The Symphonic Legacy
of Meaningful Technology
and the Telepathy of Tradition
Sonata (First Movement)
Summertime is pretty much over now that I have to take a hard look at the upcoming school year. Yes, yes, I know Labor Day is more than a month away, but I live in the Central Appalachians of Southwest Virginia, a place where we start back mid-August because the weather is about as unpredictable as imaginary numbers on a worksheet placed before a dyslexic language arts teacher! Just take my word for it—it is time for somebody to give me rosters so I can digest the preliminary data resulting from standardized tests (so that I can regurgitate interactive curriculum designs that will have a chance of surviving seventh grade hormone bombardment!). So, how does somebody like me spend the second-to-last week of summer “vacation”? Do you know people who say, “Don’t go there!” and mean you don’t want to ask? Well, this time, do!
Enter Curiosity, a rather annoying personality trait. When I got a general distribution email message from Dr. Audrey Church of Longwood University reminding me that I had registered for the 10th Annual Longwood University Summer Literacy Institute, the theme grabbed my curiosity again. Transliteracy. What was that? I googled it and clicked around on the first four hits on my filtered list. Curiouser, I was. There was conflict. There was the sterile definition that bespoke the integration of traditional print with digital print and other tech features. There was also the experiential roller coaster ride that keeping up with the latest and greatest literacy functions of technology hardware/software provides. Then there was the in-betweeny stuff. What gives? I thought. What am I supposed to do with the notion of transliteracy if it is an intangible reality like courage or idiocy?
Rondo (Second Movement)
Symbolically speaking, teaching is an eternal flame that is passed on person to person, generation to generation. After passing the ten-year benchmark, friends ask why I am still working so hard. Maybe it’s the fact that I started teaching after forty and need to prove myself. Perhaps it is self-driven attitude that I still have room to grow exponentially if I just spend my time working at solving the metacognitive puzzles that enter my classroom each year. Perhaps that fear of the dreaded “adequate” label is the imaginary monster in my closet. Why do I push so hard when I know I should take my summer break and spend it languishing in recreational gluttony?
I realized, quite frankly, at this year’s Longwood University Summer Literacy Institute that teaching is my passion, and designing lessons for kids living their most awkward stage of life is my gluttonous vice. It’s my Mount Everest, my walk on the moon, my touching the edges of the Universe. Freakish as that is, I like it. I would remind the skeptics out there that people shook their heads at Lewis and Clark, Thomas Edison, Christopher Sholes, Norgay and Hillary, Rudyard Kipling, and Isaac Asimov, but these iconic people went beyond what anyone imagined possible to set the bar high for others. People can laugh and criticize all they want. If I can’t reach the bar automatically, I’m going to look for ways to get there—even if I have to stack chairs and stand on them!
Allegro (Third Movement)
24 pages of notes from Longwood’s Literacy Institute! No joke. Of the thousands upon thousands of words spoken by experts, that is all I got written down. Those pages, comingled with all that didn’t go onto the page, are the essence of what prompts my spirit to pierce the edge of the Universe with my left index finger.
Transliteracy, loosely defined by many usually includes the phrase literacy across modalities. In so many ways, this is a dismissive explanation that can put a whole lot of teachers off, which is why I wish with all my heart that people from my part of Virginia had tossed whatever kept them from attending the best summer conference in the whole wide world—web or no web. Right after a key person from Longwood pointed out that when real authors tell how they use simile it means something, another pointed out that we have to understand what transliteracy means to those we teach, what it means to their families and to the community. I wrote all that down because I immediately understood that I need to conduct a transliteracy survey! Imagine the power of knowing what kinds of literacies students frequently use; imagine what it would be like to understand if a parent uses transliteracy loosely or in a tight framework.
