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Very interesting w/ info on cluster search engines

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I don't think I know anyone who isn't in a search rut. We usually begin our search in one of two search giants. But while they may not have achieved verb status, we have other choices well worth discovering.

And it's kinda in our ballpark to ensure that appropriate choices are easily available on both desktops and mobile devices.

Today, I'd like to share a few search engine options that might be worth sharing in a curation with your learning community. (I plan to share options for elementary, portals and curation searching in upcoming posts.)

Let's start with . . .
Computational Knowledge
Wolfram Alpha is its own Swiss Army knife for anything computational or analytical and it is truly interdisciplinary. Wolfram Alpha does not retrieve your everyday result list. Instead, it returns graphs, data, tables, maps, images, and more and it comes in handy for all sorts of daily tasks. It will help you rhyme, create word puzzles, and analyze readability. It will compute probability. It will solve algebraic equations. It will draw fractal sets. It will analyze the nutritional information of any food. It will compare movies and cities. Give it a try for making sense of the data sets kids need to access to create meaningful infographics. And make sure your STEM teachers know of its wonders. It may replace your calculators. Check out the variety of Wolfram Alpha apps.
Clustering
There are two interesting clustering search engines. But, why cluster? Many times when we search we have limited understanding of a new content area in terms of its context and vocabulary. Clustering shows possible connections we may not have considered and kiddos truly benefit from the

Carrot2 is an open source clustering search engine. In addition to organizing results into useful clustered categories, it offers nifty visual features. Beyond its traditional default vertical result list, you may view results in colorful circle and foam formats. Category folders may be expanded to see an array of subtopics. The top menu offers the usual Web, images, videos, and news and adds meanings, definitions and, as an option, products.

DuckDuckGo not only offers a clean, simple interface, it prides itself on being a zero-click results page, with all results displaying as one, often very long, scroll. It does not track your searches. It searches Web, images and videos and offers a safe search feature. DuckDuckGo does not collect or share your personal information. There is a handy Chrome browser button, convenient domain icons, and very little ad spam. It's available as an app for Android and iOS.

Startpage/ IxQuick, this recent merger offers Google-generated and Google-style results-including an easily-accessible Advanced Search- with IxGuicks' privacy features. It does not record your IP address or track your searches. It is also available as a mobile app for iOS and Android.
Creative Commons made easier Google's significan other treasures
Google Books: While not every book result is available as a preview, Google Books is an underused treasure filled with a different type of content in preview, Google eBooks and free Google eBooks. For AP U.S. history, I was continually discovered old newspapers and ephemera and very old titles that served as primary sources. There are manuals and diaries and so many issues of old magazines, including full-text issues of Remember, the Tools link following a search offers filters for amount of content, document type (books, magazines), anytime (21st, 20th, 19th centuries or a VERY HANDY custom range),

Google Scholar: offers a first step into academic research for many users who know of its treasures. It links to many libraries' database offerings as well as available open access articles with pdf and html links to the right of a result. With one click you can trace who is citing whom and discover the authors who are most prominent in any area of research. In addition to academic articles, you will find graduate theses (with their helpful lit reviews), legal and court opinions, scientific research reports and more. And, when you click on the quotation marks under a result you will get a formatted citation in a variety of styles.

Google Images simply rocks. The reverse image search allows you to identify image sources or what an image actually is. It's both fun and useful to filter by image type and color. When you get those tricky questions like, "I am looking for a book about an elephant. It had a blue cover and the picture looked like. . ." Try adding format-type words like chart or caption or table or diagram to dig up serious content in books and reports.

Google News: This very handy news search offers hidden features. In Settings, students and teachers can manage their news sections, pushing their interests to the front page. News categories allow for sorting by region or topic. A pull-down allows users to choose news by country. Related tags offer a strategy for honing a news search with suggested vocabulary. It's a little hard to find, but Google News also offers a Newspaper Search. After you hit return, the Custom range filter under Any time allows you go way far back in time and dig up all sorts of historical content.

