Worried about having to pay for access to all the Englishraven.com resources for teaching English to young learners and teenagers?
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
2012 is going to be a year of changes and new directions for English Raven, and pay-for access to the (3000+) resources created and gathered over the past decade isn't part of the plan.
So if you teach English to children and/or teenagers, I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New year, and draw your attention to the new Open Access Downloads Page where a rather large sack of teaching gifts awaits you.
The only things I ask in return are:
1. You pass the gifts along to other teachers you know as well!
2. You respect my authorship and rights to the material and don't go uploading it on your site or blog without my permission, and (heaven forbid...) don't go trying to pass it off as your own work.
Enjoy, and see you about in 2012 for some exciting new adventures!
It's a complicated sort of decision, but in the end it wasn't terribly difficult to make.
The full 168-page digital version of World Adventure Kids is now a 100% free download. You can get it now by popping over to the WAK page on English Raven; look for the green bar inviting you to download the book for free. No strings attached.
I might blog in the near future about why I've decided to head in this direction, but for now let's just say that:
I designed and wrote this because I wanted to enjoy the whole design and writing process. It was fun. Enormously enjoyable to make.
I'm a truly lousy (and lazy) salesman. I honestly couldn't be bothered putting all the time into advertising and pushing it. I'd rather children just read it, liked it.
It cost thousands to self-publish this sort of work (the illustrations alone put me back close to three thousand US dollars...), but it was bankrolled with part of the royalties from a massively commercial textbook series (and let's just say that, using that equation, I'm still well in front).
There is the risk, of course, that offering something up for free means that people will be less disposed towards valuing and respecting it. We'll see, shall we?
These are terms you might have seen bandied about a lot of late. We do, of course, want our learners to read extensively, read intensively, and do so based on voluntary interest in what they are doing.
It's not always as easy as it sounds, especially for highly reluctant readers and/or those children who are reading (or being 'forced' to read) based on a study schedule where, despite all of our best intentions and slogans, the rewards for reading are more often extrinsically motivated than intrinsically driven.
These were the sorts of issues that inspired me, several years ago, to write choose your own adventure style stories that address the reader directly and focus on the idea of having grand adventures, and for it to almost feel like a game.
One of the most interesting aspects of this came in the form of 'cheating'...
With both the print and digital versions of World Adventure Kids, the narratives are divided up into chunks and spread at random around different page numbers in the book (with directions on which part to go to next, often with a choice to make).
A common result, as with the pages illustrated at the top of this post, is that the readers find themselves looking at one part of the story on one page but also get a juicy preview of another stage of either the same or a different adventure thread in the book. The temptation to at least glance over that facing page (knowing that it might inform you about what is coming up later in the your adventures) can be quite irresistable.
Hence the reader looks beyond the section of the story to other sections (extending what they read), and does so voluntarily.
A similar sort of thing happens when readers are presented with choices. The temptation to do a little cheating and glance over at the results of both choices before selecting one to follow is natural (with more opportunities for voluntary extension outside the bounds of a single narrative).
The facilitation of these forms of 'cheating' is deliberate on my part in World Adventure Kids.
The readers may be cheating a little when it comes to 'playing' this story as a game, but they are winning (without actually realising it) when we consider the extra reading and critical thinking they engage in quite naturally through this process.
So, dear younger readers of World Adventure Kids, cheat to your heart's content. I'm all for it!
Rilla Roessel is one of those people you meet and work with in publishing who constantly surprises you and -- occasionally -- makes you realise there are people out there who see things you never even guessed at.
Rilla was kind enough to look over a very early draft of World Adventure Kids for me (I'd worked with Rilla extensively at Pearson through the whole process of making and then marketing the Boost! Integrated Skills Series) to give me some feedback and provide a few angles I might have missed.
She really liked what she saw/read, acknowledged that it ticked a lot of those boxes like CLIL, extensive reading, etc. and then made a comment along the lines of "another thing it really has going for it is that it has such a strong values curriculum embedded in it."
Values curriculum?
There was a new term to add to my thinking box...
Rilla is right, of course. There are a lot of different values and ethical or moral perspectives presented in World Adventure Kids. In fact, several of the decision pathway options in the reader-directed story deliberately target choices that could be said to embody ethical issues and 'values.'
I featured 'values' in this way in World Adventure Kids because it seemed to come naturally to a story for children -- young people still exploring ideas and choices in the world and trying to figure out what is inherently right or wrong about what they choose to do and why.
However, having identified (thanks to Rilla's astute observation) that my work definitely did have a 'values' orientation, I must admit that I started to feel a little uneasy...
Was I preaching at and attempting to moralize children in this story? In embedding a strong 'values curriculum' was I in actual fact falling prey to something more along the lines of the 'hidden curriculum'?
I looked back through the stories and choices again, eventually realising I was comfortable with the ethical choices presented. From the very start, World Adventure Kids are presented as having a very specific mission: to protect the world's environment, animals, people and cultural treasures. If you want to be a World Adventure Kid, lead a mission and use all the cool resources this mysterious movement has at its disposal, your actions and decisions need to reflect the values identified as being synonymous with WAK.
Hence I feel quite comfortable with choices presented to young readers along these lines (warning: may contain some plot spoilers!):
Free the anaconda?
You've found an anaconda trapped in a cage in the depths of the Amazon Rainforest. Do you let it loose (which could obviously present some danger to yourself) or leave it right where it is (a course of action very enthusiastically supported by that member of your team who is absolutely petrified of snakes)? Should the fact that anacondas are illegally caught and sold as pets in other countries really matter?
Be the first to meet the Hi-Merima?
You accidentally stumble upon the village of the Hi-Merima tribe, an uncontacted people secreted away in the Amazon (this one is based on actual fact). Be the first modern humans to meet them and get your name in all the newspapers and research journals, or leave them alone? Does the fact the tribe is hostile to outsiders and at serious health risk based on lack of immunities (from things like the common cold) warrant consideration? What about their right to continue living their lives the way they always have, not bothering the outside world?