Kristen Fontichiaro of the University of Michigan spent the first day with us so that we might understand transliteracy. She pointed out that transliteracy is not the same as digital communication and made a point of telling us that Alan Liu has been studying transliteracy since 2005—long before it became a trendy buzz word. Fontichiaro did not say that teachers have to get over themselves and use all the technology they can get their hands on for the sake of technology’s place in modern education. No. She pointed out that teachers should weigh technology against traditional education. Data should NEVER tacitly usurp traditional instruction because sometimes technology is not the best modality. Teachers need to defend their use of technology and their use of traditional instruction because educators are to do what is best for students. Simply stating the obvious made me smile the rest of the day. Then she gave us some websites that offer free versions that can enhance what we already do. So I smiled the whole time she talked about the “informational umbrella” and what it covered, and then she showed us a video of a little boy named Bridger using his iPad. Frightfully interesting…nurtured two-year old knows how to use the iPad (better than most adults) and talks about it like a pro. AMAZING! When Fontichiaro remarked that kids think computers are for entertainment, I wanted to stand up and clap. When she said students need content, citizenship, and evergreen skills, I wanted to stand on my chair and cheer! This is hilarious, because to cover up my dis/Abilities I was Fancy Nancy (the kid who takes any assignment over the top just to wow people). Teachers need to ask what kids will get out of a technology experience. They need to ask, “Where is the knowledge-building?” She stressed that the outcome of a student plus the technology used must have greater achievement than the student can achieve on his own. Then she really set me on my ear. “How do we know rigor when we see it?” And then she showed us how to test our technology in a lesson to see if it causes rich learning. And are you aware that there are buzz words that can squelch that good tech vibe? And because novelty is a power lever, technology seems like a must-have. This revelation has prompted me to count my blessings for what technology I have in my classroom, and rather than think of ways to get more, maybe I should first think about all the different ways I haven’t used what has been provided. If I need something else to make students move along the achievement continuum, ask then!
A Bit of Swing—Even Though This is a Symphony, PLEASE!
Andrea Davis Pinkney was the banquet speaker—and there I was wondering why I wondered how there would be anybody able to pick up where Fontichiaro left off! Pinkney directed everyone to sing “This Little Light of Mine”—and we did. We sang a lot, laughed a lot, and hung onto every word she said and every note she sang. We were enlightened by her disclosure that she has an almost “wee hours” routine that has her awake before a rooster could crow (if there were roosters on fencerows in New York City), and she closes her eyes in her wakefulness. She asked us to close our eyes and see what makes us smile, what makes us happy. I didn’t dare open my eyes, but in my mind, I could see everyone in the room smiling in their happy places. Then the author said, “Go write!” Like a child, I drank it in…the fact that you cannot write if you are not happy. We were enamored by the illustrations her husband (Brian Pinkney) and other illustrators had created to make her words come to life, almost immortally so. While I loved a pearl of wisdom she shared with us is that “we must meet hate with love.” She lives by that Martin Luther King, Jr., quote. What a breath of fresh air. And even if I didn’t already love her books and the illustrations in them, I had reason to appreciate beyond all logic, for on a spiritual level my mind and soul hummed at the mention of a Da Vinci Maestro brush with exceptionally long and ultra-thin bristle that her husband used to create movement in Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down because Tedd Blevins (my egg tempera art professor) taught me how to close my eyes and gently flick transparent color onto my rabbit skin canvas. So many years ago, that was. I still have the brush and have decided that maybe it is time to paint again…for myself, for my little light. And blessings kept on coming because I love jazz and swing from the thirties and forties, and she talked about Scat Cat, Dizzy, and Chick. And the next time I want to take my writing journal near water, to the edge of a cliff, or to a ballgame, I’m going to because Andrea Davis Pinkney doesn’t mind taking her journal everywhere. My smart feet barely touched the pavement as I went back to my dorm room to force myself to sleep. So much going on in my happy mind…
Adagio
got paper? Bentley Boyd pointed out that nothing is cheaper than paper and pencil—even in this transliteracy age. America is the birthplace of comics, and Boyd pointed out that comic frames make great graphic organizers because they are a flexible means of storytelling that have built-in inference as well as sequencing. Comics force kids to slow down because complex concepts are treated with minimal narrative and speech bubbles. To make sense of the cells, one really does have to slow down and think critically. Not so well known by the audience, perhaps, was the fact that color is important in comics. Colors are symbolic, and kids know how to decode colors the artist chooses. The educational use of comics came to Boyd when he worked for the Daily Press in Newport News; Chester the crab was born, and he took readers on adventures tied to Virginia’s SOLs. Check out ChesterComix.com if you want to see how to bring Virginia history to your classroom. Sometimes teachers overlook the power of comics because they think it's not real fiction or real informational text (as is the case with Bentley Boyd's series). The deadbeat perception some have is just wrong. If you won't go to a real comic book store and see for yourself, google steam punk, The Muse, Bone, Mause. There are so many legit comics, I never say any of them are a waste of time. Because I went to the follow=up session after lunch, I am 100% certain that the only way you will NOT see comics in my classroom is if I am no longer teacher or have gone on to teach reading in the hereafter!
