Congratulations to Amy, whose comment in my Super-Powered Word Study contest had the most votes!

She has won a copy of Super-Powered Word Study to use with her students.

Recently, I was lucky enough to get my hands on this fantastic book, Super-Powered Word Study.

What I love about the book is its focus on research-based strategies. This is not a simple 'comics will make kids want to read' book. The authors James Bucky Carter and Erik A Evensen have created a systematic approach to using comics to teach students how to decode words based on their Latin roots.  Their materials and methods are based on research on how the brain learns. The comics aren't bad either...

The main characters of each short comic are named after a Latin root (prefix or suffix) and the stories are deliberately interlaced with context clues to help scaffold students' understanding of the roots. Activities include word sorting and scavenger hunts within the stories as well as a final piece requiring students to craft their own stories using the roots themselves.  Each comic spans a week and follows the natural progression of building understanding through sorting and categorizing words through the application stage at the end of the week where students get to show what they understand by using the words in a new way.  In addition, understanding word roots will aid students in understanding the meanings of new words of all kinds that they may come across in the future.

I gave a copy to the sixth grade teacher across the hall and she reported that a few students snuck it away from her desk to read!

The book includes a CD that contains interactive comic-building software and pdfs of comics.

You can listen to a free webinar with the authors here.

I have a free copy to give away to the commenter with the best story about why their students will benefit from learning through Super-Powered Word Study!

The comment with the most 'thumbs up' votes by Monday, March 14th will win the book!

My 6th graders are in the middle of building wikis about a topic of their choice. It has been a journey of learning how to evaluate sites, how to locate information, how to bookmark sites using Diigo and take notes with the highlighting feature. They have learned how to create a wiki and plan out their front page, and they have had time to explore editing wiki pages.

Before we began building I had them plan out their site on paper using a template that looked like their wiki. However, as my students were building their sites I began to realize that they were putting all of their information on the front page. It was time to talk about pages and navigation.

We spent some time looking at websites and locating the navigation and discussing the purpose of navigation. We looked at the titles of pages and discussed why the titles had been chosen and whether they were helpful or not.

Back to the wikis and they still didn't get it.


So, in desperation, I tweeted out a simple question:






 I got a lot of great responses, but one from my friend Michelle stuck out:


Today we gathered together and I had a student give his topic. I wrote the topic (lightning) in a bubble in the middle of the screen and then told the class, "Let's pretend that Carl* is writing a book about Lightning. What chapters would you include in that book, Carl?"  He then provided names like Dangers of Lightning, Types of Lightning as well as a chapter dedicated to photos of lightning. Things were looking good...

I then asked a second student who I knew was researching an individual, to provide his topic. Since many of the students are researching famous people, it was imperative that we do a similar exercise with such a topic.

The second student provided his topic and his chapter titles. It clicked.

The students were then sent to their seats where they used pencil and paper to draw out a map of their book title (their topic) and the chapters. Most of them were bent over, intently listing their chapters and building their map.

The red check shows that I have read over and discussed their 'chapters.'

The real proof of comprehension will come when I see them again on Friday, but I am fairly certain that they will be ready to start building their pages.

*not real student name

Why???

I moved to Philadelphia in August 2002 with a lot of energy and no idea what I was doing here. Nearly 9 years later I have built a career, bought a house and am proud to call Philadelphia home. I think that there are amazing things happening in this city and it is an exciting place to be. The city is full of creative, inspired and passionate people of all ages. Between The Mural Arts Program, events like Ignite Philly, a movement of food co-ops, farmers markets as well as a number of civic associations that work hard to make their neighborhoods great places to live.

The majority of these groups are community-run and are not funded by the City or the State. Often, the people running them work full time along with the work they do for their neighborhoods and the larger Philadelphia community. There are a lot of hard working individuals trying to make Philadelphia the best city it can be.

So, I ask, why does the state still run our schools?

It is time for these concerned and involved citizens to say "enough is enough." We've seen the enraged parents, the protests and the shady actions by the School District.

Until we have an elected school board that truly represents the parents, families and stakeholders of our city, then we will continue to have change forced on us and we will continue to lose our voices.

I don't pretend to know where to start, but I wonder who is with me?

As my 4th graders begin their research projects we have been discussing and experimenting with keywords. Today they put together a list of questions about their topic (a famous African American) to prepare for starting their research. I gave them a choice of how they listed the questions. I modeled the list method and the 'idea map' (graphic organizer) method while also telling them that they could organize their questions in whatever fashion made sense to them.

As I walked around I noticed a big drawing of Michael Jordan on one of my students' papers. This student had been asking lots of questions about the assignment, but I had been so sure that we had cleared everything up, so my hear sank when I saw the drawing. I double checked with the student as I approached to take a closer look and he looked at me and said, "You said we could do it however makes sense to us, right?" I looked closer.

He had been writing his questions inside the drawing! It made my day.


Let's rethink our practice of making everybody do it 'just like the teacher!'