A $10,000 cash prize is part of the 2012 Norman Mailer Writing Award for High School Teachers, sponsored by the Norman Mailer Center and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). The deadline for eligible full- and part-time high school teachers to submit entries is noon CST on July 23, 2012. 

There is a limit of one entry per person. The maximum length is 20 single-spaced pages in an easily readable font, such as Arial or Times New Roman, in 11 or 12 points. The entry may be part of a larger piece. Previously published writing may be submitted if the writing was published within the last 12 months. Entries are accepted online only. Teachers who live outside the U.S. but work in American-accredited schools are eligible to enter.

Submissions are read by national panels of teachers and judged by how well they achieve the following qualities: handling of image, plot, character, or other elements; originality; insight, voice, and style; and overall aesthetic, emotional, or intellectual effect. Stories that receive high ratings from the teacher panels are submitted to a distinguished panel of authors selected by the Norman Mailer Center, who will choose the winning entry. Authors retain copyright of their work. 

One winner and four finalists will be notified in September, 2012.  Results will be posted on the NCTE website. The winner receives a $10,000 cash prize along with travel and lodging to attend the Norman Mailer Center’s Annual Gala on October 4, 2012, in New York City, where the Mailer Prize and the Norman Mailer High School and College Writing Awards are also presented. Funding for travel to the Annual Gala for the award winner is limited to coach airfare within the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. If the winner lives outside of the U.S., a $500.00 USD payment toward travel will be allowed. Hotel/lodging at the awards event will be covered. The winner will also receive a fellowship to the prestigious Norman Mailer Writers Colony during the summer of 2013. 

Norman Mailer was one of the most important American writers of the post-WWII era and a leading public intellectual since the 1960s. The author of more than forty books, he is one of the most prolific American authors of the 20th century. The Castle in the Forest was the eleventh of his books to appear on the New York Times bestseller list. His first novel, The Naked and the Dead (1948) was on the Times list for 63 weeks. His 1968 nonfiction narrative, The Armies of the Night, won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. He won a second Pulitzer for The Executioner's Song and is the only person to win Pulitzers in fiction and nonfiction. Five of his books have been nominated for National Book Awards, and he won a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NBA Foundation in 2006. The Norman Mailer Center honors the creative legacy of Norman Mailer by supporting writers who challenge readers’ perspective on the world around them. The Center promotes a vision of writers as “people of action.”

For more information or to enter, visit the Norman Mailer Writing Award website or e-mail nmw@ncte.org.

by Terry Atkinson

During this past year, several university colleagues have joined me in observing local K-12 teachers described by their principals as distinguished for technology integration of their classroom teaching. With ISTE’s NETS-T standards in mind, we are particularly interested in several innovative teacher risk-takers who are not only open to trying new technologies, but also to putting them into students’ hands.

Jim Harmon from his 
class website

I reached out to a stellar example of such a teacher risk-taker after reading an article he authored in the June/July 2012 issue of ISTE’s Learning and Leading With Technology. Jim Harmon, like the teachers we observed, does not teach in a visionary school like those profiled in Schrum and Levin’s new book, Leading 21st Century Schools: Harnessing Technology for Engagement and Achievement. He teaches 10th grade English Language Arts at Euclid High School, an urban Ohio high school where the majority of his students are at-risk and receive little academic support at home. So, as Jim and I chatted, I focused not only on how and why he takes innovative technology risks with his students, but also on the kind of professional development that might potentially encourage innovators such as himself.

His recommendations are as follows and relate directly to the support and sharing opportunities he has received from administrators in the Euclid City Schools:

1) Put new technology tools into the hands of innovative teacher risk-takers. Support their efforts to use technology in ways that are novel and focus on student use, rather than instructional presentation. Expect that teacher attempts to implement new technologies will result in mistakes and honor this part of the learning process without reprisal.

2) Honor “home-grown” talent and risk-taking from within school and district. Provide time for teacher collaboration and sharing. This is what Jim calls, “Trusting your teachers” to learn from and with one another…something that a consultant or “sage on the stage” from outside the school simply cannot provide.

3) Encourage teacher risk-takers to investigate participation in challenging, high-quality professional networks and training. Provide related financial support and time to follow-up and collaborate afterward with colleagues. Jim reports that becoming an Apple Distinguished Educator and a Google Certified Teacher have opened doors to exploring new technologies that would have been unattainable on his own.