got a story only you can write? Kelly Starling Lyons says that’s a good place to start. It was rather revealing to see how she emulated her storytelling grandmother, the family Griot. Lyons has managed to take really big issues in social culture or history and boil them down to the basics. She pointed out how this looked by showing us her first and subsequent drafts of the popular picture books she has written. She embellished the story by showing how she would have to whittle the words down so that the illustrators could have space to create visual representations of what she wrote. She shared how she did family history research and confirmed the background of a special family heirloom and then worked it into a fantastic picture book called Ella’s Broom. It struck me as ironic that Lyons is a great storyteller and that her early drafts would be great in my classroom as short stories. Yes, I know that means the pictures would take a back seat, but her writing has a flow that I appreciated tremendously. Why was I broad-sided by this thought? Well, that’s easy to express, actually. In writing workshop, I spend a huge block of time stressing the importance of elaboration and incredible detail. But what does Lyons model? Brevity. She gave us ten great tips: read like a writer; keep a journal, write from the heart, give yourself permission to play, have your supports, dare to revise, polish till it sparkles, feel that the story matters, celebrate, and share your voice! So glad she shared her voice with us, and I really don’t like trimming any of this away, which is why I have adopted her editing system of digitally striking text instead of deleting it! Too bad my strikeouts are not as enthralling as hers!
got transliteracy props? Linda Salisbury sure does! The Bailey Fish Adventures and Mudd Saves the Earth came to life right before my eyes. Concerned about all students, but especially attuned to struggling readers, Salisbury has created high interest books to motivate the reluctant. Who would not want to read No Sisters Sisters Club? I’m reading it now, so why don’t you? This author has a quick wit and a wonderful sense of humor. I got the feeling that if we were in the same room for any decent length of time, we could bring the roof down with humor and laughter. I will be stocking books in my classroom because I like how she worked with kids for a long time, wrote books, and still values working with kids in schools. (Don’t tell me that very few accomplished best-selling authors stay with their roots when greener grass on the other side of the fence or the ocean draws them from their home neighborhoods. Push/pull factors apply, okay?) I have also ordered the cute collapsible wagon that transported her transliteracy props. I wanted to try on the hat as soon as I saw the hat box. And I wish she could come to my classroom to visit. I’d show her some of my favorite props (and an empty antique tub of school paste that serves as a reminder of being nine, when I would sneak-taste paste that was kept in my school art box). We could have fun with a mesmerized audience at the writers’ prop-a-thon!
