What I've learned about the genres and digital media

Learning about the genres was my favorite part of this course! As a future teacher-librarian, I will need to know the genres well so that I can identify quality mentor texts that will serve both teachers and students alike. I’m glad I took this course and know that the knowledge I gained will benefit me in the future.

At the beginning of the semester, I felt like I had some background knowledge on all genres except descriptive writing and letter writing. However, I was only thinking of the genres in terms of books that were written in these genres. While I understood how to write descriptively and had studied letter writing formats as a kid, I couldn’t think of any mentor texts that were written in these genres.

I now understand that the word “genre” refers to more than a published work. I enjoyed learning about the features of each genre, identifying those features in mentor texts, and writing my own examples of the genres. For example, I knew that nonfiction means writing that is based on facts, but I never knew the features of a nonfiction text and how to approach reading them (shout-out to my classmate Stephanie for an amazing genre presentation on this topic!). If I were sharing a nonfiction text with students in my library, I would teach them the features and show them how to approach reading this text like I learned in Stephanie’s genre presentation. The process reminded me of close reading where we went back and reviewed different parts of the text to understand it better. I think doing this would help demystify the concept of nonfiction texts, which many students may find intimidating.

Researching the benefits of letter writing for my genre presentation was eye-opening for me. I never knew that letter writing was valuable because it’s an authentic literacy activity. I read several studies that demonstrated a significant increase in students’ reading comprehension and writing skills through the process of writing and receiving letters (see annotated bibliography on my genre presentation handout for more information). Furthermore, Tompkins (2012) said that “because letters are written to communicate with a specific and important audience, children think more carefully about what they want to say, write more legibly, and are more inclined to use spelling, capitalizations, and punctuation conventions correctly” (p. 130). I am now a firm believer in the benefits of letter writing and would want to incorporate a letter program in my future school, perhaps through a pen pal program.

As future ready educators, I appreciated that part of this course was Hicks’ text on digital media. Despite having a communications/digital media background, there was still much for me to gain from Hicks. In a previous post, I wrote about my realization that anything can be a mentor text, both in print and digital formats. While I’m not intimidated by the prospect of seeking/using digital texts like audio and video in the classroom, I didn’t realize how they could be beneficial as mentor texts to demonstrate the elements of author’s craft. I would like to use them in my library to demonstrate elements of craft and the different genres.

I also really enjoyed Hicks chapter on what makes for a quality digital presentation (especially the “stickiness” factor), a skill that I believe many students lack. If students were tasked with creating digital presentations for a class, I would love to give them a crash course in how to use a platform like Google slides or PowerPoint and provide them with pointers for making a sticky presentation.

After learning about the different genres and types of digital media, I can honestly say that none of them intimidate me. I understand their features and how to evaluate them for elements of author’s craft. I may be hesitant if asked to create an audio or video text, but this course wasn’t intended to focus on how to produce audio or video text. However, Hicks provided me with many sites and free digital tools I can access going forward. I plan to keep his text and will use it in the future to access this information! I will also keep Tompkins’ book on my shelf, especially as a reference for mentor texts in the different genres. Both of the textbooks for this course will serve me well in the future.

My copies of Tompkins' and Hicks' books, with my notes on craft on the covers!

Dear LTED 618 classmates

April 14, 2019 

Dear LTED 618 classmates,

How are you doing today? I’m doing well, but I have been very busy with work, school, and home life lately. Can you believe we are already almost at the end of the semester? It seems like these last few months have flown by!

Tonight, I’m looking forward to giving a genre expert presentation on letter writing. Even though teaching letter writing is not a requirement for teachers, I hope my presentation will open your eyes to the benefits of this form of writing for students of all ages. While my primary mode of letter writing these days is through email communication, I have enjoyed writing traditional letters practically my whole life.

Selfie with a mail truck!

I got my first pen pal in fourth grade through a volunteer pen pal program at my church. Her name was Sharon, we were the same age, and her family was Christian missionaries in Ireland. While I never met Sharon, I loved writing letters to her and learning about her life. She would send me postcards and photos of Ireland, and I would send her little trinkets and other things I thought she would like based on our correspondence. That same year, my elementary school adopted a heavy focus on letter writing. Every classroom was assigned a street name and given a class mailbox. Students were taught to write friendly letters to one another and given time to do so. We even had a “post office,” and would take turns playing the various roles including postmaster, mail clerk, and mail carrier. I remember really enjoying this yearlong project because I liked receiving letters from my friends after I wrote them letters, and it was fun to own the process by working in the “post office.”

