Posts Tagged teachers

STEM Tuesday–Peeking into the Mind of a Scientist/Engineer–Interview with Author Heather L. Montgomery

By on November 27, 2018   /   Articles, Engineering, STEM Tuesday  

STEM TUESDAY from the mixed up files Welcome to STEM Tuesday: Author Interview & Book Giveaway, a repeating feature for the fourth Tuesday of every month. Go Science-Tech-Engineering-Math!

Today we’re interviewing Heather L. Montgomery, author of SOMETHING ROTTEN: A Fresh Look at Roadkill, a recently-released book that’s stacking up starred reviews. School Library Journal says, “With wry humor, gory detail, and great enthusiasm, . . . this book is not for the faint of heart, but be prepared to laugh along the way and to learn a lot. . . Sure to be a hit among students. A top addition to STEM collections.”

Click the cover for additional information about the book, including research photos and a link to submit your own roadkill stories. www.heatherlmontgomery.com/something-rotten.html

 

 

 

Mary Kay Carson: Why did you write Something Rotten?

Heather L. Montgomery: One day, when I was procrastinating writing a book about rattlesnakes, I went for a run. On my little country lane I came across a rattler who had lost his life to a tire. I had some questions, so I picked him up. No, you probably shouldn’t do that, but I did. And I spent the rest of the day learning from that marvelous guy, his fold-able fangs, his snorkel for when his mouth is crammed full of bunny, his non-existent lung!?! This was research at its best. And then I wondered: who else uses roadkill…

MKC: Care to share a memorable research moment?

Heather: Just about everything about this book has become a favorite moment. From plunging my hands into roadkill compost to talking to a kid who re-builds animal skeletons from roadkill, this research rocked. Another beautiful thing is that the research process became the book.

This might be my favorite part of it all: I had the opportunity to share with readers how questions drove me to slice open a skunk, how one sentence dropped in an interview lead me across the country to meet 400 roadkill professionals, how trusting inquiry carried me right down the road to jaw-dropping discoveries — can you say “contagious cancer”!?!   This book proved it: Inquiry is my life!

Heather L. Montgomery writes for kids who are wild about animals. The weirder, the wackier, the better. An award-winning science educator, Heather uses yuck appeal to engage young minds. During school presentations, petrified animal parts and tree guts inspire reluctant readers and writers. www.HeatherLMontgomery.com

MKC: Why do you write STEM books?

Heather: Um, Inquiry is my life. Once, I tried to kick the habit of asking questions. It made me sick. I do have a B.S. in biology, an M.S. in environmental education, and over 20 years’ experience teaching about nature, but really it’s just that writing, researching, and teaching about science is who I am at my core.

MKC: The book’s unique first-person voice and the clever use of footnotes are courageous style choices. Who was your audience when writing the book? 

Heather: For years at school visits or educator conferences I talked about dissecting that road-killed rattlesnake. Those audiences showed me the power of story. They taught me to play a game, balancing information and story. And, they laughed with me (this quirky lady asking oddball questions), not at me. Those audiences gave me the confidence to write the way I speak. That was a gift. I began to see that readers would follow me down this road, this rollercoaster of research. Thank you listeners, for showing me how to write this book.

MKC: Any suggested titles for fans of Something Rotten?

Heather: Any of the phenomenal nonfiction by authors Sy Montgomery, Sarah Albee, or Georgia Bragg. Page-turning fiction such as: The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly and The Thing about Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin. Adult readers might like books by Mary Roach. She showed me how to share my quest for information.

Win a FREE copy of SOMETHING ROTTEN: A Fresh Look at Roadkill!

Enter the giveaway by leaving a comment below. The randomly-chosen winner will be contacted via email and asked to provide a mailing address (within the U.S. only) to receive the book.

Good luck!

Your host this week is fellow skull collector Mary Kay Carson, author of Mission to Pluto and other nonfiction books for kids. @marykaycarson

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The Limitless Middle Grade Imagination: Ideas for Encouraging Students’ Fiction

By on November 26, 2018   /   For Teachers  

Intro with thesis, three main points, conclusion with cap.

The traditional five-paragraph essay format is one of those topics I’ve been teaching for… let’s just say a lot of years. Valuable and necessary, it’s a handy tool in the toolbox for middle grade students. It helps to structure and organize weighty and mature thoughts into real and powerful language on the page. Students learn to let this formula work for them, the way you let the weight of a hammer do the work of driving the nail. I love the five-paragraph structure for its simplicity and efficiency, and for the way it prompts students to write without worry.

And sometimes, I cheerfully throw it out the window.

Middle grade students — whether in a traditional classroom, a non-traditional environment, homeschool, or virtual learning setting — have vast potential as writers…all sorts of writers. At times, the taming of their wild ideas with that five-paragraph structure is appropriate, but kids in this age group can also bring fierce creativity to writing jobs as seemingly limiting as vocab sentences, and that talent should be given room to grow. And then there’s the untapped storyteller inside many a middle grade student, who needs only a bit of encouragement, a cool assignment idea, and permission from the teacher, librarian, or homeschooling parent to Go ahead…make it up. Forget the 6- to 8-sentence paragraphs that must support your thesis. Don’t dare tame ideas into any kind of structure. Let the tale-spinning begin—and set it free to roam the dark woods and swamps, the castle hallways strewn with trapdoors, the hidden monster-lairs on distant planets.

