Anne Davies Blog "Harvesting Strategies for Learning"

I was so happy that I chose to read this blog as part of my assignment! I read several of the posts on this blog, but I chose to respond to the most recent called "Harvesting Strategies for Learning"  because it lends itself closely to my current position as Lead Language Arts Teacher at HMS.

A "Strategy Harvest" is a way to summarize learning after a lesson for either children or adults. While the lesson is taking place, the facilitator (or teacher) keeps a running list of strategies that are being used. Of course, this list is generated with help and participation from the audience. After the lesson is completed, it serves as a way to look at the learning that had occurred. What a simple, yet powerful tool! There are different ways that this could be used in the classroom, as well as with adults. We all learn differently, so to have a running list of strategies, and then a discussion would be quite beneficial.

Davies takes the idea a step further with suggesting a useful strategy to use. "Stop and say something" is one way to get students to think and respond while they are reading. It forces them to interact more with the text.

The posts that followed this one were all interesting and useful for me to read. I would recommend reading "Questions to Explore Thinking" (March 4, 2013) where Davies focuses on looking at data. She proposes several focus questions and makes some good suggestions on ways to break data down, and to avoid being too "data heavy." Again, this ties in nicely with my current position. I plan to use this blog in the future. It was very helpful!

"Teaching Nonfiction Reading Skills in the Science Classroom"

I read a blog written by Bill Ferriter, a 6th grade science teacher. Clearly, he is also a reading teacher who believes in teaching active reading strategies. This blog is fairly short, and it's an activity for the classroom, but it points out some helpful reading strategies that are necessary for students in content area. He also aligns each strategy to the Common Core State Standards.

I downloaded some of the handouts he offered from this blog. They seem useful. My favorite handout is called "How Quotes Influence our Thinking." If forces students to look at quotes with a critical eye, and asks them to go deeper into their thinking.

What I liked most about his blog is how he breaks down the critical nonfiction reading strategies into student-friendly questions and statements like the one below. I think these could be easily tied to the content area teaching at HMS.

A question every reader should ask when they come across a quote from an expert is, "Who is this person and why should I believe them?"

Ted Talks for the Classroom: "Redefining the Dictionary"

I loved seeing how many great videos TedTalks offers to teachers. The first one I watched was called "Redefining the Dictionary" by Erin McKean (lexicographer-- what a cool job!). As a former language arts teacher, I would battle with students to use a paper dictionary. Of course, they argued that they should just use their computer. Part of me agreed, but the other part of me felt like the practice of using an actual dictionary is valuable. It requires more thought and PATIENCE, which is something I feel middle schoolers don't appreciate.

Erin McKean is funny, witty, and made several interesting points. She said that computers offer "speed" that paper dictionaries don't. However, online dictionaries "are paper thrown up on the screen." She suggested the power of improving "search-ability." She added some unique thoughts about words like, "Love makes words real," and believes that if a word is in the dictionary, it doesn't necessarily make it "real." I disagree, but I can't think outside the box like she can! She thinks we should change the way we interact with our language. Did you know that there are 33 numbered definitions for the word set? 

She concluded with suggesting that paper dictionaries will soon be viewed as a thing of the past. I had a feeling we were heading in that direction, but I'm not ready to see our language as abstractly as she does. This TedTalk made me think of words differently, and how we interact with them.

I looked up her online dictionary called Wordnik http://www.wordnik.com
I really liked it! It helped me see what she was talking about in the video -- how dictionaries should "interact" more in our search for meaning of words. Plug in a word into the search box and see what you get. Some of the sentence examples are pretty funny! It's great to see a lexicographer use such great humor.

Project update

My literacy blog is going very well so far. I've added a few posts this summer about books that I've read. It's been added to the HMS website so teachers, parents, and students can use it. I plan to add to it more frequently once school starts. It will also serve as my "homepage" for contact information from the HMS site. I've found the blog to be really user friendly and I'm enjoying it so far!