Technology Projects with an Emphasis on “Emotional Connection”

By Dr. Rose Reissman

Often, in their enthusiasm to present activities whose goal is the learning of technology skills to their classes, teachers lose sight of how rich technology-based projects can also serve students’ needs for emotional connection and self-understanding.  

Many diligent technology teachers and their tech using colleagues from across the curriculum follow a product-driven instructional map, making certain that after a set number of sessions their students produce a rubric-aligned product. This may be a PowerPoint presentation, a podcast segment, an online video interview with a peer or teacher, or other product variety from this growing portfolio of best practice, project-based activities.

While such products are what research-driven supervisors and teachers can proudly use to validate success, as demonstrated by performance tasks - D’Acquisto, (2006), of their students’ technology skills, the students miss a powerful opportunity to ocus on. and express their individual identities and selves, as well as their cultural and community backgrounds and affinities.   While their learning products demonstrate mastery of tech skills, if that is the sole focus, then the opportunity they represent to also foster self-defining holistic personal reflection and discovery is left out of their experience.

Why Have an Instructional ‘Either/Or?’

Is there any pedagogical necessity for this favoring of one set of learning goals over the other? Or is this simply a case of over specialization, of purpose-driven myopia? Would getting the students to infuse their own personal, emotional, and cultural experience into technology focused projects derail the skills lists and accomplishments? Of course not! And very likely, students would be better engaged, motivated, and focused to learn them better.

Why focus at all on the students’ social and emotional development if what has to be shown is taken to be exclusively the tech skills taught for college. and career readiness?  Why not simply leave the students’ personal selves, creativity, cultural backgrounds and holistic development to the English, Social Studies, and Health teachers.  Afterall, that realm is theirs alone, not  that of the busy professional tech teacher’s. Or is it?

A Model of Best of Both Approaches Combined

At Ditmas IS 62 (a public middle school in Brooklyn, NYC), technology teacher, Angelo Carideo, teaches a class titled  'Technology Talent.'  Mr. Carideo feels strongly that his students’ individual, cultural, community and creative identities are key entry points on which he can focus in order to  positively impact the quality of his students’ technology learning, something accomplished through the tech products they create.  

Currently, his goal is to provide in this class ongoing opportunities for students to engage in visual art, music, and dance learning and create showcase products and performances to present to the entire school community. He explicitly focuses on the need for his participating talent students to develop showcase products which reflect their lives, cultures, and concepts of self.

Projects for Tech and Self Discovery

Mr. Carideo teaches his students to use digital cameras in order to record events around the school that reflect their own perspective. They travel around the school finding stories, shooting interviews, and taking photos of students and teachers who interest them. These become the raw material for many of their project-driven tech products. Viewed more broadly, they also represent opportunities to focus on identity and the factors that shape and influence it.

The Arts are often biographical and the way they manifest in the Tech Talent Class is a great example. Students are empowered to choose the theme of the content they will produce.  In fact, Mr. Cariedo frames the projects with the caveat that the students have to work together in teams to determine the theme they will address. This collaborative quality, too, offers opportunity to explore the world of personal identity.

In one 7th grade class, for instance, the students developed a very personal social issue theme that made for provocative podcast listening.  What resulted was very authentic, something that lead to high engagement and passion in the work of the students. So much so that after expressing satisfaction with having dealt with a self-chosen theme of a personal issue very close to their hearts and minds, they opted for it not to be made public for the upcoming, school-wide showcase.  This necessitated their redoing their podcasts with content that would still interest them, yet would not be so personally disclosing for a school audience of peers and parents.The students were happy to do this and learned valuable social/emotional lessons along the way.

Technology Teacher in Collaboration with Core Curriculum Colleagues

A favored mode of project in Mr. Carideo’s class is for students to write and stage skits that the students will also shoot video of and then upload for web-based sharing and viewing by the school community. In developing this approach he realized that the nature and content of the skit project he wanted to assign was an area beyond his tech teacher expertise; he required insight into teaching the genre in order to motivate and inform the students.

