A Novel Approach To Instruction

We’ve been asked just what kinds of reading material may be best suited to the kinds of creative, communicative, and authentic projects in which we expect our elementary students to be engaged. From one perspective, all kinds of reading material can provide adequate depth for the learning of skills and ideas for which we aim to provide. And in fact, variety is essential – fiction and non-fiction, article and story, poem and essay – students need to work with all manner of material for a well-rounded experience.

We have an affection for novels in particular, though. In using a novel in language arts instruction, one can bring virtually every reading skill into play. Furthermore, a novel can be fertile ground for allowing students to connect the material to their own lives in reflective and meaningful fashions – and those connections, incidentally, allow students to become more engaged in writing exercises. Students will read and write with more passion and more effort if they feel connected to the material. For those reasons and more, novels form the basis of most of the units that the DLA team has implemented in the past.

Here are a few recommendations for novels to use in upper elementary language arts instruction:

• Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
  
• Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
  
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
  
• Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
  
• The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
  
• The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo
  

Because the tools and practices we recommend allow for individual work and team work, and do not in any way require whole-class projects, one can easily use multiple novels at one time in such a way that matches the challenge of the material to the relative reading levels of individual students. Students can use ThinkQuest, the Intel Thinking Tools, and Glogster during the same unit, for example, even if they are reading different novels. In this manner one can differentiate to meet all needs.

Have you used other novels successfully at the elementary level? We’d love to hear about them!

Digital Language Arts II: “Guide Me, Please”

Bedtime stories. Did you grow up with them? Did you have the opportunity to be read to by, and to read along with, a caring family member? Were you asked, “What’s that word?” Did you ask, “What does that word mean?” Curiosity for stories and language never really leaves us, but sometimes it gets buried under the weight of unengaging school instruction. Do you ever recall telling your mom, “Can you stop reading this story to me, please? It’s boring and I’d really rather do something else.” Hopefully not! Perhaps you can recall, though, thinking as much in one or more of your classrooms while growing up.

As we think about how we engage in the act of guided reading – reading to our students, having our students read to us, and discussing elements such as tone, style, theme, grammar, vocabulary, point of view, and so on – we can use our two overarching questions (How I can I improve what I do? What can I do that I couldn’t before?) to frame our understanding of how we might integrate technology into the process.

Idea 1: Delivering electronic anticipation guides via student response systems

Before tackling new reading material of any significant depth, whether fiction or non-fiction, it is useful to gauge student understandings of the ideas they will encounter in the material, as well as to pique their curiosity. This can be done with (ugh) a worksheet questionnaire, or perhaps through a class discussion. The former may turn you off as much as your students. The latter can be extremely powerful. But how can we make it better? How can we benefit from engaging in discussion and yet still record the data as with a worksheet? And how can we increase engagement at the same time? We can use electronic student response systems in the context of the discussion. For The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco, for example, we can anticipate the story by asking, “Would you risk your life to help a friend in danger?” and using a Likert-scale answer format on the student response systems. Students answer, discuss, and then proceed to the next question.

After we have finished reading the book, we can ask the same questions from the anticipation guide and record their answers using the response systems as well. We then compare the responses, pre- and post-reading, for a fruitful discussion on how and why student attitudes and responses may have changed. Having the data in electronic format makes it fast and easy.

Idea 2: Annotating text with a document camera, projector, and interactive whiteboard

Each student in a guided reading group may have their own copy of the reading material, but how do students comment on specific portions of the text? How does the teacher, for that matter? Does student Molly say, “On the 27th line, halfway through, Sarah points at the vase and…” Does the teacher say, “Jason, find three adjectives in the fifth paragraph…” while the other students struggle to follow along? Perhaps so, but those methods can be terribly awkward at times. We can improve the analytical process, while again increasing engagement, by using the tools above to show the pages of the material, live, large, and in color, on an interactive whiteboard. Molly can user her finger or a board pen to draw a circle around the text as she explains her point about Sarah. Jason can likewise highlight his three adjectives so that every student knows exactly which ones he identifies. And if he makes a mistake? No problem. The group can ask him to “erase” one highlight, and replace it with another. These simple acts of physical interaction can go a long way towards reinforcing the ideas in students’ minds. And with some models of document cameras and boards, images of the pages with the student annotations can be saved for later reference in class and at home through online posting.

