Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day 2013 ! (And A Great Poetry Resource too!)

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day, one of the events for National Poetry Month, a month-long celebration of poetry held in April each year by the Academy of American Poets.  On April 18--Poem in Your Pocket Day--people are urged to carry a piece of poetry in their pockets and to share it with other people during the day.  It is a fun activity to get poetry out of the hallowed halls of academia and into everyday life.

My selection for this year's pocket poem is Mark Doty's "A Display of Mackerel":

A Display of Mackerel 
They lie in parallel rows, 
on ice, head to tail, 
each a foot of luminosity 

barred with black bands, 
which divide the scales' 
radiant sections 

like seams of lead 
in a Tiffany window. 
Iridescent, watery 

prismatics: think abalone, 
the wildly rainbowed 
mirror of a soapbubble sphere, 

think sun on gasoline. 
Splendor, and splendor, 
and not a one in any way 

distinguished from the other 
--nothing about them 
of individuality. Instead 

they're all exact expressions 
of one soul, 
each a perfect fulfillment 

of heaven's template, 
mackerel essence. As if, 
after a lifetime arriving 

at this enameling, the jeweler's 
made uncountable examples, 
each as intricate 

in its oily fabulation 
as the one before. 
Suppose we could iridesce, 

like these, and lose ourselves 
entirely in the universe 
of shimmer--would you want 

to be yourself only, 
unduplicatable, doomed 
to be lost? They'd prefer, 
plainly, to be flashing participants, 
multitudinous. Even now 
they seem to be bolting 

forward, heedless of stasis. 
They don't care they're dead 
and nearly frozen, 

just as, presumably, 
they didn't care that they were living: 
all, all for all, 

the rainbowed school 
and its acres of brilliant classrooms, 
in which no verb is singular, 

or every one is. How happy they seem, 
even on ice, to be together, selfless, 
which is the price of gleaming. 

Copied from poets.org, the website of the Academy of American Poets

I chose this poem for several reasons.  First, last year we were involved in a year-long Oceans Coop that culminated in an unforgettable trip to study the coral reefs in the Virgin Islands.  So the nominal subject matter-fish--is close to my heart.  Secondly, several lines in there really reminded me of a wonderful art exhibit called "Carbon Load" that my son's very talented art teacher, Jenny Eggleston of Egg in Nest Art Studio, had at ArtSpace in 2011.

Mostly, however, I think I picked this poem because I read a wonderful essay by Doty on his thought process as he was composing this poem.  It is a wonderful explanation of how poetry can proceed from a simple, everyday image--like a row of fish on ice--to a grander statement on the nature of life, death, and everything in between.  Entitled "Souls on Ice," it is a great resource for students and teachers trying to better comprehend the magic and magnificence that is poetry.  I recommend you read it on the poets.org website.

And don't forget to share your favorite poem with other people today!

Middle Schoolers Entering Essay Contest on Historical Items Can Win Up to $10,000 Scholarship

The HISTORY® Channel is running a contest for students ages 7-13 called the Kid Pickers Pick and Tell National Student Contest, based on their program, American Pickers, in which Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz search for interesting historical items at flea markets, estate sales, old barns, and other such places.

Elementary and middle school students are invited to go on their own quest to find t unique historical items, collectibles, or other memorabilia in their community. Students then write short essays of 500 words or less describing their historical item they have picked and its significance. The Grand Prize, First Place, and Second Place winners will receive $10,000, $5,000, and $3,000 scholarships respectively, and will travel to Mike Wolfe's Antique Archaeology story in Nashville, TN.

Download the rules and entry forms at www.history.com/shows/american-pickers/pages/pick-and-tell. The essays must be submitted by May 17, 2013.

It sounds like a fun way to make local history personal and to practice those essay-writing skills. Good luck to all

Middle School Summer Camp Opportunity: Young Writers' Workshop at NCSU

If your middle schoolers gets really inspired after participating in the Teen Poetry Contest in my earlier post, then NC State University has a summer camp that might be right up their alley.  The Young Writers' Workshop, sponsored by the NC State College of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Department of English, is a two-week, nonresidential summer camp with daily afternoon activities to help students in late elementary and middle school to develop their creative writing abilities. 

The students spend two and a half hours on campus each afternoon with lessons on four different tracks:  fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and drama (each students lists their preferences, and are placed in two different areas).  Established professional writers, most of whom also teach at area colleges or high schools, give lectures, assign writing activities, put students into small groups to discuss or create something together, or work with students one-on-one on their writing. 

The students-to-teacher is kept low (a maximum of 12 students per instructor) to assure that all writers get individual attention.  The teen writers get instruction in such creative writing components as plot, character development, conflict, action, and more.  On the final day, students invite friends and families to celebrate the creativity of the group through a public reading of the work they have produced; they also get to take home a journal of work created by themselves and their peers.

