A Blog Birthday and a Bear Tale

My blog is three years old!

puffin collection
My puffin collection is growing!

Thankfully, blogs (and puffins) mature more quickly than human children do.  Despite not being able to lavish as much attention on it as I would like, the blog seems to be thriving. This is post number 377 and I have 1019 followers on Twitter (Google analtyics confound me so I don’t dare to quote numbers, but the “cluster map” of visitors looks great)! Never would have predicted that! I feel that the blog has become an important part of me. I imagine what I would post even when I don’t have time to actually do so.

This past week I had an excellent reminder of why I can’t possibly do without my blog.

Part One: On Monday I finally had the opportunity to watch James Taylor’s “Making the Most of Reading” talk at RSCON4 which I had missed at the conferece.  I found many useful ideas there but one specific strategy caught my attention in particular. It was not new to me, but James had visualised it for me. James presented a picture of a man with the surprising caption ” I punched a bear”. He then proceeded to demonstrate how students first form their own questions and then answer them when they later get the text (about a man defending his family from a bear). I had only done this  using titles of texts, not a line from the text itself (especially with a picture!), and believe it is more effective.

Part Two: On Wednesday I had a full morning of counseling work and met with several teachers. We had a long talk about reading comprehension strategies as that is a crucial topic when teaching English as a foreign language to deaf students. I brought up the idea of using a prompt from the text (preferrably with a visual aid) to have the students form their own questions before reading. Some of the teachers didn’t quite seem to understand what I meant. So, without thinking, I said: “Imagine I’m pasting a picture on the board of a man, with the caption I punched a bear”. What would you like to know about this person? This situation?”. That did it. They immediatly understood and looked at possible lines to use from the text we were holding.

I was so pleased! Not only had I enjoyed the talk but it had helped me clarify things for other teachers!

But what would I have done with this excitement if I hadn’t had my blog and PLN to share it with? My family are incredibly supportive but that level of detail is beyond them. There is no time at school between classes to share such things with other teachers, many of whom would much rather discuss other things when there is some quiet time.

A big thanks to all of you who can share in my excitement and discuss such things with me! This blog is here to stay!

10 thoughts on “A Blog Birthday and a Bear Tale”

  1. Naomi- your blog posts share, inspire and encourage new creativity. So, what could be better?
    happy b-day to Visualizing Ideas
    and long live cooperative discoveries

    – judih

  2. Congratulations Naomi for your wonderful, and thanks for including me in the celebrations – I’m happy to be part of it 🙂

  3. Happy blog birthday! I can’t believe it’s only been three years – I feel like we’ve always known each other 🙂 Keep sharing your excitement with us and building your puffin collection!
    Sandy

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *