CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

The oft-maligned Wikipedia has addressed many of its early problematic issues. Tighter controls mean that authorship and editing of entries are subject to scrutiny and sources are required to verify statements. Having students contribute to this collaborative tool is adding to the pool of knowledge, teaching them research and Web 2.0 skills and creating an authentic audience.

Why not get them to create / augment / correct entries about some of our Australian authors or illustrators? Patricia Wrightson, for example, may no longer be fashionable, but she will always be important. There are many gaps in her entry and at least one glaring error concerning The Nargun and the Stars, recently reissued by UQP Press. (We are tempted to correct it, but will leave it for a little longer so that someone can take up the challenge!)

Students will learn the importance of fact checking from print and online sources and citing them correctly in a real-world situation.

And if you are short of inspiration, check the YA Author and Illustrators pages on this blog. In the meantime, how nice if somebody could give Patricia Wrightson the entry she deserves.

There is more on using wikis in the classroom on our CMIS website.

The literacy debate rages, certainly throughout the English-speaking world. Here in Australia, a new title by Monash University’s Associate Professor Ilana Snyder has made front-page news in The Australian newspaper. The Literacy Wars : why teaching children to read and write is a battleground in Australia took up many column inches on the weekend of 2-3 February. A CMIS review will appear in the Resource Bank soon.

In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has launched the National Year of Reading - an initiative designed to put reading high on the national agenda. And that’s reading for everybody, not just people at school.

Now in the US, a school librarian has put his spin on what he feels are the reasons teens are reading less. We are all reading less, he argues. ‘How long is it?’ has replaced ‘Will I like it?’ in school libraries because the information overload tipping point has been reached. These days we all skim in order to survive. We have become a culture of searchers, not readers. It’s a thoughtful piece, well worth reading. But if he is right, does it mean that reading for pleasure will soon be the preserve of those with the leisure time to ‘indulge’? Hooking kids into books is one of the most satisfying aspects of the teacher-student relationship. Making sure that keeps happening is more important than ever.