My personal educational philosophy

At the beginning of the year, each member of our staff was challenged to create our own personal educational philosophy. Mine has been sitting in my iPad since September. For some reason, yesterday I felt like I needed to drag it out and publish it. Here it is.

As an educator it is my responsibility to instill a sense of independence in all students. I will approach my students with curiosity and collect as much information on them as individuals as I begin my work. Knowing children are vastly different from one another in their academic, social, and psychological needs, I will treat them as such and point out their unique needs to them so that they can become more metacognitive in their learning. In doing this, each child will develop a feeling of safety and self-worth that will support his or her academic needs, ultimately creating independent learners.

IRC Conference, March 14-16, 2013, Kelly Gallagher

Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing through Modeling and Mentor Texts
Kelly Gallagher

I feel a little naïve in the area of reading/writing instruction sometimes.  I say this because I started my career out with full intention of acquiring a position as a US History teacher and staying there until I retired.  This didn't really work out the way I had planned.  In fact, it wasn't until I was 13 years into my teaching career that I was even offered my first job as a US History, and by this point I had given up and moved into reading.  Now don't get me wrong, by this point I had a deep understanding of how important reading was and I was excited with what I was doing.  It wasn't that reading was a second choice; its more like reading was the place I was meant to be, but I was distracted early in my career by the glory of social studies.  I truly believe that I am where I need to be right now.  It just took me over ten years to get there. 

I bring this up because I've never seen Kelly Gallagher speak until a few weeks ago at the IRC Convention.  It was embarrassing to admit this, as the girls with whom I was traveling had all seen him at least once.  My co-department chair actually paid to go see him next month because she wanted to hear him speak.  Gallagher is a contributing author to our newly purchased literature series.  So, after a crazy morning (I overslept by an hour and a half and still had to pack!), we managed to make it to breakfast without missing anything.  I have NO idea how this happened, but after hearing Gallagher speak, I'm glad that I didn't miss him.

The idea of mentor texts was also one that was new to me - again, I am admitting to this, knowing that I probably should have known this term.  After hearing Gallagher speak, I think I have used this strategy in one form or another, but I have never called it mentor texts.  The name makes sense to me, and the way that the idea is used is really brilliant. 

Gallagher began his session with a quick discussion about what today's students are facing in the next ten years.  Because he currently lives in California, he spoke of the California Highway Patrol assessment.  The examples that he showed his audience were clearly vocabulary-based.  Gallagher reports that the majority of this assessment is vocabulary and writing.  Prospective police officers are even required to write an essay!

One point Gallagher made in his presentation is the idea that our expectations for our students are getting lower and lower.  Gallagher stated that he felt like the expectations for our juniors and seniors are decreasing and yet the college expectations are not changing.  I hear this statement over and over again - the academic comparison of today's kids to kids of the past.  I was a kid a little over twenty years ago, and there is no comparison, in my opinion.  It's like the comparisons that are made country to country, state to state, or even district to district!  The number of variables that would have to be factored into the equations are so vast, it is impossible to make such a generalized statement, and yet educators of all walks do it. 

Sixteen years ago I saw my students' ability to absorb classroom content to be more than today's students.  But sixteen years ago I also communicated with their parents through phone calls and face-to-face discussion.  Today, I text or email parents.  I tweet, post and blog.  Input and output come in different formats for our students and for their parents, and this stimulates different parts of these kiddos' brains.  Sixteen years ago (my first year of teaching), my students were not inundated with digital media at every turn.  They were still reading paper books and researching using books and encyclopedias.  The internet was such a new tool back then, and youtube was nonexistent.  The term "just google it" had no premise, and AltaVista was my go-to search engine if I couldn't find the answer in the library.  These kids' brains were still tapped into things that could be touched.  Today's kids are not like this.  To me, this changes things.  We have added an entirely new type of literacy into the lives of our students - digital literacy, and yet we are expecting them to perform at the same capacity or higher, with all of our new research in higher order thinking, than we have in the past.  And we say our kids are not performing?  Of course they are not performing!  They're not meeting these expectations because we are moving at the speed of light and trying to keep up with the increasingly-complex technologies of tomorrow.  We are piling so much on our kids and then shaking our heads in puzzlement when they do not respond!  The bigger problem is that there are students who can achieve at such high rates, and this causes the chasm to spread between those whose brains have been able to adapt and those whose haven't.  Those whose parents read to them every night since before they were born and keep books in every room of their house.  They are the same who buy the latest technology at home who have a bigger advantage and will perform higher on every assessment than those who don't. 

