Exploring Learning

If anyone read my article in The Guardian about paper blogging, you will know I am a fan of teaching digital skills using analogue methods. True to form, I discovered another 'blend': using story cubes to teach 21st century skills. No computer or Internet required. http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/4csposter.pdf The Partnership for 21st Century Skills  identify the four big Cs of skills that are essential for today's learners. These are communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity . Generally, I address these skills through digital rather than traditional learning such as  blogging or connecting with other classes.  However, I believe that some simple cubes can also be used to address these important areas. My Year 10 second language learners undertake all the regular aspects that I deem important for all my learners, such as silent sustained reading and free writing, every lesson. However, some of the free writing prompts are not alw...

I am currently planning an inquiry based unit asking learners to think about the future of fiction. Where fiction is going is of great interest to me. I own a few Kindles, though personally, have not fully integrated myself into this realm. I love the fact I can have a book in seconds - but, I still go out and buy the 'real' version of any I read and love on my Kindle. I do not think you can beat the feel and smell and sound of a brand new book. Geek that I am, nothing excites me more than an hour or so to wander around  Kinokunyia  (Singapore hosts the largest store outside of Japan), or my  lastest  arrival from Amazon, of a stack of books to explore and lose myself in. Throughout my  MEd ., I have been focusing on where reading and writing might be going for learners growing up in a digital age. I wrote an essay about  Kindles , exploring whether they may re-engage learners who read less and less. I also wrote an essay entitled The  ...

I am an advocate of reading. I am an avid reader. Many posts and Tweets contest to such. Always wanting to improve my practice and approach to delivering reading to my learners, I recently picked up a copy of  @Donalynbooks The Book Whisperer . It confirmed much of what I do in regards reading, as sound and effective methodology, such as free-reading, and reading time every day, as well as modelling being an actual reader. The book also gave me some areas to think about and re-work, such as the ubiquitous class novel. Red Dot Book Awards We are already reading every lesson, and learners have accepted my Reading Challenge 2014 . In addition, as part of my Future of Fiction unit which explores where storytelling might be going, and how technology might help us to tell stories, I am including some reading circles, using books from the Red Dot Book Awards in Singapore. The  Red Dot Book Awards   is a student choice book awards organised  by the Intern...

Doll Bones by Holly Black Definitely for Middle School readers, this a book about friendship and adventure - with very creepy overtones. Poppy, Zach and Alice are best friends, and invent magical, fantastical adventures. In their constructed world, the Queen resides over the lands, a precious porcelain antique. Locked safely away in the cabinet, the friends feel safe to give her powers to rule the kingdoms - but once they take her out, her powers seem real. A twisted tale underscores the history of this doll; a father, a master craftsman used his dead daughter's corpse to create the doll. Her hair is woven from the remains of the girl's own, the limbs are made from bone china ground out of the little girl's skeleton, and her stuffing is a bag full of her ashes... The friends are visited by her ghost in their dreams, where she demands to be laid to rest once and for all - or promises a deadly curse upon them all.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe  by Benjamin Alire Saenz This is a story of friendship, growing-up, loyalty and love. It is a joy and a pleasure and I read with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. Two Hispanic boys more dissimilar than alike, form a bond stronger than friendship, the kind that can teach a lesson to us all. Whilst written for Young Adults, this is a book that is worth reading by adults too - the role we play in shaping the lives of our children is laid bare and resonates across generations. It forced me to want to be more honest and open, to support and not judge - particularly when my children get to trickier teenage times ahead. I would recommend this to anyone struggling with the courage to be themselves, or anyone who wonders just whose rules we are living our life by. If you like this, you will love: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan Every Day by D...

