teachers

On this episode of TTT we offer a conversation about the NY Times articles on Dasani: Invisible Child http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/#/?chapt=1

We are joined by:

Marina Lombardo Maribeth Whitehouse Stephanie West-Puckett Al Elliott

We were moved the NY Times articles and the issues they raise. Many of us teach students similar to Dasani, and this Times series gives us a great opportunity to talk about the issues that students like her present in our classrooms.

This is our third conversation about Dasani and students who face similar challenges, and what it's like to be teachers in schools with students facing the challenges of poverty. Also see:

• TTT#375 Hour of Code and Dasani w/ Nikhil Goyal, Maurya Couvares, Mia Zamora, Kim Douillard, Stephanie West-Puckett 12.11.13  http://edtechtalk.com/node/5222


• TTT#376 - Dasani: Invisible Child Conversations with Virginia Vitzthum and Jake Jacobs - 12.18.13 http://edtechtalk.com/node/5220

We'd love to know what your perspectives are on the issues raised in the Times series.
 

On this special Meet the Authors episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Paul Allison, Valerie Burton, and Gail Desler have a conversation with two teachers and recently published authors from New Iberia, Louisiana,+Margaret Simon and +Stephanie Judice/@sagaofthesetti.

Margaret has been a frequent guest on Teachers Teaching Teachers since the BP Oil Spill. Her elementary school school students published memorable poems and multimedia commentary on Voices on the Gulf, and Ms. Simons' students continue to publish on Youth Voices http://youthvoices.net/posts/user/3587

On this episode of TTT, we celebrate and explore the recent publication of Margaret Simon's Young Adult novel, Blessen. http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0984891528/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link

In this highlight from TTT#297, Margaret Simon explains that Blessen was born in a Writing Marathon led by Richard Louth, a director of the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project [http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/315 and http://goo.gl/ONqs7 ]. The character, Blessen grew real in a workshop with Sharon Arms Doucet [https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Sharon+Arms+Doucet%22 and after meeting a lot of Blessens as a teacher in New Iberia.

It may be a YA novel or a first-chapter book, but I agree with one Amazon reviewer who writes that Blessen is "a book for young readers, but an old reader like me can enjoy it just as well."

In this highlight from the videocast, Margaret reads "Piggly Wiggly," a chapter from her book, Blessen.

Margaret Simon is a teacher-consultant with the National Writing Project of Acadiana, Louisiana. In this podcast we explore Margaret's creative process, her use of a writing group, and her journey in publication. What questions do you have? Please add your comments below.

Margaret's friend and writing partner, Stephanie Judice, joins us as well. She published Rising last year and is working on Book 2. http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/B004YXL72O/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link Margaret writes, "She's the one who pushed me to publish."

An interesting review of Blessen: http://revmoore.blogspot.com/2012/04/blessen.html

Stephanie Judice's Saga of Setti on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Saga-of-the-Setti/203566846334918

Margaret Simon's Blessen on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blessenbyMargaretSimon

Enjoy!

Habits of Mind

The Framework identifies eight habits of mind essential for success in college writing—ways of approaching learning that are both intellectual and practical and will support students’ success in a variety of fields and disciplines:

• Curiosity: the desire to know more about the world.
• Openness: the willingness to consider new ways of being and thinking in the world.
• Engagement: a sense of investment and involvement in learning.
• Creativity: the ability to use novel approaches for generating, investigating, and representing ideas.
• Persistence: the ability to sustain interest in and attention to short- and long-term projects.
• Responsibility: the ability to take ownership of one’s actions and understand the consequences of those actions for oneself and others.
• Flexibility: the ability to adapt to situations, expectations, or demands.
• Metacognition: the ability to reflect on one’s own thinking as well as on the individual and cultural processes used to structure knowledge.

• Lennie Irvin (who recently completed his PhD), is the Co-Director of the San Antonio Writing Project. In addition to working with the above frameworks, for the past four summers, Lennie has facilitated an open institute, Crossing2College where they’ve been asking:

Every year, we have far too many students like Ian. They aren’t the AP kids (though they might be), and they aren’t the students who fail our classes. They do OK, even sometimes receiving excellent grades in our high school classrooms. But when they get to college, they place into Developmental English classes, or worse (like Ian) they crash and burn and drop out of college. They fall off the bridge between high school and college. This site is devoted to local efforts to help more students graduating from high school place directly into college level writing classes, and importantly—do well in freshman composition. It is meant both as a resource and a professional community of practice dedicated to doing more to prepare our students for college and for helping these students do well once they are in college, for “college readiness” and “student success” in college are really two sides of the same coin.

• Kirsten Jamsen whose affiliations include being the co-director of the Minnesota Writing Project. Kirsten presented on the “Frameworks for Success in Postsecondary Writing” at the National Writing Project’s Annual Meeting in November, where she discussed the statement’s purpose, and recounted the process of composing it. We’ll ask her do some of that again. We’ll also use some of her questions from that session to guide our discussion on Wednesday evening: “What is your response to the statement? How might you use it to promote effective writing instruction at your school? How could this statement help you design thoughtful professional development?”
  
  
• David Pulling whose students at Louisiana State University, Eunice, have been posting on Voices on the Gulf this year. David is the Director of Continuing Education at LSU Eunice, and will share his insights into what it takes to be a successful college writer as well. David is also an active member of the The National Writing Project of Acadiana.
  

Enjoy!

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

For this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we asked Suzie Boss to come on to help us have a conversation with:

• an amazing young high school student who has developed his own project-based learning by creating info-graphics.
• a dynamic teacher who has been working all year to help open a new public school in East Brooklyn.

We learned a lot, both about visualizing information and about integrating technology into a new, alternative school.

Michael, Amazing Student
Chris Sloan joined us with one of his amazing students, Michael, from Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City. Michael has a blog called Graph the Info.

Click on this image to see a recent post where Michael explains his creative process:

Charlie, Dynamic Teacher
We were also joined by Charlie Freij a teacher we meet in the New York City Writing Project’s Advanced Summer Institute last year. Charlie has been working this year to create a new school, East Brooklyn Community High School, in Canarsie. And his students have been using Youth Voices.

East Brooklyn Community High School is a small, academically rigorous high school that is committed to preparing students for college, meaningful employment, healthy personal and family relationships and participation in the life of their communities. East Brooklyn Community High School is a transfer school that is designed to help students who have fallen behind in credit accumulation get back on track and earn a high school diploma. East Brooklyn Community HS is a collaboration between the DOE and SCO Family Services; our curriculum and programs build on SCO’s comprehensive range of neighborhood and community based services that sustain families and children. The academic program will utilize innovative and project based instructional strategies that prepare students to pass Regents exams and develop the skills needed for post secondary options.

We hope you enjoy this podcast, and that you will join us each Wednesday this summer as we develop curriculum together that will address the BP Gulf Oil Atrocity.

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.