Today's Session - Resource Links

First of all thank you to the 75 or so folks who attended my session today in the Aurora Room at the Sheraton Parkway as a part of the annual ECOO.org conference in Toronto. I really was surprised to see you all, especially since Dr. Thornburg was speaking at the same time!

I wanted to take a few lines here to provide links to some of the resources I mentioned today so it will be a little easier for you to find them instead of scrolling or searching the blog.

I was asked where to start if one was to read more about boys and writing or boys and literacy. My hands down choice is the book pictured above. Jeff (I call him Jeff) Wilhelm's book, "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys" was where I started. My favourite principal handed me a copy in 2005. Little did I know then that reading about boy writers would become an obsession.

Second, the writing continuum matrix (which was ever so hard to read on the screen). Here is a clean .pdf copy of it for your viewing pleasure. It really has been my bread and butter the last few years. It gets me in the door of more schools and classrooms to support our boy writers than any other document.

A few websites that may be hard to find on some of the research I quoted.

1. Caroline Daly's - Literature search on improving boys' writing
2. Boys' Writing Flyers - Talk, Visual Texts, Purpose and Audience, Feedback on Learning
3. Visualizing Literacy - Building Bridges with Media

Lastly, I was asked for my keynote presentation but after some thought I'll not be posting it for a couple of reasons. The first being the privacy part as I used quite a few student samples and second out of respect for copyright, I'd better keep asking my permissions so I will fall in line with what my friend @thecleversheep would advocate.

Again, thank you for the overwhelming response to my session today and please, by all means, join in on the conversation in the comments area. I'd love to hear about your triumphs and challenges with your boy writers and it will give us a chance to continue the conversation.