Touch the treasure?
After a perilous underground journey, you've finally discovered Pharaoh Sety's hidden treasure and it is truly SPECTACULAR! Haven't you earned the right to be the first to touch and examine it all, even if there is a bit of a risk that your inexpert hands might break something? And does the notion of the treasure rightfully belonging to the people of Egypt (first and foremost) really carry any water? Why is Tootenhootin in the British Museum, anyway?
Worth the risk?
This one is presented in World Adventure Kids in various guises in the face of different dangerous situations where a specific item of equipment hasn't been chosen by the adventurers and is necessary for safe navigation through the danger. Swim across a river full of Black Caimans? Sprint along a corridor despite a specific warning it needs to be walked in complete silence? What about your responsibility as team captain to ensure the safety of your team members and not take any unnecessary risks?
I'm not sure about other people's feelings on these issues, but I don't personally think these dilemmas represent ethical consideration that is inappropriate for children to tackle.
Yes, they do make an attempt at a set of values to be thought about and exhibited, and to that extent they perhaps do comprise a 'values curriculum.' But given World Adventure Kids are up front about what they expect from their team members, I would hardly say they form any kind of 'hidden curriculum.'
And in any case, the 'values' stuff isn't the only criteria for challenges and choices. Most of the other pathways depend more on critical thinking skills, which is something I will blog about in the near future.
Then again, isn't a values curriculum yet another way to encourage and facilitate critical thinking?
When I designed and formatted World Adventure Kids, I saw it mainly as an e-reading text ideal for desktop computers, laptops, notebooks and tablet devices.
Trying it out on my Galaxy S smartphone confirmed my suspicion it wouldn't work that well on a mobile phone. The screen still feels too small for comfortable reading, and the Adobe Reader for Android (for some baffling reason) rendered out the interactive functions that make World Adventure Kids a fluid and pleasant touch/click experience.
As it turns out, it wasn't the smartphone (or its size) that was the problem; it was the e-reader app itself.
I uploaded a different e-reading app for Android by a company called Mantano (easy to find in the Android store connected to the phone) and I was blown away by what this reader did for an interactive text like World Adventure Kids. Not only could I now read and interact with the story on a smartphone, it was really clear and easy and... fun!
Mantano features excellent display properties (as well as customisation options for viewing the text) and I found WAK 2-1 beautifully clear and easy to read by turning the phone for 'landscape' mode. Scrolling down was easy, the interactive links to different 'next stages' in the story worked flawlessly on the touch screen, most illustrations fit perfectly on the landscape screen (and those that were more of the full-page format in size could easily be seen by simply turning for vertical portrait mode, before returning to landscape to continue reading text) and the colour and detail in the pics were wonderful!
There's also an excellent and beautifully simple bookmark function which allows you to save your current page, and unlike the crippled Adobe Reader app, Mantano automatically opens to your last viewed page if you happen to be returning to the text after a break of some sort.
But the Mantano Reader comes with a lot more than just a clear, clean and easy interface.
With a simple touch to the screen, the extra Mantano features pop up around your text. You get a convenient 'slider' to move back and forth across the entire book, navigation and display options, as well as really easy to use annotation and highlight functions.
One function I particularly enjoyed, however, was the TTS (Text to Speech) option, which when activated basically reads the text to you out loud. It does have that flat, somewhat expressionless monotone you expect from a computer-generated TTS function, but it was much better than I thought it would be and for the reader who enjoys the aural supplement I think it does a wonderful job.
Despite the fact that I actually wrote World Adventure Kids and must have read over the story a million times, viewing and reading it on my Galaxy S with the Mantano Reader app became almost an addictive experience! With a single thumb I was able to scroll through and navigate to next sections of the adventure, activating Text-to-Speech here and there to have my adventure story read out loud to me, and enjoying the full colour illustrations.
It felt much more like playing a game than reading a book...
I couldn't help envisaging kids in the car on a family trip, enjoying an interactive adventure on their parent's smartphone. A tablet device would probably make for an even more enjoyable reading experience, but knowing that WAK 2-1 really can work on a smarphone is music to my ears.
Just make sure you have a good e-Reader App, and Mantano Reader comes top of the list as far as I am concerned!
One of the most important parts of reading, from a skills and foundation point of view, is building vocabulary. This is particularly true for young readers engaging with texts in their second language, but is generally relevant to first language learners as well.
How robust the approach to building vocabulary is can depend on a variety of factors. Some readers can sort of 'absorb' new words just through the process of guessing from context and doing a wide range of extensive reading. Others can get by reasonably well enough by occasionally referring to a dictionary or asking an adult for explanation and elaboration when it seems called for. Some readers benefit from writing up word lists with basic definitions.
Working with learners of all ages in a context where English was a foreign language and a major priority of reading in English was to develop vocabulary, some years ago I developed a workbook approach to supplement reading texts called 'Word Hoard' (and later: 'Word Wise'). It worked so well that I thought it would be a good idea to apply it as an optional resource for the World Adventure Kids stories as well.
What follows is an overview of how to use the World Adventure Kids Word Wise resource (available as a free PDF download here) and what it covers and why. I've also included an introductory/instructional video specially made for the children-users themselves (though I'm sure teachers and parents could benefit from it as well!).
Basically, Word Wise WAK 2-1 is a 69-page workbook designed to be used in conjunction with the World Adventure Kids reading sets. It can be printed out and added to progressively as learners encounter and explore new words in the story texts. It caters to 8 'units' of 20 words each (hence 160 words altogether), but these numbers can be easily adjusted upwards or downwards based on reader and classroom preferences.
The first step involves the Master Wordlist at the start of the book. As learners read through and experience World Adventure Kids, the idea is that they look for words that feel new or that they would like to explore more. When a word has been chosen, it is entered first in the Master Wordlist at the front of the book (to create an initial reference point) -- the example used here is the word 'adventure'.