What we expect of our students is in no way less than what we expected twenty or thirty years ago.  It is just different.  We have skipped over some key foundational concepts like basic mathematical computation, phonics, historical dates, and science definitions and moved into teaching application of difficult, complex concepts beginning at the age of six.  Gallagher even concedes that the math from yesterday is not the same as the math of today - word problems are more complex and requirements for computation and answering require reading and writing skills!  Although I can see where this allegation of educational negligence stems, I think the accusation should change to figuring out how we can equalize the opportunities for all of our students and meet the new technological needs of this new generation, all while meeting the higher expectations and blended literacies popping up all over in our standardized testing and real-world experiences. 

Gallagher sees writing as a key educational component, but no longer are we talking about the five paragraph essay.  Today's writing expectations are much more complex and include a wider range of English words than students from years past.  Each year, hundreds of new words are introduced to the English language, and one of our jobs, as educators, is to help our students keep up.  Again, we move to the idea of vocabulary. 

Kelly Gallagher's idea of using mentor texts is a neat concept - it's the idea that we use a piece of uniquely organized current writing, analyze the author's craft to identify what makes it unique, and then have our students use their own ideas to create a new piece based from the craft of the mentor text.  Gallagher went through a series of mentor texts during his talk.  These easily-utilized mentor texts are listed below:

• 6 word memoirs - See the example lesson plan with videos from readwritethink.org on what they are.  My brief description will not do them justice.  They're six words long and can be used to say just about anything.  See?  Definitely not the detailed description that would be considered telling.
• Twitter posts - If you haven't looked on twitter or used twitter, I'll tell you right now, I opened a twitter account a year ago and the combination of number signs, ampersands, slashes, dashes, and stars freaked me out so much I posted very little.  Just within the last month, I've made more of an effort to "get to know" twitter, and I'm really starting to get the hang of it!  The restriction with Twitter is that tweets can be only 140 characters (including spaces), so the composer has to either condense information into a sort of twitter code or tweet more than one tweet on the same topic.  This supports the idea of summarization, and would also pique the interest of the students composing the tweets on whatever topic they're writing.
• Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life - Definitely a book I will own.  This text is organized in alphabetical order and features words that are significant in the life of author Amy Rosenthal.   Andrea Reichenberger posted a flickr slideshow giving some examples of some great projects created by her students.  Gallagher suggested using this project to start the year.  I LOVE this idea and can't wait to share it with some of our ELA teachers. 
• The "Unofficial and Unwritten Spokane Rules of Fisticuffs" from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.  Lisa Larsen,a teacher from Nevada, writes about this list of unofficial rules and how they can be used in the classroom in her book review.  Gallagher suggests using them in this way and then having students use Alexie's craft to craft their own unofficial rules.  A great way to cross writing with character education or PBIS!
• This I believe . . . It's really unfortunate that I can't recall if this is the mentor text or not, but what a cool book!  I would use it.  There seems to be a lot out there on the web about writing "I believe" essays, but This I Believe: the Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women (Allison & Gediman, editors) seems to support Gallagher's objective.  Again, he suggests this could be a good first week (or first day) activity. So many of our kiddos are resistant to writing, but asking them to talk about themselves or what they believe usually sparks some motivation.  It also sets a premise for a writing class that we start the year writing - we will be writing all year.
• "If you're looking for a way to  . . . " modeled from the ESPN article "If you're looking for a way to kill little league".  Read the article.  It's pretty awesome, and what a wonderful discussion on author's craft you and your students can have!

