February follow-up,summer reading, and freedom!

After talking to some friends today about my blog and extensive discussion about Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer, I went back and re-read my post on the book, and realized I had not reported on the changes I made in my language arts class in February.  I am happy to say that I was pleased with the results of my project!  Overall, my students' reading enjoyment, perceptions of themselves as readers, and amount of reading done all increased.  Even if the changes were small, they were still heading in the right direction.  I was encouraged enough by the results that I'm going to start at the beginning of the year with the same systems in place, and see how far we can get in a full school year!


Summertime, and the reading is easy.....yay!  Aside from a brief six-hour stint of madly cramming for my certification test (I will know the results in a few days!), I have been reading for fun EVERY day!  Sometimes it's just a magazine, sometimes it's professional journals (yes, they can be fun to read!), and sometimes.....gasp.....it's a book!  I finished reading The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge on my nookColor e-reader, and downloaded the next in the series, The Nightmare Garden.  This is a young adult steampunk story set in the post-Korean War era.  Not as much history interwoven in these as was the case with Leviathan by Scott Westerfield--maybe because there are fairies, elves, ghouls, and "nightjars" (vampire-types) lurking about the settings!  A strong girl protagonist is at the center of the story--and people who know my bias know that I like that!

My daughter and I went to the public library last Friday, and of course I had to check out some books there, too.  One is on home spas and relaxation tips for women (ahhhhh!), and the other is Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True.  If any kiddos are reading this, the latter is a grown-up novel!  I don't know if my attention span has shrunk, or I'm in a lazy stage post-graduation, but I could not read the book cover-to-cover.  So I scanned my way through, finding the bits that were diary entries (they were in a different font), and read back-and-forth among the important events of the storyline.  When you are reading "for fun", it is okay to read a book any way that makes sense to you!  If I'm not sure that I'll like a particular book, I will often read the ending, and decide if it's good enough to go back and see how the characters and storyline end up there.  Remember your readers' rights!  http://www.walker.co.uk/UserFiles/file/Rights%20of%20the%20reader/NYOR_ROTR.pdf

Speaking of readers' rights....during my studying, I came across the "Freedom to Read" statement endorsed by the American Library Association (ALA).  I went online to find out more about it, and discovered the Freedom to Read Foundation, affiliated with the ALA.  I am proud to say that I am now a member!  Here's the foundation's webpage, should you also be inclined to join:  http://www.ala.org/groups/affiliates/relatedgroups/freedomtoreadfoundation

Think I see some couch time with a good book in my very near future!  Read on.....

Read to cook!

I promised some friends back in April that I would  blog about some of my favorite cookbooks, but with two graduations in our house (mine and my daughter's), a funeral (my grandpa's), and the usual end-of-school-year tasks, it's taken me this long to get around to doing so!

I've written before that much of my reading is done outside of books--and cookbooks are a big part of my "outside reading."  I like to plan my family's dinner menus every two months, which means pulling out a few of my dozens of cookbooks to help with meals and shopping lists.  There are certain cookbooks I only use for certain seasons (I rarely cook stews in the summer, for instance).  I usually use five or six of them each time I plan, and spend a couple of hours a day for two or three days to finish the process. 

How do I know what's in each cookbook before I plan?  Because as I collect them, I usually read through each one.  Yep, I have even been known to read cookbooks before I go to sleep!  That doesn't mean that I read through each and every recipe; I just go through the sections, and read the ingredients and directions for the recipes that sound good and/or interesting.  I usually tag the "good" ones with sticky notes for future reference.  After I've tried a recipe, I write notes in the books themselves, and give one to three stars for how well they are received by my family.

Now, I don't advocate writing in all your books, but I like writing notes in my cookbooks, and I LOVE finding old cookbooks with someone else's notes written in them.  It's a connection with history, kitchen to kitchen.

So enough blathering....let's get down to the cookbooks.  My latest purchase is The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl, by Ree Drummond.  I read it during our recent roadtrip; it has great passages about life on the ranch and living with real, honest-to-goodness cowboys.  Not to mention some great recipes picturing every step along the way!