I recently became certified as a digital citizenship educator. I wrote an article for The Guardian , which was published yesterday. The Guardian, Wednesday 15 January 2014:  http://gu.com/p/3ypzy

In conjunction with my Learners' Reading Challenge , I have also decided to start the year with a writing challenge. Inspired by a student's blog post, shared by  @intrepidteacher , about noticing the sunset and the importance of paying attention to our surroundings, I decided it was time to cajole my learners into noticing more about their world. Everything I read about writing starts with a) reading and b) observing. I think we have the reading part covered, so I want to get my learners to begin to be more present. Writers all say that we must take note of everything around us - to fuel our characters, plot, dialogue etc. But I am not sure how present my learners are. We have made a great start in writing, and spend time every lesson working on our Spilling Ink journals (see Christmas , Halloween , Inspiring a Writing Community  and Spilling Ink Journal agreements ). This year, I am also going to include some mentor texts in Spilling Ink time, to develop close ...

Trackers (Book 1) by Patrick Carman I am currently planning an inquiry based unit asking learners to think about the future of fiction. Where fiction is going is of great interest to me. I own a few Kindles, though personally, have not fully integrated myself into this realm. I love the fact I can have a book in seconds - but, I still go out and buy the 'real' version of any I read and love on my Kindle. I do not think you can beat the feel and smell and sound of a brand new book. Geek that I am, nothing excites me more than an hour or so to wander around Kinokunyia  (Singapore hosts the largest store outside of Japan), or the lastest  arrival from Amazon, of a stack of books for me to explore and lose myself in. Kinokunyia , Ngee Ann City, Singapore Throughout my MEd ., I have been focusing on where reading and writing might be going for learners growing up in a digital age. I wrote an essay about Kindles , exploring whether they may re-engage le...

I have an obsession with books - as you may see from my posts: Must Reads for 2014 Books - 2014 Book-a-month Challenge 2014 I recently read an interesting post on Donalyn Miller's ( @donalynbooks )  The Book Whisperer blog entitled, ' What the Kardashians taught me about reading ' by Christopher Lehman ( @iChrisLehman ). In it, Lehman suggests that we should learn from this family's technique of marketing themselves and, as educators, "brand ourselves as readers just as carefully so our students have that vision to aspire to". Readers in my classroom library I think am along the way to doing so: I read to share, I have created a library in my classroom of books I have personally read for my learners to borrow, they start every lesson with silent reading, they read for homework and keep a reading journal to document it, they write about their reading regularly. My  Book-a-Month Challenge 2014  shows how some Twitter friends and I have started...

As my recent book reviews testify, I have been reading a lot over this winter break . I recently read Fangirl  at the same time Starr, a Twitter friend ( @mssackstein ) so we could talk about it, and have engaged in lots of conversations about books. This led, as things do, to a few of us deciding that we would like to conduct a virtual book club together over Twitter. As we thrashed out the idea, and tried to come up with a definitive list of titles we all wanted to read, we decided the easiest way, was to go with new releases. We have decided on the following list (January is a cheat as we started too late) - and invite anyone who wants to, to join us. Please also, make suggestions too - we stick mainly with YA Fiction but are open to lots of suggestions and ideas. Just drop us a line on Twitter #bookamonth @MrsHollyEnglish @mssackstein @carriegelson @SuticThinkTank

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Persepolis is a graphic novel chronicling the story of the author's unforgettable childhood and coming of age in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. Having lived and taught in the Middle East for four years, I have first hand experience of women and girls who live the kind of double-life shown in the book, where "behavior in public and... behavior in private were polar opposites" (p . 305). I enjoyed reading about the feelings and opinions of women who had lived without the veil, but who are then forced to wear it. I especially loved Satrapi's statement to a mullah, interviewing her regarding her 'ideologies' for a place at university (once they re-opened having had the curriculum re-written to support Islamic beliefs):  I have always thought that if women's hair posed so many problems, God would certainly have made us bald. (p. 284). I enjoyed Satrapi's constant questions about the 'regime', an...

