Thursday, February 28, 2008

Inspired by High School Meeting this week...

Thanks to Janet McKinley for sharing with us Churchill's independent reading program. The base for their beginning was Maryam Moayeri's book, Independent Minds Independent Readers which can be ordered from Pacific Edge Publishing. Participants also enjoyed learning about Byng's multiliteracies projects from Amy Hughes. The third great presentation was on vocabulary by Pam Hansen from Thompson. Pam referred to the September 2007 issue of Voices in the Middle. I also just found an interesting new book by Janet Allen on vocabulary, Inside Words: Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary, Grades 4-12.

I mentioned two great picture books with potential for high school students written by great authors and illustrators. The first I mentioned was The Tree of Life by Peter Sis who also wrote The Wall. The second was The Red Tree by Shaun Tan (also author of The Arrival) who I believe is coming to the Vancouver International Writers' Festival this year. Take a look at this site and order the free video from last year's festival featuring sessions with Margriet Ruurs and Severn Cullis-Suzuki. Barbara Kingsolver is definitely coming to UBC on May 29th!
Speaking ecologically, I currently am reading an interesting critically acclaimed coming of age novel set in in Olympia, Washington, The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch. It's fascinating!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shaun Tan wrote The Arrival, not Peter Sis.

meredyth kezar said...

Whoops, I did know that and it's now corrected. Thank you!

Moira Ekdahl said...

I have over 100 Writer's Festival CDs coming for distribution to schools ... if your readers were to hold on ordering, I will let you know when these are going out to schools ... how's that?

Moira