0:01

Hey everybody, we're back and I have met a new friend that I'm very excited to get to

0:06

talk to because Todd has been sharing some stuff online that really has gotten me

0:11

interested and excited. And even just when he's been talking to me about the stuff that he's gonna share with

0:16

us, his excitement is so palpable.

0:18

I love it. I'm so excited that he's here.

0:20

So Todd, welcome. Thank you for being here.

0:23

Why don't you take a second and tell folks a little bit about you.

0:26

Sure. Well, first of all, thank you so much for this opportunity.

0:29

I really enjoy your podcast and learning from all the other librarians.

0:35

The world is amazing and I have learned way more from folks in my PLN than I ever

0:43

did in library school.

0:46

So a little bit about me. I'm a 32 year educator.

0:51

I work on the North Shore of Chicago in a

0:56

a very small community called Winetka, and I teach at the Skokie School.

1:02

We always have to say the Skokie School because Skokie is another community near

1:07

us and people get very confused.

1:10

So I work at the Skokie School and we are a fifth and sixth grade building.

1:16

We have about 375 students.

1:21

I have been at Skokie for, this is my fifth year.

1:26

And prior to that, for seven years, I worked as an elementary librarian at the

1:33

Hubbard Woods School in Wenatka.

1:35

And prior to that, I was a third and fourth grade classroom teacher in Wenatka

1:44

as well. And I have done a little bit of teaching at National Lewis University's Baker

1:50

Demonstration School for a couple years.

1:53

Hmm. was a fifth and sixth grade multi -age teacher, which was amazing.

2:01

And then before that, I had a couple years teaching at one of our other elementary

2:06

schools in Winnetka, teaching fourth grade.

2:10

And then prior to that, my very first two years of teaching, I taught in

2:15

Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is where Fort Bragg is.

2:19

Hmm. So that was an amazing experience.

2:24

Diverse cultures and students from all sorts of backgrounds and a very different

2:34

style of education than I had ever experienced.

2:40

At the time in the early 90s, when I was in school at Ohio University, I was part

2:47

of... a group called the Institute for Democracy in Education.

2:52

And that organization really, really focused on John Dewey's work and learning

2:58

by doing. And so my professors were heavily influenced by the progressive education

3:05

movement. And I think it's kind of a neat story just to do mind if I share.

3:13

Okay, so my while I was in college, one of my professors, his name is George Wood.

3:18

was working on a book. The book would eventually be called Schools That Work.

3:23

And it was a celebration of public schools around the country that were doing amazing

3:28

things. And one day in class, he said, is anybody interested in going to Chicago with me

3:34

this weekend? I'm gonna go interview some principals.

3:38

I was like, I'm up for Chicago. That would be awesome.

3:41

Let's go. And so I came with a few other students and...

3:45

We stayed for, I think about four days, but we met the principal then of Hubbard

3:52

Woods School, Dick Stradane.

3:54

And we also went to Caprini Green, which was a housing project in Chicago and met a

4:01

phenomenal teacher and principal there as well.

4:06

And so you just got this incredible dichotomy of education.

4:12

And Dexter, Dana and I hit it off really, really well.

4:16

And at the end, he said to me, just as we were getting ready to leave, he asked,

4:20

Hey, do you think you'd want to come to your student teaching here?

4:23

I was just like, you are crazy.

4:25

Yes, of course. Well, I went to school in Ohio and when that guy is, you know, way far away from

4:33

our university. And so I had to do a lot of hoop jumping and recommendation writing.

4:41

But eventually they said, okay, we'll let you do this with these parameters.

4:46

And so I had the most amazing student teaching experience because one of my

4:52

former professors had taken a two year sabbatical and was teaching in Hubbard

4:59

Woods at the elementary that I was gonna be student teaching at.

5:02

And I actually student taught with her.

5:05

And she was teaching a second and third grade multi -age.

5:10

And so I had my first experience of true progressive education at Hubbard Woods.

5:20

And the community, the school has an incredibly long history, over 100 years of

5:26

progressive education. And so that was what I learned.

5:32

I was never handed a textbook as a teacher and said, here you go.

5:37

Huh. I was all, it was always created curriculum with the student as the guide.

5:46

And Winnatka has this tremendous history of teachers creating the curriculum.

