Online Journal Seeks Manuscripts and Issue Proposals

Online journal seeks manuscripts and issue proposals

WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom is the refereed journal of the Worlds of Words, an organization dedicated to creating an international network of people who share the vision of bringing books and children together, thereby opening windows on the world. WOW encourages thoughtful dialogue around literature so that children and adolescents can reflect on their own cultural experiences and connect to the experiences of others across the globe.

You can submit to the journal in two different formats.  We publish 1-2 issues a year that contain individual manuscripts and 2 issues a year that are submitted by a specific literacy community.

Submit an individual manuscript as a vignette/classroom story:

·       Describe classroom or library practice (K-12) that connects children and literature in ways that promote intercultural understanding.

·       Take the form of a story or vignette that one educator might tell to another to share the responses of students to literature.

·       Include student voices where appropriate through quotes of student talk, examples of student work, audio clips, or video clips.

·       Include charts, graphs, student artifacts, bulleted points, and/or figures wherever possible to vary the format and enhance the content of the article.

·       Be less than 2000 words.

·       These manuscripts will be sent out for review by our editorial board, with decisions made within four months.

·       Visit www.wowlit.org to see examples of individual manuscripts in Volume 2, WOW Stories

Submit a proposal as a literacy community for an issue of the journal:

·      A group of educators from a school, library, project, writing group, or university course can submit a proposal to put together an issue of the journal.

·      Determine a theme/topic from the community’s work together related to using multicultural or global literature with students to create intercultural understanding.

·      Submit a 2-3 page proposal that describes the topic and provides a schedule for developing the vignettes along with the names of the authors who will contribute and the name of the contact person.

·      Issue begins with a short introduction of the focus for the issue and introduces the literacy community,

·       Issue contains 5 or more vignettes around the theme.

·       Visit www.wowlit.org to see examples of a community-based journal issue in Volume 1, WOW Stories

Submit all manuscripts and proposals electronically to wow@email.arizona.edu. See wowlit.org for specific submission guidelines. 

Manuscripts and issue proposals are accepted at any time.

For specific questions or inquiries, contact Dr. Janine M. Schall at jschall@utpa.edu. 

Free K-5 Literacy Workshop with Kathy Collins

Save the Date!

You are invited to a Literacy Workshop with Kathy Collins, author of Growing Readers: Units of Study in the Primary Classroom

When: Saturday, February 25, 2012

             9:00 AM - NOON

Where: UH Hilo, UCB 100

Rates: 

• LWP Alum - FREE
• Teachers - $35.00 [includes membership to BICTE]
• Education students - $10.00

RSVP: by February 15, 2012 (limited to first 100 participants)

to Avis Masuda (ammasuda@hawaii.edu) OR Michele Ebersole (mebersol@hawaii.edu)

This workshop is sponsored by the Lehua Writing Project, the Big Island Council of Teachers of English and the UH Hilo education department.

January Continuity: Non-Fiction Writing and Reading Comprehension through Drama

Ha'uoli makahiki hou! Some LWP members spent a fabulous Saturday at Kealakehe with our gracious hostess Shawna Fischer.

SI 2011 alum Jessie Garcia and SI 2009 alum Cathy Riehle did the demo lessons and our hostess (SI 09) did the invitation to write.

Using Lucy Calkins' nonfiction writing book as a resource (from the Units of Study for Primary Writing: A Yearlong Curriculum), Jessie went over the packet she uses with her primary students to get them to create nonfiction books.

With her young students, they start with topics that they already know about, like caring for a dog, but older students can use this same format to create non-fiction books based on their research.

Cathy warmed us up by having us use our bodies to exemplify certain vocabulary words like droop, stomp, etc.

She then read an excerpt to us from Chicken Soup for Little Souls: Best Night Out with Dad
Our groups were tasked with dramatizing certain key words/concepts - like loneliness and disdain as a way to kinesthetically understand the reading.

Did you miss something wonderful? Yes, but stay tuned. There's an opportunity for more professional development in February and it's manuahi for LWP alum.

January Continuity at Kealakehe Elementary

Staying with our journey around the island, the January continuity will be on Saturday, January 7 at Kealakehe Elementary School, P3 Classroom from 1-3:30. It's a perfect time to spend time with the family in the morning and get some you time in the afternoon.

For fellow Hiloans (East Side!), Costco run.

Shawna will be our hostess with the mostest and Cathy Riehle will invite us into her classroom for drama and playwriting. Shawna also promises us another mystery presenter.

In addition, our two LWP directors, Michele and Avis, will be sharing some news from their time at the NWP meeting as well as sharing some thoughts on the future of the Lehua Writing Project.

Hope to see you there, after all it was such fun the last time. Check it out here.

Celebrate Picture Book Month

Just sharing a post from my middle school book blog: 

Celebrating Picture Book Month in the Middle

"I have always believed that literature begins in the cradle -- the poems we say to the babies, the stories

we tell them -- prepare them to become part of the great human storytelling community. We humans are

the only creatures in the known universe who make and remake our world with story."