The Teen Writers' Workshop costs $250, and is open to rising 4th through 8th graders.  They are now accepting applications, which require students to express what they hope to achieve through their participation as well as to submit up to two pages of their current creative writing.  The deadline for applying is Monday, June 3.

For more information, check out their website or contact the program director, Laura Giovanelli, at lbgiovan@ncsu.edu.

Raising a Writer

For many families, including ours, summer is a more laid-back time where students have fewer classes and ongoing assignments, and thus more time to devote to activities that might be squeezed out during the traditional academic year.  For many families, this is a good time to explore creative writing, since creative writing, particularly for young and emerging writers, often blossoms better in an environment with fewer deadlines and distractions.

But raising a writer is not an obvious thing.  What can we do as parents to help encourage our children to write?

This blog post has some fantastic suggestions by M. Molly Backes, who works in a writers center in Chicago and has just published her first YA novel, The Princesses of Iowa.  It is all about giving our children space, freedom, permission, and love--which, really, is probably the way to raise children period.  But it is a lovely and beautifully written post, so I won't ruin it by summarizing it for you--you'll just have to go check it out yourself.

One thing I can add to Ms. Backes' advice, however.  She advocates giving children journals and a really nice pen, and letting them go to it.  And while that will undoubtedly work for many children, it (like any educational technique) will not work for all.

I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that journal writing is something that is more attractive to girls than to boys.  Certainly, the idea did not go over well with my son when I suggested it several years ago.  However, we found something that worked better for him--blogging.  Writing a blog was more attractive to him because:

• it was physically easier for him to type than to hand write
• it has the "computer cool" factor
• it has the ability to incorporate graphics and videos and other media files
• it allows other people to read your content and post comments about it (which my son LOVES)

So, obviously, blog writing is very different than journal writing.  It is usually not going to encourage the heart-felt dream-making, the honest self analysis, the often painful search for one's identity and one's own truths that is often the task of journaling.  But again, not that I want to be sexist, but in observing my own son and his peers and talking to other moms, I don't find a lot of boys who are doing that kind of writing, although it seems a number of my friends have daughters who do.

Ideally, students would do both, especially if they really have a dream to be a writer.  But if the quest for more writing is coming from you at this point rather than them, give them a choice.  If you've been trying to get them to journal and they refuse try, see if writing a blog is better received--and vice versa.

It has certainly worked for us.  When my son started middle school, I asked him to start blogging.  And, as I've stated before, since I don't believe in giving my son assignments that I wouldn't or haven't done myself, I started this blog at the same time.  We have both really enjoyed it and grown and developed tremendously.  It has been almost two years now and my son has written hundreds of posts--varied in length and quality, of course, but written consistently and usually fairly well.  It has improved his writing, his spelling, and his grammar.  And it has turned out to be a way for him to connect with his grandfathers and aunts and uncles who live far away and don't get to see him on a regular basis.

Of course, there are those who don't approve of encouraging middle school blogging.  I thought this blog post and resulting comments on Why Should Middle School Student Blog? was an interesting exchange about the pros and cons of blogging.  But for us, the experience has DEFINITELY been a great area of growth and learning.

Finally, I would say that my son was not a reluctant writer.  But if your children are not self-starters when it comes to writing, you may need to give them writing prompts, regardless if they are journaling or blogging.  There are many, many sources for writing prompts, but I'm liking the ideas being posted daily (during the week) on Pinterest by Atlanta-based writer Anjali Enjeti.  I find them varied and interesting, and the whole Pinterest thing is novel for digitally-aware students like my son.  Plus, by being on Pinterest, they are more visual, which I think make them more attractive to visual learners like my son.

If anyone has any other great resources for getting young adolescents and teens to grow as writers, please post them in the comments below.

Curriculum Resource: The Most Underrated President

Wow, it has been a week and a half packed with holidays and special activities--Valentines Day, the announcement of the winner of The Great Sea Slug Beauty Contest, The Great Backyard Bird Count (our best year ever in terms of number of different birds we spotted), Presidents Day, the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's orbit, and Mardi Gras (not to mention a sprinkling of snow in there).  Most of these included some science or history components along with cooking special dishes (Whiskey Shrimp and Apple Dowdy for Presidents Day and Chicken Bonne Femme and a new dish I invented, Mardi Slaw, for Fat Tuesday).  It's been a lot of fun, but a good bit of work to add to our normal homeschooling schedule.

But before we abandoned our Festive February events, I wanted to share an assignment I gave my son this week in regards to Presidents Day.  The Washington Post was having an online discussion with its readers about which presidents were the most underrated.  They eliminated from consideration nine presidents they considered to be the most frequently praised:  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.  Besides those nine, they asked, which presidents haven't gotten the amount of praise and respect that they deserve?

