Absolute Love for @IwasakidSteam @ignotofsky & Ann E. Burg for Their Contributions to Visual Literacy Conversations of Non-Fiction Texts

My work with the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University has introduced me to a lot of great writers and thinkers, especially those who always have K-12 instruction on their minds, as they know that teachers are always looking for great books and resources to use with their kids. Because Karen Romano Young is local to Connecticut, I've used her @IwasakidSTEAM website in many sessions of professional development and I've been witness with how doodling and visual literacy assist students reading more complicated texts. Last night, however, I was able to pair this with Rachel Ignotofsky's TedX talk on women in science and visual literacy...

...which brings me to Ann E. Burg's Force of Nature which we discussed further in last night's pre-service elementary literacy course. I handed each of them a non-fiction text and asked them to pair the new knowledge with a poem written by Burg from the text. We didn't have a lot of time (15 minutes), but I wanted to have them experience of reading this, then reflecting on the shared class novel, and then offering a visual poster of how they were making the connection, so they can help others in the class to infer, and discuss, the meaning by a Burg poem. We went with WWI recruitment, gypsy moths, bumble bees, and ticks (all paired with poems). My bigger question was, "Did the pair non-fiction reading help you to infer more meaning to the poem in the text?"

It did, for all of them. 

I worked with one group who said, "We can't draw," and showed them that digital tools can help in tight spaces (like the 15 minutes I gave them to visually represent what I wanted them to share with others. 

In fifteen minutes, the students read non-fiction texts, made connections to a poem in Burg's Force of Nature, and mapped out, doodled, their collective thinking. The bumble bee group even made an origami bee to sting their classmates. 

My argument all along is that both fiction and non-fiction purport meaning, and if we are following Beers & Probst recommendations, we need to design good questions, open inquiry, personal connections, and assistive teaching so that students are learning more content, becoming better readers and writers, and enjoying their learning along the way.

Of course, this also meant that all the other plans I had didn't make it to the floor, because the students were having fun putting together their posters to teach others, which impressed me because the time was tight, materials were lacking, and as they said, "Crandall, our minds are on Spring Break." 

Remember those days?  Even an idea of a break? Ha!

I did not plan on the trifecta of Rachel Ignotofsky, Karen Romano Young, and Ann E. Burg's poetic fiction about Rachel Carson to speak to one another so well in a two-hour class. But it was one of those moments where the students really got it (even if they were thinking about their toes on sand seven days from now). 

And with that. time to plot out tonight's class with all the meeting-obstacles in the way...so many meetings...so, so many of them.