I Want to Know!

For this entry, I am supposed to “Describe my personal approach to inquiry before starting this project.”  Well, to be very honest, I am not sure I really had a personal approach to inquiry before this project!  I guess I would say that when I am given a task to complete, I tend to want to see an example of what the final product is supposed to look like.  That probably comes from a little lack of confidence in myself.  I always want to do well on assignments and I think that I feel better about what I am doing if I know what the outcome is “supposed to look like”.  However, after doing this inquiry project for this class, I realize that it is so powerful to give students, both children and adults, the freedom to discover on their own!  I definitely think that guidelines or models are necessary and very important (like the 8 W’s we were given), but to be able to discover information on your own is very empowering!  I will definitely incorporate the inquiry process into my research lessons with my older elementary students!  I think that Eisenberg and Berkowitz’s Super 3 model would work very nicely with my primary students and the Big 6 model could be introduced with the 4th graders.  I can’t wait to get started!

Wishing…As I look back to reflect on how this inquiry experience “unfolded”, I would have to say that I have really enjoyed each step of the process!  By leaving so much of this open-ended (like the topic and the path it took), yet having some guidelines (8 W’s) to keep me on track, it really allowed me to focus on something that was truly meaningful and useful for ME!  I guess if I had to wish for something for this project, I would have LOVED to have Marc Brown actually come and talk with the students!  What an impact that would have made with these young children!  Having the video with Marc Brown actually explaining how he “created” Arthur  and showing how he draws his characters was definitely a great visual connection for the students, but there is nothing quite like the real thing!  I feel so fortunate that I was able to get Sue Corbett scheduled to come to our school in early 2009 and am very hopeful that Steven Kellogg will spend a day with our students in the spring!  We are also have an EAV (electronic author visit) with Obert Skye, the author of the Leven Thumps series, at the end of September!  I think making this connection with famous authors makes such an impact with students!  I can’t wait to continue!

Waving…You know, it’s funny how excited you get when you have really prepared for a lesson!  I could not wait to share all that I learned about Marc Brown with my Kindergartners and 1st graders!  I was smiling from ear-to-ear when I greeted them at the library doors with my Arthur mask and bow tie on!  I could see their excitement and curiosity in their faces, too!  I actually “taught”, “performed”, “shared” this lesson a total of 10 times, but enjoyed each time, and actually got a little better each time, too   We have 5 sections of Kindergarten and 5 First grade classes.  I have even gone back and reviewed what an author and an illustrator does during this week’s lessons and have been very pleased with their responses!!  I definitely think visual learning played an important part of their comprehension!  I had collaborated with all of the Kindergarten and 1st grade teachers, ahead of time, that I would be focusing on Arthur, Marc Brown, and what an author and illustrator do during their library times.  This allowed them to pull some materials and correlate some lessons in their own classrooms to enhance this experience!  Below, I have included a scrapbook page as my final product.  I used Comic Life to create this page!  It’s an awesome tool to create very unique pages!  Dr. Lamb introduced me to this during an earlier course I took with her!  I feel very proud to “wave” my final product during this portion of my inquiry!  I had so much fun digging up ideas and putting this lesson together for my younger students.  I plan on doing something similar with the other two authors I am focusing on – Steven Kellogg and Sue Corbett!

Wrapping…Well, I presented my lesson about Marc Brown to Kindergarten and 1st grade!  It went very well!  I decided that my main goal was to have the students understand the following…

• books can have authors and illustrators
• an author writes the words of the story
• an illustrator creates the pictures in the story
• sometimes the author and illustrator is the same person and sometimes it’s different people
• Marc Brown is an author and illustrator
• Marc Brown is the creator of Arthur

I began the lesson by greeting the students at the library door with an Arthur costume!  (This was definitely an attention grabber   Then, once the children were sitting down in the story corner, I proceeded to begin the lesson.  I had about 30 different Arthur books displayed in this area and talked about what an author and illustrator did for their jobs.  (I have to tell you that we all got “tickled” when we were trying to say “the author of Arthur” – quite a tongue twister!)  After a good discussion, they watched a 12 minutes video that had Marc Brown telling how he came up with the idea for his Arthur stories, showing how he draws his characters, and how he hides the names of his three children in his books.  (The video is called “Meet Marc Brown” and is presented by Trumpet Club.)  We discussed the video when it was over and before they began checking our their books, I reviewed with them what an author and illustrator do and who we learned about today.  They did a wonderful job understanding these terms and knowing what each job entailed.  However, I really knew that this got them excited when they came to check out their books!  Let me just say…you could not find an Arthur book in my media center right now!  Please take a look at the pictures I’ve included below!  The first one is of me with my Arthur mask and bow tie on while introducing the key words for the lesson and the other is of part of the display I had showing Marc Brown and several of his books.