I found both the question itself and the online discussion to be really interesting.  For example, some argued that Lyndon Johnson's domestic achievements were remarkable--but does his mistakes in Vietnam outweigh the good he did in terms of civil rights?  Did Harry Truman's approval to use the atomic bomb on the Japanese people make him a courageous hero or a Western-centered murderer?  Was James Madison's sheparding of the US Constitution one of the most overlooked, but fundamentally important, contributions of all presidents?  Are we too focused on recent events and presidencies and forget the developments of the past?

I thougth this was a great discussion to be having on Presidents Day.  Plus, it has particular relevence in our family, since my brother spent the summer visiting all the presidential libraries and is writing a book on the question of presidential legacies and the role presidential libraries play in how we remember our former leaders (read more about it on his blog, Across the Country with the Presidents).

So I gave my son a Presidents Day assignment to write a persuasive essay (another skill we're working this year) about the former President that we as a country should appreaciate more.  We talked about the Washington Post discussion, we looked at Wikipedia's collection of ratings of US Presidents, then told him to write a polished essay without telling me who his selection was until I read it.

Meanwhile, I was trying to come up with my answer.  I would probably end up with James Madison, because I think the country would have fallen apart way before the Civil War had it not been for his work on skillfully crafting a Constitution that all the original states could live with; however, I am somewhat predisposed in favor of Madison for some personal reasons.   The Washington Post didn't have an actual vote, but gave the following list, based on the number of comments and recommendations of comments by other people:
1.  George H.W. Bush
2.  Lyndon Johnson
3.  Jimmy Carter
4.  Harry Truman
5.  Calvin Coolidge
6.  Barack Obama (I excluded him from our considerations--we were only doing former presidents)
7.  Gerald Ford
8.  James Polk
9.  Chester Arthur
10.Andrew Johnson
(To learn more about the arguments in favor of these presidents, read the Post's article here.)

Personally, I'm not sure about Calvin Coolidge and Andrew Johnson, and I have mixed feeling about James Polk (I think he only got this high on the list of underrated due to the song below by They Might Be Giants):



AND, of course, I thought James Madison should be on the list.

But, in general, those were the presidents who came to my mind for being underappreciated.

However, when I got the finished essay from my son, he had not chosen any of the presidents mentioned above.  Instead, he chose to write about......

James Buchanon

JAMES BUCHANON?   He of the pro-slavery Dred Scott decision and Kansas constitution?  The president that, in the Wikipedia presidential rating system, was rated as one of the top five WORST presidents by 15 out of the 18 polls, and the very worst president by four of them.   Well, at least he definitely falls into the unappreciated category....

But I loved my son's take on his presidency.  He reviewed his actions and talked about how bad they had been for the country.  But he summed it up by saying that his goal was "desparately delaying the war," and then concluded:

It was quite a good thing that he delayed the issue of secession until Lincoln, the right man for the job,was elected. Putting the issue into the hands of the right person was an invaluably beneficial act...

I really loved his perspective.  What a great way to view those presidencies (or other leaders, or even people or events in our own lives) that we consider to be "failures"--that they were placeholders, or part of the process of getting the right people and resources in place for our latter successes!  He gave me some great perspective on the entire issue, as well as writing quite a good essay.

I recommend this as a great assignment to give your students for Presidents Day.  It certainly made ours more thoughtful and meaningful.

Who would you choose as the most underrated US President?  Share your choices below in the comments section.

Christmas 2011 Blog: Writing Thank You Notes

Writing thank you notes after Christmas was one of those things that my mother forced me to do, and I hated it.

And now I'm so thankful that she did, because it is a habit that she ingrained in me, and that I, in turn, am trying to ingrain upon my son.  I try to get our thank you notes completed and mailed before New Years Eve, and I believe that we've done it this year!

This year I am also doing something new.  While my son draws original pictures for each card, I have copied one of his drawings, called Deep Sea Hats, and used that on the front of my thank you cards:

As much as I love Christmas, I think it is equally important to emphasize the appreciation aspect afterwards.  Several years ago, I read a shocking statistic about how few chilren send Santa thank you cards compared to their letters requesting presents.  I wasn't able to find any statistics, but the ones I remember (but could be wrong), was that one town in Alaska that responds to North Pole letters receives 120,000 letter before Christmas asking for presents, but only 4,000 letter after Christmas thanking Santa for the gifts received.



So while the exact numbers may be off, I don't think the scale is.  The point of the article was that only a handful of children write to thank Santa compared to the numbers who write asking for presents.

Every family has to create their own expectations and traditions around this kind of thing.  But I try, even after the exhaustion typically engendered by the holiday activities and frivolities, to emphasis that gratitude for what we've received is as important as the excitement over what we are expecting.

And, yes, to me, it deserves a written note, not just a verbal thanks or a phone call or even an email.  But I'm old fashioned like that...

Of course, I include it as one of our homeschooling activities for that day.

Contest Helps Students Develop Reflective Writing Skills

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, it's time for us to refocus our writing classes on non-fiction writing.  There is a national contest on a wonderful topic that may be just the thing to help us!

The Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, in partnership with Target Stores, is running a reading-writing competition called Letters About Literature.  In it, students write a personal letter to an author of one of their favorite books to tell them why that book changed the way they think about themselves or the world.   The book can be fiction or nonfiction, even poetry, speeches, short stories, or graphic novels, but it can not be a comic strip or song lyric (even if published in a book).  Also, the author can be living or dead.

The competition is divided into three levels.  Level 1 is for 4th-6th grade (students must be at least nine in order to participate) and letters are expected to be 100-400 words long.  Level 2 is 7th-8th grade, with letters that are 300-600 words.  Level 3 is for high schoolers (9th-12th grade) with a recommended 500-800 page length.  Students can enter through their schools or as individuals, and homeschoolers are specifically encouraged to enter (apparently a number of winners have been homeschooled).

While the exercise is worthy just in itself, there are some great prizes for the winner.  Two national winners for each level will get to choose a favorite library (school or community library) to receive a $10,000 grant from Target.  Those winners will also each get a personal Target gift card for $500.  There will also be four national honors awards for each level; the national honor awards come with a $1,000 grant to a favorite library and a personal $50 Target gift card.

The website also has a great 36-page Teacher's Guide with lesson plans and worksheets to help students write an appropriate reflective essay on their chosen book.  The worksheets not only develop generic essay writing skills, such as crafting an engaging opening paragraph, but lead students to see the difference between a reflective essay and other types of writing, such as book reports, literary analysis, or a simple fan letter.

All in all, this looks like a wonderful project to me.  I've already discussed it with my son, and we definitely plan to be working on it this month to be ready to submit something by the deadline, which is January 6, 2012.  It combine something we love (books) with something we need to develop (nonfiction writing) with a focus on appreciation, which is a virtue that we trying to expand on during this holiday season.

We hope lots of you will join us in this competition.  If you do, please enter the book that you (or your child/ren or student/s) choose to write about in the comments below.

Match Your Writing Style to Famous Authors

So our glorious adventure of NaNoWriMo has come to an end!  I really enjoyed the experience, but it was intense.  Today is the first day in a month that I haven't written some of, or even thought about, the contents of my great American novel.  Instead, I developed a Survey Monkey poll, worked on a website, played around with designing a logo, drafted a promotional email for an upcoming event, and trying to figure out how to create an email sign-up list for a big project we're doing.  Oh, and of course, made sure we did science, art, PE, math, writing, and Spanish today.  You know, just the ordinary day in the life of a non-NaNoWriMo homeschooler....

But one last thing that I wanted to share about NaNoWriMo (which if you aren't into, you are probably sick of hearing about by now) is this fun website I found.  It is called I Write Like, and it analyzes any text you've written and input to the site and tells you what author your writing style is similar to.  It looks at word choices and sentence structure and such to figure it out.

So, of course, last night I put my entire novel into the Analyzer and discovered that, according to this website, ....

I write like
Isaac Asimov

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

It has been so long since I've read any Asimov that I don't know if I think that is true or not (and, of course, even thinking of any comparison is an insult to him).  But whatever the website does, it does it pretty consistently, because I put various blog posts and some other writing in as well, and Asimov came up pretty often.  And when I put some of my son's posts or other writing it, he gets totally different authors than I do.

I think it could be a great thing to use with middle schoolers and high schoolers.  Because once the program tells them they write like whoever, that's a great incentive to get them to read some of that person's books and analyze on their own any similarities or differences.

So I don't know how legitimate it is, but it is fun to try.   Click here to check it out.  Add what famous author your writing style compares to in the comments below.

A Winning Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving here in America, and there are so many things that I'm thankful for.  I'm thankful for all the technology that connects me to those of you out there who are reading this.  I'm thankful for my computers in particular, which reminds me that I'm thankful for a light that left us this year, the inimitable Steve Jobs.  I'm thankful for my family, I'm thankful for my friends, I'm thankful that I get to homeschool, and I'm thankful that we live in such an abundant country and get to eat a wonderful meal of turkey (and ham, in our case) and mashed potatoes and vegetables and dessert (chocolate, yay!) and such.