4) Establish strong partnerships with nearby universities. Association with Cleveland State’s MUST program has placed Jim in a mentor leadership role with preservice teachers, challenging him professionally and providing nascent teachers with opportunities to integrate cutting edge technology while teaching in actual school settings. Innovative risk-taking teachers should be identified by teacher education programs and sought out as student intern mentors.

For additional details, access the full interview transcript with Jim Harmon at http://scr.bi/jimharmon.

Terry S. Atkinson, PhD is an associate professor of reading education and the graduate director of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.

This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

TILE-SIG Featured Blog: Globicate–Global Education For a New Generation

Technology Resources from the International Reading Association

Special Interest Groups (SIGs) at the International Reading Association (IRA)

Become an IRA Member and Participate in SIG Projects!

by Michael Putman

Featured as an Education World Best Blog for 2012, Globicate: Global Education For a New Generation is a website/blog maintained by Heidi Befort. In her description, Heidi asserts that the website focuses on a number of principles, including cultural awareness and geographical knowledge. Additionally, it seeks to promote communication, collaboration, and connections with people around the world within efforts to resolve genuine, real-world challenges. The latter goal is significant, not only within the preparation of students to become global citizens, but because it distinctly parallels multiple goals relevant to the new literacies of the Internet and proficiencies using 21st Century tools within literacy activities.

Examining the website in detail, including recent blog posts, it becomes abundantly clear that Globicate recognizes the inherent importance of literacy (and often technology) on several levels. A recent post, titled “Intentional Writing – Mapping A Course,” is focused on using technology to help students create graphic organizers to guide their writing.  Having used several of the sites described myself within my work with teaching candidates as well as practicing teachers, I can attest to their value in helping students in the writing process. Continuing the focus on writing, Heidi provides some practical advice to help reluctant writers (or any student for that matter) improve their craft through several strategies. The post on June 3 takes moves away from writing, but maintains a literacy focus, as the post, entitled “Chase Against Time,” offers a short introduction to a book by the same name, providing just enough information to pique interest.  These represent only the most recent posts - as I examined the website’s archives, I found one of its strengths was the inherent variability in the content that is available. Readers might find a tip about an activity to implement in a classroom (May 19), information about a specific country (e.g. Japan on March 29), pictures of classroom artifacts (May 20), or a personal narrative (May 10) that may, to paraphrase Heidi, “renew your vigor and bring a smile to your face.”

Globicate also includes a number of additional resources, both for purchase and freely provided. The prices on the former are very minimal and the preview capability allows you the opportunity to examine the materials before buying them. Within the free resources, I did notice numerous tools useful as advance organizers for literacy activities. Overall, not all of the resources are literacy focused, but each will prove very useful within the classroom.

If you haven’t taken the time to visit Globicate, I would recommend adding it to your summer list as I am sure you will find something that will prove helpful in August! Enjoy the summer!

Mike Putman is from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. 

This article is part of a series from the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

Teachers looking to bring some excitement into writing poetry need look no farther than Theme Poems, an interactive computer tool on ReadWriteThink.org .

Theme Poems uses colorful shapes to inspire students to write about subjects they love or topics that align with classroom lessons. The interactive is also a fun way for parents to keep creative writing skills fresh after school or during the summer.

The Theme Poems interactive begins with a lively animation that asks students to type in their name. When the students click on “Continue,” they are instructed to select a theme. Theme Poems features 32 objects divided into five categories: nature, school, sports, celebrations, and shapes. The objects include sun, raindrop, flower, tree, leaf, fish, cloud, moon, apple, book, bus, computer, bell, softball, football, pom-pom, basketball, tennis, soccer, volleyball, sneaker, heart, balloon, flag, gift, cake, square, circle, triangle, diamond, rectangle, and star. Students can click “Back” to redo a step at any point.

After students select a theme, they are asked to type words that remind them that this object inspires. This step encourages students to develop brainstorming and planning skills used in creative writing. 

When students click “Continue,” the Theme Poems screen shows a picture of the object, the words that they entered on the previous screen, and spaces to write the poem text and title. Students simply type in these fields to write their poems. 

When finished, Theme Poems creates an 8 ½” by 11” document with the students’ name, poem title, and poem in the object that the student chose. The magnifying glass icon enlarges the image of the document for previewing ease. This document can be printed, downloaded, shared via e-mail, or saved for later. ReadWriteThink produced an instructional video about saving files for those who need assistance. 

