Dear WinkWorld Readers,
I know that many of you are aware of this, but I wanted to share, in case anyone had missed it.
I very much appreciate the permission from Carmine Gallo & his BrightSight Group to share with you. I hope you enjoy as much as I did.
The question is: Why stories?
And, the answer is found in…
The Storyteller’s Secret, to be published Feb. 2016.
Dear WinkWorld Readers, remember this is for my class, and you do not have to read it…
Class, in what follows is a summary of what we will focus on for the next week. Actually, we will refer back to these ideas for the entire semester.
Happy Reading.
100 Years in A 1000 Words 1.2016
Dear WinkWorld Readers,
This post is specifically for teachers, who just want to have a little fun with words today in class.
FUN WITH WORDS
A bunch of kids
A patch of menders
A herd of horses
A pack of dogs
A gaggle of geese
A clutch of chickens
A school of fish
A charm of goldfish
A covey of parrots
A stitch of quilter
A litter of cubs
A ruffle of lacemakers
A gang of elk
A colony of ants
A pod of butterflies
A swarm of eels
A knot of toads
A rhumba of rattlesnakes (However, we never say that when we see one.)
A worship of writers
An equivocation of politicians
A consort of corgis
A congress of baboons
A stitch of lace
A murder of crows
A rash of dermatologists
A multitude of mushrooms
A friendship of women (Ok, it’s true: I made up that one.)
A pile of cats.
.
(Can’t make up that one.)
Thank you, Rose from SD; Betty from AZ; and Dwight from NB for sharing a few of these with us. I know you can find these on the web, but it really is more fun to discover them in the context of reading or conversation with others.
Remember the two young boys from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), who suddenly found themselves living with new families in a new country with a new language, new customs, new food…and, no friends?
3 Months Later The Teacher Wrote on Facebook.
In October I started one of the scariest challenges of my teaching career; I had two young boys from the Congo start with no English! Today, only 3 months later they each presented to their class a project we had been working on about their life before coming to America. Many nights I leave work tired, exhausted, and sometimes even frustrated; but then I have days like today that remind me how incredibly lucky I am to work with such amazing students. And it’s all worth it!!
WinkWorld Readers: Your Test Question.
Where in the world in the Congo? Grab a piece of paper and draw Africa. Now, draw where the DRC is located.
THANK YOU to this teacher and this school community!
Dear WinkWorld Readers, please remember that this post is specifically for the teachers in my class at Black Hills State University (BHSU).
Looking Backward 5 minutes
This video is specifically for those in the English as a New Language (ENL) endorsement program. If you watch this, it will help you hook your previous learning with the new learning coming in this class.
Why do we do what we do?
This semester, we will begin with a discussion of how our national philosophy determines policy in the states and districts; the policy determines programs, which determine practice. We will use the following image to guide our discussion.
The following video clips are the heart and soul of our foundations course, Spring 2016. My thanks to technical support from California State University, Stanislaus and Black Hills State University.
Pedagogy Timeline, 15 minutes,
Three Perspectives on Teaching/Learning, 7 minutes, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWH0VLPYeAc
Skinner V. Vygotsky by Christopher Redd & Jeremiah Scalla (students in Mallorca)
Spiral of Literacy, 10 minutes,
Krashen’s 5 Hypotheses, 11 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Joan+Wink
Principles of Bilingual Education, 11 minutes
Bilingual Basics Part One, 50 seconds
Bilingual Basics Part Two,, 1 minute, 10 seconds
Dear WinkWorld Readership,
I have wanted to refer to my blog, as irreverent and irregular, but that is already taken: Alfie Kohn beat me to those two great descriptors. WinkWorld tends to be whatever is lying around my desktop or floating around in my head.
However, you will notice a change soon, in that I am also going to post information for my class. This is not required reading for you, WinkWorld Readers; it is simply meant to make information more accessible in multiple ways for the teachers in my class.
“Please, please, please don’t fall into the briar patch,” comes to mind. . .
I will also continue to post the normal WinkWorld, which I hope carries a bit of grit and grace.