In each of the above examples, I am brought back to Jeff Anderson and Anna Deese where both presenters talked about the idea of observing or noticing.  Studying the craft of a writer or author requires this skill, and to use mentor texts like the ones above is a great way to practice this skill. The act of applying this craft then allows students to process what they've observed or noticed and morph it into their own writing.

I was thrilled to have taken so much from Kelly Gallagher's morning session at the IRC Convention, and I know that the ELA teachers with whom I work will embrace much of what I have brought back to share with them.  The fact that he contributed to our newly-adopted literature series gives this information even more meaning.  And . . . I also have a list of more books to go out and buy. 

IRC Conference, March 14-16, 2013, Words are Wonderful

Words are Wonderful
Susanne Picchi & Margaret Richek

While at IRC I committed to hitting at least one session on vocabulary until I felt like I had some ideas and theories to mull over for a while.  Thank goodness the first session I chose was "the one".  After going to see Susanne Picchi and Margaret Richek speak on vocabulary acquisition, I had much to consider as I thought about how this information could be applied at school.

Picchi and Richek introduced their topic by showing their audience the slide to the right.  Interestingly enough, I realize now as I am writing this that I encountered this table just a few days ago when doing some extra reading on vocabulary instruction.  As stated in my most recent CRISS crumble, I think&nbsp our school is ready to really focus on vocabulary instruction.  Because of our demographics, our building already has a disadvantage in the area of vocabulary.  Around forty percent of our students speak a language other than English, and many of them grew up having little to no exposure in the language at all!  We also have a large percentage of those students who come from homes where books (in any language) are not very common, so their exposure to words in any language has been limited to what they have heard through basic conversation and television.  But just look at the exposure some of these kiddos are missing out on because they are not exposed to some of these things!  Even comics and magazines (which are not given much credit in our educational setting) are shown here as having richer and more challenging vocabulary than basic conversation and television.

Respected researchers and educators agree over and over again that one of the easiest ways to support vocabulary acquisition in our students is to expose them to new words regularly.  The more our students hear the words being used, the more words they soak up naturally.  When our babies, even before the age of one, begin to form words, we don't give them direct instruction in words like "more" and "no".  "Please" is one we might have to teach, but, generally speaking, our children learn these words by being exposed to them over and over again.  As the years go on, the process doesn't change, but the words do get harder.  I recall the word juxtaposed that a former choral director used over and over and over again during rehearsals.  After hearing the word a few times from his mouth, I began to encounter it in other readings - for whatever reason.  And soon I had a familiarity with the word that I hadn't before.  The other word that I loved is the word penultimate, also introduced to me by this same man, and I use this word whenever I can because it sounds cool!  How often does a single word become the "in" word to use, and soon every student walking down our hallway uses it.  Just last week, my third grade daughter brought the word epic home.  Really?  Now I'd heard the word used, but never in the way that it is being used today, so I looked it up.  Of course, on dictionary.com the third definition down said, "impressively great".  Ok.  I'll take it.  But it cracks me up the way words will just show up and then vanish from the mouths of our children -- all because of exposure.

So how can we support and increase those vocabularies?  Picchi and Richek gave some great suggestions, some of which are listed below:

