Zelma Wynn Symposium Reading List

Yesterday I attended the annual Zelma Wynn Symposium at The Summit School in Edgewater MD. The topic was "When Kids Can't Read" (the focus was on comprehension strategies, not on decoding) and the presenters were Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst. I learned a lot of great strategies which I will blog about here; first, I want to list all the reading that they mentioned at the symposium.

More about these two & their strategies:
When Kids Can't Read: What Teachers Can Do: A Guide for Teachers 6-12by Kylene Beers

Response & Analysis, Second Edition: Teaching Literature in Secondary Schoolby Robert Probst

Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practiceby Kylene Beers, Robert Probst, et al.

(They also have a new book together which is coming out soon, called Book by Book.)


Recommended reading for teachers:
Literature As Explorationby Louise Rosenblatt
(reading stances, the terms efferent and aesthetic)

Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12by Janet Allen
(teaching vocabulary)

Are They Really Ready to Work? Employers' Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century U.S. Workforce
(research study on key critical thinking skills required for today's jobs)


The activities we did at the seminar included the following pieces:

"Bill" by Zona Gale (short story - true story, written in 1927)
discussion of efferent versus aesthetic questions


"Letters to My Daughters by Judith Minty (poem)
strategy: Rate, Read, Reread


"The Gettysburg Address" by Abraham Lincoln (speech)
strategy: BAD Chart with SWBS


"Forgive My Guilt" by Robert P. Tristram Coffin (poem)
strategy: Probable Passage

Forgive My Guilt
Robert P. Tristram Coffin

Not always sure what things called sins may be,
I am sure of one sin I have done.
It was years ago, and I was a boy,
I lay in the frostflowers with a gun,
The air ran blue as the flowers, I held my breath,
Two birds on golden legs slim as dream things
Ran like quicksilver on the golden sand,
My gun went off, they ran with broken wings
Into the sea, I ran to fetch them in,
But they swam with their heads high out to sea,
They cried like two sorrowful high flutes,
With jagged ivory bones where wings should be.

For days I heard them when I walked that headland
Crying out to their kind in the blue,
The other plovers were going over south
On silver wings leaving these broken two.
The cries went out one day; but I still hear them
Over all the sounds of sorrow in war or peace
I ever have heard, time cannot drown them,
Those slender flutes of sorrow never cease.
Two airy things forever denied the air!
I never knew how their lives at last were spilt,
But I have hoped for years all that is wild,
Airy, and beautiful will forgive my guilt.


"Flying Blind" by Chris Crutcher (article)
from Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice
strategy: Dialogue with a Text


"The Journey" by Mary Oliver (poem)
from Dream Work
strategy: The Poster Activity