5:52

I mean, people would come from around the country to explore our curriculum.

5:58

And so obviously that's changed in the 30 years that I've been in the district, but

6:05

there still is a very strong.

6:08

progressive education philosophy.

6:14

I have to share one other thing about my student teaching because it was

6:17

unbelievable. The principal Dick Stradane asked the community, he said, I've got this young

6:25

man coming from Ohio University and he needs a place to stay.

6:30

And a family, the Myers, said, well, we'd love to have him.

6:35

We've got a third floor and... He can stay in our attic.

6:39

And turns out their daughter, Emily, was a third grader in my class.

6:45

And so I literally lived in the attic.

6:49

We would make our lunches together, walk to school.

6:53

I would teach her. We would walk home.

6:55

I would do my work at night and have dinner with them.

6:59

And it was literally like a little house on the prairie situation.

7:03

It was just amazing, that family.

7:06

was so imagining so many stories that she's probably telling her friends like, no, the

7:11

teacher lives in my attic. No, really. really, he lives upstairs.

7:15

He actually eats dinner with us.

7:18

Yeah, so I just, I mean, I can't imagine that happening today.

7:25

You know, the world has really changed in 33 years.

7:29

And it's kind of unfortunate.

7:32

I mean, that was a truly magnificently magical experience.

7:39

And... really gotten your professional steps in. Let me tell you, geez, you have just, you've been all over.

7:45

And I can kind of see, I usually ask, hey, how'd you get from point A to point B?

7:48

How'd you get into the library world? But I can absolutely see how that progressive background would very

7:54

naturally lead into a school library interest.

7:57

Yeah, and what happened was the librarian or the gentleman who was in the library,

8:08

his background is more of a tech -based and he was also an educator in the

8:13

classroom as well. He ended up retiring and I knew he was going to retire.

8:19

And so I went back to school to get my to library school and it took me about two

8:27

and a half years working on my degree, but when he retired, I interviewed for the

8:33

position and was hired. And that's how I ended up at Hubbard Woods.

8:40

And I'm probably telling you more than you want to know, but I was incredibly honored

8:49

in 2016. I was chosen as the School Library Journal School Librarian of the Year.

8:56

And really that was a testament to our community because what we, I think the

9:04

reason I was selected was the truly innovative space that we created along

9:11

with the community. The whole community was part of it, the parent organization.

9:17

I had parents who went with me on site visits all over the Chicagoland area.

9:25

and we made lists of questions we wanted to ask.

9:30

It was just a tremendous amount of research and planning and volunteering.

9:37

All of the labor was done by parents and myself who all volunteered our time to

9:44

basically take a 20th century library and turn it into a 21st century library.

9:53

So that was just an incredible experience. experience and the highlight of that entire experience beyond just the honor

10:02

was meeting Dr.

10:04

Carla Hayden in the Library of Congress.

10:07

That was phenomenal. I mean, just standing, she took us up to her balcony and it overlooked all of

10:16

Washington DC. I think honestly it's the best view in DC.

10:22

So. Yeah, so that was just incredible.

10:26

And of course, so many things opened up in my world because of that.

10:32

I was able to write a book. I wrote a book called the Green Screen Makerspace Project Book.

10:43

It has 24 projects that you can do with your students using green screen, which

10:49

is... was amazing at the time.

10:52

And then now I look at it and I'm like, holy cow, I can do all of this in Canva in

10:58

milliseconds.

11:00

And when I wrote the book, obviously you had to use tools like Doink, you know, to

11:06

be able to recreate some of these things.

11:08

But it's just great to see how much evolution we've had in the tools and the

11:14

processes. I mean, my students are incredibly

11:20

adapt at these skills.

11:23

So. part of that too, like when you were saying that a lot of the credit went to

11:27

the community and the parents for creating your space.

11:31

And I think a big part of that, and I think a lot of us tend to do this, is the

11:36

fact that you were a driving force, like your passion and your energy and your

11:41

interest in making this happen, they helped.

11:44

But I think without you there, none of it would have happened.

11:47

So I think it's important to take some credit for this amazing thing that you

11:50

did. And I mean, that's... that energy so comes through in all the sharing that you do.