I'm also thankful for things that have gone well for my friends and that remind me all the things I take for granted.  So this year, I'm grateful for working refrigerators, dry floors...or just floors in general in another case, catalytic converters, and oven burners.  I'm also grateful that my friend, whose father is about to pass on to whatever it is that happens after this life, gets to be up there with him and her entire family and to mark this transition with the meaning and connection that it deserves.

But one thing that really makes this Thanksgiving special, compared to all of them, is that today I wrote over 3,000 words on my novel, which takes me over the 50,000 word mark of words written since November 1.  That also means that, in the eyes of NaNoWritMo, that I am an official "Winner."  It feels very special to pass that particular milestone on Thanksgiving itself.  That wasn't what I was planning, but it's the way things worked out.

The downside to this august occasion is that I'm still not close to actually finishing the book, which is my real goal for my writing for November.  But I don't have a lot of commitments outside the house this long weekend, so maybe I can churn out a lot of the end in the next few days.

But whatever, I've earned that NaNoWriMo winner badge!  As has my son, who has far exceeded his goal already (and his goal was double the word count goal recommended by the organizers) !

So I'm thankful that I'm a winner.  I hope you can spend some time this weekend thinking about the ways that you and your family are winners, too!

How to Write Good

It has been an intense week of writing for NaNoWriMo, so I thought I would end the week with a humorous piece of writing advice that was composed by Frank L. Visco and originally published in Writer's Digest (June 1986):

HOW TO WRITE GOOD
by Frank L. Visco

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

1. Avoid Alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren’t necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. Profanity sucks.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is always best.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?

Curriculum Resource NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program (with special guest appearance by Eragon's Christopher Paolini)

Good news--the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program website for 2011 is up!  You are probably familiar with the NaNoWriMo program--that is, the short-hand description for NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, an online effort to encourage thousands of adults to write a 50,000-word novel in the space of a month (and  November, one of those only 30 day months at that).  It is supposed to be an intense writing experience, which I hope to do one of these years (but I don't think this will be the year).

However, my son would like to do NaNoWriMo this year.  Fortunately for him, they have a great website that supports younger writers (who also get to work towards a smaller total word count).  The site has countdown clocks and word counters and Internet badges and lots of cool stuff like that to attract students to the project.  It also has some things to get them over writer's block, such as a Dare Machine, which "dares" authors to include certain things in their stories or try some fun writing exercises, such as having your characters write a novel about YOU.

But once November starts, much of the program is geared towards encouraging students to actually finish the novels they have begun.  One way they do that is to have published authors send emails to the students with bits of advice or pep talk.  And guess who will be sending some emails this year?  None other than Christopher Paolini, who wrote the first of his famous Eragon series when he was 15 and was homeschooling.  Now, with 25 million of his books sold worldwide, he is the hero among young writers, but especially among those who homeschool.

HOWEVER--even if you and your students/children aren't participating, there are still resources to check out.  Of particular interest to teachers is their collection of hour-long lesson plans about many aspects of writing, including creating characters, developing conflict, writing good dialogue, choosing a setting that support the characters, and so on.  Click here to see the full list of lesson plans available for middle school students.

So whether or not you end up writing a novel in a month, it is a curriculum resource that is worth checking out.

Are You Downloading Ebooks, eBooks, ebooks, or e-books?

Grammar is a topic we do here on a regular basis because I think one of the most important academic skills I can teach my son is to communicate well.  However, English being the highly adaptable language it is, it is hard to find a definitive source to settle some of the grammar questions about recent English language use.

The title gives one such example.  Many of us are getting our books in digital format, whether it is a novel to be read on the iPad, Nook, or other such electronic book device, or curriculum, resource material, or other such items.

But when we download these items, what is the proper way to refer to them?  Are they Ebooks?  eBooks? ebooks?  or e-books?

One site I've found that helps with such questions as this is Daily Writing Tips.   Not only do they debate topics like this, they have lots of resources on the subject, including a section on Grammar 101 and a basic grammar (their choice is) eBook (although they suggest that the most popular choice is probably e-book).  If you subscribe to their blog, you will get a daily email relating to writing, which can be helpful to students, teachers, and bloggers alike.

First Anniversary!

Speaking of looking back.....

Today is the last day of the first year of the Teaching Your Middle Schooler blog.  When I started this blog on September 7, 2010 (with that memorable post of  Are Bella and Edward LITERALLY Warping Your Adolescent's Brain?,  foreshadowing a much more famous debate on this issue in the New York Times),  my motivation to actually do it (as opposed to however many years I had been TALKING about doing it) was that I wanted my son to start a blog as a means of getting him to write regularly, and I didn't think I should ask him to do it if I weren't willing to do it myself.

However, I had another goal for myself.  I really wanted to see if I could go for an entire year and actually write something on my blog every day for all 365 days.   And I'm glad to say that I did it!  Even over holidays and long field trip days and hurricane days and vacation days, I managed to post something every day for the past year.  In fact, it turns out that tonight's is my 391st post, so for a number of days, I even managed to post twice!

