Scholastic Arts Writing Competition: ASD Students Shine!

On January 22 F Magazine celebrated the young writers who won in the regional Alliance of Young Artists and Writers competition. Students heard their work read aloud, and their pieces will be featured in an upcoming issue of F Magazine. ASD had several winners in the competition! Congratulations to the following students:

GOLD KEY: (ASD 3 of 6 keys)

Lauren Chun- Eagle River H.S. grade 12, “Ajuma” (Personal Essay/Memoir)

Lauren Heyano- Polaris K-12 grade 11, Collection of Poetry

Aryeh Lax- Steller Secondary grade 11, “A Time to Reap”, Science Fiction/Fantasy

SILVER KEY: (ASD 7 of 13 keys)

Aryeh Lax-Steller Secondary grade 11, Poetry Collection

Ella Meshke- Goldenview Middle School grade 7, “How Stormy The Cloud Found Me”, Personal Essay Memoir

Jacqueline Klecka- Eagle River H.S.  grade 11, “Rainbow Ridge”, Personal Essay/Memoir

Evdokyia Hail- Eagle River H.S. grade 11, “Bugs”, Personal Essay

Amanda Nowicki- Eagle River H.S. grade 11, “The Evil Rats of Venice”, Personal Essay/Memoir

Lauren Heyano- Polaris K-12, grade 11, “Hey Rosco”, Short Story Fiction

Salome’ Scott- Eagle River H.S grade 12, “The Raven”, Poetry

Gold Key award winners have the opportunity for possible national recognition later this semester!

Anchorage Reads! 2011

Are you a member of a book club? Would you like to start a book club? Well, then Anchorage Reads, Anchorage Municipal Library's fifth annual One Book Community Read, is the perfect opportunity for you! They'll be holding a kick-off open house on February 1 for local book clubs and people interested in joining them. Anchorage Reads is designed to encourage people of all ages throughout the city to read the same book, discuss it, and attend programs that focus on the book and its themes.

This year's book is the award-winning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie. The open house will take place in the Ann Stevens Room on the third floor of the Loussac Library between 5:30 and 7 p.m on February 1.

Library events planned in connection with the 2011 Anchorage Reads so far are:
• Author Dana Stabenow talks about the latest in her Kate Shugak series, "Though Not Dead" as well as growing up in Alaska and her life as a best-selling mystery author. 3-5 p.m. Feb. 5, Loussac, Wilda Marston Theatre
• Loussac Book Club's discussion of "Part-time Indian" 3 p.m. Feb. 12, in the Ann Stevens Room at Loussac.
• Cartoonist Chad Carpenter is featured at the monthly meeting of the Alaska Writers Guild 7-9 p.m. Feb. 15 in the Wilda Marston Theatre. Like the main character Arnold in Part-time Indian, Carpenter explores his world via cartoons.

If you haven't read this book, it's a great chance to jump in and join your community in discussing a challenging, funny, and thought-provoking text.  And if you don't belong to a book club, join me and other ASD language arts teachers at our ASDLA Ning and participate in an online version!

NOTE to teachers: this book is definitely PG in nature. Just an FYI...

Cook Inlet Literacy Council Mini-Conference

Cook Inlet Literacy Council is holding another of its "mini conferences" this coming Saturday. This is a great chance to connect with colleagues and allow your local literacy council to provide you with one of the benefits of membership. Teachers who attend these mini-conferences always walk away with great teaching ideas and renewed energy.

 “Read with Me in Any Language”

Cook Inlet Literacy Council January Mini-Conference

APU Campus, Carr Gottstein Academic Building

Saturday, January 29, 2011

8:30 AM – 1:00 PM

Educators and APU/UAA education students are invited to join the CILC and Alaska State Literacy Association officers for a FREE Mini-Conference that includes:

Ø  Brunch with CILC and ASLA members

Ø  Sessions for all grade levels

Ø  Topics include: technology, Native beading, writing, graphic novels, passion projects, & music through the literacy lens!

Ø  Door Prizes, food, Fast Cash

Ø  Teri from “Apple Tree Book Shop” (Cash or check only!)

Ø Lavon Bridges with “Alaskan Animals” books

RSS: Subscribing to a Blog

RSS allows you to bring in content from sites around the web to one place, as soon as it's available. For example, you could RSS the posts in this blog and keep up with its content without any work on your part!
Here's an excellent video explaining the basics of RSS or subscribing to web content.

This post explaining more about RSS is an older web page, but the information is still very helpful and easy to understand.