When I prepare to teach a class, I always like to create a document, which is labeled, Semester-At-A-Glance. Hopefully, this lets the students see where we are going and what we plan to do. As I am working on my next book, Power Up Literacy through Storytelling in Libraries, I decided to create something similar: Book-At-A-Glance. I have been told that I should be able to tell anyone about my next book in one sentence. Ok, the purpose of this book is to link libraries and literacies through the power of storytelling. This book is written for librarians, teachers, and families who love literacy.
However, I have been working on this book for about 8 months now, and I want to share more than just a sentence, or even a paragraph. I am writing this as I want my friends, family, and colleagues to know what I am working on, as if you are not in the house watching me every day, it might look like I’m not doing anything. Such is a life of a writer. It takes a long time to birth a book.
How Was This Book Birthed?
About a year ago, I unexpectedly received an email from a colleague, whom I had met several years ago; she is now an editor for a publishing house, Libraries Unlimited. She said:
“I was just reading your blog post, which reminded me so much of my first teaching experience in rural Kansas with the farm kids who were in the eighth grade and still couldn’t read and didn’t want to read the basal. Suddenly, the thought hit me that you might be interested in writing something about the power of reading and writing–both very important in school libraries.”
“Yes,” I responded, and thus the book was born. Much of what I know about teaching and learning, I learned from The Benson Kids in the late 1970s and early 1980s. When I think of these students, I am reminded of Paulo Freire’s comment: “Education is radically about love” (Wink, 2011, p. 2). The blog post, which caught her eye can be seen at,
Now, I am at the point in the manuscript, where I can promise readers that this book is not filled with data in the form of pie-charts, graphs, nor vertical or horizontal line charts–and not a single scatter plot to be found anywhere. Rather the truth of the research will be grounded in authentic stories, which reflect, not only the interpretation of these data, but also the transformative nature of teachers, librarians, literacies, and libraries.
My career has been highly influenced by many, but no one more so that Steve Krashen. This text is not a re-telling of his The Power of Reading; however, it is Krashen’s research filtered through my eyes and re-told with stories. This text is not a re-telling of Kendall Haven’s Story Proof: The Science Behind the Startling Power of Story and Story Smart: Using the Science of Story to Persuade, Influence, Inspire, and Teach. Rather, I am a teacher, who values the use of storytelling to make abstract constructs accessible for all.
My Perspective
Let me remove all mystery and share my perspectives, which will flow throughout the chapters. First, librarians are teachers, too–the entire school or the public library is their classroom. Therefore, throughout much of this book, I will use these three words interchangeably: teacher, school librarian, and librarian.
A second perspective relates to languages, literacies, and language acquisition, which have been central in my career. I started as a terrified and overwhelmed Spanish teacher with five different preparations daily (1966), but somewhere along the road, I morphed (1970s) into a “nice Spanish teacher.” Eventually, I started to notice that it wasn’t just about some neutral use of words, which I was fascinated by, and I began to notice that language had power, and I found myself at home in the world of bilingual education, ESL, and dual language immersion programs (1980s). I came to recognize that language was not only culturally grounded, but it was also historically, socially, and politically grounded (1990s), and I began to thrive in critical pedagogy. It was about this time, that I noticed people no longer referred to me as a “nice Spanish teacher.”
Later in my career (2000s), a teacher stopped me in my tracks and said, “Joan, you know what you are? You are a storyteller.” I was shocked, but since that time I have focused on honing my skills with storytelling, and I consistently find that, not only do stories break down barriers among people, they also help people access meaning, which is reflected in stories. Literacy is all about making meaning.
All of these experiences have influenced by perspectives.
The-Book-At-A-Glance
Chapter One will focus on literacy, and readers will have the opportunity to create their own Spiral of Literacy at the end of the chapter.
Chapter Two will highlight storytelling in libraries, and the chapter concludes with activities using the Language Experience Approach and the Reflective Cycle.