Weaving…As I begin to put together my plans for an author study, I think that I will begin with Marc Brown.  Almost all elementary-aged children love his character, Arthur, and are at least familiar with his books.  I feel like I’m entering Carol Kahlthau’s Formulating a Focus stage in her ISP Model.  This stage focuses on “feelings” – optimism and confidence in the ability to complete the task. I’m feeling this way, because I found a video at the public library that is a “video visit with Marc Brown” that I think will work perfect with this activity.  I previewed it and it has Marc Brown telling how he came up with the idea for Arthur, he gives a tour of his studio, reads aloud from one of his stories, and shares about he he gets his ideas for his books!  It’s just about 12 minutes long, which will be a perfect introduction for the students and just enough to peek their curiosity of this wonderful author!  The video is produced by Trumpet Club.  Also, after looking further into the websites I found about Marc Brown, I decided that this author study will be geared for Kindergarten through 2nd grade students.  One of my goals with the Kindergarten students, and first graders, as well, is to have them understand the jobs of an author and illustrator.  Indiana State Standard 1.3.2 for First Grade Language Arts states:

1.3.2          Describe the roles of authors and illustrators.
Example: Read a book, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle or Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, in which the art is especially important in telling the story. Describe the role of the author and illustrator, and discuss how the pictures help to tell the story.

I’m sure these terms will be new for many of them and I think it is an important part of understanding books.  They need to know that authors write the words/story and illustrators draw/add the pictures.  I will also have to show them how Marc Brown does BOTH of these jobs in her Arthur stories, but not all books have the same author and illustrator.  To help keep track of what my goals are while doing these author studies, I have been keeping large pieces of Post-it paper hung up in my media center office.  As I find resources or information to use with each author and/or grade level, I simply write it on the correct chart.  This has helped me organize my thoughts and it helps me to see the “big picture” when planning my lessons!  I have also collaborated with the Kingergarten-2nd grade teachers to let them know what we’ll be focusing on during their media time!  They are going to incorporate several Arthur stories into their own reading, writing, and even math curriculum!  I can’t wait to share what I’ve found with the students!

I need to practice inserting screen shots into my posts, so I thought I’d try …

Okay…the way I do it for Word documents didn’t work.  Let me try inserting a picture…

No luck with that, either.  I’ll have to check into this further and try again, later!

Well, I decided to add Sue Corbett to the list of authors that I want my students to know about!  She is scheduled to visit our school in January, so it would be great if the students knew something about her BEFORE she came!  Her latest book, Free Baseball is one that I have on order for our library.  It is on the Young Hoosier Book Award list for this year!  Even though her books have been written for upper-elementary students, she said that she could “tweak” her presentation so it would be useful and understandable for K-4 students!  The “stage” of my project that I’m in right now is similar to Alice Yucht’s step in her “FLIP IT” model called Input – implementing the information I find (sorting, sifting, storing).  I am still sifting through different websites that might give me information about my authors.  I did decide to search for information about Sue Corbett the same way I did for Kellogg and Brown…using the Internet!  I found basic information about her at the following website:  http://www.suecorbett.com/about/about.html and will continue to search for more!  Wish me luck!

Wiggling…I guess the biggest thing I’m wondering, right now, is do I need to explore MORE authors or should I just stick with the two I started with (Marc Brown and Steven Kellogg) and really do a “deep” study on just these two?  Hmmmmm….I’m not sure what the best answer is?  I’ve been thinking about what I can do for my additional requirements for this project and was thinking that I might possibly be able to share some of my findings about Marc Brown by doing an “author study” and sharing several Arthur stories with my students!  I could have our technology coordinator take some pictures of me doing this and post them as part of my product.  There is another author – not quite as well-known, yet – that we are having visit our school in January 2009.  Her name is Sue Corbett and her latest book, Free Baseball is up for a Young Hoosier Book Award this next year!  Yes, of course, I should find out more about her!  I should try and expose my students to as many authors as possible!  Okay…that’s my decision for now.  I will continue to look for interesting and useful information to share with my K-4 students about Marc Brown and Steven Kellogg, but I am also going to include Sue Corbett!  I know that the information that I previously found about Brown and Kellogg will be very useful as I put together what it is I want my students to know about these two authors.  Especially, the websites and the live interviews!  I really think it is important to younger students to be able to SEE what authors LOOK LIKE, if I’m expecting them to make a connection with them!  In my library, we have a computer that is hooked up to a big-screen television.  I will be able to connect to those sites that I found, and maybe more as I continue this inquiry, and share that information this way!  I am still very hopeful, however, that the BIGGEST “WOW FACTOR” for this entire inquiry, will be to have Steven Kellogg visit our school this spring!  It’s something that is “in the works” right now, but I’m just waiting to hear a confirmation!  Just think…if I can introduce Steven Kellogg to my students by sharing his artwork, stories, and important personal information and get them excited about that…just imagine how thrilled they will be to find out he is coming to spend a whole day with us at our school!  Keep your fingers crossed!