He reached out to the school's literacy coach, who ordinarily works with its ELA teachers. She supported him in developing a time travel theme which  would challenge the students to decide at this young stage of their lives whether they wanted to travel back in time to “fix” or change aspects of their pasts or travel forward in time to see their futures as adults.

Mr. Carideo was astonished at the raw, highly emotional revelations in the students' notes to their past younger child selves.  These notes detailed things like regret for not being kinder to dying grandparents or enjoying happy moments with adults who had left their lives. The wisdom of some of these eleven year olds in realizing that changing the past is not a good idea was also noteworthy.  The drawings the students made prior to using the technology made the final, tech-based products that much richer for the students emotionally. Having the art work to incorporate and add emotional color enhanced their technology platformed projects considerably.

Another approach that Mr. Carideo favors involves having his students discover the impact of global, cultural geography on their lives. Aware that his Title 1 students have limited opportunities for travel, Mr. Carideo showed them how to use Google Earth and online video research to provide a setting for a fantasy travel 90 second, mixed-media video with voice recordings, music, and  Google Earth-derived background images to present to a school assembly from the auditorium stage. 

Mr. Carideo wisely began preparing his students to create these showcase products by having them share geographic regions they had visited as part of family “native homeland” summer trips and finding these online as videos or maps or informational narratives.  The students enjoyed researching these sites and some other exotic ones from their seats as a rehearsal for their own informational presentation set in these sites. They would use the projection of their researched footage as a backdrop for their sketch. The result of their passionate work on these products included not only acquiring a handful of sophisticated technology use insights and skills, but deeper understanding of their own backgrounds and pride in sharing them with their community of peers.

For another project the literacy coach suggested using a walk home from the school building, an experience shared by all middle school students at this neighborhood school in Kensington Brooklyn. Google Earth made the walk come alive and memorable for the students and, of course, added a rich level of sensory data to their writings and visual art.  These they drew on in creating podcast readings of their writings about this walk- memoir.

This project supports the students in demonstrating spoken and written fluency; it’s an activity anchored in Jason Reynolds’s Look Both Ways.  If this activity were presented purely to teach podcasting skills and use of Google Earth what would be overlooked would be the very meaningful focus on student individual school walks as an exploration of their personal and community lives.

It’s About How Tech Projects Reveal the Personal, Individual Side of Students

Every successful tech learning program ultimately needs to succeed with special needs and ESL learners. ITo ensure this Mr. Carideo makes certain to get to know his middle school students as individual persons and as talents.  As an example, with a 6^th grade class, Mr. Carideo observed how one student, Jayson, was able to make artisan DIY figures from pipe cleaners and yarn.  Each was vibrant and distinctive.  Jayson was able to talk about each of them.  Mr. Carideo had Jayson interviewed, as though he were a noted crafts artist, by a peer holding a mike to whom Jayson explained, his process step by step, . 


Mr. Cariedo found out that the class had studied the popular book “Wonder” with their ELA teacher. Accordingly, he had the students use, as their podcast topic, whether or not a student with cranial facial anomalies should be home schooled or not; in the book, the character Auggie has had 27 plastic surgeries, The students knew what being different meant in the context of the story and their own lives.  Thus, a tech skills oriented project, by dint of carefully selected focus content, facilitated through cross discipline study and teacher to teacher collaboration,yielded a Social and Emotional Learning-rich experience for the students.

Ultimately, as all true arts talent educators and tech educators realize, the desired and hoped for outcome lies not so much in the rubric evaluated quality of the student products, but in the palpable transformative evolution of the student as an informed, caring, expressive person.  Toward this goal educators like Mr. Carideo realize that the powers of technology to make an emotional and holistic connection are waiting to facilitate deeper and more meaningful student experience. 

……………..




Angelo Carideo has been at Ditmas IS 62 for 17 years. He is part of the Software Engineering Program Team. This school year 2019 2020, he developed the new Tech Talent program that he teaches. Its goal is to use technology skills and tools as an integral part of producing showcase products tapping students’ talents and social and emotional learning abilities.

