Literacy Speaks Volumes

I've recently read Read and Write It Out Loud  by Keith Polette. As Polette says in the introduction of his book, it is "designed to help both adults and children rediscover the power, potency, and pleasure of oral reading." I've been reading aloud to my students for years; however I'd gotten out of the habit as the reality of high-stakes testing sent me whirling off into that void know as the "Plan of Assistance". I knew I needed to pick up the habit again, but needed some solid reasons as to why this is beneficial to my students. In today's blog, I will be summarizing chapter one "Reading Aloud to Children: Reasons and Resources." Storytelling is the basis of our literature tradition~before there were books, there were stories told around the camp fires. Stories were used to warn children away from dangers or pass down family traditions and beliefs. Oral storytelling was a "lively drama, a dynamic and immediate experience tha...

This week's learning is identifying infinitive and gerund phrases and identifying mood, imagery, and style in a piece of literature. Lovely lessons that will herald in the holiday with festive language. I absolutely love, love, love practicing writing sentences that begin with phrases. A sentence that begins with a phrase is just so much more interesting than other sentence structures. Keith Polette does an amazing job with his "Ten Different Ways to Begin a Sentence." Here is my adaptation of his strategy using participles, infinitives, and gerunds (and their respective phrases).   Hanging on small pegs, the stockings lent an air of festivity to the otherwise drab fireplace.  Melissa wanted to hang the stockings in order to create a sense of anticipation. Hanging the stockings is my favorite part of decorating for the holidays. Have your students create their own holiday sentences using phrases and clauses.  Another Polette strategy is having your st...

Imagery is used in literature in order to give the reader a virtual picture in his mind~the author might use the five senses to create this image. Notice the imagery in this passage from One Thousand White Women  by Jim Fergus: From these cold rocks we can see the camp dogs beginning to slink back into the village to pick among the ruins for scraps of meat. The still frigid morning air bears the odors of roasted meats, spent gunpowder, scorched hides, burnt flesh. There are still dozens of soldiers about in the village so that we are unable to go back down to scavenge with the dogs, perhaps find a scrap of meat for sustenance, a flame of warmth...a blanket...   A good author creates imagery with words~he shows, he doesn't tell. Imagery and mood can affect the way you feel about a work of literature. An author's style , though, is what helps you recognize the writing of a particular author. In literature, style is the way that something is written~it is the way it...

I've just spent the last three days at the Rutherford County Literacy Academy in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. On Monday,  Carmen Agra Deedy  regaled the group of K-12 public school teachers with both personal stories and traditional folk tales. On Tuesday,  Dr. Keith Polette  shared literacy strategies with wit and cleverness. I can't think of a more enjoyable and intelligent way to spend a portion of my summer holiday. We began the academy in the usual way~those good old tried and true ice-breakers . Now, if you're not familiar with ice-breakers then you have never attended a teacher in-service. After getting to know a few of the other teachers attending the Literacy Academy (other than the other teachers from my own school), we settled in groups to participate in some cooperative learning strategies. The first activity involved matching Newberry titles to their first lines. The next activity was called "Dinner Plate" where the group members had to first list all...