Each word is then placed into a special work grid, presented in the workbook as above, with three word grids per page and twenty per 'unit'. This is where the word is going to be really worked with and explored in a much more robust fashion, and the video below explains and demonstrates how it all works (this was specifically made for young readers to understand the process, by the way!):
So, in essence, a word grid features the following exploration:
A. Listing the word
B. Translating it into a learner's first language (or writing a definition for it)
C. Writing the word out three times neatly
D. Identifying the word's part of speech
E. Finding words that represent related ideas (building 'convocation' and lexical sets)
F. Writing the word in context using the full example sentence initially encountered in the World Adventure Kids text
G. Writing the word in a new sentence of the learner's own creation, using it accurately in a new context and/or personalising its use
H. Drawing a sketch or diagram (or pasting on a picture) to help visually conceptualise the word
Having experimented with vocabulary development for children over many years, I've found this has been one of the most comprehensive when it comes to really exploring the notion and use of a word.
Note that the grid doesn't necessarily need to be filled out in that order, and I have in fact seen children complete the grid in all sorts of different sequences. Great! Let them find what works for them. I've also found that a basic dictionary, physical or online, is a great help for filling out some of these sections.
When a word grid has been completed (or completed to the best of the learner's ability), it can be checked by a parent or teacher (you'll probably find it easier to check several at a time) and have 'stars' allocated for each complete 'row' on the grid. There are six star rows in each grid, and many of them represent 'easy points' (for example, writing the word out, finding its part of speech, copying the sentence it comes from in the main text, etc.). This star point allocation is meant to be reasonably flexible; I have, for example, been willing to circle a complete star in cases where most of the row was successfully completed.
The star points can be tallied on each page of the workbook (there is a space at the bottom of each page to do this) and then a points tally can be made for an entire 'unit' of 20 words. There are basically 120 star points per unit up for grabs, and I've divided them into grade rankings (not very scientific or statistical, mind; I've just found that this allocation tends to reward learners willing to put in the hard yards without slapping an unnecessarily shocking grade on those who aren't quite as dedicated!).
There is also a chart at the end of the workbook that allows learners and teachers/parents to track how well they performed across all of the units.
The final part of a unit features an integration/use activity encouraging learners to write 'a report, article, short essay or story using at least 15 of the vocabulary items from the unit'. This is strictly optional of course, and one of the great things about this printable resource is that, if you feel this is going just that little bit too much overboard, you can always not include it!
The basic idea here is for the learners to do some extended writing of their own, using the words they've explored for a targeted writing purpose.
Here are just some of the ways this section could be used for readers of World Adventure Kids:
1. Write a quick report about what has happened in your adventure so far.
2. Write about some of the new things you've learned so far(World Adventure Kids is rich in subject-based learning, so this ought to be a relatively rich area to choose from).
3. Rewrite key parts of your adventure so far, using past tense (the adventure itself is written in the present tense, so this can be an interesting way to highlight differences between the two tenses).
4. Create a spin-off story (take one or more parts of the adventure and add new narrative to change or extend it in some way).
5. Rewrite the key points of the adventure so far from the perspective of one of the other characters (for example, pretend to be a different team member or even Golden Sky or a Jump Jet/Heliporter pilot observing the adventure from a distance).
6. Create a timeline or map with labels summarising the adventure so far (good for learners who aren't confident with extensive writing but may like more visual activities).
Generally speaking, I've found this section to be a great way to encourage reviewing and rethinking over what one has read so far, with the new vocabulary integrated into the process. There is a second listing in the summary at the back of the workbook which allows a score to be allocated for this writing section alongside the actual word building grid work.
I've gone into quite a lot of detail here, which I hope hasn't been off-putting, but I would remind you that this sort of word work isn't a necessity when it comes to engaging with World Adventure Kids. For those who want to squeeze a bit more out of it, however, this can be a particularly rich resource.
Funnily enough, and despite the work involved, I've found that most children actually like the Word Wise approach and get into a nice rhythm with it. Many of them are very proud of the end result and get a real sense of having learned a lot of new things. And the pictures/conceptualisations... my goodness, kids are brilliant with that part and make us adults look very one dimensional indeed!
If you're interested in using the Word Wise approach in other sorts of language learning contexts, you might like to also check out my post here:
There is a more extensive instructional video there for teachers as well as adaptable open source versions of the Word Wise resource for you to download and use as you will.
Over many years of doing reading with learners of all age groups, I must confess that the actual act of reading something--while itself often very enjoyable--pales in comparison to what happens when we use that reading, or follow up from it.
Project tasks, either on an ongoing basis while a reading text is being engaged with or as a series of follow ups after the whole story has been wound up, are brilliant for encouraging a deeper layer of analysis and comprehension as well as taking full advantage of opportunities to engage in creative and critical thinking.
Basically, I think reading expansion projects (when done right) rock, and without them stories and texts only really capture a fraction of their thinking and learning potential.
My personal preference is to let the whole story be experienced first, with some 'in the margin' discussions if it is being scaffolded or shared with other readers, and then apply a range of small project options which will encourage the learners to go back over the text, look at certain parts of it more carefully, and then extend it (often in application to their own lives) in creative new ways.
In a whole-class approach to using World Adventure Kids 2-1 (as outlined on the blog here), however, it could be an option to apply mini projects in an ongoing way as in class or at home extensions between one part of the adventure and the next.
So here are four initial expansion projects for the first sections of World Adventure Kids 2-1 (before the narrative gets too deeply into particular adventures), which could be used as part of a re-reading/re-thinking of the story or as a series of challenges while the story progresses.
1. Secret Names
Part of being a World Adventure Kid is having your own secret name.
A. What is your secret name and why did you choose it?
B. Look at other characters' secret names in the stories. Why do you think they chose those names?
Make a Secret Names File to help you remember World Adventure Kids' secret names and what they could mean!
2. The Next Secret Meeting Place
Golden Sky asks you to meet her in the tallest tree in the park near where you live.