Theme Poems offers many lesson ideas for teachers interested in including poetry in their plans or incorporating poetry into other subject areas. The shapes can be used to write poems about geometry for math units. Nature objects can be used for science units. Sports objects can be used for Field Day, and the flag object can be used for Memorial Day, Flag Day, and the 4th of July.  Teacher and parents can use celebrations objects such as the balloon, heart, or cake for birthdays, Father’s Day, anniversaries, or Valentine’s Day. As mentioned before, it is a fantastic interactive for fighting the “summer slide” along with the Poetic Memories of Summer activity from ReadWriteThink’s Bright Ideas for Summer initiative. 

Lessons:

ReadWriteThink also offers lesson plans from teachers using poetry interactives. Illinois teacher Janet Beyersdorfer shared a lesson entitled “Theme Poems: Writing Extraordinary Poems About Ordinary Objects,” and Michigan teacher Lisa Domke posted her “Theme Poems: Using the Five Senses” lesson. 

Teacher Jennifer Altieri presented many ways to use ReadWriteThink poetry activities in interesting ways in her session entitled “Creating Powerful Poetry Using Mathematical Concepts” at the 2012 IRA Annual Convention. 

To produce poems in the shape of a diamond, visit ReadWriteThink’s Diamonte Poems interactive.

The International Reading Association partners with the National Council of Teachers of English and Verizon Thinkfinity to produce ReadWriteThink.org, a website devoted to providing literacy instruction and interactive resources for grades K–12. ReadWriteThink presents teachers with effective lesson plans and strategies, a professional community, and engaging online interactive student tools. 

by Elena Grashchenkova

In 2012, schoolchildren in Russia organized a Children's Choices project for the first time. They named the project "Book of the Year: Children Choose," based on the International Reading Association's Children's Choices model. (The project is cosponsored by IRA and the Children’s Book Council.) The students also created PowerPoint presentations about the winning books. Children who participated in this project felt it was important to tell all the world about their experience. What follows is a letter that the children wrote about their work and images from their presentations.

Letter from Russian Students: 

We are students of grade 3 school "Career" from Moscow. We are from 8 to 10 years old. There are 13 students "Karjera" in our class. We learned about the contest "Book of the Year: Children's Choices" from the Internet. We liked this project, in which the children can find a new book, according to their interests. We liked that the competition involve a lot of states, different countries and many thousands of children. 

In Russia this contest is not conducted. And we wanted to organize in 2011 a project for the first time in Russia. 

To do this we first learned how to organize a competition in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. We read a set of books, first published in Russian in 2011. 

Second, when we had read these books, we evaluated them according to different criteria, chose the best, and voted. 

Third, we conducted a survey among strarsheklassnikov and teachers. We asked which books they prefer for home reading. 

Fourth, we made papers (posters), which told about the winning books in the competition in 2011 among American children, made an exhibition from book covers Children's Choices Reading List, Young Readers (Grades 3-4). 

Fifth, we have created annotations, illustrations, presentations, and toys from clay on the books that we read. 

We want to talk about our experiences and to submit its list of best books of 2011, recognized as the best in the competition the following books. 

Children’s Choices 2011 Reading List from Russia: 

1. René Goscinny, Jean-Jacques Sempé Baby Nicholas (René Goscinny, Jean-Jacques Sempé Le petit Nicolas) 

2. Kate Dikamillo Amazing Journey of Edward Rabbit (Kate DiCamillo, Bagram Ibatoulline The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane) 

3. Oscar Brenifier, Jacques Despres What are Emotions? (Oscar Brenifier; Jacques Despres The God Question) 

4. Galina Avuncular Button Sewing Town 

5. Marco Innocenti Underground Beast (Marco Innocenti Il Mostro Sotterraneo)

6. Unni Lindell, Fredrik Skavlan Stella and Seventh Star

7. Julia Kuznetsova Imaginary Tipster 

8. Arthur Givargizov In Honor of the King

9. Oscar Brenife What is Good and Evil? (Oscar Brenifier; Jacques Despres It's Good, It's Bad)

10. Ulf Stark, Anna Hoglund Little Asmodeus 

Sincerely,

Students of grade 3 of school "Career" from Moscow: Polina Aleksandrova, Arina Sukhanov, Ilya Utochkin, Alexander Moshkov, Konstantin Kotljar, Arina Naugolnaja, Konstantin Yerokhin, Irina Mihajlova, Sasha Morozova 

Teachers: Elena Grashchenkova, Oksana Hlopkova, Svetlana Zajtseva