Several years later, my pen pal was my cousin Danielle. We would write letters back and forth to each other every summer while she was at her family's cottage in the 1000 islands. I remember how excited I was to receive these letters, and how I became obsessed with printing out fun stationery prints on my home printer and then hand-writing the letters. I still have several of the letters she wrote at home at home, alongside store-bought stationery and envelopes that I use to write the occasional thank you note.

My high school had a mailbox system in every homeroom. Our homeroom teachers would put school communications like cafeteria menus, spirit day schedules, and photo order forms in these mailboxes. My friends and I enjoyed writing notes to each other and leaving them in each other’s mailboxes as well.

As an adult, most of my traditional (aka pen to paper) letter writing is limited to thank you notes or birthday cards. However, I look forward to the day when I can leave notes in my son’s lunchbox for him to read at school just like my mom did when I was a kid.

I hope you enjoy the presentation tonight. I'd love to hear your feedback. If you wish to share, please post a comment here or email me at mshippe0@naz.edu.

Sincerely,

Michelle

Reflections on this assignment

Dear Dr. Jones,

I hope you are doing well. Since I will be presenting on letter writing in class next week, I thought it appropriate to continue to hone my letter writing skills through framing this blog as letter to you.

It’s wild to think that eight months ago I had no concept of how to teach (or develop) reading and writing skills in elementary level students. When we first met, you asked me what grade level I wanted to work with. Since my classes at Nazareth have been geared towards working with elementary students, my eyes have been opened to the possibilities of working with this age group. At this point, I see myself either in an elementary library or a middle school library. I believe there is a level of creative thinking and wonder in these age groups (as well as an excitement for hands-on projects!), that I don’t think I would find at the high school or college level. I also discovered how much I love children’s literature, and reading it means so much more to me now that I can view it from critical lens. I want to thank you for laying the groundwork for my future professional endeavors as I continue down this path.

You’ve asked me to reflect on how keeping a blog this semester helped me reach the student learning outcomes for this course. Looking at these outcomes, I believe my blog has helped me meet them all in different ways. Writing this blog has helped me realize that writing and reading are interconnected processes, as well as the role metacognition plays in reading and writing proficiency (outcomes 4 and 5). While talking in class about a reading is one way to learn, I found that taking the time to write about my takeaways from the readings and how to apply them to my own professional life was highly beneficial. Writing this blog has been my “medium to think,” and reflect on the readings, assignments, and discussions from this course.

My favorite part of this course was learning about the genres (outcome 1)! I loved reading mentor texts as I learned the key elements of each genre and how to teach them. Through this blog, I explored the journal genre, narrative genre, and poetry genre further. I believe my writings on these genres will be a useful resource for me in the future as I introduce these genres to students.

Another big takeaway for me was learning that ANYTHING can be a mentor text, both in print and digital formats. I learned to assess texts by looking for their purpose and form, as well as the elements of author’s craft (outcome 2) or Hicks’ M.A.P.S. criteria for digital texts. While I came into this class with a fairly strong understanding of composition strategies for digital texts (outcome 3) based on my professional work, I didn’t realize that the compositions themselves (ex: video, audio) are mentor texts.

Finally, I made tremendous strides this semester is learning how to help others revise their work, by understanding the role of assessment and evaluation in determining reading and writing proficiency (outcome 6). Prior to this course, I thought evaluating student/peer work meant looking for misspelled words and grammatical errors. Now, I realize that purpose, audience, and form should take first priority when assessing/evaluating student work. The writer’s workshops have helped me hone this skill, and I had the chance to write a little about what I learned on the topic of revising work in a previous post. Since learning about the genres, I can also help look for the hallmarks of the genre in the work. For example, I helped Anna with her argumentative genre piece this week by drawing on what I learned about the structure of arguments/counterarguments from Tompkins.

While this assignment was challenging at times, I’ve never had the opportunity to evaluate academic texts at a critical level on a regular basis like this. I think this was a fitting assignment for this course and I hope to continue using “writing as a medium to think” in the future!