But next time she wants to meet you in a different place. It needs to be secret, where you can meet and talk about new adventures in private.
A. Make a map of your neighborhood.
B. Choose and circle three secret places where you could meet Golden Sky secretly.
C. Send a message to Golden Sky and explain each meeting place to her (where it is and why you chose it).
3. Amazing Transportation Machines!
In World Adventure Kids 2-1, you get to travel in a Jump Jet or a Heliporter.
Apparently, these machines are completely quiet and produce no pollution.
How do you think these machines could work? How do they move so quickly? How do they stay so quiet? How do they avoid making pollution?
A. Draw a diagram of a Jump Jet or Heliporter.
B. Show how you think it works, drawing lines to different parts and explaining what they do.
4. Pilot Preparations
In World Adventure Kids 2-1, you meet and travel with two special pilots: Cumulus Swift from Malaysia (flying a Jump Jet) and Blue Stratus from Turkey (operating the Heliporter).
Would you like to be a World Adventure Kids pilot?
Well, there are many things to learn and do before you can become a pilot. Two of the most important are designing a secret place to hide your Jump Jet or Heliporter (called a hangar), and learning about all the different places in the world.
A. Design a secret hangar (in your house or somewhere close to where you live) for your transportation machine and send the design to World Adventure Kids. If it is a good design, they will send experts to build the hangar for you!
B. Make a list of the most important cities and places in the world. For each place, find out what country it is in and what makes that place special. (Look back at the stories and find the information Cumulus Swift and Blue Stratus have found out about the different places they fly to.)
Of course, this is just a small taster of possible expansion project ideas for just the initial parts of World Adventure Kids 2-1. You and your reader(s) can no doubt think of many more, and/or tweak the ideas presented here to help them better fit the interests of the reader. I think there are also exciting opportunities to integrate technology skills into many of the projects (for example, using Google Maps for projects 2 and 4, using something like Excel for projects 1 and 4, using visual design tools for projects 3 and 4, etc.).
I'll also be presenting other project ideas for World Adventure Kids here on the blog in future, so keep your screens (and adventure ideas) peeled!
World Adventure Kids 2-1, like any reading text available out there, can be used in a variety of ways as part of a reading program. Aside from possibly the most obvious application (independent reading from individual children), I have been getting questions and suggestions from teachers of classes about how to best utilise WAK 2-1 for whole-class reading.
I am happy to say that the interactive, reader-directed format of World Adventure Kids actually makes it an excellent resource to use with a whole class for those contexts or situations whereby a teacher would like to apply it in a way that all the learners progress through it at the same pace. In fact, the role of decision making in the progress of the overall narrative really enhances opportunities for classroom discussion and debate (more so even than with a standard linear narrative).
To use WAK 2-1 with a whole class of learners aged 8-11, I would be inclined to apply it in the following way:
- Print out one copy of the whole book.
- Beginning at the start, take in one section of the story at a time, photocopying just that particular section so that each student in the class has a copy.
- Have the students read the section silently on their own (or out loud in turns if that is your context's preferred approach to 'reading').
- Elicit summaries of the section and explore key or difficult vocabulary as a class.
- (Optional:) Further explore any of the cross-curricular elements in more detail (for example, photosynthesis, an historical note, the effects of poisonous venom, etc.)
- If the section ends in a range of decision options, invite individual students to make suggestions and explain why they have chosen that option (alternatively: get the students into pairs or small groups and have them debate the choice together and then report back to the whole class). Then have the class debate and vote for the pathway the story will take next.
- If the section ends with a single link to the next part of the story, invite students to make predictions about what comes next and why, or to summarize their feelings about the narrative up to this point.
- (Optional:) Have students add an entry to an ongoing 'adventure journal' summarising what happened in that part of the adventure, how they feel about it and the decisions made as a group, and what they think might happen next.
- Based on the voted on decision or single pathway link, the teacher knows which adventure entry number to prepare and photocopy for the students for the next class. In this way, students add to their adventure narrative from one class to the next, perhaps filing the text (in order) in a folder of some sort.
Teachers may also be able to apply the same sort of process with digital versions of the material, by editing the main download and breaking it into discrete sections (the open source format in PDF facilitates this) which are mailed to or downloaded for students one bit at a time. The actual reading could even take place outside the classroom at home, with the checking, discussion and decision making happening in class before the teacher mails out the next part of the adventure.
Admittedly, an approach like this one really slows down the overall speed of the adventure experience, but it certainly does facilitate a lot more discussion, collaboration and analysis at each step along the way. It could also lend itself well to a syllabus whereby WAK 2-1 follows up other classroom learning in the first part of the lesson (or earlier part of the week), with 'adventure reading' being the reward at the end of the class or end of the week!
And... another thing you might like to consider is the potential for you to create an ongoing reader-directed adventure for your students using the same basic principles. And from there, adventures written and shared by the students themselves! For some useful guidelines and even software applications on this front (as well as numerous other existing story resources), I encourage you to check out Larry Ferlazzo's outstanding The Best Places to Read & Write "Choose Your Own Adventure" Stories.
Given that World Adventure Kids 2-1 is so rich in illustrations (one of a few reasons I am unlikely to ever make any profit from it--not for a very long time, anyway!), I thought I'd have some fun and make a bit of a movie trailer for it.
It turned out pretty well, considering my amateurish skills in this area...
But this also got me to thinking... In this day and age, I think children's books could really benefit from this sort of initial marketing. It's also a fantastic pre-reading resource that can help the children get an overview and start to make some predictions about what they are going to experience in text.
I did my best not to give too many plot secrets away, but I wonder how children will react to this. Only one way to find out!
The use of the direct 2nd Person as the underlying narrative style in World Adventure Kids was a very deliberate choice on my part, with affective, interactive and linguistic rationales in mind.
For a start, this is a powerful way to 'insert' the reader directly into the story. It is appropriate for a narrative whereby the reader makes the choices and finds out where the adventures go based on his/her own decisions.