You can subscribe to RSS feeds in your web browser, or you can use a news aggregator. Here are links to a few "readers" that can aggregate your different RSS feeds. Once you start subscribing to blogs, you'll quickly find it addicting!

Bloglines
Google Reader
NewsGator 
NetVibes 

And here's a great post about ways to make the most of RSS.

Chugiak High School Poetry Out Loud

I had the distinct pleasure of attending Chugiak High School's 6th Annual Poetry Out Loud Competition yesterday afternoon. Fifteen talented and committed students recited  a wide range of wonderful poetry. The competition was impressive.

A special intermission treat included a drama performance by CHS student Karly Matson. It was amazing to watch her perform a dramatic piece inside of a 3 or 4 foot square space. Her voice took on various accents, tones, and cadences as she poured out the raw emotion of the piece she performed. It was a truly inspiring performance.

In the end, the winners of the Poetry Out Loud competition were  runner-up Jessica Wilder (last year's Alaska winner who competed in Washington D.C.,) and Kaylee Miltersen, who recited Shakespeare and Sheet Music by Brigit Pegeen Kelley. I did not envy the judges their task of choosing these winners, as I saw many performances that were worthy of a top spot.

Chugiak HS has been faithfully participating in this event for several years now. Stefanie Alexander clearly put a great deal of time and effort into organizing the event, and the teachers who served as judges and sponsored their classroom competitions are to be commended. It was a bright spot in my day to have the chance to watch our talented LA students in action!

The area-wide competition will take place on February 9 at the Wildberry Theater. I am certain it will be a fabulous event.

If your school is holding its competition soon, please let me know! I'd love to have the chance to see more of these talented students in action!

F Magazine Writing Competition

F Magazine has a statewide writing competition that may interest you and your students!

Here's a link to the information:

http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=cplsyfeab&v=...

Whitewashed Huck Finn?

Suzanne Metcalfe sent the following link my way, an article by Leonard Pitts about the current Huck Finn controversy. I have to say that I agree with his viewpoint:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/09/2007730/dont-censor-mark-twai...

I remember being highly annoyed and confused a few years ago when my son's LA teacher had the class memorize Robert Service's poem, "The Cremation of Sam McGee," and had the students change the word "queer" to a different word because of its current definition. I feel the same way about NewSouth Books' intentions...

Alaska State Writing Consortium Virtual Open Writing Institute 3 credits

ED593 Writing Matters!
Virtual Open Writing Institute

A Three-Credit Online Course $169!
Enroll by February 1 (deadline) and complete by April 4, 2010
Course begins the week of February 7

Teacher Leader: Sondra Porter
“The class forced me to look at my mostly-language-arts-oriented philosophy and enlarge upon it. I had to think more deeply about what I really do believe about process and product, about judging and grading, and about the standards in order to articulate them for class, and in some instances defend or discard those beliefs. "—ASWC Virtual Open Institute participant

Writing Matters! is an online, virtual version of the Open Institute, ASWC’s introductory course designed to orient teachers to creating a balanced writing program drawn from their own experience with the craft of writing and research into effective practice. As an online course, Writing Matters! is designed to take advantage of ongoing teaching, and the opportunities provided by electronic technologies to centered around the real, ongoing writing work of your classroom.
This synchronous course will have regular deadlines for the submission of work as well as required audio and on-line conferences. The course content, assignments, and due dates will all be provided online. (This is not a self-paced correspondence course.) Enrollment is open now and is limited to 15.

For more information on enrollment or content, contact Mardell Kiesel, director of ASWC at aswcmardell@gmail.com

Jan 13 Credit Course: Teaching Writing with Mentor Texts K-6

Cindy Forsyth and Jennifer Stone are teaching this one-credit course, sponsored by the Alaska State Writing Consortium. The course meets on Thursdays from 4:00-7:00: January 13, 27; February 3, 10; and March 3. Teachers receive a $100 stipend upon successful completion of the course! I highly recommend this opportunity to explore the writing process from the content-area perspective and work on lessons that use mentor texts with students.

The course should be in MLP by tomorrow.

Welcome to the ASD Lang Arts Blog!

I am taking a page out of my friend Ann M.'s book and finally taking action on my desire to increase and simplify my digital presence. The ASD web page is too static, and I don't yet have enough participation at the ASD LA Ning. I want a place to post quick and easy updates about the many wonderful things that come my way as the coordinator for Language Arts in the Anchorage School District. I want a place that archives these items, has them available to teachers and others when they want to revisit them, and is easy and quick to update. So, here I go...