11:58

And speaking of, you've got this amazing lesson that I so want people to hear

12:02

about, because this was, when you were telling me about it, I was like, my gosh,

12:06

and you were so excited to talk about it, which I love too.

12:08

Like you could not wait, which is awesome.

12:11

So the title of this lesson is Bookprints, which is interesting.

12:17

And I imagine that's like footprints, maybe, or maybe not.

12:21

Exactly. So the concept is not mine.

12:26

It's actually a fellow librarian from Illinois, Rhonda Jenkins.

12:30

And I discovered this on Twitter, of all places.

12:35

I still call it Twitter. And I just, I saw these beautiful images that she had shared with a footprint

12:45

black, like a black line outline of a footprint.

12:50

And around the footprint on the outline were these images of the book covers of

12:56

students. And then at the top, it said something to the effect of reading, you know, Todd's

13:02

book print, reading is important because, and then the students responded.

13:08

And I just thought that was the coolest thing, because when you look at it, you

13:11

can see sort of an evolution of students' development as readers.

13:18

You know, some of them, would share like their favorite books and you could clearly see like they they've

13:27

read these in the last year. Many of them are new and then there were other students who had you know they had a

13:34

picture book or a board book or and then that triggered something in my mind like

13:41

wait a minute this is almost like a timeline and I

13:47

came to my colleague Gina and Matt and Crystal.

13:53

Crystal is my library associate who is amazing.

13:56

She is a trained librarian working as an associate.

14:00

She's way overqualified, but she's amazing.

14:04

And then Gina is our tech educator in the building and then Matt is our tech

14:09

integration specialist. And so I brought this idea to them and I said, hey, this is really neat.

14:14

What could we do with this? And so we started like, it was just one of those like popcorn.

14:20

Gina would say something and Matt would say something and Crystal would say

14:23

something and pretty soon we were all like, my God, this is gonna be amazing.

14:27

And that's, I think the best way, that's one of the elements of collaboration that

14:32

I think gets glossed over sometimes is the fact that we might have this idea that

14:36

we're excited about, but when you start sharing it, we're only one perspective.

14:40

We're only one view of what this could be. And when other people start throwing in their ideas, you go from having that like

14:46

one note soup to a really rich stew of ideas.

14:50

I haven't had dinner yet, so all my metaphors are dinner, but.

14:55

So this is amazing. So you've got a group that you're working with to make this happen.

15:00

Yes, and so what we ended up coming up with was let's take the idea of the book

15:06

print and make it both a timeline of students reading passion, but also let's

15:16

teach them some very cool skills that will be useful later on this year.

15:23

We've got another project that we just began.

15:27

But we wanted the kids to learn about hyperlinking and being able to take that

15:35

image of the book cover and make it hyperlink to another slide.

15:40

And on those slides, we were asking the students to respond to at minimum two

15:46

sentences about the book.

15:48

And it would be, you know, what is this book about?

15:52

And why is it important enough that I put it on my book?

15:56

Okay. some kids gave the minimum and some kids went nuts.

16:01

You know, they were just amazing.

16:04

And then on that slide, each slide, there was a graphic that the students created.

16:12

And I did many lessons around book cover design.

16:16

And I taught something called visual hierarchy to students.

16:21

And I have a, in my slideshow that I shared with you,

16:25

is that lesson and basically it's one of those amazing graphics I found online I

16:31

can't find who made it to give them credit but it basically says you'll read this

16:38

first then you'll read this and it's different size text and different

16:44

backgrounds and it is uncanny how accurate it was and so I prepped the students I

16:52

said okay on the next slide I just want you to read it, don't say anything.

16:57

And then you heard the kids go, And it was a really amazing lesson about visual

17:06

literacy. And so it is so cool.

17:12

almost like an online post or something.

17:15

And the way there's different lines of text in different places on the page and

17:18

your eye jumps around, but your eye jumps in a clearly predictable pattern because

17:24

as you said, it's the first sentence you read is this is the first line you read

17:29

and then your eye jumps. It's really, really great.

17:33

Yeah. know, we talked about the importance of text and font and placement, and then we

17:40

did a neat, neat lesson with book covers where we looked at one book, but all of

17:47

the different covers. And Harry Potter is an amazing example of that.

17:52

I lost count at over 24.

