Monday Poetry Stretch - We Are Connected

I spent a lot of time flying in the last four days and had plenty of time for my mind to wander. I found myself thinking about connections. Then, as I reflected back on my classes last week, I thought about trains, snap cubes, paperclip chains, popcorn strings, and other things that are connected. After returning home late last night, I thought more about connections as I held my son's hand on the way to the bus stop. So, it seems only fitting that we write about connections.

Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Magnitude and Scale

I missed you last week, but I was putting the finishing touches on a grant application, one that came in at 1.8 million dollars. Think about that for a minute. That's a lot of money. Just a few days before finishing this application, I heard the President speak at UR. The numbers he tossed around were in the trillions. Even with my knowledge of math, those are numbers that are hard to understand.

While I was thinking about these big numbers, I was also working on some lessons in nanotechnology. So, I've been thinking about extremes, from very large to very small in the last week. Size can be relative though, because things that seemed enormous when I was a child often appear much smaller today.

As I ruminate on the big and the small, let's write about magnitude and scale. Anything on the continuum is fair game. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Monday Poetry Stretch - For Those Who Labor

After mass yesterday I found myself contemplating these words from the prayers of the faithful.

May all who labor or seek to labor find
mutual respect,
just conditions,
fair pay, and
a safe environment to work.

While I've been rather whiny about going so long with no power (it went on last night after 8 days), I had it easy in many respects. I had the luxury of hot showers and a working stovetop thanks to the power of natural gas. Others were not so lucky. While I waited for power to return, hard working men and women from Virginia and other states worked around the clock to get things fixed. I'm grateful to them. I know it was not an easy job.

For these folks, and all others who labor, let's write for them. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Poetry Friday is Here!

I am still without power (that's SIX days now!), but consider me your postal carrier of poetry. There is nothing, not even an electrical shortage, that will keep me from delivering "the best words in their best order" to you. (Thank you Samuel Coleridge.)

Today I'm sharing a poem from Leaves of Grass.

Italian Music in Dakota

by Walt Whitman

Through the soft evening air enwrinding all,   
Rocks, woods, fort, cannon, pacing sentries, endless wilds,   
In dulcet streams, in flutes’ and cornets’ notes,   
Electric, pensive, turbulent artificial,   
(Yet strangely fitting even here, meanings unknown before,           
Subtler than ever, more harmony, as if born here, related here,   
Not to the city’s fresco’d rooms, not to the audience of the opera house,   
Sounds, echoes, wandering strains, as really here at home,   
Sonnambula’s innocent love, trios with Norma’s anguish,   
And thy ecstatic chorus Poliuto;)     
Ray’d in the limpid yellow slanting sundown,   
Music, Italian music in Dakota.   
 
While Nature, sovereign of this gnarl’d realm,   
Lurking in hidden barbaric grim recesses,   
Acknowledging rapport however far remov’d,     
(As some old root or soil of earth its last-born flower or fruit,)   
Listens well pleas’d.

I'll be stealing time throughout the day in establishments around the city that DO have power. So, leave me a note about your contribution and I'll add it to this post. Happy poetry Friday all!

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Good morning poetry lovers! This is your intrepid host, checking in from my local Starbucks. I've used my free birthday drink coupon, am sipping an iced chai, eating a whole-grain bagel, and loving your choices this sunny morning. So, without further ado, here's what the early bird dug up.

Robyn Hood Black is attending another Founder's Workshop (lucky girl!) and is signing in from Honesdale, PA. Today she is sharing a poem by Paul Fleischman in honor of his birthday.

Amy LV of The Poem Farm is sharing an original poem entitled My Blanket Smells.

Steven Withrow of Crackles of Speech shares an original poem inspired by  Irene entitled Storm's Alarm.

Over at The Write Sisters, Barbara is sharing a bit of Roald Dahl in the form of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf.

Melissa of through the wardrobe shares an excerpt from an original work entitled Zoo.

