakers coming: November 6, 2010 Stephanie Harvey and Smoky Daniels (Comprehension and Collaboration: Inquiry Circles in Action); February 12, 2011 Ralph Fletcher (Pyrotechnics on the Page: Playful Craft that Sparks Writing)

Comments

Kino (an indigenous logic model): post 1 of 4

Passion I have. What I need is to practice my elevator speeches, those short informative program synopses that can be done in the time it takes to ride the elevator. Of course it will take me 4 posts. Post 1: The honua: building on solid ground The Alana culture-based education course is graphically depicted by the above logic model. The honua (green box), the earth, represents the mo'ok ūauhau, the geneology of this program that informs and guides the building of this course. Dr. Shawn Kanaʻiaupuni and her team lay the foundation for culture-based education (CBE) modeling and immersion within the course. Dr. Walter Kahumoku and Keiki Kawaiʻaeʻa, in consultation with Dr. Bernice McCarthy (4Mat) bring to the geneology the work of moenahā, a curriculum planning concept based on the way kupuna taught. Makawalu, literally eight eyes, is a concept practiced by Kaʻimipono Kaiwi and her teachers at Kamehameha Kapālama to encourage multiple perspectives in the standards-b

Tech Tools to Support Formative Assessment in the Classroom

Source: Dyer, K. (Jan. 31, 2019). 75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment. NWEA blog . What is sacred: Normally, when I read an article that I am going to use for class, I highlight citations that are sacred, but this is a different type of article, so what I wanted to do was keep track of apps that I tried in class or am trying and use Dyer's own lens to talk about worth and value in my own classroom. I cannot do 75. I will do 5. Her criteria: S upports formative instructional strategies and ways to activate learners to be resources for themselves and peers Is free or awful close to it (under $10 per year, where possible) When possible, both students and teachers can take the activator role (sometimes teachers need to get things started) 1. Flipgrid allows you, students, families to do a video response (from 15 seconds to now 10 minutes - I love a good upgrade). New in 2020 besides the added time - it used to be maxed at 5 minutes - is the a

Visual Synectics Strategy: Beyond the Icebreaker

To get professional conversations going, one strategy is the visual synectics strategy. The purpose is to select a visual and generate comparisons as a way to foster professional conversations within the table. Our visual options were: Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz , Peter Falk from Columbo , Michael Jordan, Winston Churchill, Oprah Winfrey. The cloze passage for the day was: Learning with other professional educators is like_______________ because_______________. Our tongue in cheek response: Learning with other professional educators is like Dorothy because sometimes we need to realize that we're just not in Kansas anymore, embrace the change, learn through the process, and only then can we find our way back home. Why is this strategy better than an icebreaker? It's not busy work. It guides participants to start thinking as a professional. It's not personal. The word icebreaker connotes that there is ice to be broken. People

Pure Manaʻo

Search This Blog