17:56

Wow. covers, editions, and everything from the first print in the UK to prints around the

18:06

world and to the illustrated newer versions of it.

18:10

And the kids were just like, that is so cool.

18:13

And then what we did was we used Canva to create new book covers for some of our

18:20

books. And that was a segue to teach them.

18:25

about artificial intelligence with the image generator.

18:30

And so we had tremendous experience, we had a tremendous experience teaching them

18:36

about prompting and how to write effective prompts.

18:40

And what I like about Canva's image generator is it's got guardrails.

18:46

It won't let you, for example, one of my students, it was completely harmless, but

18:50

he was trying to make a book cover for Allies, which is about D -Day.

18:55

by Alan Gratz and he wanted a soldier coming on the beach with a machine gun and

19:03

would let him do a machine gun and he was a little frustrated and I said, can you

19:09

understand why? And he's like, absolutely, I get it, but I don't know what to do.

19:13

And so the two of us started brainstorming and we just kept like plugging and

19:18

chugging and. we eventually settled on a really great description that he had.

19:24

He had a great description, but we left it with an American soldier.

19:29

And it created an incredible image of an American soldier.

19:33

He just wasn't carrying a gun, but his hands were occupied.

19:39

He didn't have that one part.

19:43

And that was such a great lesson for, yeah, yeah.

19:48

overall lesson is great, but like that moment of, okay, you don't know what to do

19:54

and I don't have an answer. Let's try and figure this out together.

19:58

Yeah, yeah. we did a lesson on book cover design.

20:02

I taught a lesson about six word memoirs.

20:06

Are you familiar with that concept?

20:09

I've heard of them, yeah, I haven't seen them in person.

20:12

it's an amazing, amazing, fun, super easy lesson.

20:17

Basically the...

20:22

It's kind of a legend because we don't really know if it's true or not, but

20:26

Ernest Hemingway apparently was challenged once and I believe it was in a bar of all

20:33

places. Someone said, hey, you're Ernest Hemingway, write the saddest story you can

20:39

in six words. And he thought about it and he said, baby shoes for sale, never wore.

20:51

Whoa. And so I share that with my students and I have them, you know, what do you think

20:57

that meant? And, you know, you get all these great, great stories like, well, maybe the, maybe

21:02

the kids feet were too big and so therefore you never, and then you've got

21:06

the kids who are like, well, the, you know, the baby died or, but just, you

21:10

know, tremendous conversation, right around that.

21:13

And then we had them write six word memoirs about their books.

21:19

Yeah, so it was kind of a really cool like summarization.

21:24

I you know a lot of synthesis was going on for the kids.

21:29

I love when we can give them those real strict guidelines that they hate, but that

21:34

force them to get so creative. Like I know that I get way more creative when I've got those very specific

21:39

parameters I've got to try and fit something into.

21:41

So that's awesome. Yeah. Well, one of my favorite films is The Seven Obstructions.

21:46

I think that's the title. Which basically the director was asked another director, give me parameters.

21:58

Like, here are your rules. And he recreated the same film.

22:02

with each of these different rules. And what he found is exactly what you said, that, holy smoke, he was so much

22:08

more creative because he had to work within these confines.

22:12

So yeah, I agree. Sometimes we have to give students the guardrails to kind of help them be

22:20

creative. So we did trying to think of, we also did like create a scene and we used keynote as

22:29

a way to have students create a scene from their.

22:32

I can't think, I'm forgetting one, I'm sure.

22:38

But suffice it to say these graphics were part of that slide deck.

22:43

And then those slide decks that they created, our intent is to have, they've

22:50

shared them all with me and I'm in the process of taking them and going into

22:56

Google Slides and sharing it, publishing it to the web in a way that we can.

23:01

share them with each other. And I've started building a web page for our students.

23:07

And each class is going to have their own tab.

23:10

And on that tab will be all of the students' projects.

23:15

We've removed any, you know, there's nothing that would identify them other

23:21

than their first name. So I feel comfortable sharing that.

23:25

But the intent then is for them not only to see their project,

23:31

or their classmates projects, but look at all the projects of 150 other fifth

23:38

graders who explored this project.

23:41

So, yeah, yeah, be excited about, I didn't know that book, my gosh, or dialogue with

23:51

somebody like, hey, you read Heroes 2?

23:53

Yeah, awesome. So, exactly, yeah, absolutely.

24:01

Did you say you did this in Google Slides?

24:03

We did the whole project in Google Slides, yes.

24:07

And do you use Google Classroom?

24:09

We don't. We use Schoology is our LMS.

24:14

I was just gonna, technically, if you use Google Classroom, it creates folders full

24:20

of all the stuff the kids submit, and you can just post a folder or the contents of

24:25

a folder on a Google site so that you don't have to individually bring over each

24:30

piece. You can just put in, here's the folder, and there's all the pieces.

24:34

Ooh, man.

24:36

Yeah, unfortunately, our district doesn't use Google Classroom.

24:45

I don't know quite why. Why we don't.

24:49

It seems when we use Google for everything else, our emails and all of the tools,

24:55

I'll have to look into that. Yeah, that's really interesting.

24:57

you could probably just do a Google folder, throw the kids, you know, do one

25:01

for each class, throw them in the folder and then post the folder.

25:04

But yeah.

25:07

would be definitely easier. That would be great.

25:11

Yeah, yeah, because that's exactly what I started doing.

25:16

I was like, this is going to take me forever.

25:18

yeah, when you said you were doing it for every class, I was like, wow, that's a

25:22

lot. But that's awesome.

25:25

I mean, it's a great idea to share that work because so often I feel like the

25:30

library, especially because I feel like when kids do stuff in the library, it's

25:34

often part of another class and we don't get to see maybe those finished results.

25:38

But then also, even when the kids do projects in class, like they might see

25:41

what their peers do, but they don't always and they very

25:45

see what the other classes are doing usually.

25:48

Yeah, and it's been really interesting as a librarian and former classroom teacher

25:55

to watch the students throughout this process.

26:03

You know, they're, I think in some ways they're like, wait a minute, this is the

26:07

library, what are you asking me to write a paragraph for?

26:12

Like, -hmm. two things don't go together.

26:14

I'm like, yeah, they do. We're talking about books and guess what?

26:20

I know what a good paragraph looks like.

26:23

And I know what, you know, I know you know how to punctuate a sentence.

26:29

And so just kind of getting them like to realize like, yeah, Mr.

26:34

Burleson does get what we're doing here.

26:40

And just for them to almost realize, yeah, he's actually a teacher first, a librarian

26:51

second, exactly, yeah.

26:54

So that's been fun to re -kind of cement that for them.

27:00

Yeah, well, and I think for the students, definitely, and I think for the adults a

27:04

lot of times too, we get siloed into writing is ELA and numbers are math and

27:12

like they, we never the tween shall meet and the library is such a great place to

27:17

do the cross -disciplinary and get the kids realizing, no, these skills apply in

27:21

all your classes in all different ways.

27:24

It's not just one or the other. So this is great.

27:27

it's definitely the nexus of curriculum, or it should be.

27:32

I mean, you know, we talk about it being the heart of the school and I work so hard

27:40

to try to make that true.

27:43

I know all librarians do that, that's what we're here for.

27:48

Yeah. Man, this is such a great lesson.

27:51

There's so many awesome pieces. You've got technology literacy.

27:54

You've got straight up literacy.

27:57

You've got the learning opportunities and cross -disciplinary and just the

28:03

collaboration that you did to get it all started. Like this is just, there's so much great stuff here.

28:07

Wow. I am so excited. I can see why you were so excited by this, because this is great.

28:12

Yeah, and you know, I mean, the finished product is great, but it's all about the

28:18

process for me and the kids working through that.

28:23

You know, sometimes I was like, my gosh, what am I doing?

28:26

This is crazy. This is taking so long.

28:31

You know, because I see kids.

28:34

sometimes two, sometimes three days a week, depending on schedule.

28:39

And so, you know, this is like a six week experience that we've been working on.

28:47

And amazingly, like the kids haven't or didn't like get tired of it.

28:55

I think they were so excited to be creating that they were just like, okay,

29:01

we're still working on this. All right, let's do it.

29:04

And you know, the kids that finished early, we talked about, you know, you

29:09

could add a book trailer, a link to a book trailer for your book, or you could make a

29:14

book trailer for your book, or you could link it to a review that you did in

29:21

Destiny, which is our catalog system.