Mary Lee of A Year of Reading shares an ode to the first weeks of school. Is that James Taylor? I do believe it is. Oh, what a fitting choice.

Maria Horvath is in a romantic mood and sharing the poem/lyrics If I Were a Carpenter.

Charlotte of Charlotte's Library is sharing a review of a book of graphic novel style nursery rhymes entitled Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes from 50 Celebrated Cartoonists.

Heidi Mordhorst of my juicy little universe is sharing fishy reflections on her first week of school and the poem Fish by Mary Ann Hoberman.

Diane Mayr of Random Noodling  is sharing a poem by Hal Sirowitz entitled The Benefits of Ignorance.

Diane Mayr shares original poetry at Kids of the Homefront Army. Today's entry is entitled Model Airplanes.

Finally, over at Kurious Kitty and Kurious K's Kwotes, Diane is sharing Wislawa Szymborska.

Jama Rattigan is sharing three poems and spreads from Marilyn Singer's new book, A Full Moon is Rising. Coincidentally, I brought this one home yesterday to read by flashlight in bed (no lie)!

Tara of A Teaching Life is sharing the poem she using to launch her poetry study, Where I'm From by George Ella Lyon.

Sally of Paper Tigers is sharing a brief review of the book Something Nice by Misuzu Kaneko.

Tabatha Yeatts of The Opposite of Indifference is sharing the poem Firefighter's Prayer by David Cochrane.

Jennie of Biblio File is sharing the poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that opens the book Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration by Ann Bauseum.

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Welcome back folks! It's a bit after 7:00 pm and I'm coming to you thanks to the University's internet connection. Hey, it may be work, but my office has air conditioning! And now, on with the poetry parade.

Jone of Check It Out is sharing an original list poem on Summer 2011.

Violet Nesdoly is sharing an original poem entitled Seasonal Junction.


Karen Edmisten is sharing the poem Short Order Cook by Jim Daniels.

Karissa Knox of The Iris Chronicles is sharing a ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali.

Ruth of There is no such thing as a God-forsaken town is sharing the lyrics from the Sara Groves song Fireflies and Songs.

The poetry stretch this week challenged folks to write about the forces of nature. Boy, did they deliver! You'll find some terrific pieces by Jane Yolen, J. Patrick Lewis, Kate Coombs, Steven Withrow, Diane Mayr, Amy LV, and Carol Weis at Monday Poetry Stretch - Natural Forces.

I'll check back in first thing on Saturday to round up any late posts. Enjoy your weekend. I hope it's filled with poetry!

Monday Poetry Stretch - Natural Forces

In the last week Virginia has experienced an earthquake and a hurricane. It's hard for me to look at these events and NOT be amazed by the power of the natural world.

We were very lucky in both instances. I may be complaining about lack of power, but while others in our neighborhood lost trees and sustained damage to their homes and cars, we came out quite unscathed.

So, I'm thinking this is a good time to write about the power of nature, whether it be earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, or just a good old-fashioned rain storm. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

STEM Friday - What's for Dinner?

Over at my new blog, Bookish Ways in Math and Science, you'll find an annotated bibliography on food chains. I wrote it as a sample for my students, who will soon be creating their own bibliographies for a range of topics in math and science. (If you want to the see the math sample, check out the post on ordinal numbers.) I hope you'll visit often and check out their work.

In reviewing books for inclusion in the food chain post, I decided not to focus on nonfiction works about the food chain, but rather picture books and poetry. I was particularly taken with What's for Dinner?: Quirky, Squirmy Poems from the Animal World, written by Katherine B. Hauth and illustrated by David Clark.

While the title may not indicate that this is a book of poems about organisms and where they fit in a food chain, one need only look at the cover to see fly--frog--big, nasty predator. Before even reading the poems you could engage students in a discussion of the partial food chain in this illustration. What kind of ecosystem is this? What are the likely producers? What do flies eat? What kind of animal might eat a frog? 

