Reading on the River

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Windy City Vocabulary Poem

We combined a couple exercises today resulting in this definition poem written and performed by these Chicago teachers.

Dialogue Booklet Template

This is the very short dialogue booklet that we used in the workshop. There are a couple of longer ones (one for expository and another for narrative) in Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice.

Here's a longer dialogue booklet that's probably more appropriate for more skilled readers as the language is somewhat more sophisticated. (Bob has a interest in a paper-cutting business).

An article re poverty and schools from Kylene

Thanks to so many folks who reminded us all that tech tools are not readily available in all schools, in all classrooms, in all homes. I've written about this issue of poverty in The Genteel Unteaching of America's Poor and you might want to take a look.

21st Century Literacy Project: Literacy at the Legend

click here

Here is the website to manually type it in as well.

http://prezi.com/qdw71zbzjszi/literacy-at-the-legend/

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye spoke to our group this evening after we had all shown off and perused each other's Literacy on the River projects - some of which are posted here in this blog. Lots of laughs, lots of good snacks and lots of inspirational words from Naomi capped off a jam packed day.

The YA Lit Goddess holds court

Teri Lesesne introduces us to dozens of books without hardly ever taking a breath!

Literacy on the River: Peggy, Pam, and Team!

Bryant et al Reading on the River

Click here

Notice and Note Lessons

Bob Probst and Kylene Beers lead us in a lesson on Contrasts and Contradictions.

Power Point for Teri Lesesne

The Power Point for Teri Lesesne's presentation Tuesday afternoon is here:

www.slideshare.net/ProfessorNana

You will also find the booklist there as well labeled Reading on the River 2011

To Tech or Not to Tech, so many questions

Kylene and Bob began the morning with a discussion about schools and their technology resources (and lack thereof), reminding us that while we need to adapt to a rapidly changing world, we need to use technology in a purposeful way. One of the things that jumped out at me is that Kylene noted that in schools with limited resources, the struggling learners are often cut out of the allocation. I think that is so sad since these students, who may not be the lawyers and engineers of the future. They may be the next machinists, clerks, and airline employees of the future and guess what? They will be in serious need of computer skills! How sad.

A Memorable Memoir Morning

The early morning writing workshop today was once again led by Michael Salinger and Sara Holbrook . Today we covered memoir writing using a memoir map. Below is a link to a Powerpoint slide of said memoir map!

Looking forward to the rest of today's jam packing of activities.

PowerPoint Slide for Memoir Map

Monday, June 20, 2011

Reading on the River - Literacy Alive and Well in TX

Delicious account, Peggy

Here is my delicious account: Click here.

What drives us to achieve?

Bob Probst showed us this video today - food for thought that is not a carrot on a stick!

Morning Writing Workshop

This morning Sara Holbrook and Michael Salinger lead attendees in an early bird writing workshop revolving around personification.

We got up moved around wiggled and stomped our feet a bit - and a good time was had by all!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Intro Video-Hello!

Hi, I'm Peggy Semingson. I'm excited to be here! I attended a Heinemann workshop with Jeff Wilhelm in 2003 and loved it! I am a literacy educator at UT Arlington (DFW Metroplex). I created a very short intro video here where I discuss what I like and do with new literacies. My literacy blog is here: . My YouTube channel is here. I am also an avid Facebook-er. I found out about this conference on Facebook!