Perhaps even more exciting than the fact I actually did what I set out to do is the fact that so many of you all were willing to check out what I had to say.  As of tonight, we have had 17,257 page views from people outside our household, which I think is incredible.  I don't know how many unique visitors that is, but it has to be a bunch more than I ever thought would be interested in what I had to say.  Just over one quarter of those were from other countries, which I found really wonderful.  Again, I don't have a count of how many different countries visited my blog, but I know it was a bunch.  Yes, the biggest numbers have come from other English-speaking countries (UK, Canada, and Australia), but we've had visitors from every continent except Antarctica, and all sorts of different countries--big ones, small ones, technology-advanced ones, and technology-deprived ones.  I've had visitors from countries that I had to look up because I didn't know where they were, and I'm NOT one of those geography-deprived Americans who don't know where anything is.

So it has been thrilling to see the visits, and, really, an honor to share my thoughts with you all.  Thank you so much for coming and checking me out.

I also have to acknowledge my 12 year old son, who has also really stuck to his blog.  He never had a personal goal to write every day, but did most days, and has accumulated 369 posts.  So, to use one of his favorite expressions, Huzzah for him!

So I may not be quite so obsessed about writing every day this year as I was for the last one.  But I will continue to share my thoughts, resources, lesson plans, curriculum links, and opinions about education as it relates to our (roughly) 11-14 year olds.

So I hope you all will continue to visit as we launch into Year 2.

Contest on US Constitution for Middle Schoolers

If your middle schooler studied the US Constitution this year, he or she might want to put that knowledge to work and enter the "We the People 9.17" contest being sponsored by ConstitutingAmerica.org.  Constituting America is a non-profit organization created by Janine Turner, perhaps best known for her role as Maggie on Northern Exposure.  The mission of the organization is "to reach, educate and inform America's youth and her citizens about the importance of the U.S. Constitution and the foundation it sets forth regarding our freedoms and rights."

As part of that goal, Constituting America is running a contest in which middle schoolers can express their support for the US Constitution.  Students can submit either a 850 words (or less) essay on the topic "Why the United State Constitution is Relevant Today," or an original 3:20 (or shorter) song on "What the United States Constitution Means to Me."  The winner in each category will receive a $200 gift card, will have her or his work promoted on the Constituting America website, and will be featured in some Constitution Day activities on 9/17/2011.  The deadline is June 14, 2011, and the rules and process for entering can be found on this webpage.

I have to say that this brings me back to my own, perhaps not middle school, but high school days.  I had a joint US History and English class, and the teachers used to encourage me to enter contests like this.  I entered a number of contests like this, and won quite a few!  So if you have a child with an interest in American History and some talent in writing either essays or songs, why not give it a try?

Blogging for Middle Schoolers and Teens

My friend Maria of Natural Math and I are teaching a class on blogging for our local coop.  Today we visited a number of blogs by teenagers or younger that have won awards, gotten some important local or national coverage, and/or have helped their authors achieve their goals or have an impact on the world.  I thought I would list them for others who are looking for some inspiration for what young people are doing with their blogs.

I've divided them into several categories:

Personal/Diary-Like Blogs
These are blogs that basically deal with the life, interests, events, and musings of it author.  Here are two example that were nominated for national awards:
Castles, Quills, and Cameras:  This is written by an 8th grade homeschool students.  In addition to her interest in writing, other key passions she has are books (Quills) and movies (Cameras).  Castles contains everything else:  her schoolwork, her spiritual beliefs, and other random events or thoughts.
Oh Clementine:  (Warning--this blog does have some mild profanity, so don't visit if that offends you or is against your family's rules):  Clementine is a quirky, highly right-brained 16 year old Canadian high schooler who loves dinosaurs, video games, music, and neon.  She is passionate about her politics, which are liberal, but is not loving her high school education.

These examples illustrate some important points about writing interesting and successful personal blogs.  The main thing is, you have to have something interesting and valuable to say.  It helps to be humorous and  to provide helpful information, to be honest about yourself and your weaknesses or failures as well as your successes, and to include content or thoughts that are relevant to the experience or interests of your readers.

Project or Cause Blogs
These are blogs that done to chronicle some other larger project, fundraising, educational, or social or environmental cause.  Here are two by younger populations:
Team PyroTech:  Team PyroTech is a local team of high schoolers competing in the FIRST FRC national robotics competition.  While the primary emphasis of the project is the construct and program large robots to perform the tasks required by the contest, the teams get extra points for having exemplary supporting media, such as videos, websites, and blogs.
Wyatt Workman: Now, this one is just adorable.  A seven-year-old boy living in California who is concerned about the oceans decided to make a claymation film, publish a book, and sell his clay figures at an art show, with all the proceeds going to an environmental nonprofit.  His blog has updates about the media coverage of his work (he's been interviewed on television and national newspapers) and the funds he has raised (over $3,000 at last report).