got a penny? Allan Wolf told us that he used to have a penny when he was in middle school, but it got stuck behind a skirting board when it slid off his bed and dropped between the wall and the board. That’s when he became a writer. He wrote that there was a penny hidden, marked the precise location. His bedroom walls were served as his journal. That is so cool! His parents let him write on the walls and the ceiling. I thought about how lucky he didn’t have my mom for a mom. I love my mom, but when I wrote words I’d never heard of on my closet wall, she told me if I needed to find a place where nobody could see it. But not IN my closet? She yelled at me when I wrote a question in my knicker elastic asking if this was UNSEEN enough. So Allan Wolf looked familiar. I realized that he had come to my school when I was a student teacher. I told him that, and I know that had to be confusing because I am WAY older than he is. (It reminded me of the time I went to a science fiction convention and had a chance to talk to Walter Koenig (Chekov) and said that I used to watch Star Trek all the time when I was in my early teens—I was in my thirties! The look on that man’s face could have killed me!) So, Allan Wolf, I was a middle-aged student teacher, okay? And it really was very cool that you and the other cast members inspired three mean boys to recite a PoetryAlive! poem at graduation just for me.
So I thank Allan Wolf again for being such an inspiration (Bet there are people wishing I would use the Lyons editing method about now! Give me a break!) and prompting me to dwell on whether or not part of me was trapped inside a closet under a layer of paint that somebody used to cover my lament about having two sisters leave my only box of crayons in the family car on a hot summer day. This poet’s sense of humor veiled deep thoughts behind his energy. Kids do need to write their stories and the idea that if you make characters, action, and setting something readers care about, they get the theme MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. I notice things and make simile connections. Listening to Allan Wolf was like standing on the highest rock on White Top (dead volcano in SW Virginia)…it moved me to the edge of the Universe.
Now, after lunch on the last day of this spirited gathering of incredible authors, illustrators, and educators, there are equally inspiring break-out sessions. All great choices, just the right mix. Everyone can find at least one session they want to go to during the three time slots they are offered. But oh, I wish I was “protozoa-like” sometimes…so I could split myself at least in half and attend two or three sessions at once. The choices are that good!
Get your calendar or day planner right now, please. Mark this down! Save the date! The Eleventh Annual Longwood University Summer Literacy Institute is slated for July 17-18, 2014. You HAVE to be there! The theme is INQUIRY TO MAKE CONNECTIONS. You know the theme, so trust me when I say you will absolutely care about the special guests, the campus setting, and the energy of those in attendance.
of Meaningful Technology
and the Telepathy of Tradition
Sonata (First Movement)
Summertime is pretty much over now that I have to take a hard look at the upcoming school year. Yes, yes, I know Labor Day is more than a month away, but I live in the Central Appalachians of Southwest Virginia, a place where we start back mid-August because the weather is about as unpredictable as imaginary numbers on a worksheet placed before a dyslexic language arts teacher! Just take my word for it—it is time for somebody to give me rosters so I can digest the preliminary data resulting from standardized tests (so that I can regurgitate interactive curriculum designs that will have a chance of surviving seventh grade hormone bombardment!). So, how does somebody like me spend the second-to-last week of summer “vacation”? Do you know people who say, “Don’t go there!” and mean you don’t want to ask? Well, this time, do!
Enter Curiosity, a rather annoying personality trait. When I got a general distribution email message from Dr. Audrey Church of Longwood University reminding me that I had registered for the 10th Annual Longwood University Summer Literacy Institute, the theme grabbed my curiosity again. Transliteracy. What was that? I googled it and clicked around on the first four hits on my filtered list. Curiouser, I was. There was conflict. There was the sterile definition that bespoke the integration of traditional print with digital print and other tech features. There was also the experiential roller coaster ride that keeping up with the latest and greatest literacy functions of technology hardware/software provides. Then there was the in-betweeny stuff. What gives? I thought. What am I supposed to do with the notion of transliteracy if it is an intangible reality like courage or idiocy?
Rondo (Second Movement)
Symbolically speaking, teaching is an eternal flame that is passed on person to person, generation to generation. After passing the ten-year benchmark, friends ask why I am still working so hard. Maybe it’s the fact that I started teaching after forty and need to prove myself. Perhaps it is self-driven attitude that I still have room to grow exponentially if I just spend my time working at solving the metacognitive puzzles that enter my classroom each year. Perhaps that fear of the dreaded “adequate” label is the imaginary monster in my closet. Why do I push so hard when I know I should take my summer break and spend it languishing in recreational gluttony?
