InLand/YA Booktalks

Call for Copy: Literature for Adolescents, Spring/Summer 2009

 

Headlines such as “Why Don’t Kids Read for Fun Anymore” and “Literary Reading in Dramatic Decline, According to National Endowment for the Arts Survey” scream impending doom for literature. For many in media, in political office, in school administration, it seems it is a short hop onto this negative bandwagon. But we can flip that wagon on its side. For those of us who work daily with students, for those of us with children of our own, InLand with this issue is determined to build a positive vehicle to guide onto the literary highway. We argue that never before has there been such an abundance of literary riches for young readers. Just take a peek into any bookstore: young adult literature is thriving, overflowing the book shelves; graphic novels, hard to find but a few years ago, now command entire aisles in your Barnes and Noble; and reading is growing on-line where fan fiction abounds, where students can read and interact with writers such as Laurie Halse Anderson on social networking sites such as MySpace. With this issue of InLand, let’s celebrate this prosperity and make sure it continues!

 

Some possible article topics include:

- What are positive trends you have observed in the novels your students are reading? What are negative trends?

- Middle and junior high schools have integrated young adult literature into their curriculum, but many high schools remain skeptical. Describe a unit that includes young adult novels, graphic novels, manga, or comic books that can be utilized in high school classrooms.

- What can students learn not only as readers but also as writers in reading Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak or Chris Crutcher’s Deadline or Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian? Describe a novel or novels that you have used in your writing instruction.

- Literature for adolescents is not just for adolescents. What young adult novels or graphic novels have you first read as a possible text for your classes then found yourself enjoying? What about the book appealed to you as an adult?

- What young adult novels or graphic novels make bridges across disciplines? Stroll down the hall and collaborate with a teacher in another content area using one of these novels. Write about the journey the two of you took.

- We all have stories we want to tell. Take this opportunity: write the first chapter to your own young adult novel. We can guarantee you a welcoming audience.

- We all are resources for finding good books. Have your students write 50-100 word reviews of their favorite books. Have the teachers in your department write reviews of books their students are reading on a regular basis.

 

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InLand also accepts articles that are not precisely on the issue's theme

as well as poetry or prose written by teachers of all grade levels.

 

Send articles to InLand, c/o Crag Hill in a Word attachment by e-mail at [email protected].

 

InLand serves the interests of approximately 350 K-College Language Arts educators in Idaho and Eastern Washington. Our readers love articles that enlarge their understanding of a topic, as well as articles that equip them with strategies that they can easily put into action in their classrooms with positive results.

 

 

Deadline April 15, 2009

(Surgeon General’s Warning: Writing for InLand may be more rewarding than filing your taxes.)

 

Call for Copy: Writing Out the Storm, Fall/Winter 2008: Deadline November 30, 2008

Call for Copy: Writing Out the Storm, Fall/Winter 2008

 
Unfortunately much education policy imitates weather fronts: here today, gone tomorrow, with perhaps some precipitation to feed the crops, but also some uprooted plants, some broken branches, left behind. In this current testing climate, how do we maintain a writing program that not only can withstand today’s unpredictable weather but also the climate challenges of the next century?

Testing has its benefits, telling us much about what our students need to work on, but it also has its drawbacks. Twice-yearly testing has taken instructional time out of our already jam-packed curricular schedules–up to two weeks in many schools, one week in the fall and one in the spring–and it has blocked out the schedules of many schools’ computer labs and/or libraries, sometimes for an additional week each testing period for make-up tests, rendering the lab or library unavailable for writing practice, for research projects, for more than a month. How do we as teachers of writing continue to produce lifelong writers no matter what the education climate is?

 

Some possible article topics include:

- Despite testing pressures, what have you been able to retain in your writing instruction? What have you had to give up? In what ways have you revised your writing instruction to fit the demands of your schedule?

- What are some new ways you have done more instruction with less time?

- How have you been able to incorporate the testing material into instruction that goes beyond the test?

- What are some writing projects/ activities that you have created to give your students a chance to really dig in and write about something they're really passionate about, either after taking the tests or during the stressful times of preparing for the tests?

InLand, as usual, accepts articles that are not precisely on the issue's theme as well as poetry or prose written by teachers of all grade levels.

Send articles to Crag Hill at

1111 E. Fifth St., or by e-mail at [email protected]

InLand’s blog: http://scorecard.typepad.com/inland/

 
InLand is a magazine that serves the interests of approximately 350 K-College Language Arts educators in Idaho and Eastern Washington. Our readers love articles that enlarge their understanding of a topic, as well as articles that equip them with strategies that can easily put into action in their classrooms.

 

Deadline

November 30, 2008

InLand: Call for Copy: There is Tech in TEaCHing!

InLand Needs Your Writing!

Call for Copy: There is TECH in TEaCHing!

In the blink of an eye, students seize the potential uses of emerging technologies– YouTube, MySpace, blogs, wikis, text-messaging, putting them to use in and out of the classroom in ways their creators could not imagine. Overnight, their uses, positive and negative, proliferate. Teachers work hard to keep pace, adapting these technologies to their needs: e-mailing to connect with colleagues, parents, and administration; searching the Web to browse for information and resources for their classes, to check on possible plagiarists, or to consult wikipedia in a pinch. They are allowing (if not encouraging) students to use at least one internet source for research. Some use home pages (some utilizing user-friendly MySpace) or blogs (over 40 schools in PA for example) to disseminate information on their classes to better communicate to both students and parents. Many, too, join listservs to communicate with colleagues near and afar.

Why keep pace? Because these new ways of doing old work are not only more efficient but also more effective than old ways, e.g. telephoning parents or passing our handouts or explaining assignments endlessly to absent students. Teachers are connoisseurs of information; they will find the best way to procure and deliver it.

Some possible article topics include:

- How do you use these technologies in your own ongoing education? How do they facilitate your own learning?

- How do you see students using these technologies productively? Or you could explore the flip-side: How are these technologies being abused by students?

- How do you use technology in your classroom? How do you deal with class management issues? How do you address unequal student access?

- Describe school policies that support or hinder technology use in the classroom. How have teachers coped or overcome these policies?

Send articles to Crag Hill at

1111 E. Fifth St., or by e-mail at[email protected]

InLand is a magazine that serves the interests of approximately 350 K-College Language Arts educators in Idaho and Eastern Washington. Our readers love articles that enlarge their understanding of a topic.

Deadline: December 15, 2007