Idea 3: Supporting teachable moments through just-in-time web research

Almost without fail, at some point while reading together in a guided reading group, students will ask questions about ideas, topics, or words that they do not understand. In some cases, the teacher knows and can explain the answers, and in some cases not. But what may be the best way to handle it? The teacher can say, “I don’t know… let’s Google it!*” By having just one computer available right in the group, whether a teacher laptop, student laptop, or even a nearby desktop, questions can be researched and resolved on the spot, while student curiosity is still high. And in as much as the answer itself is important, so too is the act of modeling digital literacy in context. “We’ve got three million responses, guys… what can we do to narrow the results?” “Do you think this website looks like we can trust it? Why?” “Does this first answer seem reasonable, or should we keep looking?” Each of those questions can be used by the teacher to build effective web research habits in students without them even realizing it. And in that one simple change in practice, by integrating one simple technology tool, we are able to accomplish what we could not accomplish in the group otherwise.

*DLA team member Nicole’s favorite in-class phrase

So, there we have three simple ideas for improving what we do, or for allowing ourselves to do more, in the guided reading process by way of technology integration. Do you have other ideas for guided reading enhancements? We’ve love to have you share!

Next up… we’ll take a brief detour to mention some of our favorite novels to use in elementary language arts, and then return to this multi-part series for a look at how to integrate technology into practice/reflection/analysis.

Digital Language Arts I: “Just What’s The Big Idea?”

Digital language arts… just what in the world is it all about, and what part can it play in modern education? It’s a simple, intuitive concept – using technological tools to aid reading and writing instruction. To aid. Not to supplant, but to support. Not to replace, but to revitalize. It’s not about teaching technology, it’s about teaching with technology.

The classical elements of language arts instruction are classical for a reason – because they work! Guide students through reading and writing processes, give them opportunities to practice, reflect upon, and analyze their reading and writing habits, let them apply their learning for constructive purposes, and assess their proficiency and progress. Wash, rinse, repeat.

For each of those elements – guidance, practice/reflection/analysis, application, and assessment – a 21st century educator can ask two important questions. 1) How can technological tools help me improve the way I already address those elements? 2) How can technological tools help me address those elements in ways that would not otherwise be possible? Digital language arts, as a concept, revolves around those two questions and their possible answers.

Students want to be engaged. They want to be excited. They want to communicate. They want to put their knowledge and skills to productive and authentic use. They want to be taught. They really do. Really! But you’ve got to “come correct.” And part of that means taking advantage of the amazing breadth of technological tools that modern educators have at their disposal. They’ll bend over backwards to read for you, write for you, and learn for you. If you meet them halfway…

Next up in this multi-part series, we’ll dive into practical implementation ideas for integrating technological tools into guided reading. Stay tuned!

FETC Afterthoughts

The Digital Language Arts team loved meeting many of you at FETC in Orlando. We heard from several educators interested in bringing more technology integration into their language arts classrooms, as well as from those already experimenting with various instructional technology tools. And we’re doubly-glad that many of you took the opportunity to visit the Oracle Education Foundation (ThinkQuest) and Intel (Intel Thinking Tools) in the vendor area after hearing how much we love their free learning tools and how much of an important role they can play in forward-thinking instruction. Special thanks goes out to Darcie P from northern Virginia who mentioned our session on her blog, jrichardson from Alabama who wrote about us in his wiki, and Nicholas Kapetanis in Florida who featured us on the Academy at the Lakes wetpaint site. Web 2.0 shrinks the world!

Next up? We’ll feature a multi-part series on the digital language arts process, and then we’re off to Orlando again to present a ticketed session and a podcasted session at ASCD’s annual conference. Hope to see you there!

FETC!

The Digital Language Arts team will be presenting at the upcoming FETC conference in Orlando, Florida! Stop by our presentation room at 2:50 on January 23rd for Digital Language Arts: A 21st Century Approach to Instruction. We look forward to engaging educators from across the country as we share ideas for transforming traditional reading and writing instruction into a digitally-native learning process.

NNPS International Conference

Recently our team participated in the Newport News Public Schools International Conference here in Newport News, Virginia. As part of the planning and implementation committee, we can say that putting on one’s own learning conference, in this case for 400+ educators, is hard! Who knew? We have a newly-found admiration for organizations that manage to put on conferences for thousands of people!

We were fortunate enough to be able to interact with our district colleagues by presenting various sessions, including discussions on how to use SharePoint as a tool for highly-effective faculty and staff collaboration, what school leadership in the 21st century may, could, or should look like, and how various technological tools can be leveraged in language arts classrooms to provide students with more effective learning opportunities.

The conference also featured facilitated discussion groups around ten (or twelve, depending on how you look at it!) things that every 21st century educator should focus on – things like digital literacy, economic literacy, global awareness, and so on. What was so great about those groups? There were no PowerPoint slides, no lectures, no sit-and-get processes – just groups of educators talking to each other about what 21st century education should look like. (And forgive me for saying, but I am always humbly amused by the fact that we talk about becoming 21st century educators… nearly a decade after the century started! Too funny!)