Ditmas Is 62 is a neighborhood intermediate school in Kensington, Brooklyn, NYC District 20. It has over 1,200 students enrolled - over 13 percent ESL students, in addition to special needs students and regular education classes. Each grade has enrichment classes. The school is a leader in SEP (Software Engineering Program, a NYC technology initiative) and has always focused on developing student talents. This is its first year to offer a Tech Talent class. There are over 1200 students enrolled at Ditmas.

Marielena Santiago is the Principal of DITMAS.  Olivene McIntosh is the Assistant Principal in charge of SEP. 
............................................................................................

Dr. Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute, now replicated in 200 schools including PS 191 in Manhattan, New York City.  She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. Ditmas IS 62 is under the leadership of Marielena Santiago Principal and Michelle Buitrago AP. The Writing Institute Team are: Michael Downes, Angelo Carideo, and Amanda Xavier.

Contact: roshchaya@gmail.com

How Mary Poppins Helped Our Middle School Book Study

This Middle Web article was inspired by an article first appearing here in Literacy Special Interest...
http://literacyspecialinterest.blogspot.com/2019/03/mary-poppins-pops-into-21st-century.html

"How a Spoonful of Sugar Helped Our Book Study

by MiddleWeb · Published 07/31/2019

Amanda and Rose

By Rose Reissman and Amanda Xavier
Reading and studying books is a perennial classroom activity; one that may be experienced by students as sheer drudgery or one that can be engaging, exhilarating, and satisfying.
Which variety of experience teachers offer depends on which book is selected and how it is taught.
Over the years we’ve cracked the code for implementing book units that have our middle grades students enthralled, with imaginations fired up, and looking forward to future book studies when the unit is over.


One part of our approach is to select a book that is associated with current pop culture movies, like the popular Mary Poppins Returns released last December.


Most young people love to read about magical characters who can fix the negative realities described in a story. This is a classic theme across literature, including adult books, but an especially strong and beloved technique in books written for youngsters.

Magical characters like Peter Pan who fled a negative world to a never-never land of childhood win devoted audiences for their authors. Mary Poppins is a defiant “life fixer” who swoops in with empathy and wise guidance and precipitates magic and joy. She is also softer and less violent than the many modern-day popular characters like Marvel superheroes. She offers tenderness and hope for students.

Why Mary Poppins?

Mary Poppins has a long history of being a much-loved character.  She was introduced back in 1934, after then-actress and journalist P.L. Travers spent some convalescent time developing a simmering idea into her first novel.
Many adults involved in today’s students’ lives know and are nostalgic for Mary Poppins, making inter-generational sharing of the book series and movies an especially rich experience.

 

from Mary Poppins – The Musical (Study Guide)

The 2018 film, Mary Poppins Returns, with musical and visual references mirroring the original and internationally known 1964 version, traces a complex lineage all the way back to 1934 when the first in a series of eight Mary Poppins books was published and became a perennially favorite piece of young people’s literature. Australian-British writer Travers kept the series going through 1988.
When trailers for the Mary Poppins Returns movie were released, Rose immediately sensed that there was a potentially rich teachable moment unfolding. As a child Rose had read the print book and liked the independent nature of Mary Poppins who did not take orders from her employer. Amanda was also a fan of the print character as a child. We both loved the 1964 movie as did many of our colleagues who grew up in the late 80’s and 90’s.


The fact that there is an extensive body of work on this appealing character and her ever unfolding story –  and also that so much of this is in digital format, online, and free and easily accessible for teachers everywhere – makes the Mary Poppins theme all the more significant to teachers who are willing to take a chance on a classic storyline.

Consequently, we sat down, planned and implemented the following activities with Ms. Xavier’s classes of sixth graders at Brooklyn’s Ditmas Junior High in Brooklyn, NY. The result was so successful, the students so fired up and engaged, that we wanted to share some details with colleagues who may wish to implement some or all of it as we did. If Mary Poppins is just not your cup of tea, perhaps you’ll distill some ideas from our planning and apply them to other themes.