29:26

So, you know, so there was never, there was no, nobody was like, I'm done.

29:31

We're like, guess what? Here's what else you could do.

29:35

And so, you know, some kids were like, can I add more books to my book print?

29:40

I'm like, let me see.

29:43

I guess so.

29:49

Okay, all right.

29:51

You know, and of course, I mean, we have students, I mean, we're a public school.

29:56

We have students of all ability levels and.

30:01

all sorts of learning needs and issues.

30:05

And we worked our way through that.

30:07

It wasn't easy for everybody, that's for sure.

30:11

The whole concept, like you were saying, it is a process to think back of what

30:18

books were important to you. And we gave them a list of questions to help them think that through.

30:26

Like, what's your absolute favorite book?

30:30

from when you were a child, which makes me laugh because the kids are 10, 11.

30:35

But to them, that means like two to three years old.

30:40

And then, you know, questions like, what's a book you've listened to?

30:44

What's a book that you've read more than once?

30:46

What's your absolute favorite book?

30:49

What's a book that your teacher read to you?

30:53

What's a book that we did something called genre personalities earlier this year?

30:58

Hmm. No.

31:01

I could do a whole nother podcast just about that, but it's basically the concept

31:06

of looking at your personality and how that personality impacts the types of

31:12

books you like to read. And when you're talking about your genre personality, you could be like an

31:20

adventurer and here are a whole bunch of books that the adventurer might enjoy.

31:27

And so I, I, This isn't my idea.

31:30

Someone else came up with it and I twisted it and made it my own.

31:33

But I then created bookmarks that had a list of all of the books for each genre

31:41

personality. And kids used those bookmarks to help them find books that they were interested in.

31:49

And I also, of course, made a collection in Destiny so they can go to...

31:54

that specific collection and find books.

31:57

It's just another way to help them find new stuff.

32:01

And one of the questions on the list was pick a book from your genre personality

32:07

list that you've read.

32:11

So we prompted them to help them.

32:14

And then we also, it was amazing because in Destiny, you can go to my stuff and go

32:21

down to history. and you can actually see all of the books you've ever checked out as long as you've

32:27

been part of the system. And many of our kids have been with us since kindergarten.

32:32

And so it was like a trip down memory lane for them.

32:36

They were like, the book with no pictures.

32:42

And that was in and of itself an amazing experience for them and for me, of course.

32:50

But. They use that to help them come up with ideas.

32:56

And it was just a really cool experience of thinking back and what's important to

33:05

you and why is it important.

33:09

And like you said, I mean, that's a whole lot of synthesis happening and so many

33:17

avenues. I mean, there's...

33:20

There's the literacy component, there's the strictly writing component, there's

33:25

the creativity piece, there's the technology piece, there's, you know, just,

33:29

it was just phenomenal. So I thank Rhonda Jenkins for coming up with the idea so that we could keep going

33:37

with it. And I haven't shared this on Twitter yet, but I will be in the next few days.

33:46

Just... I kind of wanted to get my ducks in a row before I put it out there.

33:51

And I will, of course, be giving her huge props for that.

33:55

That's awesome. Wow. I mean, this lesson, like I said, I love this lesson.

33:59

This is so great. There's so many elements and that you had six weeks to work on it or that the kids

34:06

were engaged with it for six weeks clearly speaks to how much they were invested in

34:11

what they were doing, which is outstanding.

34:13

Like clearly that's the mark of a good lesson right there.

34:16

So I think a lot of people are gonna be very excited to try this out.

34:20

So I am very glad that you brought it to us.

34:23

good. Awesome.

34:27

Awesome. book break is you share whatever book you wanna share.

34:32

It can be personal, professional. It can be for kids, for students.

34:35

It could be for you yourself. It could be for staff, anything you like.

34:38

So what's a title you want people to know about that they should maybe be checking

34:42

out? Okay.

34:47

We're librarians, right?

34:49

There's going to be a bunch. So, absolutely.

34:54

So, I would say one of the most amazing authors for middle grade students is Alan

35:03

Gratz. He is mind -blowing.

35:07

And his most recent book, Heroes, is just phenomenal.

35:13

And... students of all stripes enjoy his approach, his writing style where every

35:24

chapter ends on a book, a cliffhanger.

35:27

And he usually writes from multiple perspectives.