• Expect students to practice saying the words out loud.  If I can't pronounce a word, I won't remember it, and I certainly won't use it.  For some of our kids, just the act of learning how to pronounce a word is all it will take to give the kid a self-esteem boost to actually try using the word.
• Use sentence starters.  Instead of asking students to define a word or use it in a sentence, ask them to give examples.  For example, "If I had to subdue a lion . . . " or "The obsolete computer was . . . ". 
• Demonstrate how you would use a dictionary. Don't just send the kids to the dictionary.  Have you seen those dictionary definitions? They're as complicated as the words themselves!  Define the words and give examples.
• Play a game.  The game Two in One is easy enough.  Let the kids play in partners or individually to come up with one sentence with as many of the words used correctly as they can.  Give them points (one word is one point, two words is three points, three words is five points, four words is seven points, and five words is ten points).  Allow students to change the form of the word.
• TEACH MORPHOLOGY.  Use strategies such as direct instruction, having students go into their real-world text and find examples of words using certain morphemes, have students create nonsense words from morphemes they have learned (this is my favorite and the most fun activity), have students create prefix, root, suffix cards and put them together to create words.
• Have students rewrite a sentence or paragraph in more common language (try the Pledge of Allegiance).
• Connect Two is demonstrated above to the right.  A list of words on both sides must be connected somehow, but this activity is not just a matching activity - students must justify why they connected the words.  Matching a word to a definition is not the object - it's finding true relationships between words.  It's kind of an extension to analogies in that the words could be connected because they're antonyms or because one word is an extension of another.  For each, as shown in the example, the student must write the justification under the word to show their thinking.  Kind of like showing your work in math.  Sometimes students will connect words with new ideas and teach the teacher a thing or two!
• Flashcards with pictures on the front to give students a visual cue.
• Have students "name a business" using vocabulary words.  For example: Egregious Odors - We eliminate the bad smell! Or Stereotype Hair Salon where you can get the new and trendy hairstyle EVERYONE has.
• Have students create pictures for each of the words and put them all onto a poster with a word bank.  Kids can use the poster to match the word to the picture.  This hits the kinesthetic and visual learners.

Each of the above activities made me think of ten more extensions for classroom application at school, and I'm excited to work on some of our teachers to get some implementation.  I heard, loud and clear, the challenge for teachers to use this language in their classroom settings and support the use of it by students in their classroom conversations as well. 

IRC Conference, March 14-16, 2013, Linda Hoyt & Seymour Simon

Igniting the Power of Craft in Nonfiction Writing
Linda Hoyt & Seymour Simon

Our second day at IRC we attended a lunch session featuring Linda Hoyt and Seymour Simon in a seminar on writing nonfiction.  I found myself looking forward to this session because of my interest in my own writing along with how much I enjoy teaching students how to write (if only I enjoyed grading it as much as I enjoyed teaching it!).  Seymour Simon also holds a special place in my heart because my daughter loves his nonfiction books.

During Hoyt's segment, she spoke on a few things including punctuation to make sentences more exciting, creating a chart of good words to use for writing, and visualizing while writing.  Hoyt's presentation discussed the use of a variety of sentence-types and good description words based upon the visualization process. 

Once Seymour Simon took the podium, I had finished my dessert (which was delicious!) and could take notes more easily.  Listening to Simon speak about writing nonfiction was as exciting as reading his nonfiction!  If you've never picked up a nonfiction book written by him, do it the next time you step into a Barnes and Noble or other book store.  His combination of words and photographs gives the reader excitement about the topic and makes the reader want to read on. 

Interestingly enough, one of Simon's first pieces of advice as a writer of informational text is to write nonfiction like you would write an exciting story.  This is excellent advice, especially for children, because if they get into the habit of writing nonfiction text in a manner that makes the reader want to read on, they will continue writing this way.  I was instantly reminded of Voice in the 6+1 Traits of Writing.  Simon knows his readers are younger readers, and therefore he writes his nonfiction in a manner that makes his young readers excited to read on.  Not only is he sucking them into his writing and encouraging them to read, but he is giving them a fantastic model of writing informational text!  The voice in his writing is strong and evident.

Another aspect of Simon's writing that is unique is the language that he uses.  During his session he explained the importance of the vivid language, action words, and comparisons that his readers would understand.  One example that he gave that afternoon was from his book Whales.  In this book, Simon compares the weight of the tongue of a blue whale to that of an elephant.  The tongue!  Imagine that!  Kids know that elephants are large and heavy.  Some have even seen them at the zoo or on television.  To quote an actual weight in pounds or kilograms would have been pointless to children, but to compare the weight to an elephant, his readers now have a basis from which to consider the enormity of the blue whale.  If the tongue is that big, imagine how big the WHALE is! 

