Admit it: you have books that you bought with good intentions five years ago but never read. Or you have books you read and enjoyed but will never read again. Your bookshelves are full, and you have stacks here and there in the house, arranged in a way you hope looks artistic. (We won’t mention the paper sacks in the garage.) You could name 3 more titles you’d like to have, but how can you justify bringing home one more book?

It’s hard to throw away books, and not all of us have the opportunity to donate them to the library used book sale. At Book Mooch, however, you can trade with other book lovers. Registration is free, and the system for earning points by trading is explained clearly and simply.

Knowing that someone is eagerly awaiting the arrival of your book and is planning to treat it with the respect it deserves may make it easier to part with. When you have finished spring cleaning, you’ll have enough points to request the titles you’ve been wanting with a clear conscience.

I’m typing these words in a room I refer to as “the library.” Looking around, I think I see a summer project at hand…

The world as students have explained it to their teachers …

• A virgin forest is a forest where the hand of man has never set foot.
• The general direction of the Alps is straight up.
• A city purifies its water supply by filtering the water then forcing it through an aviator.
• Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris.
• The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 opossums.
• The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. The head sits on the top and you sit on the bottom.
• We do not raise silk worms in the United States, because we get our silk from rayon. He is a larger worm and gives more silk.

Teachers often approach poetry by looking for themes, images, and metaphor. We can’t help it; we were trained to look for meaning. DEEP meaning.

Poets, on the other hand, occasionally let themselves dabble in sound. EdSiteMent’s lesson, Listening to Poetry, begins with “Jabberwocky” and ends with Shakespeare as students work with 7 different “sound experiments.” (What sound would a “vorpal sword” make, anyway?)

The individual lessons emphasize these aspects of poetry:

• rhythm
• literal meaning
• tone
• voice
• terms like quatrain, couplet, and enjambment
• presenting a poem to the class

All the materials needed for this lesson are available at the site. Be ready to hear laughter as students play with the sounds!

Serendipity: a pleasant surprise. Teachers.tv: educational serendipity.

This UK site offers 15-minute, professionally produced videos of master teachers sharing tips and tricks. They include scenes from the classroom and interviews with students, as well.

The videos cover a broad range of English/language arts topics, including drama, media, and writing. Browse using the links at the right, or enter a specific topic in the search box at the top. Be prepared to find ideas you can use in your classroom tomorrow.

All of the videos stream via Windows Media Video (.wmv); some of the more recent ones are also available in QuickTime (.mov). Any visitor to the site can watch the files. Registration (free) is required in order to download them.

We knew something was up as soon as we walked in — Miss Jackson had a record player on the table. A record player? This was English class! Everybody knew you didn’t listen to records at school.

We started by reading “Richard Cory” from our textbooks. Miss Jackson guided us through the analysis, then put the needle on the record and played Simon and Garfunkel’s version of the same poem. Our eighth-grade minds were captivated. She followed it up with “A Most Peculiar Man,” and for the first time we began to think this poetry stuff might not be so bad.

Fast forward. I’m teaching “Richard Cory” to my own classes. Simon and Garfunkel’s recording is now older than my students, the musical style completely outdated. How can I help them make the same connection to poetry? During a Web search I found the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, specifically, their Summer Teacher Institute and lesson plans.

This site offers 52 lessons in which music supports learning in an English/language arts classroom. The lessons were written by teachers and range in style from "Woody Guthrie and The Grapes of Wrath" to one called “Scops, Rappers, and You”. They can be integrated into a larger unit or stand alone as poetry lessons.

Check out these wonderful resources! And Miss Jackson, wherever you are, thanks!

On this date in 1616, William Shakespeare died at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Tradition holds that he was also born on this date in 1564.

Whether you believe he wrote the plays and poems himself, or that Edward de Vere, Christopher Marlowe, or Sir Francis Bacon wrote them and signed Shakespeare’s name to them, the fact remains that his name is associated with a talent considered by many to be the finest writer the world has ever produced. (Apologies to students of Goethe, who runs, I’m sure we would all agree, a very close second.)

Many teachers use Shakespearean insults as an introduction to Early Modern English, and there is no lack of online materials to support them:

• The Shakespearean Insulter greets the reader with an insult upon arrival to the page and provides a button to “insult me again.”
• Ye Olde Official Shakespearean Insult Kit invites readers to select phrases from four columns and read the results loudly. Given the nature of some of the insults, teachers may wish to advise discretion with student decibel levels.
• The Shakespeare Insults Dictionary offers the insults in alphabetical order for those who prefer their invectives organized.
• And finally, the Shakespearean Insults. This page can be printed to hand out in class.