Related posts:
Databases: Making the Case A custom solution: Creating a Google Custom Search Engine

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On search agility: There's more than one place to start

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I don't think I know anyone who isn't in a search rut. We usually begin our search in one of two search giants. But while they may not have achieved verb status, we have other choices well worth discovering. And it's kinda in our ballpark to ensure that appropriate choices are easily available on both desktops and mobile devices.

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In a rap song

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7 Ways | The ISTE Standards for Students M... - SafeShare.tv

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SafeShare.tv reduces advertisements and other unwanted distractions from Vimeo and YouTube videos, so they can be viewed safely. Perfect for Schools!

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Digital Public Library

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The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America's libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.

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How a School Library Increased Student Use by a 1000%

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How a School Library Increased Student Use by a 1000%

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It isn't all about makerspaces!

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To adapt to changing student needs, some school libraries are reinventing themselves as makerspaces, but this Ohio library took a slightly different approach. Now they're seeing incredible results.
Listen to the full interview ( transcript):

Last year at Big Walnut Middle School in Sunbury, Ohio, there were some days when fewer than ten students passed through the library doors. Just like in so many other schools, students and teachers had a growing number of resources available to them through tablets, Chromebooks, e-readers and interactive whiteboards, so they no longer needed to visit the library like they once did.

Some schools have addressed this problem by converting their libraries to makerspaces. These hands-on environments allow students to to build, create, design, and experiment. When we see makerspaces, we tend to see big Lego tables, coding and computing tools like Raspberry Pi kits, and 3-D printers where students can see their creations come to life.

But Big Walnut principal Penny Sturtevant had a vision that was a bit different from the makerspaces she was seeing. She wanted her library to be a place that was a little less open-ended, a place where students did hands-on work, but as an extension of what was happening their classrooms. Instead of taking her inspiration from the maker movement, Sturtevant was interested in trends she was seeing toward more personalized learning.

As she began the process of reimagining the space, Sturtevant asked me to serve as a consultant. She introduced me to Ed Kitchen, whom she had recently hired to develop and then run the Learning Center, and the three of us met over Skype and a shared Google Doc to explore all the possibilities, think through the logistics, and formulate a plan. Even in the early stages, we knew that this might be a story I would share here, so that other schools who might not be ready for a full makerspace could see this as a viable alternative.

So how did it all turn out? Well, Big Walnut's brand-new Learning Center definitely doesn't suffer from a student use problem. On an average day, over a hundred students will visit to work on projects, make use of interactive technologies, film and edit videos, and yes, check out books.

Setting Up the Space

To begin redesigning the space, Kitchen did a clean sweep. "First thing Mr. Kitchen did was wipe it out, almost wiped out the contents," Sturtevant explains. "Didn't give them away or anything, but opened up the space. The books now became consolidated along the wall."

Both Sturtevant and Kitchen knew they wanted to create a place where students could collaborate in lots of different ways, so they needed flexibility in how the space was used. To accomplish that, they looked for furniture that could easily be moved.

"You can't have things that are in one spot," Kitchen says. "If you put things in fours, they're going to stay in fours. So everything we have there is movable, whether it's the chairs, the interactive boards, or the flat panels."

More than any other piece of equipment or technology, the furniture is what Sturtevant values most. "There wouldn't be one (piece of) technology that I wouldn't give up out of the furniture," she says. "The way the kids can move and go...working together in pairs or partners or large groups, or if the teacher does come down and use it and we rearrange the furniture-that's where I see the creativity of how they're collaborating."

How it Works

Kitchen meets regularly with teachers to stay informed about their curricular goals. Because he knows what the Learning Center technology can do, he's able to help teachers consider new ways they can expand their current classroom activities into the larger space. "They come to me and say, 'How can I make this project different?'" he says. "Because they are getting tired of doing the same thing, whether it's just presenting on a Google slide or just standing up and doing a report or writing a paper."

Once teachers have a plan in place and are ready to send kids down to the Learning Center, they fill out a Prescription form (see below), indicating what students should be working on during their time at the Center. As students enter, they scan their student IDs with a bar code reader, which then populates a Google Spreadsheet with their names and a timestamp. Teachers have access to the spreadsheet from their own computers, so they can see exactly when students arrive at the Learning Center. Students then hand the Prescription to Kitchen or his assistant, so the staff knows exactly what students should be doing.