Project or cause blogs generally support some larger effort, but are a great way to get media exposure or to get the word out to a larger audience than the ones who may be directly involved with the project.

Food Blogs
Food is one of the most popular topics for blogging, and that is true for teenagers as well as adults.  These two have both been nominated for national awards and mentioned in local media:
Foodie at 15 (Now 18):  Nick started sharing his recipe, cooking tips, impressions of great restaurants, and other food items when he was 15.  Now he is 18 and finishing up his senior year before heading to the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania, where he plans to get the business acumen to go with his fantastic cooking and eventually open his own restaurant.  If you read his post on his ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, where he shares not only his personal experience with such cookies, his researching and adapting of the recipes of other famous chefs, his explanation of the science behind the changes he made, and the recipe itself, I'm sure you'll have no doubts that he will do exactly that.
17 (now 18) and Baking: Elissa, who is now a college student, doesn't plan a career in food, but is instead pursuing a journalism degree.  With the degree of professionalism her blog shows, she also seems assured of a bright future.  Her writing is good, her photographs of the food are GORGEOUS, and the recipes are luscious!

Personal Passion and/or Expertise Blogs
These two are example about how becoming an expert in a field that you love can really pay off:
Laura's Life:  When she was in second grade, Laura decided that she wanted to read all the Newbery Award winning books before she was in middle school.  Well, she did, and posted reviews of all of them on her blog.  Now she is working her way through the Fuse#8 Top 100 Children's Novels, as well as participating in Mock Newbery each year.  With hundreds of reviews on her site already, Laura is known by authors and people like the head of the ALA, and receives many free books now to review.  Oh, and she's only 10 years old.  Pretty amazing...
Style Rookie:  This is the queen of the successful teen blogs.  Tavi started blogging about fashion when she was 11, and has since been featured in the New York Times, Pop Magazine, French Vogue, and a number of other media.  This has led to her getting invited to front row seats at New York Fashion Week and the opportunity to write a Fashion Week article for Harper's Bazaar.  She also has designers sending her all kind of clothes and accessories.  Now 14 and in high school, Tavi is still going strong, sometimes getting 50,000 hits per day on her blog.

So there are some samples of outstanding blogs by teenagers or younger.  Have I missed any other teen or younger blogs that really stand out?  Add them to the comments below.

Writing Contest Encourages Intergeneration Connections

Next month will mark the 11 year anniversary of my organizing monthly visits to a local assisted living facility.  Ever since my son was one year old, he and his peers have been going every month to bring some joy and to create some bonds with some seniors.  We have done so many different things with the residents of this assisted living community--played games, done old fashioned dances (Charleston, anyone?), watched educational films, made ice cream in a bag, read Christmas stories, carved Halloween pumpkins, and done many, many crafts together.  We've benefitted a lot from the regular contact with older citizens, although I also consider it to be one of our community service projects.

This year, however, the assisted living facility is having our students interview the residents about their lives and opinions.  Each month, one or two students ask a resident one question on what advice they would give young people about....one month, it was education, another month, it was being married or having a mate or partner.  At the end of the year, the company will compile all the responses and publish them as a book.  It has been really interesting, because we are learning more about the lives of the residents, and I hope our children are listening to some of their wise advice.

So I can recommend entering a writing contest I discovered lately.  The "Listen To A Life Contest" being sponsored by the Legacy Project seeks to connect young writers with people over 50 (parents not included).  The elder tells the student or students (ages 8-18) true stories about his or her life, and the student(s) turn it into a 300 word (maximum) essay.  There is one grand prize of a computer and iPod nano, $800 in learning software, and an additional $25,000 of software for the school, and 20 runner up prizes of an MP3 player and $400 in software.  However, the deadline is March 31, 2011, so writers will have to get started soon (click here for a full set of rules).

Of course, I think everyone can be a winner with this contest, because I think anything that encourages our kids to learn from these wise, seasoned elders is a great gift than any piece of technology.

Persian Fairy Tales, Small Worlds, Bananas, and the Power of the Internet

I love words (as regular readers of this blog might have realized, since I use so many of them!)  One of my favorite words is "serendipity," which Wikipedia defines as "denotes the property of making fortunate discoveries while looking for something unrelated, or the occurrence of such a discovery during such a search."  And while I have long loved the word, and work it into my conversation and writings as often as is appropriate (another word like it that I love is "cacophonous," which the occasion to use arises, alas, all too often), it was not until tonight that, perhaps inspired by my recent post on the word history game Etymologic, I looked up the derivation of the term.  (Man, what a sentence.  And while I think it is grammatically correct, my homework is to try to diagram it.  It's what I tell my son to do, so I need to follow my own advice.)