The freedom of fiction writing in the classroom has just as many (and in some cases, more) educational benefits as learning proper, formal sentence and paragraph structure. This is true at any grade level, but middle grade fiction freedom is especially important. Fiction writing projects

  • Work the imagination–not the handy gadgets and devices.
  • Bring out new talents and skills at a crucial identity-building age.
  • Allow independent, personalized work and countless project options for a variety of types of learners.
  • Can be shared in whole or in part, or in nutshell summations of premises — tasks which offer practice at additional skills.
  • Inspire many middle grade students to read more, inside and outside of the classroom.

Fiction writing projects don’t have to be limited to the classroom. Teachers and librarians might consider the following suggestions for school hours, but parents and after-school group leaders seeking enrichment projects for their middle graders might find them helpful as well.

The Historical Premise: Middle grade writers create a plot scenario with conflict and characters based on a historical setting, time period, and event.

The Character Blueprint: Writers “map” out characteristics for a character unlike any they’ve read, detailing physical and personality traits, likes, dislikes, goals, dreams, family, home, daily life.

The Conflict-driven Plot Scenario: Writers compose short situations that “up” the conflict with each new line: But the next day…suddenly…just then…unfortunately…

The Look-Alike: Writers use already-created characters — perhaps from a shared class read — and send them down unfamiliar roads of conflict, or place them in a conflict from a different novel they’ve studied.

The Choose Your Tale-teller: Writers select a format that suits their story idea best: illustrated picture book, graphic novel, comic book, story in verse.

Remember that in order to truly encourage the creativity that comes with fiction writing, teachers, parents, and librarians might have to rethink traditional lesson planning and writing “rules.” Here are some ideas for inspiring your middle graders as they create fiction.

  • Don’t go with your first idea…dig deeper. Reject that which comes too easily.
  • Don’t worry about a beginning or an end. Start in medias res and stop when you want.
  • Try creating only the premise of a story – without the overwhelming work of writing the actual story.
  • Write a detailed beginning full of mystery and sense imagery, then stop. Write another full of opposite choices to the first (night instead of day, freezing instead of sunny), then choose one to continue.
  • Write a whole scene of dialogue, without narration. Use dialect, jargon, fragments, idioms.
  • Write only a one-page real-time scene (or half a page, or two pages, etc.), without worrying about descriptions and set-up.
  • Write from the point of view of an animal or a plant, or a rock or a wall.
  • Design a character, and write unrelated scenes featuring him or her in different genres.

With fiction writing, the options for learning by doing about literature and storytelling are endless: Plot. Character. Imagery. Genre. Dialogue. Theme. Excellent practice opportunities for mechanics, vocabulary, syntax, and a host of other communication skills come into play in the revision stages, as well.

But best of all, a student has made a piece of something that was not there before, and with these new creations almost certainly come sparks of continued inspiration.

Thanks for reading and good luck to your middle grade-aged writers!

 

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#KidsNeedMentors: Connecting Authors to Classrooms

By on November 23, 2018   /   Articles, For Teachers, For Writers  

Kids Need Mentors | Skype Visit | https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/

#KidsNeedMentors is one of the coolest things happening in the kidlit world this year! A new program, #KidsNeedMentors is connecting working authors to classrooms full of kids. I managed to snag Jarrett Lerner, one of the founders of #KidsNeedMentors, for an interview this month, so he could tell us more about the program and how it has managed to get authors and teachers working together in ways that are making a difference.

 

Introduce us to #KidsNeedMentors.

Kids Need Mentors | Skype Visit | https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/I was a book-loving, comic book-making, short story-writing kid, but I didn’t realize that I could actually be a professional creator until I was in my 20s. If I’d met an author or illustrator when I was younger, if I’d come to see that they were also just book-loving people who’d put in a lot of work to get where they were, if I’d been given even the slightest bit of acknowledgement, validation, encouragement – or even just information! – from them, it would’ve changed my life.

#KidsNeedMentors is a program aimed at increasing and enhancing both creator-educator collaboration and creator-kid interaction so that young lives can be enriched and bettered, if not dramatically changed, through the power and love of reading and books. Instead of creators doing a single visit (either virtually or in person), they are linked up with a single classroom or library for the duration of the school year – meaning multiple visits and a variety of kinds of interaction.

The overwhelming majority of kids’ book creators want to connect with kids. They want to make a difference in young people’s lives. That’s a large part of what drives so many of them. #KidsNeedMentors gives them yet one more opportunity to make those connections and differences.

The other side of this is the creator-educator collaboration. Along with the program’s other organizers, I believe that kids’ book creators and kids’ educators are colleagues. The more we collaborate, the more we share with and learn from and understand one another, the better we can all do our jobs.

Kids Need Mentors | Skype Visit | https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/


Like most good things, this was a collaborative effort. Can you tell us how you, Ann Braden, Kristin Crouch, and Kristen Picone initially connected and how #KidsNeedMentors came to be?

