Supporting Students in a Time of Core Standards: English Language Arts Grades 9-12 by Sarah Brown Wessling

why: This is a text I need to review for the course I'll be teaching at CU this fall.

when: start and end 7/14

how: I read this in hard copy, sitting in the passenger seat on the first leg of our summer road trip (to Badlands National Park in South Dakota). I read with sticky notes in hand, making notes on each chapter and how it would fit into the syllabus for the course I'll be teaching.

thoughts: This is a helpful text for language arts teachers who may have anxiety about what the Common Core State Standards are asking of us to do differently. Great practical work here. This is one book in the series coordinated by a smart professor in Michigan. Incidentally, one of my former high school students worked with this professor on the middle school book in this series.

Click on the book image to get to information about the text.

review haiku:
common core standards
don't worry. They only ask
more of our best work

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

why: Jane asked me to read this to her (I haven't read a book to her for a long time! She reads on her own voraciously, but for some reason, she wanted me to read this one to her).

when: start 6/3, end 7/10

how: The photo is of my copy of this book that I've had since I was a child. Jane found it on her book case and asked me to read it to her. So I've read some to her at bed time when she gets to bed early enough for that. I also read a lot of this to her (and to the husband as well) while we were driving to and from Montana this summer.

thoughts: Such a great story. I haven't read it since I was a kid--yet it's just as vivid and wonderful now as it was then. It's amazing how clearly I do remember much of this book even though it has been so many years!

Click on the book image to get to the wikipedia entry on the book.

review haiku:
all is lost to Sara
but she doesn't change herself
and finds it all again

Joyland by Stephen King

why: This one is just for fun. I haven't read King in ages and a colleague posted a link about it in Facebook so I thought I would check it out. 

when: start 7/6, end 7/8

how: I had to read this one in paperback. For some reason, King is not permitting ebook copies of this. This confuses me because King has been a huge proponent of ebooks and ereaders. Whereas I loved seeing the book sitting around the house, I remembered how much I prefer reading on my ipad just for the simple physicality of holding a book vs. having the ipad propped up somewhere and reading on it. 

thoughts: This was a fun read. It certainly doesn't achieve the psychological depth of some of King's work (like The Shining, for instance), but I'm pretty sure it's not about that anyhow. This is a fun summer read set in a fun and campy amusement park in the summer. There is a mystery in the middle of this book and a ghost too, but what takes center stage really is the world that this book throws you into--a world inhabited by carnies. Loved it. 

Click on the book image to read a review of the book from the NYTimes.

review haiku:

a murder mystery?

kind of. Moreso a trip to

carny world. Enjoy!

The Writing Workshop: Working through the Hard Parts (And They're All Hard Parts) by Katie Wood Ray with Lester L. Laminack

why: I'm reading this in preparation for training to become an instructor in the Colorado Writing Project.

when: start 6/4/13, end 6/5/13

how: as a hard copy book. I read most of it on my couch, and I filled the margins with thoughts scrawled in blue ink.

thoughts: Out of all of the books I've read about teaching writing via workshop, this on is the most concrete I've read. What I mean by that is that it actually shows you what a writer's workshop looks like and all the little pieces/components of it. I think Kitttle's book on teaching writing goes in deep in a few aspects of this kind of teaching--and that is really important reading to do. But this one really shows you what a workshop looks like. It makes me want to pick up Atwell's In the Middle and re-read it since it's been nearly 20 years since I've looked at that, my first introduction to a reading/writing workshop (which I loved after reading that but never thought I could actually pull it off...)

Click on the book image to get to information about this book from the publisher.

review haiku:
Workshop formula?
Ha! There'is no such kind of thing.
Teach them as writers.

About the Authors: Writing Workshop for our Youngest Authors by Katie Wood Ray and Lisa B. Cleaveland

why: I'll be training to become a teacher consultant for the Colorado Writing Project this month. I need to read up on writer's workshop in the elementary grades.

when: start 5/30 end 6/2

how: I have a hard copy of this one. I'm reading it at my dining room table, pen in hand to fill the margins with thoughts.

thoughts: I'm struck by how much of the ideas and approaches here for writers in grades K-2 are totally and completely relevant to writers in grades 9-12 and beyond even. I really loved reading this book. This reminded me of the essence of writer's workshop--it's about engaging students as writers who love to create, to imagine, to make things with words. It's about building a community of practice surrounding this. This book really shows how to do that, and I'm pretty sure I'll keep it within easy reach in my office at school to pull out ideas to use with my high school students.

Click on the book image to get to the page for this book on its publisher's website.

review haiku:
remember this please,
writer's workshop should be fun
inspire your authors

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

why: because I've always thought I needed to read a novel called Geek Love

when: start 5/31, end 6/28

how: as an ebook on my ipad

thoughts: I assumed this novel was about love between geeks, you know, something like this:

or something like this:

But nope. That's not what this refers to. I did not know about one definition of "geek" (see #3 below): 

geek [geek]
noun Slang.

1. a computer expert or enthusiast (a term of pride as self-reference, but often considered offensive when used byoutsiders.)
2. a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, especially one who isperceived to be overly intellectual.
3. a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, like biting off the head of a live chicken.

This is turning out to be the summer of the carnies for me, since I'm also planning to read this once it comes out on June 4 (it's been a while since I've read any Stephen King).

This book was trippy for sure--and I kind of loved it. I kept pondering the whole time what love meant ultimately in the context of this family. People went to great lengths in this family to protect the oddities that really made them who they were and they work that they did in their lives because of those oddities.

But I do wish the book didn't end before the reader got to see how Miranda responded to learning the truth about her heritage and learning why she has a tail...

Click on the book image to get to the wikipedia entry for Geek Love.

review haiku:
geeks are not just nerds
think old-timey carnivals
where geeks love fiercely

Unremembered by Jessica Brody

why: A student of mine who blogs about books recently blogged about this. It looked like good summer reading.

when: start 5/30 end 5/31

how: as an ebook on my ipad

thoughts: Definitely a suspenseful read. I pretty much tore through it. It's the first in a trilogy but I'll have to wait for a while for installment #2. This is a great mixture of YA, mystery, and science fiction. Girl wakes up apparently the only survivor of a terrible plane crash with absolutely no recollection of anything--that's where the book starts. It unravels the mystery chapter by chapter until the end. Cool stuff.

Click on the book image to get to the official author's webpage.

Review haiku:
Seraphina lost
memories, all of them
but love reconnects