Books by Kajder, Morrell, and Richardson

by Sheila Cantlebary, Nicole Luthy, and Carol Brown Dodson

Here are a few good books on this issue's theme―Literacy, Popular Culture, and Technology:

The Tech-Savvy English Classroom, by Sara B. Kajder (Stenhouse, Portland, ME, 2003)

To meet the needs of today's "net generation," Sara Kajder encourages teachers to develop their own digital literacies as well as those of their students. She maintains that although it is not necessary to become a technology expert, educators do need to know how to use technology to "enhance, extend, and empower student learning." Kajder tells how she went from seldom using her classroom computer to integrating technology into her English classroom in meaningful ways. She describes the blended roles of teacher as both technology user and instructional designer. Kajder provides vignettes of classrooms whose teachers are at various levels on the technology integration continuum―from survivor, to master, to one who creates an impact, to innovator. The book offers simple suggestions for computer lab management techniques and for a boot camp for students who need the basics. Ideas are also included for using hypertext, webquests, word processing, telecommunication tools, and web page design. The appendix contains student handouts and a rubric that teachers can use to rate their own "tech savviness." With its solidly researched theoretical base, Kajder's book will help visionary teachers select "the right tool" and "the right task" for "the right students." A companion website offers additional resources and a place for sharing ideas.
-Sheila Cantlebary

Bringing the Outside In: Visual Ways to Engage Reluctant Readers, by Sara B. Kajder (Stenhouse, Portland, ME, 2006)

Connecting the reading and writing students do outside of school to classroom instruction is a challenge for many teachers. Those struggling to "keep it real" will find Bringing the Outside In a valuable professional resource in making their curriculum more relevant while capitalizing on students' proclivity for technology. Author and educator Sara Kajder describes effective strategies for using technology as a tool for building students' skills as readers and writers. The text begins with a reflection on what it means to be a reader. Kajder uses four broad categories to think about how students approach texts: (1) Quick reading, or "dipping into the text," allows students to develop a rough sense of meaning. (2) Critical reading, or "interrogating the text," builds meaning and understanding of the text. (3) When engaged in mindful reading, students seek to learn new knowledge that can be applied to other tasks. (4) Orbital reading, reading across multiple texts, lets students make connections and examine patterns. Throughout the book, Kajder highlights traditional reading and writing activities that have been revamped to include technology and to connect to students' interests and experiences. Creating digital stories as part of a personal narrative unit, representing ideas through visual read-alouds, and crafting character collages using digital images are just a few of the projects sure to engage the most reluctant readers.
-Nicole Luthy

Linking Literacy and Popular Culture: Finding Connections for Lifelong Learning, by Ernest Morrell (Christopher-Gordon, Northwood, MA, 2004)

Practitioner-researcher Ernest Morrell argues that "by building upon students' literacy experiences with popular culture in non-school settings, teachers can make authentic and powerful connections between students' worlds and the demands of the classroom." He shares ethnographies from high school and college settings where the literacy focus was music, film, television, media, and sports. In defining the meaning of popular culture, he discusses the importance of teachers' developing a conceptual and historical framework to provide a theoretical base for understanding popular culture, and he explains how the inclusion of popular culture in the curriculum can lead to both academic growth and critical citizenship. Once students are able to make sense of texts from their own world, they are better able to access literary texts from the canon. Morrell also addresses two closely related issues: the current emphasis on teaching to the test and the political implications of deviating from traditional curricula and teaching popular culture. His final chapter issues a call to action for teacher-initiated literacy research. Annotated appendices include sample unit plans, a popular culture sourcebook, and resources for teachers interested in action research.
-Sheila Cantlebary

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, by Will Richardson (Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, CA, 2006)

High school journalism teacher Will Richardson provides practical ways for teachers to take their students into technologies that challenge thinking and promote creative, intuitive, and associational thinking. Richardson, now supervisor of instructional technology and communications at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, New Jersey, is known throughout the country and much of the world as an "evangelist" for weblog use. In this book, Richardson provides the rationale for using weblogs in education and describes what might be thought of as a new genre of writing―connective writing. Connective writing, Richardson explains, forces those who do it to "read carefully and critically." It demands clarity and cogency, is produced for a wide audience, and links to the sources of the ideas expressed. While his explanation of the value and potential of blogs and other technologies is compelling, Richardson does not stop with the pedagogy. He also provides step-by-step instructions for getting started with blogs, even including one of the most thorough set of directions for RSS feeds presently available. He also shares sample letters for parents about classroom blogging and directions to students for responsible blogging. Readers of this book will want to explore the links to websites of educators. Reading about what Anne Davis of Georgia does with blogging in her elementary classroom, what Richardson's students did with Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, or even what a teacher does with his precalculus bloggers is bound to excite every teacher.
-Carol Brown Dodson

Sheila Cantlebary is a reading content specialist at the Ohio Resource Center. As a former teacher in Columbus Public Schools, she taught English, language arts, and reading (7-12), served as a K-12 English language arts coordinator, and was a teacher in the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow program. Her teaching experience also includes facilitating State Institute for Reading Instruction and English Language Arts Academy sessions. She is currently co-facilitator of the High School Language Arts Network sponsored by the Central Ohio Regional School Improvement Team.

Nicole Luthy is the project director for AdLIT and a reading content specialist for the Ohio Resource Center, where she coordinates the selection of high-quality, web-based resources for language arts educators. She is also the project manager for the soon-to-be-launched Early Childhood Education project. A former classroom teacher, she has experience in staff development and curriculum and assessment.

Carol Brown Dodson is the outreach specialist for the Ohio Resource Center. Dodson was an English language arts consultant for the Ohio Department of Education and is past president of OCTELA (Ohio Council of Teachers of English Language Arts). Dodson, formerly a high school English teacher, department chair, and supervisor of English language arts in Columbus Public Schools, serves on the Ohio Graduation Test Reading Content Committee.

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