A “Book” Is More Than a Book

One of the important leaps that literacy educators are currently making is transforming their practice to embrace the concept that “book” means more than simply many pages of text-bearing paper bound between two covers. And by “more” we don’t mean simply a downloadable e-book version.
Rather, the 21st century book embraces a synergy of numerous contemporary content formats – web published text, online video and audio, and more – all working with one another to produce a single, engaging, media rich experience.


Which brings us to the 21st century classroom. As is laid out perfectly in the UDL (Universal Design for Learning) body of theory, teachers should engage readers by addressing their wide variety of needs and styles through flexible and varied content formats. These may include moving and still visual elements, dramatic film sequences, the music and lyrics of songs, as well as print text.
In view of this new understanding of books, and the fact that we were much taken with the popularity of the original movie and the strength of the original novel as a focus for book study, we planned a unit on Mary Poppins.


Interestingly, we did not have access to multiple copies of any of the Mary Poppins books. We decided to present our students with a rich Mary Poppins experience anyway, using some of the free and easy-to-access digital resources available.

Here’s Some of What We Did

Introducing the Mary Poppins theme was accomplished by having the students view several of the very accessible and short movie trailers found on YouTube. These are perfect for short, 50 minute classes and, importantly, these are so skillfully produced that even though they are only 4 to 7 minutes long they motivated our students to move on to content provided in other more challenging formats.

Prior Knowledge Pre-assessment

The night before the lesson we had students ask their parents and family/friends what they knew about Mary Poppins and talk about their experiences with her. We had them write and date their pre-assessment, sharing what they discovered. We allowed them to discuss their responses and their parents’ connections to Mary without commenting ourselves.


Among other activities, we challenged them to reflect on what a nanny does and if there are jobs like this around today. You may want to share the GoNannies website after the activities to solidify and extend the conversation.


We told the students that a British author wrote this story and a series of other Mary Poppins books, beginning back in 1934, almost 100 years ago. We had some discussion: given that there are many successful American authors writing today, should they be studying this work, or would a work published currently be a better focus?


We asked those who enjoy art to draw the Mary Poppins character. We helped them to define her in art as a character by asking what dress and accessories she always has. These include: umbrella, hat, kite, carpet handbag, etc.


We returned to this pre-assessment discussion at the end of these activities and had the students share what they learned from this start.

Reading across various formats

A great activity to get students to think about plot, plot sequels, and the flow from one to the other is to have them read the beginning and end of a book and predict a sequel or prequel. While a class set of the books on which the 1964 movie is based may not be available, the movie itself can be found on DVD or streamed.


Since the Mary Poppins Returns movie (2018) is a sequel to the first Disney film done in 1964 and Mary Poppins Comes Back (1935) was the actual print sequel written by Travers, we had students review the last page of the first Mary Poppins book (1934). Large segments of both the original book and the first sequel are available online at Google Books. Students can also look at the 1964 Disney film script and read the final pages to inspire a plausible sequel given the last lines.


Our students then wrote a beginning of the print sequel. They storyboarded their ideas of how to create a sequel from the known ending given in the original book, but a purely text outline would suffice.


Of course the writers of the 2018 film created their own sequel, but our writing activity pushes kids, as engaged readers and writers. Explain to the students that by working from the original’s last page, multiple beginnings of the sequel are possible and it is very likely that the writers of the new movie created and debated many possibilities before selecting the one that made it into the movie.

Other possible activities

Our students had not yet seen the new Mary Poppins movie (released in December 2018) with Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda, so this idea worked well for us. It’s a strategy that might be used with other classic book-related films that are being updated before the new versions are released.
We showed the students the 4-minute online trailer of the original 1964 film available at YouTube. We asked them to watch for things they thought might be needed to update this movie for the sequel. Should it be switched to the United States? Should it take place in the 21st century? Should Mary’s wardrobe be updated to have different fashions? Should the same main characters be used or different ones, perhaps related in some way to the same characters?