This arrangement has effectively made every classroom larger. "Just imagine yourself as a classroom teacher and you probably want to send kids out to the hallway, but are afraid to because of X, Y, and Z - some teachers are hesitant of that," Kitchen explains. "So now, this space has opened that. If you want to personalize your learning, which is what we're doing nowadays anyway, you can send three or four kids down to the learning center with this prescription that allows us really to work with them."

The Tech

Apart from the furniture, what equipment is available for student use? Here's a breakdown of the tech in the Learning Center:

2 Clevertouch Plus interactive touchscreens

1 Epson Brightlink Interactive Projector

2 wall-mounted TVs that can be hooked up to laptops and used as monitors

1 green screen room, which uses an iPad with a green screen app

5 desktop computers

10 Chromebooks

3 digital cameras

What About Books?

Can students still check out books? Absolutely. Big Walnut did not reduce its collection; they just consolidated it. In fact, students now have access to even more books than before, because Big Walnut is working on a partnership with the local public library to allow for inter-library loans with weekly deliveries to and from the school.

"So, in essence," Sturtevant says, "we have expanded our library collection, not shrunk it."

Big Walnut Middle School would like to thank the anonymous donor who gave to the Delaware County Foundation. Their grant made it possible to obtain many of the "extras" in the new Learning Center, such as the technology.

Are you interested in converting your library to a learning center?
Ed Kitchen, the Learning Center Coordinator for Big Walnut Middle School, is available for consulting and professional development. You can reach him at Big Walnut Middle School or on Twitter at @ekitchen87.

Keep in touch.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to my members-only library of free downloadable resources, including my e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half, which has helped thousands of teachers spend less time grading!

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How This School Library Increased Student Use by 1,000 Percent

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To adapt to changing student needs, some school libraries are reinventing themselves as makerspaces, but this Ohio library took a slightly different approach. Now they're seeing incredible results. Listen to the full interview ( transcript): Last year at Big Walnut Middle School in Sunbury, Ohio, there were some days when fewer than ten students passed through the library doors.

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Snark, Sarcasm, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Librarians

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Snark, Sarcasm, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Librarians

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Even if you've never worked in public libraries.....somedays, you just resort to snark (in your head, of course!)

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Librarians are very fond of pointing out that we are not our stereotypes. We're not all shrill older ladies in horn rimmed glasses with a wicked "Shhh!" We're not all meek or mild-mannered men in V-neck sweaters. We like relaxed dress codes, and we're very comfortable with tattoos and bright blue hair. When we're not getting people books, we're putting on pub trivia nights or showing off 3D printers. These are not our stereotypes.

Another thing about us is that we're far more snarky than most people realize. Truth is, a sense of humor is a prerequisite. Like so many other service jobs, sometimes we need sarcasm to relieve tension and get through the day. I suspect we've always been this way. But while librarians in Alexandria were presumably just as snarky as we are, the modern world has given us a new place to express it: Twitter.
Librarians on Twitter
This is the focus Roz Warren's Huffington Post article, " Librarians! Here's a Little Snark to Brighten Your Day," which focuses on the anonymous tweets of @LousyLibrarian. Here are two examples:

"Can you help me find the self-help books?" "I kind of feel like I shouldn't."

Storytime is every Monday and Wednesday at headache-thirty.

I myself have spent some time at work doing...um...research into sarcastic librarian Twitter feeds. Turns out, there are a lot of them. My personal favorite is @RantyLibrarian. Two examples:

Yes, we have books on Paleo. And yes, also Cross-Fit. And alcoholism, for me, because of patrons like you. #StopReading

Sure we carry #AynRand. She's in the "You Should Make Better Life Decisions" section. #TerribleDecisions #StopReading