Inside readers will find 29 poems about a range of food chain topics. The introductory poem, "What's for Dinner," explains why animals must find food. What follows are humorous, graphic, scientific, inventive and just downright fun poems. Accompanied by equally graphic and humorous illustrations, the perfect pairing of word and art gives us a book that readers will love.

In the poem entitled "Waste Management," a rather haughty-looking vulture pulls at a strand of the innards of a carcass while standing on the exposed ribs. Here is the poem that accompanies it.

No dainty vegetarian,

the vulture rips up carrion.

It likes to feast before the worms,

which saves us all from stink and germs.

While most of the poems are about animals, the last entry, "Eating Words," uses poetry and word roots to define insectivore, carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore.

The back matter includes a section entitled More Words About the Poems, which explains a bit more of the science and further explains vocabulary terms such as symbiosis, parasitism, mutualism, commensalism, and more. More Words About  the Animals provides background information for each of the poems. Here's the text that expands on the poem "Waste Management."

Turkey vultures don't have strong beaks and feet. They can't tear into tough hide and muscle until it's been "tenderized" by decay. A turkey vulture's featherless head and neck may look strange, but skin is easier to clean than feathers after the bird plunges its head into a rotting carcass.

The final page of the book provides some additional titles for learning more about the animals in the book.

Overall, this is a fine book for readers interested in predators and prey. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

For more information about the book and its author, download the file Author Spotlight with Katherine B. Hauth.

This post was written for STEM Friday. Today's round up is being hosted by Anastasia Suen at Picture Book of the Day. Do stop by and see the great books being shared for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Monday Poetry Stretch - Postcards from Summer

Last week I wrote about the project sponsored by the Academy of American Poets in which they supplied poets with blank postcards and asked them to fill them in, in any way that struck their fancy, and mail them back. (You can see the results at Poets Via Post.)

This got me wondering about what my postcard from summer would look like. So, that's your challenge. Write a poem, "find" a poem, draw a picture, or stretch in some other way, but share with us your poetic postcard from summer. Leave me a note about your work and I'll post the results here later this week.

100 New Book Lists from Scholastic

Scholastic has just posted links to a series of more than 100 new book lists. Created by teachers for teachers, these lists range from preK through grade 8 (though a few lists extend through grade 12) and are organized into the following categories:

• Animals
• Biographies and Memoirs
• Families and Social Issues
• Folktales, Myths and Legends
• History and Historical Fiction
• Holidays and Celebrations
• Read Alouds
• Science Fiction and Fantasy

Within these categories you'll find topical lists by grade level. The book lists can be downloaded in Excel or .csv format and include basic information as well as interest level, reading level (grade equivalent), lexile framework, and more. The web page for each book list often includes links to teaching resources for particular titles. 

Once you're done exploring the 100 highlighted lists, you can check out Scholastic’s List Exchange, which features thousands of shared Book Lists. You can  even create your own book lists.

Best Vocab Lesson Ever!

Hats off to The Atlantic for their piece 24 Songs The Prematurely Expanded Our Vocabularies. Here's how it begins.

Lyrics in popular music have been blamed for social ills ranging from drug use to the London riots. But as back-to-school season approaches, it's worth pointing out how Top 40 radio can make people smarter—by teaching them new words. 

Check out the article for songs, lyrics, and video clips. You'll find the Beatles, Blink 182, Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie, Paul Simon, Liz Phair, Rihanna, and more. What fun!

Poets Via Post

What happens when a poet receives a blank postcard and is asked to fill it in, in any way, and mail it back? The Academy of American Poets asked this very thing in June and the postcards are trickling in. Check out the results at Poets Via Post.

I was struck by the number of poets who chose to use pictures instead of words. Given the time of year, I'm quite drawn to E. Ethelbert Miller's baseball poem.

Inspiration for Neverland to Become Center for Children's Literature

Have you seen the article Peter Pan's Neverland could become forever-land? Here's an excerpt.