We allowed them to talk about their choices and told them that even if the writers of the film they were eventually going to see did not use ideas like theirs, they were exercising their own creative thinking skills.

We then extended the discussion by showing them several trailers from the upcoming Mary Poppins Returns (see here and here) and talked about them in the context of our various activities. Some students did “before and after” display boards to share what they learned with other students in our school.

Long live Mary Poppins!

Consultant Rose Reissman: Who says Mary Poppins can’t be the practically perfect character for 21st century kids’ literature – or at the very least, the focus of their passionate arguments about her?
The strategies suggested here focus on our use of free digital trailers and accessible recordings of songs and interviews that can help introduce today’s students to children’s classics of the past. This is both a cost-effective way to acquire an abundant body of rich instructional materials, as well as a way to introduce today’s audiences to great works of the past.


We also like using a visual entry point to motivate and generate interest in the print text. Whatever PL Travers may have thought about them, the film versions of Mary Poppins will help assure ongoing popularity of her print books.


Teacher Amanda Xavier: Harkening back to days of yore has a certain appeal as we grow older. But does this have a place in the modern ELA classroom? Should students be introduced to older works of fiction, or should the emphasis be on modern tales that encapsulate modern dilemmas and ideals?


I tend to use more up-to-date books with my classes, mostly because I get tired of doing the same old thing year in and year out. So imagine my surprise, while working with Dr. Rose Reissman, about the enthusiasm my classes showed to creating responses to Mary Poppins.


If any book is dated and out of touch with contemporary kids in a Brooklyn middle school, Mary Poppins would seem to be it. But my kids loved her. Really loved her.


The visceral connection many felt to the lyrics we showed from both movies was amazing. The kids got her. The simple lessons of picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and getting out there again – or the sentimentality of a slow, sweet song – was not lost on them. They enjoyed creating storyboards for the beginning of Mary Poppins Returns and were great at it.


So yes, everything has its day and then passes into nostalgia. But if a very old fashioned nanny can bring smiles and make modern kids sit up in class and take note of her very topical lessons, I say, “Cheerio, Mary Poppins.”

---

As part of Amanda Xavier’s Mary Poppins Enters the 21st Century Project, students were asked to compare and to contrast the various moods, tone, and film styles of the 2018 version of Mary Poppins versus the 1964 version. Read their astute filmgoer responses here.

---

More Online Resources

Mary Poppins Chatterbooks resources (UK – PDF) 
How Mary Poppins Returns reinvents the beloved nanny for the 21^st Century
How to Write a Nanny Job Description (FullTime Nanny website)
Lin-Manuel Miranda Shares What Being in Mary Poppins Returns Means to Him
___________________________________
Dr. Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute, now replicated in 200 schools. This project was developed with students at Ditmas Junior High (IS 62) in Brooklyn NY, led by Principal Marielena Santiago and Assistant Principal Michelle Buitrago. The Writing Institute Team includes Michael Downes, Angelo Carideo, and Amanda Xavier.
Amanda Xavier is a New York State permanently certified Common Branch K-6 teacher. She began her teaching career in 2001 in Brooklyn, NY where she taught all subjects in 5th grade for five years. She’s been teaching 6th grade ELA since 2006.

Introducing ‘Publishers' Pages’, a new Literacy Genre - Perfect for Teaching Reluctant, even Print Phobic Readers

By Dr. Rose Reissman


"These resources represent what I feel is a new literacy genre: Publishers’ Pages... Whatever one’s comfort level with technology, for classes of students who are not natural print loving readers this is a genre of content that will work wonders."

I’m a mature baby-boomer educator whose relationship to books stands in sharp contrast to that of so many of the young students I meet.   A reader from age 3, I amassed my own personal library of treasured books; I never lacked for titles I wanted to read.  In school, because of the personal passion I had for books, I was ready and eager to read required work thoroughly.  And while I may not have liked everything assigned, I was always ready to read what was set before me. 

Fast forward to growing numbers of students I encounter, currently. 21^st century youngsters entering middle schools with little or no interest in fiction or non-fiction, be it suggested independent or class text reading. 