Sincerely,

Michelle Shippers

Bless, Address, & Press No. 2

I love reading descriptive writing. I believe that the mark of a good story is one where the author evokes vivid images in the reader’s mind. After reviewing my peers' recent blog posts, I’d like to follow Hicks' model for peer review and “bless, address, and press (p. 83)” Denise’s blog titled The Power of Descriptive Writing.

Bless: While reading Tompkins chapter on teaching descriptive writing, Denise wrote that “the most beneficial element to me was incorporating sensory images. These senses can really allow the reader to feel like they are a part of your story.”  Tompkins said that young writers often incorporate just one sense, sight. (p. 139). I like Denise’s idea to require students to incorporate at least three senses in their descriptive writing pieces. Tompkins shares a variety of ways that teachers can help young writers craft sensory images (p. 139). In a library setting, I could choose mentor texts that evoke the five senses and use them for read-alouds. Then, I could ask my students to help me pick some of our favorite descriptions from the book and create a list of “sensory words,” that we liked. We could keep these words up on a board for various writing activities, or we could write stories together or individually that use some of these words!

Example of a sensory words chart
Source: Rocky Fork Middle School

Address: I’d like to commend Denise for sharing her personal struggles with descriptive writing in elementary school. Denise believes writing in general was a challenge because she didn’t know what to write about. I believe this is a common struggle for young writers, and one that Tompkins addresses several times in the text. Before expecting a student to write a story (let alone make it more descriptive) students need to understand the elements of story structure which include plot, setting, characters, theme, point of view, and narrative devices. Of course, Tompkins tells us that that descriptive writing is not limited to narrative writing (p. 153), but I think it’s a good place to start before a student can write descriptively.

One way to test a student’s knowledge of story structure is to ask them to retell a story they are familiar with (Tompkins, p. 182). I think this is a great way to get young writers started, first with simple narratives and then with descriptive writing. I think it’s not realistic to ask young writers to write a descriptive piece if they haven’t mastered the basic elements of story structure. If I was working with young writers on descriptive writing and some of them didn’t know where to start, I would differentiate my instructions for those learners. Can they retell a familiar story through writing? Once the students have proven they can write a simple story, then I think it’s appropriate to press them to revise it (as Tompkins says) “using words to paint a memorable picture and evoke a distinctive mood” (p. 136).

A sample organizer that kids can use to retell a story.
Source: education.com

Press: I was glad to see that Denise included two mentor texts in her blog: Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner (2001) and The Stranger by Chris Van Allsburg (1986). She writes that The Stranger “would be a great resource for teaching students about how to use and implement figurative language within their writing.” I would like to know more about Denise’s specific ideas to use these two mentor texts to teach descriptive writing. After sharing Skippyjon Jones (which Tompkins says is a great example of word choice on pg. 137) how would she teach her students to write more descriptively using this book as a model?

Kudos to Denise for digging deeper into Tompkins’ chapter on descriptive writing, and I enjoyed the opportunity to add my own insight and feedback!

Source outside class textbook
Holmes, D. (2019, March 30). Entry #9. The Power of Descriptive Writing.  Retrieved from https://holmessp19writing.blogspot.com/2019/03/

Poetry in the library?

As a marketing professional, I don’t often have the opportunity to work on creative writing. The copy I write is sales-focused (although I try to create engaging descriptions!). I am enjoying learning about different genres and writing drafts for my genre pieces project. Through all of this, I am trying to think about different ways that I could apply learning about the genres into the school library. I wrote about some ideas for journal writing in the library in a previous entry here, but now I’d like to focus on my new understanding of poetry and how to teach it in the library.

Tompkins’ chapter 7 talks about writing poetry, and my classmate Catherine did a wonderful presentation on writing color poems to accompany our reading. I haven’t studied poetry in years, and I really enjoyed this chapter and reading mentor texts. I decided to write an acrostic poem for my genre pieces project inspired by Schnur’s Summer:An alphabet acrostic (2011). Like Schnur’s poems, I tried to incorporate some

An excerpt from Schnur's
Summer: An alphabet acrostic.
Image sourced here

lines that would read together as one sentence instead of every line standing on its own. My poem is written for my son and contains several vertical words that will read together as one phrase. Here is an excerpt of my acrostic poem using the words “my son.”