Wondering and Webbing…I decided to begin by looking for some websites that would give me some more information about the two children’s authors that I decided to begin this inquiry about…Marc Brown and Steven Kellogg.  I wonder what information is going to be important for me to find and then share with my kindergarten through 4th grade students?  I don’t want to overwhelm them with information and statistics that they really don’t need to know or just really aren’t interested in!  That would be a huge turn off for them!  I want my students to be able to make a connection between these wonderful, well-known children’s authors and the books that they have written!  I think it will make their books more meaningful and they know some interesting facts about the author!  As I am learning more about inquiry and different models, I can see a correlation between Lamb’s 8 W’s and Eisenberg and Berkowitz’s Big 6 model!  The process, itself, has many similarities between them – defining the task and watching, location/access and webbing, etc.  My ultimate goal is to have one of the authors that I research do an “author visit” at our elementary school!  Wow…wouldn’t that make a great culminating activity!  I decided to begin my search by Googling these two authors.  During my search for websites for my inquiry, I have created a list of my 5 favorite websites that I found useful in my investigation.  I found a great site for Marc Brown at http://www.kidsreads.com/series/series-arthur-author.asp   This page had links to a great biography about Marc Brown, a list of his book titles, the characters from his Arthur books, word searches, and puzzles!  This would be a great resource to use when doing an author study on Marc Brown!  While searching, I also came across an awesome website that has an interview that was done with Marc Brown!  This site can be found at the following web address -http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/brown.

While searching for information about my second author, Steven Kellogg, I came across his personal site at http://www.stevenkellogg.com/page2.html.  This website gives a detailed biography about this author, as well as, a list of his published books, pictures of his characters, and a gallery of all of his book covers.  This is a great place to get started learning more about this wonderful author!  I also found information about Steven Kellogg on the same website that I found information about Marc Brown – http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-kellogg-steven.asp.  I also found a webcast from the Library of Congress which is 35 minutes long.  This is from the 2003 National Book Festival where Steven Kellogg speaks about his career as a children’s author.  This would be great to show “snippets” from to my older elementary students!  The address for viewing Steven Kellogg giving his speech is can be found at  http://loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=3547.

Well…I would have to say that my time spent today has been well worth it!  I’m feeling pretty motivated and confident that I’ll find information that my students will enjoy!  I have to keep in mind WHO my audience is going to be – Kindergarten through 4th graders – and keep my material interesting to them!  My goal is to get them “hooked” on these authors so they want to explore their books and even learn more about them!

Happy Reading!

Wondering…Well, I AM very excited to move forward with my inquiry to learn more about some famous children’s authors, but I’m not really sure where to begin?  According to Daniel Callison, the elements of information inquiry are part of a continuous cycle.  Many elements interact with one another possibly many times before the learner moves on to the next element or experience.  I can definitely see this to be true as I contemplate exactly what it is I want to inquire about!  I also found it interesting that Callison said the sometimes the learner moved on purposefully and other times naturally, without consciously taking the next step in the cycle.  As pieces start to come together in my inquiry, I can imagine how that might happen!  As I was thinking about WHO I wanted to learn more about and there were a few authors that “popped” into my head!  Since I am a media specialist for a K-4 elementary building, I know that there are some authors that the students really love!  Marc Brown, author/illustrator of the “Arthur” series of books is very popular with kindergarten and first graders!  Also, I am working to get Steven Kellogg to come to our school this next spring and he has written/illustrated some wonderful stories, too.  I think I’ll begin focusing on those two authors…just to get me started.  I need to find information about these two authors that the students will think is important AND interesting!