I realized, quite frankly, at this year’s Longwood University Summer Literacy Institute that teaching is my passion, and designing lessons for kids living their most awkward stage of life is my gluttonous vice. It’s my Mount Everest, my walk on the moon, my touching the edges of the Universe. Freakish as that is, I like it. I would remind the skeptics out there that people shook their heads at Lewis and Clark, Thomas Edison, Christopher Sholes, Norgay and Hillary, Rudyard Kipling, and Isaac Asimov, but these iconic people went beyond what anyone imagined possible to set the bar high for others. People can laugh and criticize all they want. If I can’t reach the bar automatically, I’m going to look for ways to get there—even if I have to stack chairs and stand on them!
Allegro (Third Movement)
24 pages of notes from Longwood’s Literacy Institute! No joke. Of the thousands upon thousands of words spoken by experts, that is all I got written down. Those pages, comingled with all that didn’t go onto the page, are the essence of what prompts my spirit to pierce the edge of the Universe with my left index finger.
Transliteracy, loosely defined by many usually includes the phrase literacy across modalities. In so many ways, this is a dismissive explanation that can put a whole lot of teachers off, which is why I wish with all my heart that people from my part of Virginia had tossed whatever kept them from attending the best summer conference in the whole wide world—web or no web. Right after a key person from Longwood pointed out that when real authors tell how they use simile it means something, another pointed out that we have to understand what transliteracy means to those we teach, what it means to their families and to the community. I wrote all that down because I immediately understood that I need to conduct a transliteracy survey! Imagine the power of knowing what kinds of literacies students frequently use; imagine what it would be like to understand if a parent uses transliteracy loosely or in a tight framework.
Kristen Fontichiaro of the University of Michigan spent the first day with us so that we might understand transliteracy. She pointed out that transliteracy is not the same as digital communication and made a point of telling us that Alan Liu has been studying transliteracy since 2005—long before it became a trendy buzz word. Fontichiaro did not say that teachers have to get over themselves and use all the technology they can get their hands on for the sake of technology’s place in modern education. No. She pointed out that teachers should weigh technology against traditional education. Data should NEVER tacitly usurp traditional instruction because sometimes technology is not the best modality. Teachers need to defend their use of technology and their use of traditional instruction because educators are to do what is best for students. Simply stating the obvious made me smile the rest of the day. Then she gave us some websites that offer free versions that can enhance what we already do. So I smiled the whole time she talked about the “informational umbrella” and what it covered, and then she showed us a video of a little boy named Bridger using his iPad. Frightfully interesting…nurtured two-year old knows how to use the iPad (better than most adults) and talks about it like a pro. AMAZING! When Fontichiaro remarked that kids think computers are for entertainment, I wanted to stand up and clap. When she said students need content, citizenship, and evergreen skills, I wanted to stand on my chair and cheer! This is hilarious, because to cover up my dis/Abilities I was Fancy Nancy (the kid who takes any assignment over the top just to wow people). Teachers need to ask what kids will get out of a technology experience. They need to ask, “Where is the knowledge-building?” She stressed that the outcome of a student plus the technology used must have greater achievement than the student can achieve on his own. Then she really set me on my ear. “How do we know rigor when we see it?” And then she showed us how to test our technology in a lesson to see if it causes rich learning. And are you aware that there are buzz words that can squelch that good tech vibe? And because novelty is a power lever, technology seems like a must-have. This revelation has prompted me to count my blessings for what technology I have in my classroom, and rather than think of ways to get more, maybe I should first think about all the different ways I haven’t used what has been provided. If I need something else to make students move along the achievement continuum, ask then!
A Bit of Swing—Even Though This is a Symphony, PLEASE!