Ann, Kristen, Kristin, and I had already been connected online, and I knew them as three amazing, inspiring powerhouses in the kid lit community. And I came to know Ann’s talent for organizing after working with her on #KidsNeedBooks – which isn’t so much a program, but a rallying cry that we’ve been encouraging others to take up and spread, all in the name of flooding so-called “book deserts” with books and just generally getting more books into kids’ hands.

Not long after all of that got going, Ann and I spoke a couple times about the idea of creating a program that not only got more books into schools and libraries, but more book creators into those same spaces – all in an effort to change kids’ perceptions of books, book-reading, book-making, book-makers, and to boost their confidence in the power and value of their unique voices. One morning back in May, after a UK-based author launched an author-student pen pal program on Twitter, Ann and I got to talking about it all again. Kristen and Kristin — being the incredibly giving, caring, and student-focused individuals they are — immediately offered to be a part of the organizational team, even though they knew it would require a tremendous amount of time and effort! The four of us spent the rest of the morning hashing out ideas and talking about logistics, and after a few “Should we do this?” “We should do this.” “Should we do this?” back-and-forths, we finally said, Let’s do this. We put out some sign-up sheets and, within 24 hours, had hundreds of educators and authors on board.

 

Kids Need Mentors | Skype Visit | https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/The program has been up and running in schools for several months now. What impact are you seeing?

Ann, Kristen, Kristin, and I had high hopes for the program, but they have already been far surpassed. Self-described “non-readers” have become proud readers. Kids’ confidence in their own creativity and their own creations – their own voice – has been increased. By interacting with their mentees regularly, by sharing their work and lives and favorite books with them, our mentors are showing these kids that they matter to an adult other than their parent, guardian, and/or teacher – an adult whose name and picture is on actual, real-live BOOKS! That’s pretty cool. 10-year-old Jarrett is SUPER jealous.

To follow along with the program and see the impact it’s having, follow the #KidsNeedMentors hashtag on Twitter. Participants are posting about the amazing things they’re doing all the time!

 


Kids Need Mentors | Skype Visit | https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/In addition to helping create the program, you are personally mentoring classes. Tell us about your experience as a #KidsNeedMentors Mentor.

I Skype several times a week with different classrooms. These sessions typically last 30 minutes – enough time for me to do a very brief presentation and then take questions from the kids. But for some kids, it takes that long just to get comfortable, to work up the confidence to raise their hand and ask a question. And even if all the kids are engaged and actively participating from the get-go, often it’s at minute 28 that we land on some really interesting, fun, and/or productive topic. On my end, I’m lucky if I get to know a little bit about each kid in the room. But more often than not, that’s not the case.

So far this year, I’ve Skyped multiple times with my two mentee classes, and been lucky enough to visit each classroom once, and it’s been incredible. I really feel like I’m coming to know these kids – what they like to read and how they write, yes, but also who they are. Where their interests lie. What they’re passionate about. Who they want to be. Because of all this, when I, say, run a workshop for them on Creating Compelling Characters, we are hyper-productive, and I think (and hope!) that the kids get more out of such learning than they would if we’d all just met that day.

I hope, by the end of the year, that the kids come to see me as a friend (if they don’t see me as that already!), as another adult who cares about them, their well-being, and their future.

 

I know more teachers and authors would love to take part in #KidsNeedMentors. Can you let them know how they can sign up for next year?

Toward the end of this school year, we’ll make some announcements and open signups, so I guess the best thing to do would be to keep an eye on our social media feeds. We’ll definitely be nice and loud about it! We also have a large waitlist of educators who signed up for this first year but didn’t get matched, and it will be our top priority to get them and their students involved in the second year. Our hope is that everyone who wants to be involved, can be involved.

 

Kids Need Mentors | Jarrett Lerner | https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/Jarrett Lerner is the author of EngiNerds and its forthcoming sequel, Revenge of the EngiNerds (Simon & Schuster/Aladdin). He cofounded and helps run the MG Book Village, an online hub for all things Middle Grade, and is the co-organizer of the #KidsNeedBooks and #KidsNeedMentors projects. He can be found at jarrettlerner.com, on Twitter at @Jarrett_Lerner, and on Instagram at @jarrettlerner. He lives in Medford, Massachusetts, with his wife, his daughter, and a cat.

Jarrett and Ann are the author masterminds behind #KidsNeedMentors. Their books are:

Kids Need Mentors | Jarrett Lerner | https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/

Kids Need Mentors | Jarrett Lerner | https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/

Kids Need Mentors | Ann Braden | https://fromthemixedupfiles.com/

 

 

 

 

 

Ann can be found on Twitter at:

Ann Braden — @annbradenbooks

 

You can find Kristin and Kristen, the teacher masterminds behind #KidsNeedMentors, on Twitter at:

Kristin Crouch — @KCreadsALOT

Kristen Picone — @Kpteach5

 

Thanks for sharing the program with us, Jarrett. Are any of our teacher or author readers participating in #KidsNeedMentors this year? If so, please comment below and tell us about your experience.

 

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