"One Man's Shakespeare..."

Just for fun: Examiner.com published an article last week of the fifty best author vs. author put-downs of all time. If your students are feeling discouraged with their writing skills, they might find comfort in knowing that even some of the greatest writers were not always appreciated by their peers. "One man's Shakespeare is another man's trash fiction." The 50 best author vs. author put-downs of all time.

Read a Nature Poem on Earth Day

Today is the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day, which was held on April 22, 1970 and spurred the modern environmental movement. Founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin, the goal of Earth Day was to bring environmental issues onto the national agenda. The Earth Day held in April 1970 helped lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency later that year, as well as to the passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species acts. http://www.earthday.org/

In her poem, “Gifts,” Chinese poet Shu Ting celebrates her deep connection with the earth:

“My dream is the dream of a pond
Not just to mirror the sky
But to let the willows and ferns
Suck me dry.
I’ll climb from the roots to the veins,
And when leaves wither and fade
I will refuse to mourn
Because I was dying to live.
…
Because all that I am
Has been a gift from earth.”

Shu Ting (b. 1952) was considered the leading poet in China in the 1980s and belongs to a group of Chinese writers known as the Misty Poets. The Misty Poets focused on three main themes: individualism, human’s relationship with the natural world, and the struggle against oppression. The complete texts for Shu Ting’s “Gifts,” along with her poem “To the Oak,” appear in EMC’s Mirrors & Windows, Level IV.

To celebrate Earth Day, read a nature poem today. Go to www.poets.org, click on Advanced Search and choose the theme “Nature.” Please comment and share your favorite nature poem!

IRA in Chicago April 25-28

The International Reading Association is holding its annual convention this weekend in Chicago (April 25-28). If you can’t make it to the convention, you can visit the IRA Virtual Exhibit Hall at http://www.iraconvention.org/virtual-exhibit-hall.php.

One of the major strands of the sessions at the convention this year is Promoting Reading Engagement. In our teacher focus groups that EMC conducted during the development of the Mirrors & Windows literature program, we asked teachers what was their most difficult challenge in teaching language arts. The most frequent answer to that question was “engaging and motivating students.” We know that one of the often cited problems for many struggling readers is not that they can’t read, but that they don’t want to read. They don’t see any point in reading--they would rather be surfing the net, or on Facebook or texting their friends.

When we developed our program, we tried to meet that challenge head on. The goal of Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature is to help students connect with what they read and to examine their own ideas and experiences. Great literature provides mirrors that help us reflect on our own world and windows that lead us into new worlds. This metaphor for the reading experience expresses the power of words to engage and transform.

Mirrors & Windows provides multiple opportunities for students to make important connections, including text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.
Text-to-Self Connections: Reader’s Context questions before reading and Mirrors & Windows questions after reading ask essential questions that encourage students to make connections to their own lives and the world around them.
Text-to-Text Connections: Connections to a variety of primary sources and informational readings give relevance to literature by helping students to see relationships between literature and other content areas and texts. The Comparing Literature feature pairs two selections that are connected by common literary elements to develop analytical comparison skills.
Text -to-World Connections: Cross-curricular connections are embedded within selections and provide relevant background informational on other subject areas.

Mirrors and Windows provides the tools you need to engage your students in reading!

Mirrors & Windows Support for English Language Learners

Today's classrooms need to offer differentiated instruction for English language learners who often struggle with reading and comprehension skills. The Mirrors & Windows literature program provides a multitude of support features designed to help all students succeed in your classroom.

• Differentiated Instruction for English Language Learners includes twenty original (not adapted) selections that offer additional vocabulary instruction and cultural notes.
• Differentiated Instruction for Developing Readers provides guided readings questions and additional reading strategies and skills practice for twenty selections per grade.
• Exceeding the Standards: Vocabulary & Spelling offers additional instruction and practice with vocabulary (in English).
• Exceeding the Standards: Grammar & Style offers a comprehensive grammar program (in English).
• The Differentiated Instruction boxes in the Annotated Teacher's Edition provide ELL activities and introduce students to any vocabulary or idioms that may be new or difficult for ELL students.
• Meeting the Standards unit resource books support the gradual release framework and provide vocabulary support and fact- and comprehension-based tests for every selection.
• Most selections are offered as audio recordings.
• The Assessment Guide provides oral fluency assessments to monitor your students fluency progress.

Mirrors & Windows provides the tools you need to help your students succeed!

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month, sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, which began the event in 1996. Today, April 7, is the birthday of the great British poet William Wordsworth. Wordsworth (1770–1850) was born in the Lake District of England. Though he was formally educated and graduated from Cambridge University, his grades were only average. His interest lay more in poetry and the natural world, inspiring him to write, “Come forth into the light of things, / Let Nature be your teacher.”

In honor of National Poetry Month and spring, here is one of Wordsworth’s most famous poems, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.”

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” appears in EMC's Mirrors & Windows: Connecting with Literature, Level IV. Wordsworth is also featured in an Author Focus in Mirrors & Windows, The British Tradition, which includes his poems “The World Is Too Much with Us,” “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge,” “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” and an excerpt from his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads.”
Don’t forget to stop and smell the daffodils!