My son, my heart, my Dylan

You have changed me in so many ways

Someday you will leave my arms

Out in the world to build your own dreams

New experiences await you

While I love writing and would love to teach writing, I was concerned that my passion wasn’t part of what librarians do. Earlier this week, I visited Brookview Elementary School in the West Irondequoit School District to observe librarian Julianne Westrich. As luck would have it, Juli was teaching a unit on language that day!

In the third grade class I observed, Juli taught them how to write a book spine poem, a poem using only book titles. She began with a minilesson, modeled a few examples she had written, and then had the students write their own poem using piles of pre-selected books. She reminded them that the poems needed to contain the exact language found on the book spines with no added words, and that the poems probably wouldn’t rhyme. In chapter 7, Tompkins says that “although rhyme is considered an essential poetic device, it shouldn’t dominate students’ poems" (p. 161). I think this was a good activity to not only teach them how to write a poem, but also to show them that poetry doesn’t need to rhyme. I wish that Juli had asked the students to share some of their poems, but unfortunately the class had to stop their activity so that they still had time for book checkout. If I taught this lesson, I would want to include a poetry café element so that students had the opportunity to share their work and receive positive feedback from their peers, perhaps in the next class if time prevented us.

In the first grade class I observed, Juli was talking about personification. She did three read-alouds including the fiction book Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea by Ben Clanton (2016), and parts of two non-fiction books about narwhals and jellyfish. Tompkins talks about personification as a poetic device in chapter 7. After explaining the concept to students (and learning that narwhals are real creatures!) the students worked together with Juli to personify an animal together. I loved this activity and think that it was developmentally appropriate for the students (Juli told me she plans her lessons based on Common Core standards; the Writing Strand is standard 10). It was interesting to see how she also incorporated a minilessson on fiction/nonfiction texts through her read-alouds. I would love to teach a similar lesson if I were working in an elementary library.

Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea 
by Ben Clanton. Image sourced here

I am excited to see that librarians like Juli are finding ways to teach poetry/poetic devices in the library that address State Standards. I look forward to learning more about the genres and making connections to the work of a modern library media specialist! 

Sources

Clanton, B. (2016). Narwhal: Unicorn of the sea. New York: Tundra Books.

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers. Common Core State Standards. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, Washington D.C. 2010

Schnur, S. (2001). Summer: An alphabet acrostic. New York: Clarion Books.

Bless, Address, & Press No. 1

After looking through my peers’ recent blog posts, I would like to expand on Kristina’s Week 7 blog on narrative writing. Hicks says that a good critique should bless (offer praise), address (ask specific questions about the ideas), and press (ask critical questions to help the writer move forward) (p. 83). I hope to achieve all three for Kristina through my feedback today, as well as add to my own understanding of the elements of story.

1. Bless: I really enjoyed Tompkins’ chapter on narrative writing as well as Kristina’s presentation on teaching the genre, so I was excited to see Kristina wrote about preparing for her presentation in her most recent blog. Since I’ll be doing a presentation on letter writing in several weeks, I was eager to learn how Kristina prepared for her presentation. She did a wonderful job explaining her process, from her own experiences with the genre to her research process (great idea to search The Reading Teacher journals for relevant articles!). She also remembered Hicks’ elements of a good presentation, focusing on the stickiness factor (p. 73). As someone who also may be inclined to read off the slides, I need to keep these elements in mind when designing my own genre presentation.
2. Address: Kristina wrote about her hesitations for teaching the narrative genre, having very few memories of learning to teach narrative writing during her undergraduate. I hope these memories are an exception to what most elementary teachers are teaching now, as I remember learning about story structure several times over when I was in elementary and middle school.
   
   In chapter 8, Tompkins talks about the elements of narrative writing, beginning with plot. I remember learning about the story structure pyramid when I was in school.

   

   Freytag's (story structure) pyramid.
   Retrieved from rookreading.com

   My classmates and I would read a story and then map it out using the pyramid, from exposition (beginning) to climax (middle) and end (resolution/denouement). Later, we learned to write our own stories using the story structure pyramid as a guide to map out the plot. In high school, I remember using the pyramid to map out Shakespeare’s plays to add to my own understanding of the text.
   