Andrea Davis Pinkney was the banquet speaker—and there I was wondering why I wondered how there would be anybody able to pick up where Fontichiaro left off! Pinkney directed everyone to sing “This Little Light of Mine”—and we did. We sang a lot, laughed a lot, and hung onto every word she said and every note she sang. We were enlightened by her disclosure that she has an almost “wee hours” routine that has her awake before a rooster could crow (if there were roosters on fencerows in New York City), and she closes her eyes in her wakefulness. She asked us to close our eyes and see what makes us smile, what makes us happy. I didn’t dare open my eyes, but in my mind, I could see everyone in the room smiling in their happy places. Then the author said, “Go write!” Like a child, I drank it in…the fact that you cannot write if you are not happy. We were enamored by the illustrations her husband (Brian Pinkney) and other illustrators had created to make her words come to life, almost immortally so. While I loved a pearl of wisdom she shared with us is that “we must meet hate with love.” She lives by that Martin Luther King, Jr., quote. What a breath of fresh air. And even if I didn’t already love her books and the illustrations in them, I had reason to appreciate beyond all logic, for on a spiritual level my mind and soul hummed at the mention of a Da Vinci Maestro brush with exceptionally long and ultra-thin bristle that her husband used to create movement in Sit-In: How Four Friends Stood Up by Sitting Down because Tedd Blevins (my egg tempera art professor) taught me how to close my eyes and gently flick transparent color onto my rabbit skin canvas. So many years ago, that was. I still have the brush and have decided that maybe it is time to paint again…for myself, for my little light. And blessings kept on coming because I love jazz and swing from the thirties and forties, and she talked about Scat Cat, Dizzy, and Chick. And the next time I want to take my writing journal near water, to the edge of a cliff, or to a ballgame, I’m going to because Andrea Davis Pinkney doesn’t mind taking her journal everywhere. My smart feet barely touched the pavement as I went back to my dorm room to force myself to sleep. So much going on in my happy mind…
Adagio
got paper? Bentley Boyd pointed out that nothing is cheaper than paper and pencil—even in this transliteracy age. America is the birthplace of comics, and Boyd pointed out that comic frames make great graphic organizers because they are a flexible means of storytelling that have built-in inference as well as sequencing. Comics force kids to slow down because complex concepts are treated with minimal narrative and speech bubbles. To make sense of the cells, one really does have to slow down and think critically. Not so well known by the audience, perhaps, was the fact that color is important in comics. Colors are symbolic, and kids know how to decode colors the artist chooses. The educational use of comics came to Boyd when he worked for the Daily Press in Newport News; Chester the crab was born, and he took readers on adventures tied to Virginia’s SOLs. Check out ChesterComix.com if you want to see how to bring Virginia history to your classroom. Sometimes teachers overlook the power of comics because they think it's not real fiction or real informational text (as is the case with Bentley Boyd's series). The deadbeat perception some have is just wrong. If you won't go to a real comic book store and see for yourself, google steam punk, The Muse, Bone, Mause. There are so many legit comics, I never say any of them are a waste of time. Because I went to the follow=up session after lunch, I am 100% certain that the only way you will NOT see comics in my classroom is if I am no longer teacher or have gone on to teach reading in the hereafter!
got a story only you can write? Kelly Starling Lyons says that’s a good place to start. It was rather revealing to see how she emulated her storytelling grandmother, the family Griot. Lyons has managed to take really big issues in social culture or history and boil them down to the basics. She pointed out how this looked by showing us her first and subsequent drafts of the popular picture books she has written. She embellished the story by showing how she would have to whittle the words down so that the illustrators could have space to create visual representations of what she wrote. She shared how she did family history research and confirmed the background of a special family heirloom and then worked it into a fantastic picture book called Ella’s Broom. It struck me as ironic that Lyons is a great storyteller and that her early drafts would be great in my classroom as short stories. Yes, I know that means the pictures would take a back seat, but her writing has a flow that I appreciated tremendously. Why was I broad-sided by this thought? Well, that’s easy to express, actually. In writing workshop, I spend a huge block of time stressing the importance of elaboration and incredible detail. But what does Lyons model? Brevity. She gave us ten great tips: read like a writer; keep a journal, write from the heart, give yourself permission to play, have your supports, dare to revise, polish till it sparkles, feel that the story matters, celebrate, and share your voice! So glad she shared her voice with us, and I really don’t like trimming any of this away, which is why I have adopted her editing system of digitally striking text instead of deleting it! Too bad my strikeouts are not as enthralling as hers!