Simon also touches on the idea of using imagery when writing nonfiction.  Appealing to all five senses is a great way to get the reader involved in the text, and Simon tries to give vivid descriptions that do just that.  The photographs chosen to accompany his writing he feels are just as important, as they give the reader a better visual and break up the text for a more motivating read.

Finally, Simon reemphasized the importance of writing using varying sentence structures and asking questions to get the reader more involved in the read.

Although none of what Simon or Hoyt mentioned to the group was an earth-shattering, brand new approach to writing, I found the session to be enlightening.  They were able to give some clear suggestions as to how to help students improve upon their writing (both fiction and nonfiction).  I also thought that the way that Simon spoke about writing nonfiction as an exciting story was important to hear as it impressed upon me the importance of voice in writing.  In my future collaborations, I will keep Hoyt and Simon's session in the back of my mind, as the advice they gave was both useful and practical.

CRISS Crumble, March 22, 2013

In the last few weeks I have been investigating a theory I have about our students who lack progress in areas of comprehension and fluency.  When a student lacks comprehension, we generally teach comprehension strategies - predicting, connecting, inferring, etc.  When a student lacks in fluency, we generally intervene with fluency-directed interventions - repeated readings are the strategy for our intervention SLC classes.  But when a student lacks response to these types of interventions, what do we do?  This is the conversation I have been having with many of you around the building as we puzzle over data and bang our heads against walls in frustration. When we are intervening and it doesn't work, what next?

The more I work one-on-one with one student, in particular, I am starting to realize that no matter how much I ignore it, this one piece of reading instruction is not going to teach itself, and its about time that I attack it head on: VOCABULARY.  This particular young lady and I have been working through multisyllabic training since November, and although I don't see her big hangup being with phonics anymore, she lacks so much vocabulary!  No wonder she's not making the progress we would like her to make!  I am finding, however, that when my one-on-one students and I work on words, they starve for more words and can't wait to wrap their heads around more.  One of the most fun things I do is watch a student grasp a Greek or Latin root and then start connecting to words they've encountered but never owned before.  It's like another light in the English language has just been turned on, and these kiddos are thrilled!

Without the vocabulary, I can teach comprehension strategies up one wall and down another, but it won't matter if my students lack the vocabulary to make meaning of the text. If a student lacks the oral vocabulary to make comprehension, word recall and reading fluency may be stagnant. As I listen to my third grade daughter read to me sometimes, I am amazed at the way that she relies on her knowledge of words to help her recall and read words. This is a problem. One that we address, but not with the ferocity that I think we need.

That being said - try some vocabulary acquisition strategies in the month of April.  Teaching vocabulary is more than just picking a bunch of words and teaching their definitions.  Its about introducing and using academic language with your students and expecting them to use it as well.  Our sixth grade intervention teacher introduces one new word a day.  Why not?  Here are some of her ideas for adding new vocabulary with some of mine thrown in for fun.  These ideas are not my own.  In fact, nothing I write is my own.  I'm a pretty good collector of ideas.  Many of these ideas come from Project CRISS, but some are Marzano as well. Others are ideas I've picked up around the building, and still others are morphed versions of everthing I've learned over the last sixteen years of teaching.  Feel free to use them all, but don't use none of them. 

• Introduce a new word in context.  For example, tell the students the word and give them a sentence or short paragraph from which the word was taken.
• Allow students to use their previously-taught skills to make a guess at the definition (write it down, even).
• Don't define it.  Explain it.  Give examples.  Connect it to their lives.  For example, if the word is ratio, explain it by giving ratio examples of kids in the class or taking a quick pole of kids who use facebook, twitter, instagram, etc.  Then show that ratio. 
• Come up with a class definition based upon your examples and explanation.  Have the students write it down.
• Require students to draw a picture to represent the word.
• Require students to write down an example.
• Require students to use the word during the lesson . . . for days. 
• Give an extra credit point for every student who uses it correctly in classroom conversation. 
• Ask students to have an example of the word used in real-life.  Law of attraction shows that once something is brought to our attention, we start seeing it all over the place.  We notice it more.  Your students will begin noticing words more if you ask it of them.

