Blog Love - CCHS Students in Japan or Why Blogs are AWESOME!

David Nurenberg is an inspirational English teacher at CCHS. He has spent his April vacation leading a group of students (along with chaperones Superintendent of Schools Diana Rigby and fellow-English teacher Vicky Moskowitz) on a trip to Concord's Sister-City, Nanae, Japan. 17 students are forging personal connections in Japan, deepening their knowledge and interest in manga, and learning about global peace. His blog is AWESOME!
2009JapanTripBlog
Not only is David coordinating, leading and teaching, but he is also taking the time to write up the experiences of the delegation and posting them to a blog. It is a privilege to follow the adventures of our students as they discover Japan.
This is what preparing students for the 21st century entails. David goes the extra 10,000 miles (approximately:) in guiding students towards cultural understanding.
So, give a little blog love. Add a comment. Post that you read, that you connected.

Photo credit:
Flickr Creative Commons
五稜郭 (Pentagram Fort) by 14-2-1
Manhole cover - Hakodate, squid [squared circle] by Mr Wabu

A Novel Use for Cell Phones (get it?)

86 percent of Japanese high school students read Mobile Phone Novels. Think about it. Cell phone are the leading outlet for new novel publications (Cell Phones Put to Novel Use). New novels are being written especially with this format in mind. Are people reading less, or more? Or are they just reading differently?

My experience with Kindle profoundly changed how I define "reading". Truly, I couldn't get the concept of digital paper and electronic reading devices. Then I read The Tale of Edgar Sawtelle on my new Kindle, and found myself disappearing into the text. Shockingly, I found I preferred reading on the Kindle. It was lighter, easier to angle, and more intimate than the bulky hardcover. So, yeah, I am totally open to the idea of reading a novel on a cell phone.

Here's a shout out to Daniel Pink's blog for getting me thinking about this.

Graphic Novels - EDCO

In the spirit of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, I'd like to suggest a few immersion adjectives: soaked, poached, saturated, brined, pickled, marinated, stuffed - any one of them will do. Or, maybe some super-hero vocabulary like Yowzah!, Bam! Kapow! would be more appropriate. This one day class on graphic novels and comics was really intense, and really fun. The presenters were passionate, knowledgeable, and skilled at sharing their expertise.

The use of graphic novels, manga, and comics is compelling. Building visual skills into reading and writing instruction is a powerful way to engage those students who do best with a more hands-on or visual learning style. There is no doubt that they love the stuff.

True story. Last summer we invested in a large starter collection of manga and graphic novels. The books flew off the shelves. We had waiting lists and were ordering additional requests through inter-library loan. When we reviewed our circulation statistics for the month of September 08 and compared them to September 07, the results were astounding. Stats indicated that students were checking out the new books at an astronomical rate, but our fiction circulation was also up 75%! Overall circulation was up 94%! The data clearly shows they came and checked out graphic materials, but we had clear evidence that they were suddenly migrating to other material, and were checking out fiction for pleasure reading in startling numbers. Do graphic novels contribute to learning? Should they be part of every library collection? Do they build reading and comprehension skills? Yes.

This post has links to other blogs and resources. It is going to take me awhile to process this new information. Grant funding for an expanded graphic novel collection is definitely on the horizon, and there are certainly more than enough suggested titles!

Robin Brenner, Brookline Public Library
Notes from MSLA Conference, Oct. 2008
Getting Graphic in School: Graphic Novels, comics, and manga in education

Metrowest Regional Library System - Resources - very good!
Sarah Sogigian
Material from multiple presentations
Introduction to Manga, Anime, and Graphic Novels
Japanese Manga for Libraries

Excellent Listserve - good for info,questions, and welcoming to newcomersGraphic Novels in Libraries Listserv

Andrew Wales
AndrewWales.blogspot
Comics are great for the struggling reader. Light reading leads to heavier reading. Comics are a conduit to other forms of reading.

Tim Callahan
http://geniusboyfiremelon.blogspot.com/
Research and Literacy organization - scholarly approach to graphic format material
http://www.sequart.org/
Comic Book Resources - a lot of fluff, but also good content columns, super-hero central!
Matt Madden, 99 Ways to Tell a Story