For a few more funny library themed Twitter accounts, see the bottom of this post.
We don't all do this...but most of us do this
Many of these feeds are anonymous, of course. But I've never worked for a library where a certain amount of behind-the-scenes sarcasm wasn't the norm. That we make jokes about library-life should surprise no one. Servers and bartenders do, too, and our jobs are similar in many ways- highly specialized, existing in every town and city, operating at every level of the economic spectrum, and most critically, finding out what you want and bringing it to you. But let's not read too much into the service industry comparison. I'm quite sure every industry has a discrepancy between how its professionals act in front of customers and how they act with each other.
Hey, people are stressed. Humor helps.
Because the librarian stereotype varies between calmness and austerity, it doesn't reflect the very real fact that librarian work can be stressful. Many of our patrons are stressed. A person who hasn't used a computer in fifteen years but has to pay bills online, a homeless patron who needs medical services, a high schooler prepping for an AP exam, a person with severe mental disorders, or even just a well-meaning patron who's obviously on a lot of speed-these people are stressed, and often create stressful situations for everyone around them. Sometimes our patrons are difficult to be help, or even be near. Sometimes they mistreat each other or us.

If we take part of our break to giggle at Twitter feeds that express what we're feeling or provides some catharsis, that's a lot better than sassing patrons at the reference desk.
Twitter feeds and hash tags (a small representative sample) @RantyLibrarian @BelleLibrary @LousyLibrarian @FakeLibStats #libraryproblems #librarianproblems
Also: #BookFace.

Resources:

American Library Association. " Programs for Millennials and more." July 15, 2015.

Scott, Clare. " American Library Association Continues to Stress the Importance of Public Access to 3D Printing." 3dprint.com, December 10, 2015.

Warren, Roz. " Librarians! Here's a Little Snark to Brighten Your Day." Huffpost Books, January 5, 2016.

Tags: humor, librarians, stereotypes, twitter and public libraries

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Snark, Sarcasm, and Your Friendly Neighborhood Librarians

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Librarians are very fond of pointing out that we are not our stereotypes. We're not all shrill older ladies in horn rimmed glasses with a wicked "Shhh!" We're not all meek or mild-mannered men in V-neck sweaters. We like relaxed dress codes, and we're very comfortable with tattoos and bright blue hair.

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Creating Text Sets with Primary Sources from Library of Congress

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Creating Text Sets with Primary Sources from Library of Congress

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Teachers are asking for our help with text sets

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A MiddleWeb Blog

I can talk all I want about the Children's March in Birmingham, Alabama, when schoolchildren from across that city and beyond walked out of their schools and marched in a Civil Rights protest. I can try to explain the context and connect that to the novel we are reading, The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis.

I can talk about it from the teaching perspective but nothing compares to the voice and story of someone like Professor Freeman Hrabowski, who was actually there, marching in the protest as a child. Or we can listen to Anne Pearl Avery talk about joining the student movement in the South. Or....

The Library of Congress 's digital archives provides me with those voices and those personal stories, along with other important archival documents of the role of young people in the Civil Rights movement, images from the South during the unrest, and newspapers and other primary source materials.

And I can gather them up all from the comfort of home.

Truly, the Library of Congress digital archives are a wealth of information and a national treasure, with some reserved qualms on my part about the underlying search engine. I've been learning more and more about this site in recent months, as I co-facilitate a professional development course about using the Library of Congress to locate primary sources that will spark student inquiry.

We're helping teachers not just to navigate within the Library of Congress archives, but also to develop "text sets" using an inquiry model that connects learning targets with primary source documents. These resources might range from maps to telegrams, from political cartoons to interview transcripts, from sound recordings to art and photography.

A national treasure filled with accessible resources

A text set, as we define it, is a series of texts that begin with some kind of anchor - either a novel, or a textbook passage, or a current events article, or some other kind of content reading that students will be doing.

From there, a teacher considers an Inquiry (or Essential) Question, and builds out a collection of five to seven primary sources for students to explore, with a performance task of some sort at the end. This could be a writing prompt, or some project that demonstrates understanding of how the anchor text and the primary sources work together on a theme.

So, for example, my text set for The Watsons Go to Birmingham was anchored to the novel, but then I began to collect primary sources of the Children's March. Interestingly, the march itself is never mentioned in the novel. It does, however, play a prominent role in the movie version of the book.