My goal for next year will be to hit vocabulary acquisition hard.  I'll be focusing much of my CRISS crumbles on vocabulary instruction and usage, so be ready for this.  I'm looking forward to seeing our students grow for the remainder of the year and into next year as we begin building upon our already-strong reading and content-area vocabulary instruction.  Keep on, my friends!

IRC Conference, March 14-16, 2013, Inspiring Inquiry ThroughChallenging Texts

Anna Deese
Inspiring Inquiry Through Challenging Texts

Last year I missed the Project CRISS ladies at the IRC Convention, and I was so disappointed, so this year I made it a priority, and boy, was I glad I did! Anna Deese taps onto students' intrinsic motivation using a simple, old technique masked by fancy words.  The old K-W-L got dressed up with two columns as seen here.  Instead of a K, we now see the word observations, and instead of the W, the words authentic questions appears.  Here's how it works.

• Show the students a visual or two from the lesson - a map, a primary source photograph, a graph, etc.
• Ask the students to make as many observations about the visual as they can.  Give some examples to get them started.
• Then tell them to ask questions based from their observations.  Again, give an example to get them started.  (This may take some practice)
• Categorize the independently-written questions into four different categories: easy resource / look up, inquiry, author and me (making connections with the author - ie.  Is this like . . . ?), and questions for the author (challenges what the author actually did.  ie - Why did the photographer choose this subject?)
• Start with abstracts or summaries of selections before attacking the entire selection.  Read it to find answers.
• Give students additional visuals from which to gather more information
• Finally, give students an opportunity to find the answers for themselves (articles, sections of a text book, websites, etc.)

I found this idea to be both engaging and extremely authentic, as students were really driving their own learning.  As they are compiling their list of questions, the teacher can always throw in a question that she feels might have been missed so that key targets are met as well.  This strategy can also be used across all content areas in a wide variety of situations. 

Deese gives other examples of how this strategy can be used.  One example was with their own data collected from a science lab.   Better yet, she says, why not set up a lab with all of the materials and have students write down all of their observations and a prediction of what will happen that day.  She also suggests using advertisements with pieces missing and having students observe and use their background knowledge to try to fill in the missing pieces.  It was at this point that I was almost bouncing out of my chair in excitement because I couldn't wait to share what I had learned in Jeff Anderson's session the day before.  Anderson and Deese both discuss making observations.  Although Anderson calls it noticing, the concept is the same, and the process in the brain is the same.  The connection here was so strong that I couldn't help but share it.  I could tell she and I were on the same wavelength because after I shared that idea, she came up with the idea of observing a citation and commenting on the format.  Again, I loved this idea and hope to share it with my language arts department.

The second part of Deese's presentation dealt with craft and structure of a selection.  The philosophy is that you can determine the author's purpose of a selection by taking a look at the author's craft and structure.  Handing us a copy of an article and a chapter of a book, Deese asked us to look at both the internal and external text features (see photo to the left) and makes notes about each.  Through discussion we discovered that both selections were written by the same author on the same topic, but the purpose of each was quite different!  The language used in one had a negative connotation, and the more we investigated it, the more we realized that the author's viewpoint was slanted in that particular piece.  Beautiful!  Difficult, but beautiful. 

Deese's final activity was a listening activity.  She had all of her participants line up around the room with a piece of paper and a marker (this can be done individually, in pairs, and maybe in groups of 3).  We were directed to listen to the lab setup and draw what it looked like.  She read it to use three times slowly while we drew.  This activity was fun, made us laugh at the end, and gave us an idea as to what the lab might look like when set up.  I could see this done in quite a few settings - even in PE where students might be challenged to draw out a lineup of a team on the field or how the team might look on the gym floor just by listening or reading it from a piece of paper or index card!

The hour I spent with Anna Deese during her presentation was an hour well spent.  Content area reading strategies are golden, in my book, and the ones that she presented here were ones so easily adapted to any content area.  I'm looking forward to sharing them with my staff.