But I think it is an important affective device as well. For reluctant readers in particular, I think personal involvement (and a sense of freedom through the story options) can do a lot to pique their interest about what happens and why. I can recall my first experiences with Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy storybooks, at about age 10, and loving the sensation that I was in charge, that this was my adventure and not the far-fetched exploits of some abstract fabricated character I might never really relate to.
This format also allows for a deeper sense of interaction. The picture you can see at the top of this post comes from a section of one of the adventures where YOU have decided it could be fun or fame-enhancing to go and meet the Hi-Merima (a genuine Uncontacted People secreted away deep in the Amazon) and be the first modern person to do so. As you can tell, your team members aren't impressed with the idea. Panther Step warns it could be dangerous for you (the collective you this time) as the Hi-Merima have a fierce reputation. Think Sharp, your science expert, points out some of the risks modern humans pose for Uncontacted Peoples who have limited immune systems...
This is just one of a great number of interactions that take place in the stories between you, the reader, and the team members you go adventuring with. In a way it adds more life to the characters as well as the story. You get to see different sides of your co-adventurers and their personalities based on the decisions you make during the story.
And then there is your interaction with the story itself. Certain sections finish up with a direct question to you, and the options for going ahead are phrased in the 1st person.
For example (this was the text immediately preceding the scene depicted above):
It does, admittedly, put words in your mouth to some extent, but at least you get to choose which words they are, and you get to see what happens as a result of those words.
Last but not least, I like what this format does linguistically. The 2nd Person (combined with Present Simple tense) makes for beautifully direct and simple language. In my opinion, it helps to keep the narrative clean and simple, especially for struggling readers or second language learners. It also, to some extent, presents more language that is more relevant to spoken or personal English -- something that only happens in regular 3rd person and past tense narratives via dialogue sections.
Admittedly, those (more common) narrative styles yield a lot of precious language models as well, but I think the World Adventure Kids format makes for a valuable (different) supplementary model as well as a potentially rich source of comparison and noticing.
I might even venture so far as to say that narrative employing a lot of 2nd Person and Present Simple tense can facilitate easier access to reading, for those who might benefit from it. And the format of the reader-directed story means this happens in a way that feels natural, not contrived.
So...
What do you want to do now?
I think I'll leave a comment here telling the writer what I think of his ideas
I'll go back to my web-surfing now and look for something more worthy of my attention!
I thought this might be worth getting out of the way from the outset... World Adventure Kids is NOT a coursebook.
I state this only as an interesting reaction to some feedback from a very respected friend (and abundantly able ELT writer) who took a look over the new version of World Adventure Kids for me yesterday. He expressed some mild surprise that the release seemed to have shed all of its supplementary comprehension and language building elements.
He was referring to one of the very first drafts of WAK which I showed to him more than two years ago. That draft featured a page of vocabulary building and comprehension/grammar questions for every page of reading text. It was, essentially, something along the lines of a reading-coursebook; and I was doing it that way because the major ELT publishers I was approaching with the idea at the time had made it abundantly clear that that was what they were hoping for: something that could be marketed and applied as a coursebook.
This IS rather interesting to me, because as soon as I stopped trying to please major publishers and looking for something that could sell in the squillions, a good hard look at the original notion and feel of 'adventure reading' reminded me that exercises and language tasks were the last things I really wanted jammed into World Adventure Kids narratives.
Admittedly, I am finishing up post-reading comprehension quizzes for each of the two adventures, mainly emphasizing the content/subject elements like science, geography and history. I also have language-oriented quizzes in the pipeline. The key difference, however, is that I want them to be optional extras to the main stories, and if they are to be applied I would encourage that they happen after a full uninterrupted reading of the texts. This to me is more of a revisiting and reviewing process; I don't want that stuff to be compulsory and I certainly don't want it jammed alongside the main story content.
Personally, I want the adventures and stories in World Adventure Kids to be experienced and enjoyed basically as they are: straight up stories. Sure, learners might like to use a dictionary to look up the meanings associated with new words or turns of phrase (and/or invite teachers and peers to help them in this process), but this should be about helping them to continue reading (not stopping and in many ways 'leaving' the story to do other stuff).
The best follow up to the stories would be discussion and small or large scale project work, further exploring a theme or task based on what they read about across entire (short) stories.
I'm not going to be so arrogant as to tell you how to use any resource in sort of black and white terms. However, I would reiterate that WAK is about stories, and I hope you find the best way to help learners experience them as stories.
That could well mean (gasp!) letting them engage with it on their own and on their own terms, helping or assisting them if and when they ask you to.
Really, when was the last time you just let your learners READ... without reading it out loud, without dissecting and analysing all the language the moment it pops up on the page?
Sure, go ahead and do content/comprehension/language work later through a second or review reading stage, but first (and this is just my personal take and preference):
It's taken a while, but very pleased to announce that World Adventure Kids has finally arrived and is now available through my site.
Initial feedback has been very positive, including this from my 10-year-old niece:
Hey Uncle Jase,
One word: AMAZING! I can't wait to do the worksheets when Mum gets some more paper!
Given that this young lady is a pretty 'discerning' reader for her age and is never backwards in coming forwards to tell you what she's really thinking, hopefully I can interpret her analysis as being reasonably free of bias!
Here's a quick intro to the new book:
You can find out more about this 'adventure reading' approach and how to get your hands on it over on the main English Raven site here.
And... given there are several layers to the approach and design, I hope you won't mind me blogging from time to time about some of the things I'm trying to achieve via 'adventure reading'.
Oh, and thank you so much for all the very heartening well wishes and encouragement I've had today via Facebook. It took three years to build this boat, so it's wonderful to finally have it in the water...
We might not have the influence or resources to change whole trees, but we can always contribute new leaves. New growth. Every single little sequence of growth counts. Image credits: Darren Hester
It's the start of a new season for most of us, and no doubt the start of a new term or semester for many as well.
It's the perfect time - before things get too cluttered - to think about what you're going to change about your teaching.