My all-time-favorite slow-cooker cookbook is The Busy Mom's Slow Cooker Cookbook, by Jyl Steinback.  We use the pork meatballs-and-sauerkraut recipe every New Year's Day!  There are vegetarian options, side dishes, bonus recipes...and each and every recipe has a SHOPPING LIST!  Thank you, Jyl, for making my life that much easier!

An oldie-but-a-goodie is the 1981 edition of Better Homes and Gardens' New Cook Book.  It has my go-to recipes for chocolate chip and spritz cookies, lemon curd, and how to cook cuts of meat with which I'm unfamiliar.  I even got the 2006 edition...but I haven't used that yet!

I was addicted to Gooseberry Patch cookbooks for over a decade, and their seasonal cookbooks still get pulled out four times a year.  The two I use year-round are Country Quick & Easy and In the Kitchen with Family and Friends. 

 

Another all-time favorite, especially during the school year:  The Four Ingredient Cookbooks.  Literally four ingredients per recipe...doesn't get much easier than that!

Magazine cookbooks are usually pretty good, too.  I like the Woman's Day Cookbook, and keep meaning to use the Investment Cooking section sometime (cook all weekend and freeze a bunch for later).

Last, but not least, is an example of my favorite kind of cookbook:  the organization publications.  You know, the ones that churches, bowling leagues, fraternal groups, etc. publish for fundraisers.  You can find the best home cooking recipes in these!  I get them at garage and estate sales, plus I've inherited a few.

I've got over three bookshelves full of cookbooks, and collect even more recipes from magazines.  They make for good reading, and even better cooking!  Hope you've enjoyed this little foray into my kitchen and my "outside reading"!

I'm Walking!

Across the stage, that is!  If you're just dropping in to my blog, I have big news--I'm graduating from Sam Houston State University this weekend with my Master's Degree in Library Science!  One step closer to becoming a librarian.  The next two steps are passing my TexEs certification exam in June, and finding a position as a librarian.  Until then, I will continue teaching at my neighborhood elementary school, and reading and talking and blogging about books. 

After 19 months of graduate school, I'm looking forward to a LOT more reading "for fun" this summer, so look for some new covers to grace this blog.  In the meantime, celebrate with me by reading your favorite book this weekend! 

Yes, I'm still breathing!

Oh, I have not been the best blogger, I admit!  I am in the final forty calendar days of my master's program, and final forty work days of the school year.  Deadlines are coming at me fast and furious from both graduate school and my teaching gig, so blogging has taken a low slot on the to-do list!

Just so you know I've been reading....this was my Spring Break:
 

220 pages of technical information about library automation systems (you know, the computer systems that let you scan your book to check out, lets your librarian know when your book is overdue, and does a jillion other really cool things regarding collection management) and how to implement and manage a project team if you need to initiate, upgrade, or change out such a system.  Being that I consider myself to be a digital immigrant (versus digital native) the first half was VERY hard for me to read.  NOTE TO STUDENTS:  EVEN TEACHERS READ AND REREAD TEXT THAT IS VERY HARD FOR THEM!!!  I must have read chapter one three times, and I know half of that information didn't sink in.  Thank goodness for highlighters and the open book test at the end of that unit!

Since then, the two books that garner what little time I've got to read these days is Brain Jack by Brian Falkner (yes, still reading it, though now I get to read during my language arts block at school!) and This Book is Overdue:  How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson.  The former is a great read, just as my 7th grade son said it would be--good suggestion for young adult "computer geeks" or scifi fans.  The latter is just plain funny:  a nonfiction book written by a nonlibrarian who became fascinated with librarians, and spent a lot of time in their company to research everything from activism and intellectual freedom to blogs and Second Life. 