IRC Conference, March 14-16, 2013, Sharon Draper

Sharon Draper

Last year when I saw that Sharon Draper was going to be at the 2013 IRC Conference I was giddy with excitement. I had discovered Draper's YA novels only within the last few years as I was exploring books to suggest for my reluctant readers. My first discovery was Romiette and Julio. I can't remember why I even picked up that book, but I'm guessing it was recommended by somebody who knows reluctant girl readers well. It is currently my go-to book for our eighth grade girls who are kind of tough and looking for escape into the world of romance. I, personally, am not shamed to admit I am a romance novel junkie, so as soon as I started the book, I knew I was going to love it. I did, too. From beginning to end.

Three years ago I had an eighth grade girl recommend Just another Hero while doing a book talk on it. I picked it up from the library, and I immediately loved the book, but something bothered me about the book. It wasn't until after I read the entire book that I discovered that I had read the third book in a trilogy before reading the first two! Oops! So off I went to read the Jericho series, and again I loved them.

Going to see Sharon Draper at IRC wasn't on my agenda, originally, because I often feel selfish for going to see authors speak when I could be gathering strategies and programs to bring back to my staff. I made the decision to see Draper at the last minute because I had gotten to meet her the day before -- also completely on a whim, and I wasn't impressed with the other offerings during her time. So off I went . . . What a fantastic decision that was! What an amazing and insightful educator!

Draper started off her session with the story that got her started. She was a high school English teacher at the time, and she talked about how her students would write the "Draper Paper" and so on. One of her toughest kiddos that year challenged her after another writing assignment. "Yo, Mrs. Draper. Why don't YOU write something?" So she did. He challenged her to enter a story writing contest. Months after she had written the story and submitted it, she received a phone call telling her that out of 25,000 entries, she had won first place - $5000. This short story became the first chapter of Tears of a Tiger.

After Draper wrote the first book, she said she marketed herself like crazy. Conferences, conventions, you name it, she was there with a stack of books, flyers - anything to get her name out there. Draper believed that without the hustle she may not have gotten her name out there. This is a solid lesson on perseverance and self-esteem. For one to market herself in this way, she had to have a firm belief that people would love what she had written. And they did. After Tears of a Tiger, Draper went on to write Forged by Fire, and Darkness Before Dawn completed the trilogy.

The Jericho series drew its inspiration from an experience Draper had with an initiation, so-to-speak, in a high school in which she worked. At this high school, the students had a day called "9th grade chase-home day" on which all of the seniors would chase the freshmen home. Draper recalls the horror of the idea, and the fact that the day was overlooked by the administration year after year as if it was a school-sponsored event. She recalls walking out of that environment and not looking back, but being inspired to begin Battle of Jericho - a story about a hazing incident in a high school that got so out of control that . . . Oh, never mind. Guess you'll have to read the story to find out just how bad it got.    November Blues came as a sequel to Battle of Jericho, and then finally Just Another Hero, a story about school violence.  Draper commented on today's world and how she felt like she was able to capture today's teenager in her novels, and I tend to agree with her.  The situations are real, the precursers are real, and the aftermaths are real.

During her session, Draper also brough attention to her Ziggy and Sassy books, which were written for elementary students.  This news excited me because I didn't realize that she had written books for kids this young.  I also am always looking for books for my own children with characters in them that expose my children to races other than white.  Although my children are biracial, the racial makeup of the school that they attend is largely caucasian, and my husband and I do our very best to expose our children to people of all races through family, playdates, books, movies, games, and television. My daughter is at the perfect age for a Sassy book, so we will be going to the library over spring break to take a look for them. 

Being a teacher herself, Draper sympathizes with the need for thoughtful questioning.  To support teachers and parents, she has written thought-provoking questions and writing prompts which can be found at the back of these younger readers and on her website.  Upon reviewing the questions after Common Core standards were released, she was pleased to find that many of them were already in alignment with what CCSS is requiring of students.  Those questions that are not aligned will be rewritten in the near future to support the standards of Common Core.