And you know what? It's also a good time to think about what you might be able to contribute to education - where you are, locally, as well further afield.
Many readers might see a comment like that and think "Yeah, sure - only problem is that I don't really have anything to contribute. I can't change anything..."
This reaction is a sad one which leads me to believe we suffer from something very close to clinical depression in certain areas of education. Depression is a serious illness. In education, depression encompasses that feeling of insignificance and irrelevance. Powerlessness.
No teacher should feel like that.
But every teacher has the chance to do something to prevent feeling like that as well.
Like a lot of other teachers (I suspect), I'm a big believer in change and making changes, but I often end up aspiring to changes that are too ambitious or unrealistic (leading to a bit of a crash), and then in reaction to that only really trying for changes that are pragmatic but in the end somewhat fail-safe.
Striking a realistic balance between ambitious and realistic change is a challenge.
But in any case, here are three changes I am aiming for this term/season...
One is local, and the other two are international.
Change 1: I'm going to get more involved in ELT and ICT locally
I live in the smallish city of Geelong, 90 kilometres or so south west of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. There is a vibrant community of migrants and refugees here, and while they are generally well catered to by local language learning initiatives, there is a lot seriously lacking.
I've generally (up to this point, only having returned to Australia 18 months ago) ignored what is happening in ELT locally. Time to change that. I'm not sure exactly what I can offer, but I can start by finding out what people feel is needed.
I've been approached to help local ELTers here improve their ICT skills. There's a good start, perhaps.
As the husband of a migrant in this area, I really feel that migrants' sense of isolation and helplessness isn't really understood all that well here. Local meetings and events? What about the enormous potential of social media to help migrants, not only in this area but right across the country, connect and build and benefit from a social network that is supportive and inclusive?
There's nothing in the way of a local English language teachers association. As a past president of a provincial TESOL chapter in Korea, and a national coordinator of a SIG, there may be something I can offer on that front as well.
There may be too many leaves here to consider all at once, and some of them might be a little too big to handle in a single season. But I hope I can explore and add at least one small leaf to the local tree here...
Change 2: I'm going to launch an innovative online extensive reading resource for children that will be 100% accessible for free
It's called World Adventure Kids, and I've already blogged about it a bit here. But the main change is that I'm going to ensure it remains an open and 100% free resource for teachers and their younger learners globally to access and enjoy. Oh, and the other change is that I'm actually going to really bloody finish it and launch it this time!
Is it going to cause changes to planetary orbits? Of course not. But it's something I can offer up, and hopefully something a lot of young people will enjoy and learn from.
Change 3: I'm going to travel to Japan in November and attend JALT 2010 as a professional listener
I haven't actually attended any sort of major ELT conference for a good 18 months or so. However, more importantly, it occurred to me recently - having just had two workshop proposals at JALT 2010 rejected based on a very silly error on my part - that it has been several years since I attended a conference purely as an audience member and not a presenter.
That led to some reflective thinking: what - I only go to a conference if I can be a presenter at it?
If so, something's gone quite wrong with that overall picture...
So, while this is a fairly major change for me and a potentially miniscule one for anyone else in the ELT world, I am going to attend JALT 2010, I am going to pay my own way 100%, and I am going to go there purely to listen to others.
I'm sure I'll pick up loads of new insights and ideas and benefit (personally) from it enormously. And on the 'contribution' side of things, it's one more attendee in several presenters' workshops, I guess, but they're all potentially leaves in the bigger (treeish) scheme of things, right?
So there are three changes I'm aiming for this season. By contributing outwards, there's no doubt in my mind that there will be a lot of nourishment inwards as well.
It will be interesting to blog about this sort of topic again in December - and see what's gone down!
And how about you?
What leaves do you think you might be able to offer this season?
There are always at least a couple you might be able to spare...
It's taken far too long for me to get back to this project, which is a little sad considering how close to my heart it is. But anyway...
I have decided that World Adventure Kids will become a 100% free audio-book style "choose your own adventure" story set available through the YouTube interface. The stories are generally for children in the 8-12 age bracket, both native speakers of English in need of motivating and remedial reading material and also more proficient EFL/ESL children.
The first "loop" of the adventure has been uploaded to YouTube, featuring some rather amateurish formatting and narration from yours truly (but with a fully self-funded project then you take what you can get - and all I can get is me!).
The video below introduces the adventures, but it is best viewed by actually going to the YouTube site and watching it in wide screen high definition format (this link will take you there).
I hope some blog visitors will be willing to give it a quick look over and tell me what they think of the idea and the method/effectiveness of delivery. Even better: it would be fantasmically amazing (like) to actually hear what children in the 8-12 range think of the material!
The stories are all actually written and illustrated already - it's simply a matter of doing all the visual and narrative formatting plus uploading and editing in YouTube. I'm fairly confident I'll have the whole thing available by the end of September (fingers crossed - and only about one year late!).
Well, I've had my presentation proposals accepted and I'll be heading back to Korea to present a couple of seminars at the Korea TESOL (KOTESOL) International Conference on October 24-25.
I've actually lost count how many KOTESOL ICs I've attended, but this will be the first time in almost four years that I haven't been there as a guest of Pearson Education (and subsequently the first time in quite a while that I'll be presenting on something other than the Boost! Integrated Skills coursebooks!). The price of going as an independent presenter this time is compounded by the fact that I'm jetting into Seoul all the way from Melbourne this time, rather than getting a 30 minute flight up from Kimhae Airport in Busan. It's going to cost a bit between the airfare and the accommodation, but it is an excellent conference and I'll be able to catch up with a lot of old friends.
Here are the abstracts for my two presentations, in case you happen to be at the event and want to come along and say hello!
How to Make TOEFL Speaking Involved, Interesting, and INTERACTIVE!
