Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
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We Use Textbooks
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12 thoughts on “We Use Textbooks”
haha. Wow. It would be funny-if-it-weren’t-so-believeable.
I would love to have “textbooks” that just contained classroom stories with the structures defined at the top, like Bryce Hedstrom’s “Stories for Spanish Class.” And textbooks of embedded readings!!!
Maybe each story would have 5-10 T/F questions, quizwriter style. Then, we can do a quick assessment, if need be. I imagine assigning a story per night and giving kids the quickquiz at the beginning of the next class.
Sorry for commenting multiple times, rather than 1 longer post, but for whatever reason, when I try to comment I get a message that “The page you are trying to access is restricted due to a security rule.” So I broke my comment up into 4 pieces. I had 1 more small paragraph I wanted to post, but it won’t let me. I don’t understand.
The security rule is annoying and has been happening more lately. No one knows why. We just have gotten into the habit of copying all our comments before they go poof. One thing I can do is publish any comment as an article if it doesn’t work in a comment field – just send it to me.
I have a PowerPoint slideshow of my class’s Circling with Balls scenarios and other quick little stories we’re doing in Spanish I. I could see turning that into a book, or even taking old stories and turning them into embedded readings once my students have more background established.
I went to a teacher job fair a week ago where school department representatives from the most affluent school districts around Chicago posted up and gave 5 min interviews. I got to talk to something around a dozen districts. I asked them at the end of my mini-interview if there were any school-wide or department wide initiatives that they work together on implementing and what that looks like. The vast majority answered by saying that they are aligning their curriculums, from level 1, with the AP College Board. Some of the younger interviewers talked about this so jovially I had to work hard not to cringe. A couple of older, experienced teacher – interviewers, like from Oak Park River Forest HS, and Lake Forest HS, opened up with me and shared their disdain.
Sad. Seems like the affluent suburban districts of Chicagoland have the AP College Board bug up their ****. Makes me not want to work out there. I so much like the freedom and intimacy of the small school I work at on the West Side of Chicago were everyone, admin and parents alike, appreciate me for helping their students enjoy going to school every day. Too bad they’re closing us down!
Making classroom books is a fairly easy thing to do. No, really. Power Point slides work very effectively. Don’t worry about your covers–use cardboard cereal boxes. Get some artsy kid to paint a bunch of covers. Ask a scrapbooking mom or friend to help you if you don’t want to paint them, and bind it with the school binder in the teacher supply closet. Or just purchase some folders at the local office supply store. You can send them off to a self publisher, but the kids really like doing this project.
Made books are the only thing I really have accessible to my students in our language. Not many publishers want to put out a book in an endangered language. And when you do your own classroom stories, the students remember the stories. Krashen was totally keen on reading as a viable step to acquisition of language. It just has to be compelling. What is more compelling to your students than the stories they wrote? And you’ve worked the structures with them. they can read it and understand them.
You’ve got artists drawing the story, you could certainly have a photographer for your actors, and why not add publishers to your classroom job list. It could make a whole difference in how your kindergarten reading day goes.
Thanks for sharing this book-making idea, Kate! I will be teaching young ones this summer. This will be a great idea to implement.
Sean–my adult class loves books they made. In fact my Elder told me just yesterday to take my vocabulary learned in hand and paint it. She saw the success I was having as I worked visually with an image and then wrote beneath it the Mvskoke word. I had spoke in mind the word the entire process of drawing and painting.
Books that you can successfully read are important no matter the age or level.
I hear you, Kate. It could be a good thing to do at the end of a term, to bind together all the written versions of the stories we created for students to re-read and take home with them.
And post these stories to a google doc, like Bryan Kandel has done, and make it publicly accessible!
docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As5OVDCRHtccdGdLSFZPc2hCbHlfTTdFV1IydjM5akE&usp=sharing#gid=0
To improve on what Bryan has done, it would help to define your story structures at the top of the reading.