Do You Haiku?

A few weeks back I posted a little teaser about an up-coming product from ReadWriteThink.org:

Poetry trio
Needs a new companion app
Details forthcoming

I'll note that no one took a stab at guessing what the product might be, so no one gets the really cool prize for guessing it correctly.

"But you never said anything about a prize!" you might say.

"I'm whimsical like that," I would reply.

The poetry trio mentioned in my little poem are the current interactives already available on ReadWriteThink--and soon to be available on your iPad or Android tablet:

1. Acrostic
2. Diamante
3. Theme

The new companion app, that would be Haiku.

Maybe I shouldn't be showing off the concept art...but I'm going to show you the current concept art for the load screen! Cause I'm excited about it and that's what this blog is for, revealing cool things like that. Please note that as concept art, the final app design might look nothing like this, and we cannot vouch for the correctness of the characters used in the image--though we are pretty sure they say "haiku." Anyone out there who can officially vouch that for us?

The real difficulty of the project is teaching the haiku writing process. We want to make sure that the app provides solid haiku writing instruction, not to take it out of the teacher's hands but to make sure students have all the scaffolding they need when it comes time to do the writing. A refresher on what the teacher modeled in the classroom couldn't hurt, right?

But how do you teach haiku writing? That sounds rhetorical, but it isn't. I'm asking: If you have ever taught haiku writing, what did you do? What did you teach? How did you frame the lesson? I've been doing research, and I found fun little inconsistencies like the follow:

• Traditional haiku are themed around nature or philosophy...but that's not a requirement.
• Traditional haiku have a juxtaposition statement...but not always.
• American haiku have three lines...but they don't need to.
• American haiku follow a 5-7-5 syllable count for the lines...but not all of them.

From my research, haiku writing is fairly free form--not at all what I was expecting when I first delved into the project.

I don't want to write How to Haiku instructions in the app and find them counter to what teachers are teaching in the classroom. I don't want to create an interactive and app that promote a rigid conformity to a three line, 5-7-5 syllable paradigm if that isn't what teachers are modeling.

Just to note, our Haiku app won't force the writer to use three lines (though it will only have three lines available), nor will it enforce a syllable count--in fact, it won't count syllables at all. We leave such checking and correction up to the user. The app can be used to write free-form poetry. But what should the instruction model?

If you have any information about how haiku writing is currently taught in the classroom or how you'd like to see it presented in this product, let me know.

Or to put it another way:

Seeking opinions
On proper haiku techniques
--Wes doesn't have a clue

Wes

Let's Talk About Videos

I've "starred" in a few videos myself for various International Reading Association marketing efforts (alas, I think they have all been removed from the internet!). Videos can be fun and informative; entertaining and educational. There are several videos embedded in various ReadWriteThink resources, from examples of teachers using our lessons in the classroom to some videos showing off our interactives to a whole collection of videos that show users how to make best use of the site features.

But they aren't always easy to find. Yet.

This is a little scoop on a pretty major change that we've been working on over summer: ReadWriteThink is adding a video library right on the main navigation. This totally new section will feature all of the videos that appear on our site as well as link to webinars or other videos that we have done or sponsored but are not able to host. As part of our on-going efforts to make ReadWriteThink as mobile friendly as possible, our videos are being converted from a Flash format to mobile-ready videos.

Some videos are student facing, but most are for teachers. So far.

We are always on the look out for quality video that we can add to our collection. We want to show lessons in action in the classroom. We want examples of research-based best practices. We'd love to get some informational videos on the Common Core and its implementation.

If you have ideas, let us know. We'd love an opportunity to work with you. The majority of our content is already user-submitted, after all.

Even if it isn't what we are looking for for the website proper, we also have a Youtube channel and we love to support and link to user-created content. Quite a few videos have been made by users showing how to use the various interactives. Useful if you want to use one in your classroom: You can give the link to students in case they forget what they are suppose to do. But don't think we are only about the RWT-based videos. Have you seen the What's Your Writing Style video? How cool is that?! Kids singing and dancing about writing! I love it!