Unfortunately (and curiously), the majority of test-preparation materials on the market for the TOEFL iBT speaking section are rather uninspiring and – in many cases – just downright boring, for both students and teachers! They also tend to target single users preparing for the test on their own, which creates complications for classroom and group-based students preparing for the test together with a single teacher. In this presentation and accompanying workshop, Jason Renshaw will present a unique approach to TOEFL speaking preparation that focuses on three essential criteria. These are that the students should become personally INVOLVED in the tasks; they should find the content and applications INTERESTING; and – most importantly – the activities should promote genuine INTERACTION. In addition, Jason’s approach to classroom-based TOEFL speaking tasks promotes the idea of teachers being facilitators of practice rather than just “checkers”. Finally, the tasks presented also encourage whole-class participation rather than isolated performances. Whether you are a student preparing for the TOEFL speaking section or a teacher responsible for preparing learners for the test, you’re likely to find some ideas here to inspire you. This will be a very hands-on workshop, so be prepared to participate!
Creating an Adventure-based Reading Approach for 9-14 year olds
Part of our professional practice as English teachers(and materials writers) is to explore new approaches to teaching and learning. “Adventure-based” Reading is an example of this creative process borne out of classroom experience, designed by Jason Renshaw. It specifically targets first and second language learners aged 9-14 who are ready to move on from standard levelled-reading approaches, and seeks to incorporate priorities such as extensive and voluntary reading, reading fluency, and integrated and content-based reading. It also targets global issues, a values-based curriculum, and the combination of non-fiction elements within an imaginative fiction-style format. Central to the approach is the idea of the reader him/herself becoming the main character in the story and controlling the direction of the plot to experience a genuine adventure! Adventure-based reading also addresses the tricky issues of mixed-ability classrooms and reader motivation. It is flexible enough to be used as a whole-class or independent reading application. In this presentation, Jason will explain how and why this new approach was developed, and give attendees a taste of Adventure-based Reading so they can experience it for themselves.
Biography
Jason Renshaw is a veteran teacher of English as a second and foreign language, having taught the language for more than 17 years in countries on three different continents. He is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and his Korea-based experience amounts to 10 years teaching in private institutes, culminating in a position as visiting professor in the English Education department at Kyungpook National University. He is the author of the acclaimed BOOST! Longman Integrated Skills Series, and is the founder/webmaster of the well-known teacher resource website www.englishraven.com. He has also developed considerable specialization in materials design and test preparation for TOEFL, TOEIC and IELTS. Currently, Jason lives in Australia and works from his home next to the beach as a freelance ELT materials writer and tutor for his own online school: www.English-iTutor.com.
Luckily, our intrepid adventurers (led by YOU, the Team Captain - and also the reader, by the way...) have chosen to bring along Stretchy Rope on their mission in the Amazon Rainforest.
Thanks to that rope, Think Sharp doesn't get gobbled up by the Black Caimans in the river. But it was close! Their snapping teeth just missed his boot.
But a little further on, the team discovers an anaconda trapped in a cage in the river. Panther Step wants to set the giant snake free, but your other team members don't look so sure...
What are you going to do? You're the reader and the team captain. It's up to YOU where the story goes next!
(Oh, and if you want to read that page encounter above in a larger and clearer size, just click on it - that will take you to the larger version of the image!)
The text for World Adventure Kids 2-1 was finished ages ago, and all of the illustrations were completed a few weeks back.
Now I am working on all the page layout and typesetting, and my goodness... really starting to miss those good friends at Pearson Longman who (during the production of Boost!) would take my manuscripts and turn them into beautiful well-presented pages ready for the printer!
Getting your book pages ready for the printer takes as long (if not longer) than the actual content writing. I have to admit it is fun (and interesting as a writer to have so much say over how things look on the actual page), but right now I'm struggling a bit. It's a LOT of work!
Doesn't help when the lozenges you're taking to help you quit smoking kick in with such a violent nicotine hit that you get massive doses of the hiccups and your mouse starts streaking all over the screen...
This kind of project also means I have double or even triple the work to do, as once the print version is ready (in black and white format), I then have to transfer over to a colour online format, and then record and upload audio files for each and every page (the online version includes an option to hear the author reading aloud the story while the children read along).
Tough going, though I shouldn't complain of course - wonderful being your own boss and all...
Okay folks, here it is: the official cover concept (it's still being polished up, mind you - this is a rather dark and smudgy jpeg version and not all of the colouring is representative of the final product either...) for World Adventure KidsAdventure Set 2-1!
My wife isn't all that keen on it, but then again - she usually isn't all that keen on almost anything I make for kids! It's funny, that...
This particular adventure set includes two linked but separate adventures - one to solve a sinister environmental problem in the Amazon Rainforest, the other a search for secret treasure in the Valley of Kings. It is the first volume in Level 2 of a four-level series.
Feel free to leave your impressions of the cover! It's becoming a little too late to make any major changes, but if your feedback opens my eyes in some way, I might be able to take it on board for the covers of the other books to come out in this series!
It's very exciting to work directly with a talented illustrator who is bringing your written work into the visual medium, and my hard-working companion Declan Walsh just brought some new joy to me with these preview images:
These pics come from the second adventure option in the first World Adventure Kids sample volume (the name of this adventure being The Tomb of the Pharaoh). As you might be able to see from these sample pics, the reader (the main protagonist in the story) and his/her companions have discovered a secret entrance to an as-yet-unexplored portion of Pharaoh Sety's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.
If you're interested in following along and getting snippets and updates about the development of the World Adventure Kids project here on this blog - check the posts listed in the World Adventure Kids Category!
If you've visited the front page of English Raven any time recently, you may have noticed the logo featured above - and perhaps even followed the link through to the introductory preview page for World Adventure Kids!
This is a rather ambitious publication I am embarking on, and I thought it might be interesting to comment about its background and ongoing development here on my blog. Later, these posts could make for interesting reading!