It makes sense for my sixth graders to consider the dangers of young people marching in the streets during such a violent time, and to write about whether the risk of arrest or violence was worth the collective movement to force change in racial prejudice and segregation laws.

A nonfiction text set about inventions

Another text set I am developing is about inventions, using a picture book (Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women) as my anchor text, with supporting primary documents coming from the Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison archives, as well as from various patent design plans.

This particular text set aligns nicely with the new Next Generation Science Standards ( NGSS), which weave engineering design throughout the strands and throughout the grades.

The Library of Congress site is an incredible boon for gathering these kinds of resources. The organization has digitized thousands of historical documents, making them freely available to anyone with an Internet connection. On a global scale, the Library of Congress is also the force and support behind the World Digital Library, in which countries around the world are slowly making more primary documents available.

The LOC helps meet cross-curricular literacy goals

Certainly, the shifts in the Common Core have made it all the more important that teachers in all content areas pay particular attention to literacy. And some strands of the Common Core and other content-area standards are pushing for students to be taught more about primary sources and non-fiction texts in different genres.

Add to that the research component and the demands to reach across multiple texts, and the Library of Congress might have something to offer any middle grades classroom.

The Stanford Education Group's "Reading Like a Historian" project (watch the video) is one of many rich resources now available to teachers that work well in conjunction with the Library of Congress site. At the Stanford site there are lesson plans, text sets, and research documentation of the gains made by students when using primary sources as reading materials. The Library of Congress also has many teacher resources that include primary sources, lesson ideas and more.

Some concerns about the search engine

My main reservation about the Library of Congress digital archives, as noted above, is that the search engine could be stronger and more intuitive, as could the overall virtual architecture of the site itself. It's easy to get lost in there and not always easy to find exactly what you want. Search terms require exact spelling, and it will not intuit connected terms for you. Resources are sometimes buried in other resources.

It may be that we've become accustomed to more powerful search tools, and when we come across one that does not work like Google or Bing, we find fault. Guilty, but I'm still wishing the navigation at the Library of Congress was easier for non-researchers like myself. I imagine that day will come before too long, given some recent LOC leadership developments.

There are already indications that the Library of Congress is making progress in shifting to the demands of the modern age. For instance, it has established free ebook resources through the Apple iTunes Store for students with iPads and other Apple devices, with sets on diverse topics from Immigration to Political Cartoons to Cosmic Astronomy. When downloaded, the ebooks can be used by students to annotate text, highlight and more.

Teachers digging deep to enrich learning

The educators in our professional development sessions mentioned above are now in the midst of being researchers themselves, gathering up primary sources from the Library of Congress and beyond.

This work is not limited to English/Language Arts. We have a wide range of teachers in the class, from elementary to high school, from social studies to science. They will be building "text sets" and then teaching elements of those texts in their classrooms, sharing out what they are learning about bringing contextual history alive in their classrooms and in their various content areas.

And for myself, I am hoping that hearing the voices of people like Professor Freeman Hrabowski and Anne Pearl Avery, and watching video footage of the Children's March, will connect my students not only the historical novel we are reading, but also to the world outside their windows, where movements like Black Lives Matter and others are galvanizing a youth movement in our current time.

History is about connecting to the present as much as it is understanding the past, and moving beyond textbooks into the sources themselves is one way to make that understanding more engaging, whether we're teaching literature, social studies, or STEM subjects.

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Rummaging Around the Library of Congress for Text Sets

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A MiddleWeb Blog I can talk all I want about the Children's March in Birmingham, Alabama, when schoolchildren from across that city and beyond walked out of their schools and marched in a Civil Rights protest. I can try to explain the context and connect that to the novel we are reading, The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis.

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Numerous resources included from AASL

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Utilize the resources AASL has provided for you. Request your free School Library Advocacy Packs (pay only shipping). Take the time to comprehensively review and utilize the Public Relations Toolkit. From the Learning Standards and Guidelines page, scroll down to the Program Guidelines section to evaluate your program, learn your program's strengths and weaknesses, and familiarize yourself with what makes an effective school library program.

