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Posts tagged ‘Lynne R. Dorfman’

Apr 19

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Celebrate with Poetry! Plus a Treasure Chest of Poetry Books

by Lynne R. Dorfman

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. 
~W.H. Auden

It is sometimes hard to define something, even when we feel we know it fairly well. Emily Dickinson, once confided in a letter, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”   We might offer these ideas: Poetry is a story, the painting of a scene, a thought, a small moment in time. The trouble is that most dictionary definitions of poetry are dry, limiting, and vague; and so we are left scratching our heads.  What, then, is this magical writing that has such power and range, capable of ever-renewing our spirits? Read more

Mar 30

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Reflections from an Author: Why Teachers Must Write (Guest Post)

By Frank Murphy

Recently, Lynne Dorfman wrote a Teacher to Teacher post about using my newest book, Take a Hike Teddy Roosevelt, as a mentor text to help guide the instruction of teachers of young writers.  (Of course, I was, and still am, flattered!!)  Soon after, on a Saturday in January, we co-presented on the same topic for some dedicated members of the Capital Reading Council in Harrisburg, PA.

In a nutshell, I started the event off by sharing the story of how Teddy became so dedicated to environmental conservation; then Lynne went about analyzing how she could use this book as a mentor text for elementary school student writers. (If you’ve never seen Lynne present – she’s like a literary surgeon on Skittles!!).  She focused on many things, from strong verbs to exact nouns.  Even artful sentence fragments!  (I hope she thought that one was artful!)  All of Lynne’s analysis forced me to recollect so much of the writing and rewriting and imagining of writing that I did over the last few years of constructing and crafting this book in collaboration with my editor, Anna Membrino.  It also made me reflect on a recent lesson that I taught to my current sixth grade students that I’ll discuss later.  Read more

Mar 3

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Teacher to Teacher: Promoting Greater Independence in Writing Workshop

By Lynne R. Dorfman

It is always a challenge to teach writing and run an effective writing workshop, but part of the problem may be our reluctance to set our writers free. We must trust that they will make good choices, use materials and their time appropriately, be able to offer advice to each other, and assess their own writing and set goals.  It is important to realize that we are not the only teacher in the classroom. Our classroom is a giant think tank, a community of writers that can come together in many different formats to assist, advise, critique, and challenge. Read more

Jan 6

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Teacher to Teacher: A Journey with a Mentor Text   

by Lynne R. Dorfman

take a hikeI am always amazed how much fun I have rediscovering the joy of studying a new read as a mentor text. In this case, as I am reading and rereading Take a Hike, Teddy Roosevelt – the newest book by author Frank Murphy, I am thinking about the first time I met Frank fifteen years ago. Now a fellow of the Pennsylvania Writing & Literature Project and a personal friend I know well, I remember that Rose Cappelli and I had absolutely no idea who Frank was the summer day he arrived at our PAWLP Author Study course on the West Chester University campus to present his books, Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares and The Legend of the Teddy Bear. Chris Coyne Kehan had recommended him, and we trusted Chris’s judgment.  Frank was personable and exciting to listen to, but he completely won us over when he spied our copy of Wondrous Words by Katie Wood Ray. Clutching it in both hands he declared, “I used this book to write my own!”  Indeed, Katie Wood Ray is one of our mentors for our books about mentor texts (along with Ralph Fletcher, Shelley Harwayne, and Regie Routman).  Read more

Nov 4

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Teacher to Teacher: Independent Reading – What should I read next?

By Lynne R. Dorfman

Students in all grade levels are always asking, “What should I read next?’ It’s an important question because you want your students to continue to find books that they can read independently – inside and outside of school. In Readicide author Kelly Gallagher talks about McQuillan’s study of reluctant readers (2001). It that showed a statistically significant gain in reading and writing fluency and writing complexity with students who had had a negative attitude towards reading at the beginning of the year, but at the semester’s end had improved significantly after having finished several books on their own. How did this happen? The students were given time to read books of their choosing in school without having to complete a book report, track points, or fill in a worksheet.

Csikszentmihalyi (1990) talked about reading flow – where students can get lost in the pages of a book and achieve true pleasure in the act of reading for reading’s sake without the promise of extrinsic rewards or grades. If we want our students to achieve this state of reading flow, then we have to help them find books that are interesting and inviting to them. We must provide the time and space for them to read in school before we can hope that they will read outside of school. Often, we find our busy schedules do not allow much time to consider the question, “What shall I read next?’ We find that even during a library special, we hurry from the room lined with inviting books just waiting for a recommendation (“Pick me! You’ll find adventure here!) to use the prep period to record reading, math, and writing data on the schoolwide system or respond to a parent’s phone call or e-mail. There is always so much to do, and yet….

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Sep 2

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Teacher to Teacher: Writing a Plan for a Focus Lesson Using Found Poetry

By Lynne R. Dorfman

How can you tempt your students to take the writing plunge in the beginning of the year? I have always found that poetry is the great equalizer for student writers. Especially, the found poem helps writers gain confidence in creating something quite wonderful. Mentor texts for found poems are everywhere: newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, novels, picture books, or even other poems. Like a collage art form, the writer simply takes existing texts and refashions them as a poem. In its purest form, a found poem retains the exact words of the original text with a few omissions or additions. The writer creates a poem, making conscious decisions about line breaks and the order of the ideas.

Found poetry accomplishes several goals for readers and writers. First of all, it clearly gives students a chance to read like a writer – to find the best in prose (what often sounds like poetry). It asks readers to reread many times in order to write an effective poem; thus, deepening comprehension of text. Found poetry helps all children to be successful. It will help you get what all teachers want – 100% engagement. Found poetry is easily differentiated by text choices. In addition, it is easy to build in opportunities for collaboration.  Read more

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