   Tompkins’ cites Applebee’s (1980) research that “by the time children begin kindergarten, they’ve already developed a concept of what story is, and these expectations guide them as they respond to stories and tell their own.” (Applebee, cited in Tompkins, pg. 171). Tompkins goes on to say that children as young as two and a half have a concept of story (p. 171), something I notice with my own 2.5 year-old who will eagerly say “The End!” when we finish a story. As a future library media specialist, I’m certain that helping my young readers understand the elements of story would be important. I found these great videos on weareteachers.com that would be great to show my students while we discuss the elements of story!
3. Press : Kristina says that “when students are explicitly taught about the structural elements of narrative writing, they will develop into better writers.” I would like to know her ideas for teaching young students these elements. We got a glimpse into Kristina’s life as a teacher through her genre presentation, and I really enjoyed the character maps to show the outside and inside (F.A.S.T. acronym) of characters. What are some other teaching strategies that she might use for teaching the elements of story/narrative writing with elementary students? I believe that including more examples of ways to teach story in her blog (such as talking about the character maps) would be beneficial to readers like me who are interested in learning more about how to teach story. 

Sources outside class textbooks
Applebee, A.N. (1980). The child’s concept of story: Ages 2 to 17. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Wells, K. (2019, March 17). “Genre expert” workshop presentation. Retrieved from https://kristinawells-lted618-spring2019.blogspot.com/2019/03/genre-expert-workshop-presentation.html

Feedback and New Learning from Hicks' Chapter 3: Composing Web Texts

I really enjoyed last week’s readings from Hicks, and I believe that there are many applicable lessons for the school library. For my blog this week, I want to talk more about what I learned from chapter three of Hicks and how I may apply those lessons in my future career.

In chapter three, Hicks talks about criteria for identifying credible web texts. As a future librarian, I know I will have students who turn to the first site they see on Google and believe it’s a credible source. Hicks talks about “filter bubbles” (p. 33) that Google uses to serve us information based on our previous search history. Although I recognize that ads I see on social media are related to my Google searches, I never realized that my searches themselves carried a bias.

I think it’s important to make sure my future students understand how filter bubbles work, and I will teach them to verify information with other sources. Hicks cites Rheingold’s research that recommends questionable information be backed up by at least three separate sources (p. 33). I will teach my students to “think like journalists,” and always check their facts! Since Google filter bubbles function based on the user’s search history, I would ask my students to log-out from any open accounts (Google, social media etc.) when doing their research so that they are not finding filtered information. This would be more important to do at home as schools may block these sites anyway but students are more likely to be “signed-in” at home.

In this same chapter, Hicks gave valuable advice for responsible posting on social media (33). Hicks always encourages students to think like digital writers, considering their audience and purpose whenever writing posts, comments, or sharing other content. Doing so will avoid mindless posting that serves no purpose. While using social media smartly would be a great general lesson for a group, I know that students often create social accounts for their clubs (example: yearbook committee, student government etc.). I would love to invite clubs that have social media posting responsibilities

into my library to give them a lesson on crafting quality content that is purposeful for the intended audience! This same lesson could apply to teachers that want to start using social media as an extension of their classroom community, but aren’t sure how to craft copy. An elementary teacher using Instagram or Facebook is probably sharing photos for parents to see what they are doing, while a middle/high school teacher using Instagram or Snapchat may be writing content that’s intended for the students to see and interact with. I’m looking forward to reading chapter 7 of Hicks which talks more about crafting social media copy and thinking about how I could apply the lessons in my library.

Today’s classrooms require more and more students to compose web texts. However, students may fall into a trap where they are only composing what Hicks calls “digitally convenient” texts (p. 34). While these texts are published online, they lack links, photos, videos, and other multimedia elements that would enhance the piece. Looking at my blogs this semester, I am going to make more of an effort to create digitally enhanced texts that serve my purpose and audience. In the future, I would welcome the opportunity to teach students how to transform their digitally convenient texts into digitally enhanced texts that serve the audience and the purpose for the writing. Or, I could offer this lesson to teachers so that they can apply it back in their own classrooms. Through conversations with other library media specialists and teachers, I’m learning that teachers often shy away from technology they don’t understand, while students are eager to use it but may be using it improperly. I look forward to being the kind of librarian that both teachers and students trust for reliable information as they develop as digital writers and keen researchers!

Sources outside class texts
Rheingold, H. 2012. Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Note: Images in this blog were gathered from Google and licensed for reuse.