As a veteran teacher of ELA I’m focused on this challenge as I am in identifying approaches that will better enable my younger and less experienced colleagues to interest young readers in what I personally know to be compelling works of literature; ones with valuable life and craft lessons. 

But I also marvel at the scope and significance of the challenge as there are now so many students who, while bright and engaged in various content learning and career goals, still do not see the necessity of reading literary works for any purpose, whatsoever.

These are students who go online routinely to research and learn how to do tasks and learn skills by watching and note taking from videos. How do I get them to give reading of a print book that the entire class will be reading and discussing, a chance? 

This is not only an issue for me, an adult ELA teacher who races to the library to reserve newly published books and still, after decades of teaching, keeps a list of the independent reading to do each month; this is an issue facing all ELA teachers who work with students who have never identified as readers and feel reading is not necessary for the career or personal life they will pursue.

Ironically, the answer to this question lies precisely in the online resources these non book readers regularly frequent, something they do often and with gusto without being assigned to so by their teachers.

Even more ironic, I and other print book readers of all ages have been making strong use of similar resources as part of our print reading for at least a decade.  What are these resources?  Publisher Pages and Book Trailers!

Publishers’ Pages are online pages produced by publishers for various book titles.  The publisher shares the title and usually provides (minimally) an excerpt of the print book and often an excerpt from the audio version, and generally an enlarged version of the book cover.  And, of course, they represent a bit of a pitch to potential purchasers.  Not every publisher offers these and those that do, not necessarily for every book. For a class that may be used to perusing these, the lack of one can motivate student readers to produce their own facsimile.

A BOOK TRAILER mimics a movie trailer in that it is an online promo for a particular book. Often it is a 90 second or under video or animation. It usually focuses on presenting the themes of the book, exciting plot twists or characters or the reputation of the author, if well known. Like movie trailers, depending on the artistry and resources the publisher or producer of the trailer puts into it, these trailers may be successful in attracting target student and adult readers to the book.  But even their failure can be a point of discussion with students.  Of course, when an author is a new one or has never had big sales publishers may not offer these.  The lack of a trailer for certain books opens the way for students to create their own trailers. These are often done as book report alternatives and sometimes students send them to authors.

Recently, I introduced 4 series books of Jason Reynolds rich and accessible 'Track' series to middle school readers – Titled: Ghost, Patina, Sunny and Lu- (Simon and Schuster, 2016-2018), I was well aware of the fact that the majority of this Title 1 class, comprised of students not reading on grade level according to standardized tests, were not book readers. 

I realized as I planned ways to engage them in the books’ stories of four very authentic middle school track team runner characters  (Reynolds presents one character in each of the series’ titles) that I needed something visual to hook the students before the usual, “relating” per-discussion, book talk I  have before one of my classes begins any text that will be studied. 

A reader and fan of Jason Reynolds personally, and seeking to find ways to engage student readers in Reynolds’ work, I quickly went to the 'Publishers’ Pages' for these books. They  immediately seemed to have great  potential, offering highly engaging instructional resources. I’ve included links to the pages below: 

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Patina/Jason-Reynolds/Track/9781481450195
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ghost/Jason-Reynolds/Track/9781481450164  

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Sunny/Jason-Reynolds/Track/9781481450225

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Lu/Jason-Reynolds/Track/9781481450256

Each of these pages offers a link to a common, easily accessible and engaging animated trailer of the serues of four runners books.  This takes the form of a short, captivating animated narrative that introduces each of the runners characters.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ghost/Jason-Reynolds/Track/9781481450164

I had selected Jason Reynolds for the class because I knew he had the rare gift to give authentic voice to diverse, middle school characters in all the complexity of their emotional inner lives, as well as the societal, racial, cultural and political challenges they faced.  And I had found what I knew would help me engage my students in these works. But, beyond that, I also realized as I went through the very simple “See, Listen, and Read" excerpts format of the publishers pages, that here was a new digital literacy genre to enthrall reluctant students, luring them into giving these works and their characters a chance.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ghost/Jason-Reynolds/Track/9781481450164

First, we watched the short, animated trailer found on the publishers pages (labeled “Watch”) and talked about how it paralleled the type of real movie trailer one would see at the local cinema; how it previews the content and style of the full work.  Its goal is to make potential readers want to read the work to find out whether or not it satisfies their expectations about its plot, characters, mood, and style. The students viewed the trailer with me twice and listed character details including personality, life issues, and runner position on the track team, which they anticipated from watching the trailer.  They were encouraged to make at least 10 or more predictions.