- Jane Yolen from her Picture Book Month essay

Dianne de Las Casas is hosting a Picture Book Month site for the month of November, so I thought I'd concentrate on some of my favorite Picture Books that we use at the Middle School. We may have a different intent in bringing them into the classroom, but I think that it works because it continues to connect us to the "great human storytelling community."

Summary: Vashti is a frustrated artist who is ready to give up in her art class when her teacher challenges her to just make a dot, then sign it. When her teacher honors Vashti's efforts and helps her to see her work from a different perspective, Vashti is inspired to push herself and with practice and confidence, her dots do become great pieces of art. At the end when she meets a young, frustrated artist Vashti is able to turn around and become a mentor for this young child.

What it looks like in the Middle:

I love to start the year off with this book, read it aloud, then ask my students why I read it. What does this story have to do with this class and what I expect from you?

That's usually all I need to ask. Some of what the students get from the book about the coming year:

• Just do it (in this case, since it's English, just write)
• When you write it, put your name on it, own it
• Don't edit yourself ahead of time
• Work will be honored and published
• Push yourself to do better
• Mentor others

What are your go-to picture books and what do you do with them at your level?

Renshi Poetry in the Social Studies Classroom

Renshi is a Japanese linked poetry form. The authors link their poems by starting with words from the last line of the poet before them. Sometimes there is no particular theme, and the theme evolves as the poets link their poems, and sometimes, like this one, the poets have a particular theme or event that they are all writing about.

At the Bamboo Ridge Press site, four poets, Christy Passion, Juliet Kono, Ann Inoshita and Jean Toyama are currently working on an online renshi around the Massie Affair. They started in August and the four will go for one year. Each poet has two weeks from the post of the author that they follow to post their new renshi.

What really excites me about this is the possibility of meaty, important writing in your non-language arts classroom. If you are familiar with some of the tools used by History Alive!, this is like Jumping into the Slide, only in writing. Basically, the students become the participants and put themselves in another's shoes as a way to fully immerse themselves in history. Check out the poems and you'll get it right away.

Historical background for this Renshi: The Massie Affair
The Massie Case is still one of the most controversial events in Hawai'i history. On September 12, 1931, Thalia Massie, wife of Naval officer Thomas Massie, was allegedly assaulted and raped in Waikiki by five local men. The trials highlighted the delicate racial balance of the Territory of Hawai'i.

Grace Fortescue, Thalia Massie, Lieutenant Thomas Massie (Advertiser file photo)

When a mistrial was declared and the five local men accused of the assault were set free, Lt. Massie, Thalia's mother Grace Fortescue, and two enlisted men kidnapped and murdered one of the defendants, Joseph Kahahawai. The four white defendants were represented by Clarence Darrow (of the Scopes Trial fame). They were found guilty of man-slaughter, and Territorial Governor Lawrence Judd commuted their sentences to one hour served in his company.

Joseph Kahahawai (Advertiser file photo)

The Massies and Grace Fortescue left Hawai'i by steamship and there was never a retrial on the rape case. The young couple divorced soon after returning to the Mainland.

Thalia Massie committed suicide in Florida in 1963.

Interested now?

Go check out the poetry as it unfolds this year. 

Ann Inoshita, one of the poets also held a Renshi workshop for teachers and students, so her tips and examples are here. 

Key Elements of a Fabulous Continuity

Our October 22 continuity event was a major hit with 12 participants representing 4 years of Summer Institutes (not bad considering we're 5 years old). We changed the location to UH Hilo but we still had one teacher from Waimea and one teacher from Kona attending. Yeah!

What made this continuity so successful?
The elements of a successful continuity. . .
1. Variety = Two teacher consultants sharing demo lessons from different grade levels and with very different teaching styles. It's not that hard with the "taskmaster" present to keep the day flowing.

Lynn Nagata brought us into her elementary classroom and took us through a poetry writing workshop with "happy memory poems".  Since she does this every year, she was also able to let us see her student anthologies.

Tamara wanted to try theatre of the absurd with her middle school students and she really challenged our thinking. We didn't think we could do it, but we were all able to write our 20 line monologues for our own Theatre of the Absurd in 20 minutes. Along the way, all of us, including Tamara, went on a journey of discovery by talking pedagogy and practice, parameters and assessment possibilities.

2. Joy = Writing and Sharing - we wrote together, we learned together, we shared together, we laughed together, we rejuvenated each other.

3.  Food  - duh. What's a Writing Project event without food. Sorry, no pics, I was busy eating.

Three elements to a successful continuity - Variety, Joy, Food. I hope all your professional development opportunities have the same elements for success.

Aloha, "The Taskmaster"

The next continuity session is scheduled for January 7 in Kona (tentatively at Kealakehe elementary).