got transliteracy props? Linda Salisbury sure does! The Bailey Fish Adventures and Mudd Saves the Earth came to life right before my eyes. Concerned about all students, but especially attuned to struggling readers, Salisbury has created high interest books to motivate the reluctant. Who would not want to read No Sisters Sisters Club? I’m reading it now, so why don’t you? This author has a quick wit and a wonderful sense of humor. I got the feeling that if we were in the same room for any decent length of time, we could bring the roof down with humor and laughter. I will be stocking books in my classroom because I like how she worked with kids for a long time, wrote books, and still values working with kids in schools. (Don’t tell me that very few accomplished best-selling authors stay with their roots when greener grass on the other side of the fence or the ocean draws them from their home neighborhoods. Push/pull factors apply, okay?) I have also ordered the cute collapsible wagon that transported her transliteracy props. I wanted to try on the hat as soon as I saw the hat box. And I wish she could come to my classroom to visit. I’d show her some of my favorite props (and an empty antique tub of school paste that serves as a reminder of being nine, when I would sneak-taste paste that was kept in my school art box). We could have fun with a mesmerized audience at the writers’ prop-a-thon!
got a penny? Allan Wolf told us that he used to have a penny when he was in middle school, but it got stuck behind a skirting board when it slid off his bed and dropped between the wall and the board. That’s when he became a writer. He wrote that there was a penny hidden, marked the precise location. His bedroom walls were served as his journal. That is so cool! His parents let him write on the walls and the ceiling. I thought about how lucky he didn’t have my mom for a mom. I love my mom, but when I wrote words I’d never heard of on my closet wall, she told me if I needed to find a place where nobody could see it. But not IN my closet? She yelled at me when I wrote a question in my knicker elastic asking if this was UNSEEN enough. So Allan Wolf looked familiar. I realized that he had come to my school when I was a student teacher. I told him that, and I know that had to be confusing because I am WAY older than he is. (It reminded me of the time I went to a science fiction convention and had a chance to talk to Walter Koenig (Chekov) and said that I used to watch Star Trek all the time when I was in my early teens—I was in my thirties! The look on that man’s face could have killed me!) So, Allan Wolf, I was a middle-aged student teacher, okay? And it really was very cool that you and the other cast members inspired three mean boys to recite a PoetryAlive! poem at graduation just for me.
So I thank Allan Wolf again for being such an inspiration (Bet there are people wishing I would use the Lyons editing method about now! Give me a break!) and prompting me to dwell on whether or not part of me was trapped inside a closet under a layer of paint that somebody used to cover my lament about having two sisters leave my only box of crayons in the family car on a hot summer day. This poet’s sense of humor veiled deep thoughts behind his energy. Kids do need to write their stories and the idea that if you make characters, action, and setting something readers care about, they get the theme MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. I notice things and make simile connections. Listening to Allan Wolf was like standing on the highest rock on White Top (dead volcano in SW Virginia)…it moved me to the edge of the Universe.
Now, after lunch on the last day of this spirited gathering of incredible authors, illustrators, and educators, there are equally inspiring break-out sessions. All great choices, just the right mix. Everyone can find at least one session they want to go to during the three time slots they are offered. But oh, I wish I was “protozoa-like” sometimes…so I could split myself at least in half and attend two or three sessions at once. The choices are that good!
Get your calendar or day planner right now, please. Mark this down! Save the date! The Eleventh Annual Longwood University Summer Literacy Institute is slated for July 17-18, 2014. You HAVE to be there! The theme is INQUIRY TO MAKE CONNECTIONS. You know the theme, so trust me when I say you will absolutely care about the special guests, the campus setting, and the energy of those in attendance.