Chapter Three will deviate a bit from the regular literacy path and brings to life the use of children’s storytelling with animals. The use of Writers’ Workshop concludes the chapter.
Chapter Four will use stories to rethink standards: Why on earth do we think we need to standardize kids? Pokémon, Captain Underpants, and Harry Potter will all make an appearance, and more Writers’ Workshop activities will close the chapter.
Chapter Five will use the stories of immigrants to bring their world into a clearer vision. Bring your imagination to this chapter. TPRS (Teaching Proficiency in Reading through Storytelling) is presented at the end of the chapter.
Chapter Six takes us into the cloud for digital literacy and ends with ZooBurst, storytelling digitally.
Chapter Seven takes on the future with Patience and Fortitude, the two concrete lions, which grace the entrance of the New York City library and tells a story about how money can be used to undermine the value of literacies and libraries.
Thanks for reading. Now, back to work.
Dear WinkWorld Readers,
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.
Let me introduce you to Baby Monet, 5 months old.
Obviously, in the following photo, she is reading. Note her “pointing finger.”
In the following photo, you can see that Baby Monet really eats up her reading time.
Please note the words “secret garden” on this page. Remember?
Thank you to Baby Monet’s mommie (a grad student in one of my classes) for spontaneously sharing with us. She knew we would love these photos.
December 16, 2015
Dear WinkWorld Readers,
If you follow this blog, you are aware that I love going to Atall School (a one-room country school) to read to the 13 students.
In WinkWorld News, you will find a previous Atall School posts. Click here to read WW News.
Recently, I’ve been excited about Tomie dePaola’s new edition of his classic, Strega Nona, and I learned that the Atall students did not know the stories. Here is his new book.
Of course, I immediately began to plot and plan to read all of the stories to them in the spring. On the day I was to read the first story, I was not able to get to the school, which is about 50 miles from the ranch where I live.
What to do? Of course, videotape the story and send to the kids, which I did. Below here are the kids watching and listening to the first Strega Nona.
While it is clear to me that I have much to learn about video-taping a story for the kids, they were very forgiving of my lack of experience with this process. They were simply captured by the magic of Strega Nona, as I am.
Incidentally, after the video-taping, I learned that I needed permission of the publisher to do that. Sorry, Scholastic and Tomie dePaola. It has been deleted.
Click right here to hear Tomie DePaola read his story.
The students drew some pictures. Here is that famous pasta pot boiling the past everywhere.
Here is a picture of his Christmas book, which I gave to the students.
They surprised me with glorious homemade Christmas cards.
I even received a coupon for hugs.
Finally, here is the teacher, opening a gift. Oh, how I love visiting this school. There is a bit of magic in these stories and also in this school.
If you are on FaceBook, Tomie dePaola’s pages are some of the best. He generously shares his art often for all of us to enjoy.
Janet Towell: You are the one who introduced me to Strega Nona. Every time I read these stories, I think of you. Happy memories of CSU Stanislaus.
Dear WinkWorld Readers,
You may remember a couple of weeks ago, I posted a blog about 2 boys from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), who entered school in WY for the first time. Their earlier childhood years had been chaotic and tragic. You had lots of comments and questions, and I wanted to give you an update on their progress.
See previous blog: Two New Students from the Congo, 10.23.2015
In what follows, Kim Dike a teacher who works with the boys, provides a glimpse of their first 2 weeks in their new school.
Kim is a first-year teacher in Gillette, WY, and prior to this, she was an ESL paraprofessional for 4 years. She is the k-6 ESL teacher at an elementary school. In this role, she supports 115 students, who speak 6 different languages. She works collaboratively with 21 classroom teachers. Her primary professional responsibility is to support the needs of students who are in the process of acquiring English. Kim is also in the Black Hills State University (BHSU) English as a New Language (ENL) endorsement program.
Kim used an image of the reflective cycle to tell her story of David and Steve, not their real names.
Thank you, Kim, for sharing with us.
Meet David during his first 2 weeks in his new school.
Meet Steve during his first 2 weeks in his new school.
Grab a reflective cycle here for your own purposes.
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