It’s not Hamlet — well, some of them might come from Hamlet — but it’s a point of entry for our students.

As he sharpened a quill to use as a pen, I’m sure the Bard (whoever he was) did not say to himself, “I’d better get those insults right. Someday students will study them!” He was trying to keep his language vivid so the audience wouldn’t lose interest. That’s a worthy goal for all writers, including the ones who are sharpening their #2 leads today.

Happy birthday, William Shakespeare!

A humorous look at the world as students have explained it to their teachers …

• A census taker is a man who goes from house to house increasing the population.
• The future of “I give” is “I take.”
• The parts of speech are lungs and air.
• The inhabitants of Moscow are called Mosquitoes.
• Water is composed of two gins. Oxygin and hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.
• (Define H2O and CO2.) H2O is hot water and CO2 is cold water.

Bright forsythia —
Reminder that these gray skies
Are temporary.

Haiku is one of the best known and most often taught forms of poetry. Its focus on nature and simplicity makes it accessible to emerging poets, while its more subtle requirements make it appropriate for more sophisticated writers. Haiku teaches precise diction, syllabication, and subtle imagery.

Here are some great haiku sites:

• Haiku for People
  Haiku old and new, traditional and urban.
• Haiku Spirit: The Japanese Haiku Masters
  Poems from Basho, Buson, Issa and Shiki.
• How to Write a Haiku Poem
  Broad guidelines and tips
• In the moonlight a worm
  This site contains lesson plans and model poems.
• Dairy Lama
  This site publishes student haiku with a dairy theme. Lots of fun!

I discovered the power of graphic organizers when I was reading a tricky passage in Edith Wharton’s novella, Summer. The protagonist, Charity Royall, travels up a mountain, and I knew I was missing something in the imagery. I read it a second time. A third. In the background a voice came from a TV program, asking sarcastically, “Do I have to draw you picture?”

“Draw a picture,” I thought. “That might help.” A few stick figures later, I realized I was looking at a circle. Charity’s journey suddenly made much more sense. And when I used it in class, eyes popped as kids “got it,” too.

Since then I have drawn pictures to explain concepts like the difference between Rationalists and Romantics (we draw their gardens) and the difference between traditional Christian belief and Transcendentalism. (Colored chalk helps with that second one.)

Stick-figure sketches and graphic organizers adapt themselves well to the language arts classroom. We’ve come a long way from Venn diagrams. Today’s graphic organizers include timelines, cause-and-effect relationships, and KWL charts. All students, not just visual learners, can benefit from a well chosen diagram.

One online tool that helps teachers with graphic organizers is found at Teachnology. Scroll down on the page to find a variety of free generators that either you or your students can use.

We’re never too old to use a tool that helps us understand what we’re reading. Yes, draw me a picture.

I was searching for a lesson on a poet, and a link took me into the middle of a unit at the Coverdell World Wise Schools program of the Peace Corps. I started reading and clicking around, and the next thing I knew it was an hour later. I had visited three continents with Peace Corps volunteers, laughed, wept, and wondered how these lesson plans would work with my summer school students.

They worked very well.

The site’s description is simple, “Stories, folk tales, poems, and letters from Peace Corps Volunteers will expand and enrich the lives of students by allowing them to see the world as Peace Corps Volunteers do.”

That simplicity belies a rich and generous gift to educators. Designed using the Wiggins and McTighe Backward Design model, each unit plan features an outstanding first person narrative rich with cultural insights and complete with the following:

• enduring understandings, essential questions, and standards
• an overview
• necessary background information
• objectives
• vocabulary
• materials
• daily procedures
• extension activities
• suggestions for assessment

The units are designed for grades 3-12 and are by their nature interdisciplinary with emphasis on student writing. The volunteers’ memorable stories help students respect cultural differences and see their own cultures with more insight. “A Single Lucid” moment, for example, focuses attention on the generosity of one group of people and the apparent callousness of another. “I Had a Hero” and its companion piece, “Ilunga’s Harvest,” memorably depict the concepts of hard work and community. And “The Extra Place” points to sad changes in society that can happen everywhere.

Through these narratives and these lessons, Peace Corps volunteers make a contribution not only in the countries where they volunteered, but here at home, too.