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Padlet of resources shared with TR and HA teachers

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Padlet of resources shared with TR and HA teachers

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Very much like this librarian padlet, but geared more for classroom teachers.  Includes lots of PBL resources

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We might have many of these, but here are good uses for some

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TOP TEN PICTURE BOOKS TO INTRODUCE UNITS OF STUDY by Kari Allen

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Whenever I started a new unit or inquiry with my second grade students, I always found a picture book that became a way in, a gateway if you will. I used the books as a broad introduction before we got into the nitty-gritty details. As our studies continued, I would share more picture books that...

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This is just the video from Today Show

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Children's author Beverly Cleary on turning 100: 'I didn't do it on purpose'

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More than six decades since her first book came out, celebrated children's author Beverly Cleary is marking a milestone, turning 100 in April. TODAY's Jenna Bush Hager spoke with Cleary about such beloved characters as Ramona Quimby and Ralph S. Mouse, and helped give away some of her e-books.

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Our pal Jennifer LaGarde!

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I've written before about how I believe library spaces and displays represent AWEsome opportunities for us to share the story of our work and how we transform teaching and learning for kids. Everyone who walks into the library is a potential library supporter. If we're not there to tell them what happens in our spaces, can they tell by looking around? Does your space reflect what you value and how you make a difference? I sure hope so.
I've been sharing this message and asking these questions for a long, long time. And now (and just in time for school library month) I'm looking to curate examples!

Are you creating book displays that matter?

Are you using this valuable real estate in your library to make a difference for specific groups of students?

Are you giving those students a voice in selecting the titles, authors and themes of those displays?

Are you you seeking feedback from students and other stakeholders about the success of your book displays?

Do the displays you build tell the story of your work and how it results in outcomes for your learners?

If so, let's share the love and a grow a resource of library displays that make your favorite Pinterest boards look puny!! No idea is too small. Upload photos, videos and don't forget to include your name and Twitter handle so we can grow our PLN!
Add your examples to this Padlet wall and share this link w/your networks! I can't wait to see what you share!

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I've written before about how I believe library spaces and displays represent AWEsome opportunities for us to share the story of our work and how we transform teaching and learning for kids. Everyone who walks into the library is a potential library supporter.

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Great article; includes lesson ideas

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Written by Melissa Sweet

Afterword by Martha White

Published in 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Grades K-6

ISBN: 978-0-544-31959-2
Book Review
"All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world." Elwyn Brooks White, better known as E.B. White to the world and Andy to his friends, had a capacity for wonder that has enchanted generations of readers. At long last, we have a fully illustrated biography of E. B. White that gives us the opportunity to follow his life's journey from his early days as a boy through his death. With her signature style, Melissa Sweet mirrors White's childlike sense of wonder. Weaving artifacts from White's life alongside her own original illustrations and collages, Sweet has created a mosaic that invites readers to linger on each page, to notice, and to wonder. Each page invites us to look more closely at the photographs, writings, and objects that filled White's life from New York City to Maine. White's ubiquitous writings are the stars of the book including early writings from his boyhood, a poem for his beloved wife, and the many attempts he made over a year to begin Charlotte's Web. By the end of the book, readers may feel the deep sense of gratitude for the beauty of the world so poignantly captured by both White and Sweet. The book concludes with an author's note by Sweet about the sheer joy she experienced delving into White's oeuvre. The book also includes an afterword by Martha White, E.B.'s granddaughter, who gives an unequivocal family seal of approval for Sweet's masterful telling of her grandfather's luminous life story. After reading Some Writer, all that you will hope to say is that you love this book.
Teaching Ideas / Invitations for Your Classroom: Grades K-6
Some Writer. E.B. White's life story shows us that even as a boy he knew about the power of observation, collection, and gratitude. Before exploring the ways that E.B. White was "some writer", consider brainstorming with the class the qualities of a great writer. How does one become a great writer or "some writer"? E.B. White did care a great deal about spelling and grammar, but those are not necessarily the qualities that made his writing so enchanting. He approached the world with his eyes wide open to notice the details that often allude many of us each day. He collected these observations in a cheap notebook that was always by his bed. He wrote about the things he did, what he had seen, and thoughts he had. Sometimes he added pictures. One of the most remarkable commitments he made as an early writer was that he always ended his journal jottings by asking himself a question like, "I wonder what I'm going to be when I grow up?" After reading about E.B. White's journaling, give each of your students a similar inexpensive notebook that they can keep by their bedside to gather their observations, statements of gratitude, and questions. Some students may benefit from sentence stems such as I see___, I feel ___, I heard____, I am grateful for ____, and I wonder____.

Genre Study: Learning from Life Stories. At The Classroom Bookshelf, we often gravitate towards compelling biographies, or life stories, that capture our interest and attention. Gather other biographies available in your classroom or school library and have students explore the characteristics they notice about the genre and the different ways authors have of expressing the life story of someone else. Craft a class definition for the word biography and consider as a class the purpose of biographies to inform, entertain, inspire, and motivate readers. As you gather and display biographies ensure that you are representing diversity by considering gender and the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the figures you are featuring. Some of our favorite picture book biographies that we have written about include: I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark by Debbie Levy, Trombone Shorty by Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews, Ira's Shakespeare Dream by Glenda Armand, Edward Hopper Paints His World by Robert Burleigh, and Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors? The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell by Tanya Lee Stone. Search The Classroom Bookshelf under "Nonfiction" to find many more biographies we have written about over the years.

Powerful Words: Zooming in on Quotes. "I fell in love with the sound of an early typewriter and I have been stuck with it ever since." One of the most captivating features of the book are the myriad quotes from E.B. White that Melissa Sweet spotlights in several different forms. Gather the quotes from across the book and have students select their favorite to focus on. What about the quote grabbed their attention? Have students go further by rewriting White's words with their own while maintaining the intention of the message. If available, have students type their own original quotes on a typewriter to experience the magic of hearing the clicks White heard when he typed his manuscripts.

How to Craft a Lead: Learning from E.B. White's Trial and Errors. One of the most enlightening chapters is the one devoted to Charlotte's Web and White's process for crafting the story. Share with students the five attempts that White made over the course of a year before landing on the line that would grab the world's attention. Work with the class to name the techniques he uses as a writer with each lead including: describing a character, putting himself in the story with the use of "I", describing the setting, describing a series of small actions a character takes, and finally, dialogue. Throughout the year, as students embark on writing their own narratives return to White's lead attempts and have students try using various techniques that White does before deciding on the lead that will finally start their own stories.

Primary Sources as Pathways for Learning. Select some of White's photographs and writings to share with students through a document camera or by passing around the book or copies of select pages. Invite students to share what they see, think, and wonder about White and his life through these primary sources. Encourage students to gather photos and other artifacts from their own families to share them with the class. You may want to use those personal primary sources as pathways for students to learn more about themselves, their families, and each other. You may even want to have students engage in Storycorps' The Great Thanksgiving Listen by interviewing family members. In doing so, they would be contributing an audiorecording that will be kept in the Library of Congress for generations to come.

Answers to Hard Questions. Each of E.B. White's works of children's literature entrusts young children to grapple with complex questions about life knowing that they are searching for answers. Support students to notice the questions that E.B. White and Melissa Sweet ask across the book about life, joy, sorrow, beauty, and love. Invite students to ask their own hard questions about life. For example, one of the questions we heard after a read-aloud lately included, "Would you rather fit in or would you rather be different?" Make question-asking a ritual at the end of your read-alouds throughout the year.

Author Study. Gather E.B. White's books written for children: Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and Trumpet of the Swan. Consider doing a book talk for each and having students in upper elementary grades read one of the selections in a text club. Have students select lines from the stories that grab their attention, make them wonder, and inspire them to be wide-awake to the world.