I'll make a note of the video library page when it officially launches, but now you have the inside scoop of what is up and coming from RWT. I'm on vacation next week, so you won't be hearing from me. The week after, I should have loads of links to new stuff and some cool announcements about all the neat projects I am working on. We've got some really cool stuff coming down the pipeline.

But for now, I am off on vacation. Toodles!

Summer Vacation

I would love to say I haven't written on this blog cause I've been on vacation. That would be two months of vacation! I think I could handle that.

Alas, that's not how that went down.

I usually update the blog Friday afternoons. At IRA, the office is closed Friday--we work Monday to Thursday.  Which means I'm not here on Friday afternoons.

Worse excuse ever, I know, but alas, it is also the Truth.

And rather sad 'cause it means I haven't updated anyone on all the cool stuff I've been working on. And yeah, it is cool stuff. Things or user base is likely interested in.

For instance, I'd previous mentioned our Alphabet Organizer interactive and our Venn Diagram interactive. I never got around to tell you these are now available as mobile apps on Google Play and iTunes store.

I don't know that I even mentioned the changes being made to Timeline. App version releasing soon.

The tomato example. Relevant for RWT Editors: Most of us grow tomatoes! 

Even cooler, we have more apps coming soon. Some of our favorite and most popular interactives are being app-dapted (get it?) right now.

What can you expect? RWT's poetry suite: Acrostic, Diamante, and Theme Poem will all have app versions releasing in September*.

I've got even more apps and interactives in the works. I'll hold off on releasing details of those until next time, which should be in a week or two. Cause this is the last Friday I have offer before non-summer hours kick back in. That will help me keep on my schedule of hope-to-post-once-every-two-weeks.

Though really, with all the neat stuff we are pushing, I might need to post more often

OK, so one little teaser about the project I was working on today:

Poetry trio
Needs a new companion app
Details forthcoming

Wes


*Said with confidence, but not with a solid promise. I'm 100% sure they will, so there is a 95% chance it will happen.

A Is for Alligator

B is for Bayou. C is for Cypress Trees. D is the Dew.

Anyone recognize this? It's from an old Sesame Street song--one that to this day I still have in my memory. Did it help me learn my alphabet? I don't know, but there is something about the way it was done that has always lingered in my mind. The way Kermit breaks up his sentences with the letters.

"U is the Universe that's V vast and W wide." I've always loved that line

My writing it here does the clip little justice, so I shall link to it as well:

This is a perfect example of what students can do with the newly improved ReadWriteThink.org Alphabet Organizer. Now with the ability to save and import pictures, students can write their own ABCs story.

Sesame Street has a few examples if you feel like looking through the youtube channel or their child-friendly website. For adults who grew up watching Sesame Street, a trip through their channel is an amazing blast from the past--and I imagine a fun way to share good, wholesome, educational videos with kids.

So this was me reliving my childhood through our interactive:

All the words in chart form.

All my notes, which make up the lyrics to Kermit's song.

I really should have put Kermit's name in there instead of my own--this was not my song, just a slice of my childhood that lives on.

Wes

Summer Learning

Most people might know ReadWriteThink.org as a collection of resources for teachers and students--and we are, so that is a good thing! But we are also a resource for parents/guardians/after school providers and kids (my distinction here being the not-so-scientific classification that a student is a kid who is in school--like actually in the school building doing school-based stuff).

We have these resources stored in an aptly named Parent & Afterschool section(which we typically call P&AS; I mention this because I will be using that initialism throughout the post). If you are a teacher, you should share these with parents. Especially the summer initiatives. We had one last year, Bright Ideas for Summer, for which Becky coordinated having some P&AS activities written/altered to fit a summer theme. And that is still up, still available, and still completely awesome for helping kids beat the Summer Slide (the "slide" backwards in progress that happens over summer when kids are no longer engaged in learning activities).

This year, little more of the same and little bit of something different. We have some new activities and some re-vamped activities come at you. BUT we spruced up the whole package this year.

Have you heard of We Give Books? They provide free books online for kids to read. Awesome, right? Of course! Free books over summer! That amazing!

And we've partnered up with them. We have ten P&AS activities in the works being that are being specifically written to accompany a book that will be provided for free from We Give Books. Each activity   uses of one ReadWriteThink.org's interactives to engage kids after reading the book, to keep them thinking and learning and having fun.

