New Picture Book by @mattdelapena and Christian Robinson. New picture book from Matt de la Peña with illustrations by Christian Robinson.

Milo boards the subway on a Sunday morning as nervous as a "shook-up soda."

A Tweet Thread Review. While aboard the train, he observes the other passengers, imagining their lives in extended narrative as he renders them in pictures in the notebook he carries aboard with him.

We had an eLearning Day yesterday so the first order of business today in #Room407 was to center our work around the idea of Black History Month. This is not "claps" or "likes." It's the thing I can do inside of the classroom that centers, captures, and celebrates this month. The way we did this was to present CARTER READS THE NEWSPAPER by Deborah Hopkinson with illustrations by Don Tate. The book not only features Carter G. Woodson. The endpapers become a visual wallpaper of important figures to consider and share.

Please forgive a few food prep and feel-good Tweets in the moment. Remember, about three weeks ago, I didn't give two figs for this subject (but still felt urgings/leanings). What I might offer is this. A Paul who feels better starts to share creative ideas and approaches again. For me (first) and then I might speak to the men. Friends and followers here read/saw me through a very difficult 2020. You didn't unfollow. You didn't block. You could have. I am grateful to all of you. I have little to offer, but I offer it earnestly and freely.

Let me have a couple of tweets to get some images to the #toetagmonologues group who performed this afternoon @ncte's Annual Conference. #NCTE19 #NCTE2019. Powerful powerful performance. These young people should have had a larger space.

This is the Gold Star by our light switch in #Room407. Purchased at Goodwill for a quarter, it is a symbol of affirmation for our students as they leave each day. For two months, I watched as students would touch, tap, or gently palm the star as they left. But, then, one day. . . I came back after an absence. I turned on the light switch to find the Gold Star still on the wall but fractured. I was very upset. I felt as though a positive initiative on its way to new tradition had failed. All that held the Star together was the sticker and Command Strips.

I'll break down this collage inspired by @halseanderson's SPEAK in the next few tweets. #SpeakLoudly #DisruptTexts #Room407 #THIS407 @halseanderson First, I want you to know that this "exquisite corpse" (some of you might call these floor or table "storms) came together in ten minutes. Tops. From one brand new magazine delivered yesterday (I didn't want you to think I had been sitting with this and pre-composed in process.

In my COMM 594 class, we are considering "conflict management" theory. In my discussion post, I cite connections to THE CRUCIBLE. Classmate, Kristi, responds: "It's pretty nifty how conflict management theory can be just a stone's throw away from literary analysis." New Idea. Go. In interest of #DisruptText, we might miss that the text had already been disrupted as many are: by being innately disconnected from other possible "truths." This is one of the dangers of "covering" titles and texts. And one of the reasons for standards asking two or more texts.

@FletcherRalph has a new book coming in September from @HeinemannPub @HeinemannPD (and I've pre-ordered, friends). The idea of the book has got me thinking and making this morning. Here is a quick collage to share and an idea to share. It will take a few tweets. #Room407 #THIS407 @FletcherRalph @HeinemannPub @HeinemannPD There used to a monthly magazine, MENTAL FLOSS, that I would pick up from stands. One of the features of the magazine was something called "1006 Words" which was really like a synthesis of ekphrasis and the 6-Word movement (inspired, according to folklore by Earnest Hemingway).

Some English 11 pieces (Dear, __________") inspired by @JasonReynolds83's "Dear, Dreamer" this week in #Room407. You can find the ten-minute film at Vimeo. @JasonReynolds83 Some have asked for the link to @JasonReynolds83 in "Dear, Dreamer" (ten-minute film). vimeo.com/338777680. While the film was running, I took down a page full of quotes and phrases from the film. Shared with students. Students used these captured lines as riff lines here.

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes of This Little Ditty introduces us to the idea of "Found Haiku" within a longer biographical work about Joni Mitchell. There is a classroom application of this approach to be sure. Let's explore. michellehbarnes.blogspot.com/2019/07/a-joni… The poet also explores the problematic nature of biographies when presenting the whole of a life of any figure, particularly artists. A good conversation starter, I think. But, as a classroom approach to poetry and haiku, the example shared in the post is ripe with opportunity.