Illustrator Study. Melissa Sweet is a Caldecott Honor winner for the illustrations in her books A River of Words and The Right Word: Roget and his Thesaurus both written by Jen Bryant. She is also the 2012 Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal winner for Balloons Over Broadway. She has also illustrated many other works that we have written about at The Classroom Bookshelf including Firefly July, Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers' Strike, A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippen, Little Red Writing, and Spike: The Mixed Up Monster. Gather many of Melissa Sweet's books and have students explore the things she writes about and the illustration techniques she uses across the books. Visit her website to learn more about her process as an illustrator. Then, gather a variety of materials including different scraps of paper, bits of nature, and various bits of fabric for students to create their own Sweet-inspired mixed-media collages for their own stories.
Grades 3-6
cartoons. Before he wrote children's books, E.B. White was a writer for magazine and Harper's Magazine. He wrote captions for cartoons, short articles on current events called "Comments", and "Newbreaks" or humorous column fillers that offered corrections to blunders in other printed newspapers and magazines. Share several examples of White's New Yorker cartoon captions as well as captions from recent issues of the magazine. Have your students try writing their own captions for cartoons in The New Yorker. The caption contest is a regular feature of the magazine and could become an ongoing contest in your classroom throughout the year.

Elements of Style. Later in his life, E.B. White was invited to revise his former professor, Will Strunk's, book Elements of Style that explains the fundamentals of English grammar and advocates for writers to be "clear, brief, bold". Share with students some of Strunk and White's rules of grammar, composition, and form. Reflect as a class on the ways in which the writers Joyce Sidman, Paul Fleischman, and Kate DiCamillo use Elements of Style to strengthen their own writing. Have students revisit a piece of their own writing with the goal of revising it according to at least one of Strunk and White's rules.
Critical Literacy.
Who Was Katherine White? While E.B. White was famous in his lifetime first as a writer for The New Yorker and then later for his works of children's literature, Katherine White is largely unknown, at least to the general public. Katherine Sargeant Angell was the fiction editor of The New Yorker, a rare position that few women would have had the opportunity to hold. This was a position she held before she met and married E.B. White and which she maintained throughout her transition to motherhood, another feat for women of the time. Discuss with students the ways in which Katherine contributed to E.B. White's success. Then, discuss with students the ways in which women today come up against glass ceilings that limit their influence.
Further Investigation Online Resources
Melissa Sweet's Site
www.melissasweet.net
National Public Radio Episode on Some Writer
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/05/496699113/new-biography-celebrates-e-b-white-who-really-was-some-writer
Book Trailer by HMH Books
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viS83Re9HJk
In The Words of E.B. White Book Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU6nbdhuUR8 Books Illustrated by Melissa Sweet
Bryant, J. (2008). A river of words: The story of William Carlos Williams. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers.

Bryant, J. (2013). A splash of red: The life and art of Horace Pippen. New York, NY: Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Bryant, J. (2014). The right word: Roget and his thesaurus. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Books for Young Readers

Holub, J. (2016). Little red writing. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

Hood, S. (2012). Spike: The mixed up monster. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Janeczko, P.B. (2014). Firefly July: A year of very short poems. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

Markel, M. (2013). Brave girl: Clara and the shirtwaist makers' strike. New York, NY: Balzer + Bray

Sweet, M. (2012). Balloons over Broadway: The true story of the puppeteer of Macy's Parade. Boston, MA: HMH Books for Young Readers.
Written by E.B. White
White, E.B. (1945/1973). Stuart Little. New York, NY: Harper and Brothers.

White, E.B. (1952). Charlotte's web. New York, NY: Harper and Brothers.

White, E.B. (1970). Trumpet of the swan. New York, NY: Harper and Row.

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Written by Melissa Sweet Afterword by Martha White Published in 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Grades K-6 ISBN: 978-0-544-31959-2 Book Review "All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world." Elwyn Brooks White, better known as E.B.

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Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

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December 23, 2016
After posting about the 10 most popular academic search engines that teachers and student researchers can use to locate and access scholarly content online, today's post features another set of important search engines but, this time, for kids. These platforms are designed specifically for younger adults and help them search the net in a safe and secure environment. We invite you to check them out and share with your colleagues.

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6 Great Search Engines Designed Specifically for Kids

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December 23, 2016 After posting about the 10 most popular academic search engines that teachers and student researchers can use to locate and access scholarly content online, today's post features another set of important search engines but, this time, for kids.