Anyway, it turns that, according to my favorite etymology resource, the Online Etymology Dictionary, that serendipity was actually coined by a specific person--namely, Wallace Walpole--on a specific date--January 28, 1754.  He said he created it from a Persian fairy tale called "The Three Princes of Serendip," within which the protagonists "were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of."

So I don't know what worked for the ancient Persians, but my favorite vehicle for serendipity these days is the good old hyperlinked World Wide Web.  I can easily begin with a simple task (like looking up the etymology of the word serendipity) and get lost for 30 minutes in Persian literature and foreign languages and translation difficulties and who knows what else.  But blogging is a particularly great vehicle for these serendipitous encounters, as people seek out your site while you seek out their posts, based on some common interests.

That happened to me today when, in following up a comment someone made on one of my posts, I discovered a marvelous resource.  Another homeschool mom out there is writing a great blog about her homeschooling adventures under the name of SmallWorld at Home.  I'm not sure where the name comes from, but to me it brings to mind William Blake's wonderful words:

To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.

Maybe that's just me, who has 19th century poets on the brain as we study them along with our 19th century history--but what a lovely way to describe what we do as homeschoolers, and, really, as parents in general.

But more to the point, however, is the fact that this past week, we've spent a lot of time on writing--fiction, non-fiction, and quasi-fiction (see my son's blog, The Madisonian Blog, to see how easily he can morph one into the other).  Specifically, we have been working on mastering the Five Paragraph essay.  He is taking a class at our homeschool coop on this topic, where the teacher has been doing a masterful job of trying to move the students from their preferences for storytelling to the tighter format of an essay. But the real work needs to be done at home, where they do their actual writing.  So we've done draft after draft after draft on my son's essay, which is about the history of bananas (which turn out to be a fascinating not fruit, but technically an herb).

So what do I find at SmallWorld at Home but a very useful post on writing an essay, with this oh-so-validating comment:

If you spend a whole year perfecting the 5-paragraph essay and its various types (descriptive, narrative, expository, persuasive, etc.), you'll have accomplished much of what is covered in a basic freshman composition class.  Imagine how far ahead your student will be if he is familiar with the format in middle school and fluent by high school!

So bless you, SmallWorld mom!  It's worth all the time and effort after all....

If you want to read her resources about writing essays, click here to read that post.  She also has a whole wonderful series about creative writing that is especially geared to beginning and reluctant writers.  Look at this neat link she has created for that resource:







So I'm really grateful that I live in a time of technology-facilitated serendipity, and for the support I get for my journey from all these other bloggers and web writers whose insight I soak up, even if we never meet.

Educational Resource: NoodleTools Bibliography Software

As our students move into the highly-shareable world of digital information, it is really important to teach them from an early age the ethical practice of identifying the source of text, pictures, or other content they may borrow and incorporate into their own materials.  This includes the more information types of credit statements on websites, blog posts, etc., as well as the traditional modes of including a bibliography of sources used in developing a paper, report, or other writing.

And as long as they are starting to maintain resources from an early age, why not have them present them in one of the major styles they will be required to use by the time they are in college, or even in high school--styles like the MLA, APA, or Chicago/Turabian style?  Fortunately, there is software available that makes it easy for even elementary students to generate bibliographies with the proper formatting to meet these criteria.

There are many bibliography packages out there, many of which are free and/or open source.  However, my favorite one so far is called Noodle Tools.  While the complete package is not free, it is available for a single family use for a very reasonable subscription of $8/year.  I haven't done an exhaustive comparison, but I found Noodle Tools to be the most intuitive and easy-to-use of any of the packages, and it is worth $8 to me for the cleaner, more user-friendly (especially for a child) interface.  Plus, there is a stripped down version that is free, and would probably be acceptable for most middle school and even some high school uses if all you want to do is to create a bibliography.

With Noodle Tools, you start a project, decide which format you want to use for the bibliography, and start inputing data for the requisite fields (author's name, publisher, date of publication, etc.).  That database then formats the information in the proper format for the selected style (MLA, APA, etc.)  However, in the paid version, you can also create note cards attached to that citation, and use those to take notes or even cut and paste text, graphics, photographs, etc. from that source that you want to include in your paper.  You can export that information and/or bibliography either to a Word document or to a Google Doc document.

The website also has resources about citation rules as well as the ethical use of outside sources.  It was developed as a teaching tool, and I think it is a great support to help our children learn the proper way of keeping track of and giving credit to the material they draw on from others when they are creating their own works.