The books are free. The interactives are free. The learning that can be achieved? Priceless.

I'll be adding a link to the resources when they go live. You can also keep an eye on our Summer Learning board on Pinterest. I've pinned the Bright Ideas info; I'll be pinning the We Give Books stuff as it becomes available. The whole thing launches mid June, so we are closing in.

And that is what we have coming for Summer Learning!

Wes

What Happened to April?

Wow. I lost a whole month!

Usually in April I am blogging about the International Reading Association's annual conference, and how ReadWriteThink is hosting sessions there. And where I'll be so you can come see me.

Alas, I failed. We went to San Antonio, we spoke to the teachers, we had an in-person team meeting. And I got a cowboy hat. And Becky laughed at me.

Here's a way to show this in a graphic representation:

I'm not the only one who fits in the center, though.

Whoa! Look at that! A Venn diagram!

Yes, that's right, after talking about it for a few months now, we have our new Venn Diagram interactive live on the site.

The iPad and Android versions are in production and (fingers crossed!) will be out by the end of May, maybe June.

We have a list of our interactives we are trying to turn in to apps for tablets (to avoid the whole Flash-does-not-run-on-iOS-systems issue) as well as list of interactives to be updated with the work saver. I'll get into more detail with those once we have deadlines and designer approval for our ideas and workplan.

If it all comes together, it will be very exciting.

Next time, I'm going to go in to our summer plans for this year. It's pretty cool, and we are very excited by the partnership we were able to strike up for this project.

But for now, all you get--other than the handy link to the new Venn Diagram interactive--is a picture of me photo-bombing some poor conference attendees. Don't worry, they totally got another picture without me in it.

Wes

What are we looking for?

I thought a good post today would be to describe what we (and by we I mean the acquisition editors of ReadWriteThink, which is not me at all) are looking for in new lessons and strategy guides. Your proposal--which is always preferred as first submission--is much more likely to garner a request for a full-lesson submission if you follow the topics/themes I am about to share with you.

Lucky you, to have the inside scoop!

Mobile

We are looking to expand our lessons that deal with using mobile technology (smart phones, tablets, and other wi-fi connected devices) in the classroom. These lessons should use mobile technology in an interesting and innovative way, taking advantage of the capabilities of the device rather than using it simply as an alternative to a desktop computer. The key things to consider: how mobile allows students to interact with others, how mobile tools make a task easier, and what product students can create with a mobile device (camera, video/audio recorder).

STEM

We currently are focusing on STEM based lessons that use the various facets of literacy within a real-world problem. For a lesson to be considered STEM, it cannot just have a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics component, but must fully use the problem-solving mindset of the discipline within a literary context.

  

Common Core

Although many lessons on ReadWriteThink.org can be adapted to fit the common core requirements, we are looking for lessons that specifically address the required skills highlighted in the CCSS document. Specially we are looking for lessons for the early grades (K-5) on writing that align to the CCSS (such as opinion/persuasive pieces, which are at the 3^rd and 4^th grade level). I know we have a few people working on lessons that focus on “reading” others forms of non-paper media, but I think lessons on this topic would still be appreciated.

Now, those are the topics, but there are some other considerations that always help get a lesson accepted, such as if the lesson is connected to pre-existing ReadWriteThink resources such as our interactives, apps, and print-outs.

We also try to make sure every lesson is innovated; if a lesson is similar to another lesson, the major difference being it uses a different book or RWT resource, it will likely be rejected. We believe that no lesson should be tied to single resource; the major tenets of the lesson should be able to be adapted as the classroom teacher sees fit--change the book, use a different interactive, have a different output from students. The lesson should hold up to these changes.

And there you have it! A little helpful information on what we're looking for!

Oh, I guess I should tell you how to contribute. You can fill out this for and you'll hear back from a rep from NCTE or IRA--which would be me, by the way, you lucky person you!

And I'll also use this space to confirm that, yes, lesson authors are paid a stipend upon successful publication of the lesson--this being after internal review, blind peer review, and copy editing.

Hope that helps!

Wes