It was at this point in her session that Draper stopped to answer questions.  She saved her talk on her most recent book Panic for the end.  One teacher asked a great question, "How can I find balance between supporting and getting to know my students on a personal level and hitting all of the standards?"  Draper acknowledges that this is a difficult balance, especially in today's age of education, but she also emphasizes that what makes us good teachers is the personal connections we are able to make with our students.  She also concedes - the standards must be hit.  Her compromise is to get personal in informal settings (lunchtime or after school) and hit the standards hard while in the classroom.  She also highly recommends attending as many of your students' sporting events, concerts, etc. as possible.  Kids notice when teachers show up, and they feel special when we do so.

The next question that was asked was, "How do you encourage reluctant writers?"  Draper jokes about the trick in "teaching to the test" and instilling a love for writing.  Are we teaching kids to take the test?  Absolutely - but what we have to do is find a way to do it AND instill a love for writing.  Her suggestion?  Alternate required writing and fun stuff, and do a LOT of mini-writing assignments.  Another idea she gave was the idea of writing descriptions of items.  I was immediately taken back to Jeff Anderson's session where he "invites" his students to notice the quotation and comment on the use of grammar and punctuation.  Draper's ideas continued to align with Anderson's in her next idea, which was a compare-contrast description between two things.  Even though Draper is discussing physical items, the alignment with Anderson's idea of comparing the original quotation with the teacher-written one was pretty neat!  I had bells and whistles going off in my head for at least a half hour after this!  Drapers's final though on instilling a love of writing?  NEVER GRADE POETRY.  Poetry is like an extension of a writer's emotions.  She believes that putting a grade to it would be like grading their emotions.

Sharon Draper took one final question before she wrapped up with a quick talk on Panic.  "What did your teachers do for you to encourage writing?"  Her response was, "You want me to think back THAT far?"  Her audience laughed but hung on her every word.  One of the things of what she felt most sure is that every student has a different need, and that means that not one teacher will have what every student needs.  She picked up a lot from her fourth grade teacher because she felt like her fourth grade teacher focused on writing the most.  Her friend, however, hated the fourth grade teacher and loved the fifth grade teacher because what that teacher offered was what her friend needed.  Our job as educators is to offer as much as we can, and our students will absorb what is needed when it is needed.

To wrap up the session. Sharon Draper spoke of her most recently released YA novel Panic.  It is book one of a trilogy, and it is definitely a book for grade eight and above.  Through her description of the novel, I was able to pick up that the story is about the abduction of Diamond, a fourteen year old dancer.  There are several other teen characters and an adult Miss Ginger, who is the dance teacher.  I'm fascinated by this book and plan to read it very soon.  What is so unique about it is that Draper, even with years of education and writing behind her, has managed to stay in the digital forefront by being adventurous.  She has included, at the end of her book, a playlist of songs referenced in the novel.  Her thought was to encourage her readers to create a playlist and listen to the songs as they are referenced in the book for a more multimodal experience.  Her next step is to include QR codes in certain areas of the books where dances are referenced.  Her daughter's dance studio has recently completed recording video of the dances and will have them uploaded so that when the QR code is accessed, the reader can also view the dance in the studio from the book.  AWESOME!  And genius, really.  The fact that she is changing with the times and moving into the digital age with the kids is really something to be commended.  Bravo!

She finalized the session with a three minute video "trailer" for the book and encouraged anybody interested in getting books signed to meet her upstairs.  I had met her the day before, so I was in no hurry to move up there, but I was very grateful that I had made the decision to go see Sharon Draper rather than try my luck with another session.  What did I take away from this?  A few things, really.  I see through this that everything happens for a reason, and inspiration can come from anybody and anything - you just have to look for it and remember it.  Draper validated much of my educational philosophy, even though I've been questioning it a lot this year.  She also made me feel better about not being able to connect with every student - sometimes it just doesn't happen.  But when it does, so much good can happen in the student, which is what has happened to her over and over again.  On this aspect, I can easily connect with her.  I guess Sharon Draper and I have a lot in common.