The Nature of Feedback and Nurturing Feedback Challenge

A number of years ago I entered my sour cream coffee cake in the county fair. I took home a second place ribbon that year with comments written on the back which have delighted me ever since. Whenever someone tries to entice me to don my apron and take up a spatula to make one they refer to it as “your award winning coffee cake.” I’m a sucker for that. Nothing like a little affirmation as a catalyst for motivation.

The online challenges I have participated in over the past 18 months are part of the reason I am thinking about the nature of feedback. Part of the allure of these challenges is the feedback. The opportunity to have others share your work and comment upon it is not only helpful, but also motivating.

During Month of Poetry, fondly referred to as MoP, this year I truly understood how I needed that kind of community. It was the catalyst for me to go out and find myself a writer’s critique group. While not comfortably settled in one yet, I am definitely working towards that goal.

While writing is something done for the self, there is also a communal aspect to the experience. The presence of a reader makes it so.

During MoP I received a great deal of support from poets from across the globe. The motivation to keep at it was provided by the forum, the structure and the feedback of others. Without feedback, without knowing that someone was reading and commenting, I find that one of my many projects takes over. I haven’t written a single poem since MoP finished.

So I am looking to join or create that sort of space for myself on a local, physical level. The time is full. This is the season for this thread in my life.

That got me thinking. When I neglect to provide feedback on something I read, I am depriving the author or artist of that support. I am receiving, but not supporting when I go away silently inspired.

I was mulling over the nature of feedback in a social media environment when I came across an article by Jane Friedman on her blog for Writer’s Digest. As always, Jane wrote a thought provoking post.

Still, my own thoughts nagged at me. The amount of information available to us means that we can never stay on top of it all. We try though, don’t we? Personally that translates into an almost feverish chase, clicking on articles, getting inspiration, “liking” or “retweeting” them. Perhaps I’ll amend the tweet with a “must read” or “brilliant.” While I do feel that social media has benefitted me greatly, I also feel that the nature of my interaction with others has changed greatly. Instead of reflecting and responding to much of what I read, I am now tending to read, acknowledge and move on to the next. While that puts me in contact with others, I do not become truly part of the conversation that way.

My comments tend to be quick blasts, sent from my iPhone. Twitter allows me to make use of those “stolen moments” – waiting in the doctor’s office, in the grocery line, waiting for my car service. It also allows me to disengage from unpleasant thoughts in useless moments. It provides a useful distraction while improving my mind and allowing me to keep in greater contact with the world around me. These are not times for composing long, thoughtful comments. My thumbs are getting enough of a workout already.

Still, while hopefully we blog and network and tweet because there is something intrinsically positive about the experience itself, a large portion of the joy is in the dialogue. I find, like a skinflint, that I’ve been tightfisted with my feedback.

These musing have led me to determine that during the month of March I am going to flex my feedback muscles.

Nurturing Feedback Challenge

March 2011

1. Except for retweets on Twitter, I plan to eschew the one word comment.
2. This month I will increase the number of comments I leave. 
3. I will try to leave more than a comment indicating that I liked what I have read. I will include information about why I liked it, what it made me think, how it benefited me, thoughts that spring to mind related to what I am seeing.
4. I will slow down and think about what I am reading and express my thanks to the author.When appropriate, I will provide a relevant link, a nugget of my own experience that is supportive or a nod of understanding.
5. I will keep track of my thoughts and experiences this month to see what effect this challenge has on my social networking experiences.

I don’t mind company. If you want to join me, I’d love to have you along for the ride.

Other Thinking Chairs

I gave plenty of thought to where I am most creative during the month of November. Spurred to reflection by Dana Cary’s post about her “thinking chair” I made my own chair complete with floral print quilt and tassled, fuzzy, pink throw. The time I spent in that chair was highly productive (and sometimes relaxing), but I discovered that I have several other, more public thinking spots. These are places I go to write. Places where my mess doesn’t come along and taunt me. Places where the dishes are for someone else to worry about. Places where I am virtually alone.

I love writing in coffee shops and tea rooms. I don’t drink coffee, preferring tea in a tea cup, if possible. I am fortunate to have found a quiet one where I go almost every week to write. Those around me can tell if I missed my weekly sojourn because I’m grumpier than usual and out of sorts. The view is marvelous.

Libraries are another place I love to go write. There is usually a spot where I can spread out far more than I need to. The best thing, though, is that there are none of those piles of paper distracting me. Just me and a clear table space. That makes for ease of concentration.

I try to keep my desk clean. Really, I do. But there are the receipts to go through, the new Booklist and Horn Book Magazines, scraps of paper with curriculum ideas and cords from various electronic gadgets. There is usually a pile of books to review and a bag of books to return to my public library. I’ll forgive the public librarian if her or his desk looks like the one I have at home. I won’t bat an eyelash if it’s a tripping zone in the back office. Keep a table clear in the reference section or tucked away in a corner for me, though, and I’ll be your friend forever. 

