Handwriting in this day and age

I recently read Script & Scribble: the Rise and Fall of Handwriting by Kitty Burns Florey.

Handwriting is of so little concern these days. We don't worry, the computer takes care of it. In her book, Florey shares stories of people who thought quite differently, people who devoted their lives to their passion for penmanship.

This book was a nostalgic read. I thought, for the first time in years, of my grandmother's beautiful cursive writing. She used to write with such an even scale. And yes, she wrote her script 'Q's like large '2's. I found myself pondering when handwriting will become obsolete. Penmanship like my grandmother's is now so rare. Most adults write with a hybrid style. This is a wonderfully enjoyable book, written with appropriate lightheartedness for its subject, yet sharing an obvious passion for reading and writing.

Karla Kuskin

I was so sad to read about the death of Karla Kuskin, the children's poet, author and illustrator. Read the obituary in the New York Times here. I find her poems to be so satisfying in their rhythm, both line by line and overall. One of my favorites is in a collection I just purchased for my library, Wonderful Words: Poems about reading, writing, speaking and listening, selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins. It is called "Finding a Poem", and goes like this:

Dig deep in you,

Keep everything you find.

Sketch the ever changing views,

dappled behind your eyes,

rustling in your mind.

Unlock the weather

in your heart.

Unleash a thousand whispers,

let them shout.

Then

when you feel

the presence of a poem

wating to spring

to sting

within you,

bewitch it

into words

and sing it out.

There is no doubt that Kuskin loved (and understood) cats, frequent subjects in her work. On the cat or dog question, I place myself in the dog camp, yet I love to read these stories and poems because she shares her special insight so poignantly and with few words.

Some favorite Karla Kuskin titles in the Mohansic Library:

Any Me I Want to Be: Poems
Dogs & Dragons, Trees & Dreams: A collection of poems
Moon, Have You Met My Mother: the collected poems of Karla Kuskin
Soap Soup and Other Verses (An I Can Read book)
The Upstairs Cat
I Am Me
A Boy Had a Mother Who Bought Him a Hat
A Great Miracle Happened There: A Chanukah story
The Philiharmonic Gets Dressed
The Dallas Titans Get Ready for Bed
So, What's it Like to Be a Cat?

Here is a link to a workshop with Kuskin on Scholastic's Writing with Writers site.

Thank you, Karla, for sharing your voice with all of us. You will be missed, but fortunately, we will continue to read your poems and stories and enjoy the gifts you shared.

SLMS Leadership Conference

From August 2 -4, I was fortunate to attend the NYLA SLMS Leadership Retreat on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca with my friend and colleague Renee. Starting my third year as a library media specialist, I find this annual conference to be particularly useful. Kudos to the library media specialists who organize this event, always featuring a noted speaker from the information and education fields. I attended last year when the featured presenters were Barbara Stripling and Gail Dickinson, who helped us process the new AASL Learning Standards.

Photo: McGraw Clock Tower on flickr.com by rdesai

This year we worked with Carol Koechlin, who along with David Loertscher and Sandi Zwaan, has been a leader in instructing teachers and teacher-librarians about the inquiry process. She taught us the importance of getting our kids to learn how to learn by asking deep questions. We learned "questioning is cross-curricular." With curious, observant minds, our kids will soar. It's not a matter of some kids have it and some don't: we must teach this mindset. (A fascinating recommendation from Carol: read Mindset by Dweck. A quick read - I highly recommend it.) How do we as library media specialists do this? We need to start by building a community of learners, reinforcing observation skills, modeling effective questioning, and creating a desire to know. A strong reminder resonated with me: I need to model strong questioning more with my young students. Their natural curiosity and enthusiasm does not automatically transfer to deep thinking, though there's a natural progression there to be supported.

Toward this end, Carol supported us in extending our own questioning skills, reviewing three levels of questioning which she attributed to Manzo (1969):

• on the line - it's clearly stated in the text
• between the line - inferring from multiple references in the text
• beyond the line - it's not there; students must do further study and connect to prior knowledge

Carol shared wonderful exercises to deepen our questioning. We closed the day by linking questioning to the AASL Learning Standards. The second day focused on applying questioning to learning. Carol left us with The Big Think, from her work with Loertscher & Zwaan. When students complete the unit project, there is more work to do...we need to reflect with our students on what the content and process mean to us ("so what?") and to ask ourselves "what next?", helping students to go beyond the basic questions and to continue the learning journey.

Recommended Professional List:
Beyond Bird Units! Thinking & Understanding in Informaton-Rich and Technology-Rich Environments by David V. Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan

Brain Matters: Translating research into classroom practice by Patricia Wolfe

Guided Inquiry: Learning in the 21st Century by Carol Kuhlthau

Learning to Question to Wonder to Learn by Jamie McKenzie

Librarians as Learning Specialists: Meeting the learning imperative for the 21st Century by Allison Zmuda

Mindset: The new psychology of success by Carol Dweck

QTasks: How to empower students to ask questions and care about answers by Carol Koechlin