For the teenager James Matthew Barrie, the sloping, terraced garden overlooking a gentle river was an enchanted land where he and his friends became pirates, clambered over walls, built hideouts and scaled trees in the sunshine.

But the back garden of Moat Brae, a late Georgian villa in the rural town of Dumfries, became more than a playground for the aspiring novelist and playwright. Thirty years later, it inspired Neverland, the magical kingdom where Peter Pan and Tinkerbell flew into battle against Captain Hook, an adventure that captured the imaginations of millions of real-life children.

Now, nearly 140 years after JM Barrie played there as a boy, the mansion and gardens are to be transformed into a national centre for children's literature, after the derelict and decaying building and its garden were saved from demolition by a local trust.

Read the article in its entirety at The Guardian.

Poetry's Most Poignant Lines

The writers at Stylist Magazine has selected what they believe are the 50 most poignant lines of poetry ever written. The lines are connected to images. The first image is a bird. Can you guess the line? Here's a hint, it's Dickinson. You may not agree with all the choices, but it is an interesting read. I also had a bit of fun trying to guess the lines based on viewing the images.

Check it out at 50 of Poetry's Most Poignant Lines.

Why Science Is Important

AMEN!

Favorite quote: "If there is a basketball court in every single elementary school, then there needs to be science programs. It needs to be a priority. It needs to be mandatory."

For All You Seuss Fans

Did you hear that Random House will be publishing a collection of seven tales by Seuss that were originally published in Redbook between 1950 and 1951? Come September you can find them for the first time in book format. 

Read more about this at Random House to Publish Lost Dr. Seuss Stories.

Nonfiction Monday - Fastest and Slowest

Book: Fastest and Slowest

Author:  Camilla De la Bédoyère

Publisher: Firefly Books

Publication Date: 2011

Pages: 32 pages

Grades: K-4

Quick! Before you peak at the cover to the left, what animals come to mind when you think about speed? Which ones stand out as slow?

When my son handed me this book and I saw the cheetah and sloth on the cover, I didn't think there would be much new ground to cover. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the organization of the book and the variety of animals described.

This title in the Animal Opposites series is divided into a series two-page informational sections. It begins with On the Move which provides a brief introduction to types of animal movement. The next section, A Need for Speed, explains why speed is often key to a species survival, whether it be to catch prey or avoid becoming a meal for someone else. Go Slow further explains that some animals use lack of speed for survival as well, moving so slowly that they are more easily camouflaged. Additional sections focus on swimmers, flyers, runners, diggers/burrowers, climbers, slitherers, mini-movers, weird walkers, energy savers, and growers.

The double page spreads are filled with vivid photographs and sidebars that describe animal record breakers or show others in actual size (ruler-included). To get a feel for the book's layout, take a look at these sample pages. While the topics are covered with more breadth than depth, there is an amazing wealth of information and odd factoids that many students will find engaging.
 Here are some of the interesting things I learned while reading this book.

• Gentoo penguins are the fastest underwater birds, reaching a speed of 22 miles (36 km) per hour in short bursts.
• One mole can dig 65 feet (20 meters) of tunnel in a single day.
• The Potoo bird spends all day motionless where it positions itself in a tree and mimics a branch.

The book contains a table of contents, glossary of terms, index, and activity suggestions for parents and teachers.

Overall, this book will appeal to reluctant readers, as well as kids with an interest in animals.

This book was written for Nonfiction Monday. Today's host is Amy O'Quinn. Do stop by and check out the titles being shared this week.

Monday Poetry Stretch - Three Letter Words

Every so often I revisit the articles written by James Fenton for his poetry masterclass. In the article To villanelle and back, Fenton looks at a variety of forms and the challenges they pose. I was particularly taken with this excerpt.

John Fuller, in response to a competition challenge, set out to write a poem consisting only of three-letter words. And in order to add to the interest, he decided on a form in which there were three three-letter words per line, and the lines came in groups of three.

What an interesting idea! Here is how the resulting poem begins.

The Kiss
by John Fuller

Who are you
You who may
Die one day

Who saw the
Fat bee and
The owl fly

Read the poem in its entirety.

This amazing poem has me wondering what kind of poems can be crafted using only three-letter words. That is your challenge. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.

Lev Grossman on Writing

If you liked Lev Grossman's book The Magicians (I know I did) and are looking forward to reading the sequel, The Magician King, then you'll enjoy this article. In Writing the Magician King, Grossman describes the process of writing the novel. It's an interesting story, with some nice insights into the life of a writer. Here's an excerpt.

There’s a reason they don’t have reality shows about writers: it’s not visual. There’s nothing to see and not much to tell. When you’re really getting stuff done, you’re just sitting in a chair with a laptop and trying to type fast enough to keep up with the movie in your brain. That’s the glamorous life of the writer for you.

To learn more about the book, check out Upping the Ante: A Review of Lev Grossman's The Magician King.

Poetry Friday - On the Beach at Night, Alone

I spent the afternoon at the pool with a well-worn copy of Leaves of Grass. My reading inspired me to share this poem.

On the Beach at Night, Alone
by Walt Whitman

On the beach at night alone,   
As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,   
As I watch the bright stars shining—I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future.   
 
A vast similitude  interlocks all,   
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids,            
All the substances of the same, and all that is spiritual upon the same,
All distances of place, however wide,   
All distances of time—all inanimate forms,   
All Souls—all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,   
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes—the fishes, the brutes,
All men and women—me also;   
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages;   
All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe;   
All lives and deaths—all of the past, present, future;   
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d, and shall forever span them, and compactly hold them, and enclose them.

The round up is being hosted by Karen Edmisten. Do stop by and take in all the wonderful poetry being shared this week. Happy poetry Friday all!

Discouraging News on Reading and Math

The National Center for Education Statistics just released the report Mapping State Proficiency Standards Onto the NAEP Scales: Variation and Change in State Standards for Reading and Mathematics, 2005-2009. This report compares the standards that states use in reporting 4th- and 8th- grade reading and mathematics proficiency using NAEP as a common metric. 

Here's the gist of the report and why I use the word discouraging in the title of this post.

There is wide variation among state proficiency standards.

• In 2009, using NAEP as common metric, standards for proficient performance in reading and mathematics varied across states in terms of the levels of achievement required. For example, for grade 4 reading, the difference in the level required for proficient performance between the five states with the highest standards and the five with the lowest standards was comparable to the difference between Basic and Proficient performance on NAEP.

Most states’ proficiency standards are at or below NAEP’s definition of Basic performance.

• In grade 4 reading, 35 of the 50 states included in the analysis set standards for proficiency (as measured on the NAEP scale) that were lower than the scale score for Basic performance on NAEP and another 15 were in the NAEP Basic range. 

• In grade 4 mathematics, 7 of the 50 states included in the analysis set standards for proficiency (as measured on the NAEP scale) that were lower than the Basic performance on NAEP, 42 were in the NAEP Basic range, and one in the Proficient range.

Are you interested in seeing where your state fell in this mix? Here are some graphics of the fourth grade results to help you better understand. Click to enlarge.

Reading

Math

Bloom's Digital Taxonomy Pyramid

We use the revised version of Bloom's taxonomy in teaching our candidates how to write objectives and plan for instruction and assessment. As they plan, we also want them to think about all the tools appropriate for instruction, including technology. The Bloom's Digital Taxonomy Pyramid makes thinking about technology tools in this context a breeze. For each level, direct links to a number of web applications that can be used to support instruction are included.

(The above work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Author: Samantha Penney, samantha.penney@gmail.com)

Even if you don't teach, you'll find something here of interest. As a word lover I'm crazy about Visuwords, Wordnik, and Ninjawords. The visual learner in me loves Creately and Gliffy.

How about you? What are some of your favorites?