I can only read for 10-15 minutes at a time/ per day, but hey, that's about 3000 words a day, right?  So if I can do it, so can you--Keep on reading!  Oh, and I'm experimenting with adding media to my blog--here's a book trailer for Brain Jack, from Book Trailers for All on SchoolTube:

Growing readers instead of teaching reading

I finished reading Cinder by Marissa Meyer and enjoyed my brief foray into reading just for fun (and it was a fun read, though I was taken aback by the abrupt ending.  Cue next book in series...).  Though my mountain of books-to-read at home is comparable to Everest, I am still compelled to buy more, usually from my wishlist on Amazon while trying to fulfill the $25 requirement for free shipping.  This is an almost weekly ritual, and in one of those orders to purchase a Sherlock Holmes movie for my daughterand the Caldecott-winning Blackout by John Rocco for my classroom, I bought The Book Whisperer (published by Jossey-Bass, 2009).

I became familiar with Donalyn Miller through Twitter, of all places.  Dr. Lesesne required us to follow several different "types" of people on Twitter during our time in her YA Lit class.  One of those types was a language arts teacher, and I noted that Dr. Lesesne followed Ms. Miller, so I followed suit.  I enjoyed her tweets during book and library conferences, and notes about her sixth grade language arts class.  I also added her book to my Amazon wishlist, with no sense of urgency.  After finally reading it this weekend, I only regret not doing so sooner!  It is now sporting over two dozen sticky flags to remind me of activities, quotes, and "aha!" moments I encountered in this MUST-READ for teachers of literacy.  Let me share a few of my flagged notes and quotes from this resource which has changed the focus of my language arts time for the rest of this school year!

"Books are boring."  (p 73)  Ms. Miller handles this one with an honest "Some books are boring!", and emphasizes the rights of readers to abandon books, even in the classroom setting.

"Forty-Book Requirement"  (p 78) This is the number of books her 6th grade students are required to read each school year.  She chooses a number from each genre, and includes nine free-choice chapter books--but students are free to choose their own books within each genre.  For those students who read books over 350 pages, she allows those books to count twice.

"Are we teaching books or teaching readers?  I would rather have my students read books of questionable literary value than not read at all." (p 85) Ms. Miller emphasizes instilling the motivation to read first; moving on to 'meatier' books will be a natural progression.

Read-alouds, lessons on identifying genres, examples of student-recorded lists and response entries--these are all activities I've tagged. 

"...I read every day of my life and that I talk about reading constantly.  I am not mandating an activity for them that I do not engage in myself.  I do not promote reading to my students because it is good for them or because it is required for school success.  I advocate reading because it is enjoyable and enriching."  (p 106)  I myself am guilty of constantly trying to make that "real-world connection" with reading to my students (partly because it is part of my evaluation!).  But the reality is that if students aren't intrinsically motivated to read, none of that will matter.  The joy of reading needs to be communicated above all else, and it is best done by modeling.

"...teachers who have an aesthetic view of reading have the greatest influence on their students' motivation and interest in reading....and have more impact on the long-term reading habits of their students than those who see reading as a skill to be mastered, the instructional edge goes to the teacher who sees reading as a gift, not a goal." (p 109)  This bears out in Ms. Miller's experience, as her students go on to pass and ace the state reading tests year after year. 

"Traditional reading instruction that focuses on mandates outside of the students and stirs fear-based motivation hijacks reading away from readers.  Give it back to them." (p 139)  Ms. Miller has definite opinions on schoolwide reading programs (such as AR), home reading logs, traditional book reports, and round-robin reading.  So many aha! moments for me. 

"The only way you will know that your students read every day is to watch them read right in front of you." (p 144)  This is now my new guiding principle for my own language arts class.  Though I have always known--and taught students--that we become better readers by reading, I have not dedicated the time in the classroom where we are all engaged in reading at once, and to include myself in that activity.

I could go on and on....but I will end by saying that this book has been the most inspiring text I've read on literacy.  I've already decided to redesign my classes and an evaluation project based on the information and activities Ms. Miller has provided.  I hope to report back at the end of the school year on my students' reading success!