35:30

And so you finish one chapter and you're like, I want to skip ahead to read what

35:36

happens next. But then I also want to know what happens to the other character.

35:40

And so it is just one of those.

35:42

one of the, he's one of those authors that if I get a kid to read one, they're

35:48

hooked. And then I can start saying, so here's some other authors that write from

35:55

multiple perspectives or that use the same sort of cliffhanger, exciting adventure.

36:03

So Alan Gratz, Heroes, excellent.

36:07

My favorite book of all time.

36:10

is Hatchet by Gary Paulson, which is a life -changing book for me.

36:17

It was the first character that I read about that also went through a divorce.

36:25

And that was powerful for me as a young reader, but also it's a survival book.

36:35

And my time in the military was...

36:40

amazing. I loved it. And just every time I read that book, it's like, yeah, this is good stuff.

36:47

And it's, it's another book that I use to get kids hooked on reading.

36:56

The of those authors, if you can get them hooked on either one of those, never both

37:00

of them, either one, they've got a catalog that these kids can then dig into, which

37:04

is awesome. Yes, yes.

37:07

And then as professional book, professional books, there is a phenomenal

37:14

book called Loving Learning by Tom Little.

37:19

And Tom was a huge part of the Progressive Education Network.

37:26

If folks don't know what that is, they really need to check out Penn online.

37:32

It is a phenomenal organization of like -minded people who are educating students

37:40

and wanting them to experience progressive education.

37:44

And Loving Learning is Tom's book that he wrote just before he passed away.

37:49

And it's just a phenomenal book.

37:54

All educators should read that.

37:57

We're going to be doing a book study.

38:00

in our district with teachers that are interested in that in the fall next year.

38:05

And I just can't wait.

38:08

It's going to be really just a great experience.

38:13

We've got so many new teachers in our district that are coming from all sorts of

38:19

backgrounds. And there's a grizzled veteran like me that's been around and has seen so much

38:27

change. It's great.

38:29

to connect those two. And so I'm excited to be able to do that, but also to learn from them.

38:36

So very excited. And Tom's book is a tremendous way of doing that.

38:42

Personally, like I also just read a phenomenal book called The Ex -Vangicles

38:51

by Sarah McGammon.

38:53

The subtitle is Living, Loving, and Leaving.

38:59

the white evangelical church.

39:03

And Sarah McGammon is an NPR reporter and she talks about in this book.

39:12

pretty much how she came to an understanding that it didn't work for her

39:22

for a whole lot of reasons.

39:24

You don't have to necessarily get into it because it is politics, but it is a

39:29

fascinating. Her journey was just amazing and it resonated with me personally in so many

39:38

ways because I've also made a shift in my own personal faith in life and I saw

39:47

myself in that book and the many, many, many, many people that she interviews in

39:54

that book. So anyone that's just interested in a really great read.

39:59

You don't even have to be a faithful person at all.

40:02

I think it's, again, amazing to learn about the human psyche and how we think

40:09

about things and how that can change.

40:12

And that's healthy. I think change is healthy.

40:15

So, phenomenal, phenomenal book.

40:17

And then I am almost finished with The Lincoln Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer.

40:26

There's a co -author.

40:28

can't remember his name.

40:31

But it is a story about essentially a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln before he was

40:40

inaugurated in Baltimore, Maryland.

40:43

And it gets into you meet Pinkerton, who was one of the first detectives in the

40:52

United States and had his own independent detective agency.

40:56

And there's a female.

40:58

detective who is the first female detective in the United States and it's

41:03

just, it's so amazing.

41:07

It is completely non -fiction, yeah, but it reads, you know, you're just so excited

41:16

to keep going and, you know, one of those, it's two o 'clock in the morning.

41:22

But he does such a great job of, like, placing you in that.

41:28

period and helping you understand the tensions in the country and the thinking

41:34

of people at that particular time.

41:38

And he doesn't make any judgments about it. He just says, hey, this is what was going on.

41:43

And this is what people thought.

41:46

And invites you to rethink your own perspectives and your history, you know,

41:53

what you know about history. Like he educates.

41:57

you, you know, almost like pulls back the veil on a lot of history that I thought I

42:03

knew, but I didn't at all.

42:06

And so that's a tremendous, tremendous book.

