Exploring Learning

Sometimes, with all the best will in the world, and even with eons of research and hours of planning, the best lessons are the spontaneous ones. The ones that serendipitously arise from teachable moments. I experienced such as occasion over the past week. Laurie Halse Anderson, The Impossible Knife of Memory My Year 8s are learning about different cultures and traditions around the world. Underpinning the unit is the novel T ies That Bind, Ties That Break by Lensey Namioke, which concerns foot binding in China at the beginning of the twentieth century. From this, I teach note-taking and search strategies, while groups learn to research customs and traditions of a country of their choice. The culmination of the project is an exhibition of their findings. A new teacher joined our team part way through this unit. She wanted to have a piece of writing to gauge her class's needs. So, as part of the novel study, we built in personal account writing. I devel...

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson It might be safe to say that I inhaled this book and its incredibly crafted story, breathing out the smoke of words I digested and chewed over, coating my classroom in metaphors both grotesque and moving. This novel was the first of the Book a Month Challenge myself and my PLN established on Twitter, and I enjoyed this novel both as a reader and as a teacher. My learners noticed my reading it around the corridors; parents stopped me in the car park to ask what I was reading and to make sure I didn't walk into anything. An intriguing and moving novel about an intense father-daughter relationship of trauma and heartache, Amazon describes it as "Laurie Halse Anderson at her finest: compelling, surprising, and impossible to put down" - I guess I cannot disagree. I have taken and used many passages to teach figurative language as the writing demonstrates metaphor and personification in a complex yet access...

Boxers and Saints boxed set Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang Boxers and Saints are two graphic novels that tell the same story from a different perspective of one of the most controversial episodes of modern Chinese history. I read Saints first. In this beautifully illustrated graphic novel, the protagonist is a young girl who, born as the fourth and only surviving child, on the fourth day of the fourth month is deemed bad luck. Synonymous with death, Four Girl is shunned and miserable in a village that has no place for her. She is taken in by Christian missionaries and finds, for the first time, a home with them. As the Boxer Rebellion gains momentum, Vibiana (as her new name is given to her by the foregin devils) must decide whether to abandon her Christian friends or to commit herself fully to Christianity. Boxers tells the opposite side of the story from the perspective of Little Bao, a Chinese peasant boy whose village is abused and plundered by West...

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 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