There is a lot of interest in @GeorgeTakei's memoir in graphic novel format, THEY CALLED US THE ENEMY (mine included/book pre-ordered). In the interest of @ncte's #BuildYourStack initiative, I am sharing Larry Dane Brimner's VOICES FROM THE CAMPS (Franklin Watts 1994). #bookaday Larry Dane Brimner's work here situated the reader six years after President Reagan's signature upon a national apology to those affected by the relocation of Japanese Americans in the early '40s. The voices invited and included in this book are still important to readers.

A problem of the anthropomorphic presentation within picture books we might share with younger, will-be readers is that they are read aloud without further appreciation of shared traits or characteristics with the human reader. Story is read. Left at that. #DisruptTexts 1/? Presented here is a case for moving from “left at that” to “leads to this.” @ProfessorNana calls this “laddering.” I like to think of this as “leading.” But, in order to do it, one must have a deep awareness and appreciation of picture books both past and present. #DisruptTexts

Today was our second day of selecting books for #Room407 students to read. And I knew that today. . .the very LAST day of junior year was going to be most difficult for two students in particular. Let me have a couple of tweets to tell you about these two friends. . . These two have been inseparable all year. I would never see one without the other near or nearby. I've also known that one of these friends would be facing a difficulty decision at the end of the year in regard to staying at our school or moving away to be with her family.

In #Room407 today. . .as a last day activity, I pulled picture books specifically for each student and gave them a note card. They wrote the MLA citation of the book and then wrote why they thought I selected the book for them to read. This HAS to be a new tradition for the room. While I had a sense of why i was choosing the book for the student, it was heart-warming to hear them share out why they thought I chose the book for them. In a way, it was like a self-assessment affirmed by the teacher at the end of the year.

A student who will be new to AP next year stopped me to tell me she was "not a good student." This sparked an interest within me as I always want to know what is behind a student's value statement and how they have come to a notion like this. First, I told her that there a number of "not very good students" who take college courses every year, but I was very interested in what made her think that she was "not a good student." And, then, she made me take a deep breath when she said, "Because I don't believe in myself."

We've been writing Garland Cinquain in #Room407. If you know Cinquain, a "garland" is made up of five stanzas. A sixth that is made from the other five. S1/L1, S2/L2. Often this poetic approach can lead to a surprise breakthrough to thesis/guiding statement for a writing project. We work a lot of poetic form into our inquiry-based, multigenre writing project, T.H.I.S. (#THIS407). Often, poetic forms give us just enough structure and rules and boundaries (syllable and work count and meter) to help us break into and through our prose thinking (sentences).

This guy reads. . . "I give myself permission to be exactly who I am, where I am. I give myself permission to participate in the American dream. I am still learning, but I am starting to accept that this is the only permission I need" (@TheRestlessQuil 10). #ourvoicesourstories

When I was a younger man (prior to having joined the Navy), I worked in radio (106 WKHQ). One of my roles at the station was that of "producer" of the KHQ Morning Zoo with "The Captain" Bill Vogel. I learned many life lessons at the "helm" with Bill in the "captain's chair." In the early 90's, our music and commercials and comedic bits were on a one-track cassette (like an 8-track cassette for those needing a reference) called "carts." These carts would play and then rewind themselves in the player for the next time they would be played or "aired."

It comes with very little fanfare, @StudioJJK, but it does come with all of the gratitude of a classroom teacher. #Room407 #MrHankinsCraneAward2018 The Mr. Hankins Crane Award: This award given by little ole me since 2014 is given to a recent release whose very presence in the world lifts readers up. It is a small Crane inspired by the first book to get a Crane." #Room407 #MrHankinsCraneAward

.@noraraleighB: The other day, I was organizing books. I moved RUBY ON THE OUTSIDE. To the shelf behind my desk where I could pick it up when I need. Now, the grown child of an incarcerated parent, I know the immediacy of the emotions that comes of the moment and the day-to-day. I turn to the recent conversations regarding empathy and how it's expressed. I have come to believe that there is a form of empathy that is as old as story itself. Some might call this bibliotherapy, but I say, "No. This is still one person removed from the hurt offering a book."