Fangirl  by Rainbow Rowell ( @rainbowrowell ) This is the second book by Rainbow Rowell that I have read this year. I loved Eleanor & Park , and my tweets about it led my PLN to read and love it too. As a result, Starr Sackstein ( @mssackstein ) ( her review of E&amp ; amp ; amp ; P ) and I decided to read Fangirl together. We were separated by time by more than half a day, yet we read and chatted about this book via Twitter. It was great to share reading, as although it can be a mostly solitary pursuit, it HAS to be shared. The worlds we inhabit when we read, and the characters we meet have to be talked about. In The Book Whisperer , Donalyn Miller suggests that readers lead richer lives, more lives, than those who don't read, and I think that one of the main ways I am successful in endearing the majority of my students to reading is because we talk about the characters as if they are real. To me, while I am in the world, they are  - and Fa...

Daytripper  by Gabriel Ba  and Fabio Moon What are the most important days of your life? Daytripper  is a beautiful collection of ten stories by Brazilian twin brothers that uses the quiet moments to ask the big questions. Orignally  published as ten comics, Daytripper follows the life of one man, Bras de Olivias Dominguez. Each of the ten stories features an important period in Bras’s life and each ends the same way: with his death. Like a puzzle, the stories fit together to weave a complete tale. Each starts up at a different point in Bras's life, oblivious to his death in the previous chapter, whilst at the same time, ends with him dying again.  Told in non-linear chronology, the story follows him through his entire existence and the many possibilities life holds for us. Like a book, we read ourselves; we write our own stories. Like books, our lives all must have an end: No book is complete without its end. And once you get there, on...

Legend Trilogy Boxed Set (Amazon) Legend , Prodigy and Champion by Marie Lu. He is a Legend. She is a Prodigy. Who will be Champion? I am a bit of a fan of dystopian fiction; it was Atwood's  The Handmaid's Tale that began it all, I think. Anyway, having just steamed my way through Veronica Roth's excellent Divergent trilogy, as well having just watched Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins second in The Hunger Games triology - I wanted more! A search led me to Lu's Legend trilogy and, it being Christmas and all, I treated myself to a boxed set. The hardcover books are lovely with tactile dustcovers  (these things matter in the whole reading experience). Chapters are told in third person but alternatively focus on either June or Day's perspective. Day's chapters are printed in coloured  ink to match the colours of each novel - gold, blue and red respectively. The story occurs in a post- apocolyptic  world destroyed and disjointed by immense f...

Every You, Every Me by David Levithan Last year, I read Everyday by David Levithan and became an instant fan. He is what I aspire to be as a writer - unique, original, intelligent, thought-provoking... I am also very much  inspired by his writing process . Will Grayson, Will Grayson , co-authored with John Green (another of my favorite authors - read ALL his books if you haven't yet!), was penned by each author assuming a voice of one of the two protagonists. Each was a 'Will Grayson', and they wrote alternating chapters that together, compromise a wonderfully crafted, realistic depiction of teenage life that appeals to us all.  Every You, Every Me  does not disappoint in both the way it was written and the final outcome. Inspired by a photograph seen pinned to a fridge at the home of Jonathan Farmer, Levithan set out to write a psychological thriller inspired by photographs. Farmer sent Levithan images upon which the next par...

A Wrinkle in Time is a classic children's favourite . Somehow - don't ask me how - it had gone under my radar until I read When You Reach Me  by Rebecca Stead, in which time travel plays a huge part due to Miranda, the protagonist, being a fan of L'Engle's novel. And so I bought the graphic novel. Time travel is something that both fascinates and baffles me. No amount of Back To The Future  (the second one in particular) can help me wrap my head around the concept of travelling through time, which in itself is an abstract concept I struggle with. L'Engle's novel was first published fifty years ago and graphic novelist, Hope Larson, has brought it to life for a whole new generation to enjoy. According to the School Library Journal, Larson's illustrations remain "true to the story, preserving the original chapter format and retaining L’Engle’s voice. Black-and-white artwork is accented with blue, echoing the original cover color" (Amazon). C...