Ditto! I have finished Less Is More and I am going to get copies for my 7th and 8th grade literacy teachers. We do a lot with memoirs in 8th grade and my teachers have also struggled with how to combine reading instruction with writing instruction. There is a whole chapter on Memoir. In the past we have spent a week or two writing something, then switched and done literature circles. I have been talking and talking about combining the two but I haven't been able to get anywhere because they don't see how it is done. This book does that and the ideas can be taken and used the next day. Our district is working toward a GANAG lesson model to improve student learning. Picking out the "just right" learning target, activating some prior knowledge, and providing feedback by self, peers, and teachers can easily be seen in Campbell's ideas. If we are working to grade to a benchmark instead of just assigning points and rating a project or piece of writing where so often compliance and homework causes failure and an untrue picture of student learning, Campbell's ideas of reading in class, providing a focus for the reading, and her ideas about homework (ex: eavesdropping and writing down three interesting conversations) are so relevant. The book is easy and quick to read and I'll be referring to it often. Kay Kuenzl-Stenerson Literacy Coach Merrill Middle School Fellow citizens, why do you turn and scrape every stone to gather wealth, and take so little care of your children, to whom one day you must relinquish it all? Socrates
________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu 4/17/2008 11:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Mosaic Digest, Vol 20, Issue 17 Send Mosaic mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can reach the person managing the list at [EMAIL PROTECTED] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Mosaic digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Less is More Book Review (Heather Rockensock) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:26:12 -0500 From: "Heather Rockensock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [MOSAIC] Less is More Book Review To: <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I want to add my comments about Less is More by Kimberly Campbell. I am a Literacy Coach for a middle school. This is a new position, only 2 years old. Although I work with many content area teachers to add learning strategies into their teaching, it has been more difficult for me to help out our ILA teachers. After all, teaching reading and writing is what they do. :-) As soon as I read this book, I knew that I had a solution to my problem. During the past year the ILA teachers have struggled with how to get all the curriculum in. Students seen to be so busy outside of school, that they very rarely get any reading done that was assigned in class. To solve this, we have them do a majority of their reading of novels in class. Doing this takes an incredible amount of time. Time that would be better having discussions about what they are reading. I was happy to read that Kimberly saw some of the same issues that we are dealing with. I was so excited to read how she uses shorter text to teach the curriculum, plus the fact that she adds how to connect their writing to their reading! What a treasure! The book goes over how to use short stories, essays, poetry, memoirs, kiddie lit and graphic novels. By using shorter text we will be able to let the students read what they need to, and still have time to have rich discussions. We are beginning a holocaust unit in 8th grade. Typically we have the students read The Diary of Anne Frank and The Devil's Arithmetic. The unit would take forever because of the amount of time that we had to give them in class to read. I am excited to say that we are adding picture books, short stories and graphic novels to our collection of books available to the students. I can't wait to see how this enriches our discussions because now we will have time to actually have discussions! We also have the students write a memoir as part of this unit. Kimberly lists several memoirs that are good as read alouds to show what makes a memoir a memoir. I now see the usefulness of exposing them to many different examples before having them write their own. I plan on using it in a book club for our middle school teachers next year. I am very excited to share the ideas and book lists with our ILA teachers. I would recommend this book to anyone who teaches grades 4-12. It is an incredible resource that needs to be on a shelf close enough to be grabbed whenever you plan. Heather Rockensock MS Literacy Coach Holmen, WI ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive. End of Mosaic Digest, Vol 20, Issue 17 ************************************** _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