The concept of World Adventure Kids! has been in my mind as a writer and teacher for at least 10 years. However, as a type of genre and style of reading, it goes back much farther even - to when I was about 10 or 11 years old. At that time, some friends and I were getting right into the Choose Your Own Adventure reader-oriented fiction stories, where - basically - the book is written in the 2nd person, talking directly to the reader as the main character in the story, who then makes the important decisions on how the narrative turns at given points and what outcome is achieved. While CYOA was cool, we thought the Fighting Fantasy books - written in the same fashion but within a fantasy world with additional game rules (and, of course, plenty of monsters and sword and sorcery style swashbuckling) - were THE coolest set of books possible!
These books were (and no doubt still are) powerful for young readers. Becoming the main star of the narrative makes a young reader feel like they are flying, and being able to control what happens (for either good or bad outcomes) represents a challenge that totally absorbs the reader. Now, later - as an educator - something important that occurs to me is that these books were read by both girls (who generally were ready to read anything) and boys who technically "hated reading" or weren't considered to be all that gifted in the classroom. We were so into these books that a couple of friends and I even wrote our own version of one, with each person exploring a different adventure direction, and all the entries pulled back together to make one interactive story with multiple adventure options and endings. The compilation and editing job fell to me. It took forever to put it all together, but the result was - well, seriously COOL!
The Choose Your Own adventure style books were enormously popular in the 1980s, and then suffered a catastrophic decline in the early 90s with the advent of video games. It now appears they are starting to make a serious comeback - something I wasn't actually aware of some 3-4 years ago when I embarked on putting something like World Adventure Kids together.
You may be wondering (quite rightly) why I would develop and go ahead with World Adventure Kids if the original CYOA series are being revamped and re-released. Well, my approach to this genre is somewhat different, in a variety of ways:
I wanted to make something that reflected the nature of the world today, and the world today's children will face in the future, making things like technology, global issues and the environment key issues.
My background is in ELT (English Language Teaching), and I wanted to make a series that doesn't just talk to English-speaking children in western countries, but children anywhere in the world (the emphasis on teamwork with characters from different nationalities is fundamental in World Adventure Kids; I won't say that the books are culturally neutral - but I will claim that I've tried to write books in a way that is culturally respectful).
In combination with the EFL/ESL angle, I wanted to make a series of books written in a way that caters to children who may not be expert or patient readers - I might even go so far as to say I wanted adventures and a reading style that could be considered "remedial" - especially in terms of getting struggling readers going (and just as importantly - keep them going!).
Of course, I also wanted to write a series of books that I would enjoy writing and reading myself! The 10-year-old boy in me still wants to go on amazing adventures all over the world, meeting other kids and solving mysteries and problems. Writing commercial coursebook materials over the past 3-4 years has definitely shown me that it's not all that enjoyable all that much of the time. In spoiling myself, and going back to what feels like more genuine writing - writing from the heart, and with the spark of imagination - I might end up with some books that kids will really enjoy reading! Hopefully, in being selfish, I'm actually going to end up doing a better job overall and entertain more readers in the long run...
Occupied as I was with other work and writing projects (you know, the kind of stuff that might actually help pay the bills), I had to be content with just musing about this project for several years. When it came time to actually put something down on paper, I did - several times over a period of about one year, with an equal number of trips to the wastepaper basket. For some reason, it just wouldn't work.
At about this time, my 20-book coursebook series with Pearson Longman (Boost! Integrated Skills Series) was really starting to take off, not just in Asia but in several regions around the world. Suddenly I had a willing audience of major publishers ready to listen to my ideas about new publication ideas... Under some pressure from one of these publishers to get the idea down properly on paper, I finally sat down and wrote a whole double-adventure kit in about three nights - and this time, it didn't just work, it really worked!
As thrilled as I was with the final product, I re-read it yet again and realised that the ELT publishers I was being courted by probably wouldn't like it all that much. It was too innovative, too niche, not cookie-cutter enough, too sophistocated for the publishers to neatly package and sell with a big bang into an already highly competitive industry that was as cluttered with coursebooks and leveled readers as it was unwilling to ever try something genuinely new...
Still, the publishers wanted to see it, so I sent off my manuscripts and publication prospectus.
And... I was right! Despite ELT publishers telling me the concept and actual story were brilliant, fun, innovative, and definitely appealing to kids - it was too niche for their tastes, it couldn't be packaged up easily and sold as a coursebook series, it wouldn't be able to compete with the reading series already out there, etc. etc. I'll be fair to ELT publishers and concede that it's not easy for them to bring new innovations out into the market, and they are under enormous pressure to appeal to the company's bottom line and produce things that will sell well. I'll also be critical and say that new ideas and approaches don't often come out in teaching materials because major publishers - the entities best positioned and equipped to support such endeavours - won't try them. As one academic and coursebook writer said to me recently "no, they'll let some start-up go ahead and have all the ideas and take all the risks, and then they (the major publishers) will just copy them and claim it as their own new bandwagon..."
Well, I decided to take this as a sign and a direction rather than a cause for dejection. I decided to go ahead and produce World Adventure Kids! entirely on my own. I hired a fabulously talented illustrator named Declan Walsh, and got down to work. I created a careful level system and also an overall approach concept for this style of educational writing: IARA (Interactive Adventure Reading Approach), and then went over the storylines and text very carefully to make sure they provide an "even keel" for readers of different reading proficiencies and motivational interests. The results have been very exciting and now I even have a nice-looking preview page up on my site:
At this point, I am looking at both print and online versions of these reading materials, as the interactive nature of them works well with an online format. The first two adventure kits are going well, and will most likely be released in late October (this year) in online format, with print versions available not long after that.
I have to admit it is a little scary (there's a part of me that really wishes I'd done this sort of self-funded risk-taking adventure before I got married and had two children!), but it is also really exhilarating! World Adventure Kids are seriously cool, with really unique characters and action-packed Indiana-Jones-style adventures that address global issues. If nothing else, I know my own kids will have some fun and motivating things to read as they grow up! But more importantly, I am already proud of this work, irrespective of how well it does or how much money it makes me. I've added to my own education in terms of researching the themes, issues and contexts in the adventures, and had a lot of fun being a 10-year-old again...
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