Literacy

Why does James Patterson care about our kids’ reading habits?

Submitted by Blake on April 30, 2012 - 3:12pm

Why does James Patterson care about our kids’ reading habits?
At this point, rowdy adolescents clutch their free copies of Patterson’s young adult novel Maximum Ride and listen intently as he gives a prescription for success in writing, or, beyond that, life.

"You have to have a dream; you have to have passion. And I strongly recommend you have a back-up dream. You have to have focus. Outline, baby. Before you write anything, outline."

He tells them to write down the coolest story they know. The sentences might not be any good, but the important thing is to get the story down – polishing can come later.

Topic: 
Young Adults
School Libraries
Literacy
Authors

At World Book Night, D.C. literacy advocates greeted with delight and skepticism

Submitted by Lee Hadden on April 24, 2012 - 1:22pm
Topic: 
Literacy
By Lonnae O'Neal Parker and David Montgomery, Published: April 23. The Washington Post The odds of being handed a free book out of the blue were much higher Monday night than any other night of the year, thanks to the legions of volunteers and booksellers celebrating World Book Night.

Read So Hard Libraries Try To Find Me

Submitted by Blake on April 23, 2012 - 9:37am
From YouTube: [Thanks Anna!]
Topic: 
Books
Literacy
Humor

Teach the Books, Touch the Heart

Submitted by Bibliofuture on April 23, 2012 - 2:31am

Opinion piece in the NYT

FRANZ KAFKA wrote that “a book must be the ax for the frozen sea inside us.” I once shared this quotation with a class of seventh graders, and it didn’t seem to require any explanation.

We’d just finished John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” When we read the end together out loud in class, my toughest boy, a star basketball player, wept a little, and so did I. “Are you crying?” one girl asked, as she crept out of her chair to get a closer look. “I am,” I told her, “and the funny thing is I’ve read it many times.”

But they understood. When George shoots Lennie, the tragedy is that we realize it was always going to happen. In my 14 years of teaching in a New York City public middle school, I’ve taught kids with incarcerated parents, abusive parents, neglectful parents; kids who are parents themselves; kids who are homeless or who live in crowded apartments in violent neighborhoods; kids who grew up in developing countries. They understand, more than I ever will, the novel’s terrible logic — the giving way of dreams to fate.

Full essay

Topic: 
Literacy

How We Will Read: Clay Shirky

Submitted by Blake on April 9, 2012 - 10:14am

How We Will Read: Clay Shirky
“Social reading,” the way I’ve always interpreted the phrase, is reading that recognizes that you’re not just a consumer, you’re a user. You’re going to do something with this, and that something is going to involve a group of other people. Read a book. The very next thing you’re going to do, if it was at all interesting, is talk to someone about it. Book groups and discussion lists are social reading. Because so much of our media in the 20th century was delivered in real-time, with very little subsequent ability to share, save, shift, store, we separated the consumption from the reproduction and use of media. We don’t actually think of ourselves as users of media, when in fact we are.

Topic: 
Books
Technology
Literacy
Ebooks

Bringing Up an E-Reader

Submitted by Bibliofuture on March 30, 2012 - 1:56am

NYT article on kids and reading.

Excerpt: But is it better than a book? It may take a generation to ever know for sure, and even 10 or 20 years from now it will be debated as the effects of television or video games are still discussed today.

Julianna’s teacher, Kourtney Denning, sees e-books as essential. “Old books don’t really cut it anymore,” she said. “We have to transform our learning as we know it.”

Full article

Topic: 
Literacy
Ebooks

Story time to go: Libraries try to reach kids who aren’t being read to at home

Submitted by Lee Hadden on March 19, 2012 - 9:06pm
Topic: 
Literacy
“Early literacy has gotten increasing attention, which is really important because it points out the role public libraries play in helping children get ready for success in school,” said Mary Fellows, president of the Association of Library Service to Children.

Putin’s List

Submitted by Lee Hadden on March 19, 2012 - 10:51am
Topic: 
Literacy
In January, during the run-up to Russia’s March 4 election, the front-runner, Vladimir Putin, proposed “a canon of 100 Russian books that every school leaver will be required to read at home . . . and then write an essay about one of them.” Reading, according to Putin, is not just an elective individual activity, but one that has decisive implications for the nation. “State policy with regard to culture must provide appropriate guidelines,” he wrote in an essay in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper, and culture shapes “public consciousness and . . .

Nonfiction Curriculum Enhanced Reading Skills

Submitted by Lee Hadden on March 13, 2012 - 11:08am
Topic: 
Literacy
Reading nonfiction writing is the key component of the Core Knowledge curriculum, which is based on the theory that children raised reading storybooks will lack the necessary background and vocabulary to understand history and science texts. While the curriculum allows children to read fiction, it also calls on them to knowledgeably discuss weather patterns, the solar system, and how ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia compare.

Pass the Books. Hold the Oil.

Submitted by Bibliofuture on March 12, 2012 - 2:51pm

Tom Friedman has a piece on the importance of education and books: Pass the Books. Hold the Oil.

Topic: 
Literacy

Pages

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