Next we listened to the audio excerpt provided for Ghost (labeled “LISTEN), which is the first book in the series. 

Prior to that I asked the students to share nicknames they had within their family or had been given by friends or they had created on their own.  They talked about why they liked or disliked these and how use of these nicknames influenced their mood and sense of belonging or not.  Of course, we also discussed the extent to which some nicknames given by others for individual groups or students can be helpful or not. Some of the students on their own shared “hateful” nicknames used outside of school and inside of school but away from teacher's hearing.

We talked about what the nickname “Ghost” might indicate.  The students voiced their predictions which were recorded (as text.)


As we listened to the short Ghost audio excerpt, I also asked the students to make predictions based on their listing of personal details about Ghost, the main character, about his strengths, fears, and hopes.

These were shared aloud and listed with the date so the students could check later on the extent to which they had correctly anticipated Jason Reynolds plot and character development.  We also talked a bit about how there are infinite ways an author can develop a character… and even if some of the student predictions didn’t turn out to align with the way that Ghost really was written, it did not mean that they could not develop alternate plot lines for the character, themselves.

Finally, we focused on the design of the book’s cover shown on the publisher’s page.

The students listed visual details from the design and what information about the key character, the plot, and author’s purpose they could infer from it. 

This was of course a ‘cover walk’ (see: ‘Book/Picture Walk’) , which is part of best practices for younger elementary readers. I emphasized that this was a selling tool for the publisher to get teachers and readers of all ages to purchase the book.  The students voiced details they inferred from the design and described how they connected this concrete visual data to the book plot and to the main character.  Importantly, they were making brief arguments for this connection.

Of course, students can, beyond voicing their views and reviews about the trailers on a publisher page, also create their own video promos for a book after reading it, perhaps even panning it, for their school web site or school podcast.  They can also be producers of their own audible excerpts, which would be a very appropriate student product, for works like this Reynolds series or others which have characters who are of the same age and demographics as student readers.  There is a beautiful naturalness in having students read these aloud and record, using their own voices, some of the text of books which “voice” their lives.




Reflecting back on all of this, I can see that these resources represent what I feel is a new literacy genre: Publishers’ Pages. While teachers who are members of the ‘Technology Power Users” ilk might overlook the high value of these pages due to  their simplicity and ease of use, that is precisely what makes them extremely useful. For teachers who are still getting comfortable with using technology in the context of addressing important instructional goals, this is a perfect resource type. But, whatever one’s comfort level with technology, for classes of students who are not natural print loving readers this is a genre of content that will work wonders.

Here are some sample publishers pages for other current middle school books which are good examples of the genre:

The Poet X- Elizabeth Acevedo

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062662804/the-poet-x/

With Fire on High- Elizabeth Acevedo

https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062662835/with-the-fire-on-high/

The Honest Truth - Dan Gemeinhart-

https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/books/the-honest-truth-by-dan-gemeinhardt/

How It Went Down-Kekla Magoon

https://us.macmillan.com/excerpt?isbn=97812500628231

Jabberwalking- Juan Felipe Herrara

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/567469/jabberwalking-by-juan-felipe-herrera/9781536201406/

..............................................................................................................................................

 

Dr. Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute, now replicated in 200 schools including PS 205 in The Bronx, New York City.  She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. Ditmas IS 62 is under the leadership of Marielena Santiago Principal and Michelle Buitrago AP. The Writing Institute Team are: Michael Downes, Angelo Carideo, and Amanda Xavier.

Contact: roshchaya@gmail.com