New (to me) Resource

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A fellow graduate student in my SLIS J757 class at USC shared this link in a message to the listserv today. 

RHI: An Annual Magazine for Educators

Although this is the first issue I have seen, Random House has just published the third annual issue.   I have downloaded the 112 page publication and quickly browsed through it.  Of course, since it is published by Random House, you will find their products being pushed, but the magazine has some terrific articles making this worthwhile reading for teachers and library media specialists.

The focus of this issue is on reluctant readers.  Articles include:

“Ten Ways to Build a Reluctant Reader Library”

“You Got Any More of These? Re-engaging Adolescent Readers and Writers with Meaningful Texts”

“Winning Back Your Reluctant Readers”

“Fantasy:  Why in the World Do Kids Read This Stuff?”  an article by Terry Brooks

One of the joys of being a library media specialist for me is connecting a reader with the right book and having them come back and request more “just like that one!”

Ranting: School Internet Filtering

My district has a new filtering program and I guess they are trying to get their money’s worth because they continue to block sites – not just daily, but hourly.  While working on READissance forms this morning, I had to find the number of pages in several books our library does not own.  Our public library didn’t have one of the titles, so I decided to rely on one of my best cataloging friends, Amazon.

I was using our generic student log in and was amazed to find that Amazon has been blocked for students.   Same with Barnes and Noble.  Yes, students are supposed to use the Internet for school work only, but don’t students sometimes have questions about books that can’t be answered by their OPAC or media specialist?

Okay, fast forward a bit in my day to 3rd block.  A class had come in to continue researching The Canterbury Tales.  When I walked by one computer, I noticed the Fortiguard (I think that is the company) warning that a user had tried to access a blocked site.  The site?  One that is the home page of every LMC computer – our library media center’s web site! 

To say that I was angry is an understatement.  To say that I was frustrated is an understatement.  To say that I wanted to pitch a flaming hissy in the LMC and use words that the *!#@*^#! filtering program would filter out is an understatement.  To say that I used enormous self-control is NOT an understatement. 

Yes, my library media web site was created in Googlepages.  It was created this past summer as an assignment for a graduate class and was the best way I had available to me at the time to create a site and post it to the Internet.  Yes, there may be some Googlepages sites that are questionable.  But this is not reason enough to me to block out any and all pages that are hosted by Google.

As an educator, my job is to prepare students to function in the real world.  The real world doesn’t filter web sites. This seems to be a bit of a problem to me. 

But what do I know?  I have only taught for 31 years, am only Nationally Board Certified, have only one Master’s degree plus fifty-seven more graduate hours, and lack only three graduate courses to hold a second Master’s degree (which I am now pursuing). 

While earning all those graduate hours, I also managed to raise two daughters who make me burst with pride for many reasons.  But I always tell them that I am most proud of the fine young women they have become.  And guess where they attended school?  In the same district in which I teach  – which did not have this *@#!*#! filtering program while they were students.  So, golly gee, how in the world did they manage to not grow into psychopathic, homocidal, warped maniacs? 

Ranting is done – for now.  Send blood pressure medicine.

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Poetry Festival Planning

What began as a collaboration between our former head media specialist and an English teacher to create a poetry celebration seven years ago has become an annual spring poetry festival at my school. We’ve included a variety of activities over the years, but the mainstays have been visits from published poets and performers, a poetry contest for students who either attend our high school or come from elementary and middle schools that feed into our school, Open Mic days in the media center, and a Poetry Slam to cap the week.

I am preparing for our first Poetry Festival Committee meeting on Monday and want to suggest using technology and Web 2.0 tools to add a new dimension to our festival.  So I’m spending some time this weekend culling sites and thoughts to present and thought I’d share them here in case others are interested in doing the same.

Poetry 180: a Poem a Day for American High Schools  The perfect starting place to celebrate poetry all year long.

Favorite Poem Project This is a collection of 50 short documentaries of Americans reciting their favorite poem.  Each individual’s story is told to show the poem’s relevance to his/her life.

Magnetic Poetry Online You can choose from ten kits (including Shakespeare, Genius, College, Cat Lover, Pickup Lines, and My Friend) to use to create your own poetry.  The kits are composed of word tiles which can be manipulated just like the magnetic kits you buy for your refrigerator (or other magnetic surface).

Poetry Foundation’s Online Journal: Video ”A series of short poetry films featuring poets reading their own work, animated interpretations of much-loved poems, and celebrities reading personal favorites, produced by WGBH and David Grubin Productions, and student filmmakers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s docUWM media center.” (excerpt from the web site)

Poetry Out Loud Best Performances Video This video is a compilation of the performances of 11 students in the 2006, 2007, and 2008 in the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest.  The accompanying text explains the key strengths of each performance and provides suggestions for the video’s use as well as links to download evaluation criteria, scoring sheets, a judge’s guide, and FAQ .

Spotlight on Voices and Visions This site highlights the poets in Annenberg Media’s Voices and Visions series.  It provides links to each of the thirteen poets featured in the series.  From each poet’s site, you can read information about the poet and click on links to audio and video clips of the poet’s work being read.

Web tools for teacher and student use in the celebration of poetry:

Ed.VoiceThread.com   Students could create a collage of images to accompany their own audio recording of a favorite poem.

Digital Storytelling Alan Levine shares 50 ways to share a digital story in this wiki.  Many could be used to share poetry.

Edublogs Teachers could create a blog where they post original student work and moderate student comments.

Wordle Students could type in one or more favorite poems and create a word collage to display.

 

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Image: ‘magnetic poetry‘
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