42:10

And then of course, the last one would be Dusty Bowling's The Canyon's Edge, which

42:16

you're sensing the theme here, that adventure, survival is so...

42:26

engaging for middle grade readers.

42:29

And so this is actually the Canyon's Edge.

42:34

We were talking offline before is part of our One Book One Campus project where we

42:44

have a fifth and sixth grade building, which is where I work.

42:46

And then across the green, is a seventh and eighth grade building.

42:50

And to build community between our schools, we are doing an author study on

42:55

Dusty Bowling. And the fifth and sixth graders are reading The Canyon's Edge.

42:59

And the seventh and eighth graders have some choice.

43:02

They're going to choose between three of Dusty's books.

43:06

And our district, yeah, yeah, our, our.

43:10

like, one reads are, I think, great, but to expand it beyond just the school and

43:15

say, we are not just a school, we are a community of learners.

43:18

well, and I also really like the idea of giving the seventh and eighth graders the

43:23

choice. My thinking is that most of the fifth and sixth graders will not have read The

43:30

Canyon's Edge. Some of them will, unfortunately, and I know we have that conversation about

43:35

rereading a book and the power of rereading.

43:39

So I chose that book because it is a novel in verse.

43:45

It is an adventure story. It's going to hook.

43:48

our hatchet -loving readers.

43:50

It's going to hook our girls because it has a main character who is a girl who is

43:56

powerful and independent and courageous.

44:03

So that's my last book recommendation, but I'm so looking forward to not only reading

44:14

the book with the students, We're giving all of our students a copy of it when we see them at what we call our

44:23

shadow day, where the fourth graders come and visit us for a half day.

44:29

And one of their gifts is, here's a book, and inside the book is a bookmark that has

44:38

a QR code. And when they scan the QR code, it takes them to a welcome video that I created.

44:43

So it's like, hey, I'm Mr. Burleson.

44:46

This is the book that we're reading this year.

44:49

This is why we chose it. And we've created a website where there's a whole bunch of great resources for you

44:55

to continue exploring. And then on the back of the bookmark is some questions to think about while

45:02

they're reading. And then another QR code that takes them to the website.

45:07

So I've been working this weekend to finish that website.

45:12

And as I mentioned to you before, like...

45:14

It has a tab for teachers with just oodles of teaching resources and it has some

45:22

interactive games where the kids can quiz themselves on vocabulary from the book.

45:26

It's got, I used quizzes, the AI tool to create different games that test their

45:38

understanding and knowledge of the book. And again, they can do them all independently.

45:43

Mm -hmm. they want. And I even added things like, I added a Google form for them to reflect.

45:50

And, you know, what was your favorite part?

45:52

Why? How would you write this book?

45:55

And I love how Google Forms gives you the ability to do a linear scale, which is

46:00

really cool because they can respond to that really easily, I think.

46:04

And then there's also, you know, a few other questions, but then there's, do you

46:08

have any questions for Dusty Bowling?

46:10

And the reason I'm collecting those, not only is that just a great exercise for

46:16

kids, but we're having Dusty come as an artist in residence next year for three

46:21

days. And she's going to do writing workshops with our fifth and sixth graders, a couple

46:27

of presentations, and she's also going to be working one day with a seventh and

46:32

eighth grade students. So we just get to be, yeah, we get to be immersed with her, which is just going to

46:39

be. It's just going to be so great. I'm really looking forward to next year and this project.

46:45

Yeah. Man, I mean, my brain is going to explode with all of the things that I now want to

46:51

do. This is so great.

46:53

I've been waiting to talk to you.

46:55

There's been so much.

46:58

I was like, he's only he's going to make me share only one lesson.

47:03

we're clearly going to have to have you come back because there's so much you've

47:06

got so much going on. This is so great.

47:08

And I mean, I'm so furiously connecting ideas and like, man, I'm going to do

47:13

bookmarks. I'm going to do websites. I'm going to do videos. Like this is amazing.

47:17

So thank you so much, Todd. I cannot thank you enough.

47:20

I really appreciate it. I know we've been, it's taken us a little while to connect, but I'm so glad that we

47:24

did because like I said, this is just amazing.

47:27

And I'm so thankful that you shared it with us.

47:29

Thank you.