One more book read, now back to the textbooks

Yes, I did manage to complete a book before my final semester of Library Science studies took over:  Leviathan, by Scott Westerfield.
It was my first steampunk novel, too!  For those of you not familiar with this genre/trend, it's a mix of historical fiction and sci-fi.  This book is set at the beginning of World War I, and features the same key players and countries.  One of the main characters is the son of the Austrian duke and duchess whose murders touched off this epic event.  The sci-fi comes from the inclusion of Clanker vehicles and war machines from the Eastern European countries, and strange beasts formed from recombined DNA assisting the Darwinist West.  I am not a history buff, nor a historical fiction fan, but this was a fun and easy read for me...I may even move on to the next installment of the series!  But not before I dive back into the textbooks and the book for SHSU's Goodreads book club, Cinder by Marissa Meyer.  I downloaded it onto my nookColor--I need to be using my "toys" more often to read!


An update on my progress towards becoming a librarian:  I am in my final semester, which means internship time!  I've already spent several hours working in both my elementary and the neighborhood high school's library as well, and I'm thoroughly enjoying every minute.  I can't wait to get behind my own circulation desk and among the stacks, booktalking to students and sharing my love of reading!  My hope is that by this time next year, there will be a link to this blog from my very own library webpage. 

A Bookish Kind of Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  We're still celebrating in the Margocs household, in the midst of the Twelve Days of Christmas.  The tree, nativity, and Santa collection will remain in place until January 6th, when they'll get replaced by a bevy of snowmen to lessen the blow of the post-holiday letdown.

But back to Christmas Day--and the bevy of books left behind by Santa, as well as gifted under the tree!  Here's what the jolly old elf left for our enjoyment:

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, so beautifully illustrated by P.J. Lynch that my teen daughter was "oooh-ing" before she even read the text--which she did read, before the end of Christmas Day.  A true classic.

Garrison Keillor's A Christmas Blizzard had me rolling with laughter, especially reading half-page-long sentences.  I'm going to have to ask a North Dakotan friend of mine if this is really how the natives converse--and if it is, it will make it that much funnier.  A predictable ending, but a funny, unpredictable way of getting there.  A talking wolf, undercover FBI-agent-cousin, vital organs in a plastic bag, and a touch of Dickens-style second-chances--interested yet?

A just-for-fun book that Santa left behind was a "Prep & Landing" sound button book.  Couldn't find a picture of it, but if you're not familiar with the Prep & Landing Christmas movies, here's a link to the website:    http://abc.go.com/shows/prep-and-landing  Santa also left a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth , a 1961 book that seems to be enjoying a resurgence.  Who can resist a search for Rhyme and Reason, with a watchdog named Tock?   

Under the tree, there were more books to be found!  For high school senior daughter, there was Adam Borowitz's new release--signed to her, by the author, courtesy of Oblong Books, an independent bookstore in New York.  It's his collection of the 50 funniest American authors and samples of their work; what's interesting is that many of the authors are not those widely viewed as humorous.  I can't wait 'til she's done, so I can take a crack at it.  I bought it after hearing him speak with Evan Smith on PBS' "Overheard":  http://video.klru.tv/video/2168389775

She also got a book by Naomi Shihab Nye entitled There is No Long Distance Now, which I thought was apt, since she's about to go off to college in a few months.  And since she's now braved APUSH (that's Advanced Placement United States History for you non-high school parents/kids) and AP Government, I thought she might enjoy a graphic novel based on government intrigue: 

Don't worry, my middle school son didn't get left out of the book fest!  He got his own copy of Wonderstruck, which he's been pining for since it was published.  This is Selznick's work, incorporating some of the same techniques from The Invention of Hugo Cabret.  My son also got Anya's Ghost  by Vera Brosgol, a graphic novel which he promptly read and pronounced good, but sad. 

As always, we have PLENTY to read around here....hope we get enough time in 2012 to put a dent in our reading piles!  Happy New Year to you and yours, and here's to great reading in 2012!