Poetic Month of January

There goes my resolve to be more consistent in blog posting this year. January was a month full of writing, poetry, new friends and shoveling snow. I spent most of my free time at Australian children’s book author Kat Apel’s Month of Poetry. The challenge was to write a poem and post it every day. Sorry, you can’t see it as it is password protected, but you can put Month of Poetry on your calendar for January 2012 if you like.

What did making the commitment to writing a piece of poetry a day do for me? Tons. I started listening to words and feeling how they felt as I said them. I started listening to conversations with an eye for how words fit together. My eye became tuned to the small details about every day things. That was in the first week. Somewhere around the middle of the month I wrote a poem which surprised and delighted me. It was not the kind of poem I meant to write in January. I had meant to write short, fun and kid oriented poems – maybe one which could be turned into a picture book. On that day in the middle of the month I wrote a poetic memoir and found that my stories were new to me. Very different from recording them in prose or telling them in person, these poetic memoirs helped me to see the small details in my experiences in a new way. I didn’t write much of anything else for the rest of the month. That’s ok with me. I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have gotten to that place without the discipline.

Beyond the action of writing a poem a day, it was a wonderful writing group. They were very supportive and helpful. Inspiration came daily in the form of other people’s writing. I made new writer buddies from Australia as well as stateside.

What can I as a teacher librarian get from this experience? I find I’m tackling poetry more in my daily teaching. Today I spent time with a kindergarten class learning the difference between rhyming and alliteration. Will they all remember and get it right now? No. I have no illusions, but they did improve their ability during our class. I find that writing and especially the care with which you choose words when writing poetry has helped me be clearer with directions. It has also helped me to appreciate the writing process that our young students must learn. 

It was a great month!

Mock Caldecott Reflections

I’ve had some time to reflect on the process of running a Mock Caldecott group. Through that reflection I’ve come up with some things I would change if I for next time. It seems like this might be one of the most important things to share with others who are starting their own groups. Knowing the pitfalls is actually one of the more valuable things to know. We can all dream big. We can’t all see what snags we are going to get tripped up on.

When the results of Mock Caldecotts across the country came rolling, I found that there is actually a book about hosting this kind of event. Before I do this again I’d like to get my hands on a copy of Newbery and Caldecott Mock Elections by Kathleen Simonetta, Nancy Hackett and Linda Ward-Callaghan (ALSC, 2001) I’ve also discovered that Library Sparks had an article in January 2004 called The Peasleecott: A Mock Caldecott Unit written by Nancy Keller. I’d also like to get my hands on that article.

Things that didn’t work as planned and should be changed:

1. The length of time it takes to read and evaluate a book should be looked at. I did not anticipate how carefully our participants would view each book and contemplate the features. This was good, but we did not start out offering them an appropriate amount of reward for their effort.

2. Going along with number one, adjusting the number of books to review and the schedule for that.

3. Rethink whether it would make more sense to make this a weekly meeting. While I felt that offering the group in a flexible format would be easier to manage, people seemed to have more difficulty with that. Sometimes having a set meeting time can be easier. Sometimes it is easier to leave an important task to go to a scheduled meeting than it is to leave it to do something that is perceived of as “having fun.” When that happens, the fun factor decreases and guilt takes over. Perhaps this could be run as a graduate class to pair the reward with the amount of effort required to be an active member.

Things that would add to the program:

1. Provide posters on the library wall featuring successful renditions of various techniques.

2. Along with the examples of successful techniques, the actual tools and techniques would be a plus

3. Vocabulary posted on the wall to go with the posters above. This would help with identification as well as writing prompts for students.

Management items to tweek:

1. Start keeping a database in January. Adding to it each month would make it possible to keep on top of it later in the year and have more time for reading the books.

2. Differentiate between reviews and starred reviews.

3. Make sure to get a copy of ALL the starred reviewed books early on.

4. If I start previewing books at the beginning of the year, some of the titles that are not contenders can be weeded out in advance and we can focus on the best. This would include finding those books with illustrators who are not eligible for the medal.

5. Make decisions about offering the class earlier in the year so that people can plan their activities for the season. Most of our people really wanted to do it so they participated on top of a heavy load of activities. It would have been easier for them if they had known in May.

6. Come up with a list of refreshments in advance. While it may seem an insignificant thing, I find that creating a festive environment for the project makes people buy into it in a different, more joyous way. This yields more results than one might think.

I'm already scanning the book reviews for next time around and dreaming of other ways I can improve this program. 

The Youth Media Awards

It’s been a week since the award winners were announced and I’m way behind in reporting. So many things have happened this week.

The night before the Youth Media Awards were announced I wasn’t able to sleep. I got up and high tailed it into work. I know the ceremony was t start at 7:45 AM, so I got into work a little earlier to ensure enough time to log on and connect to the live stream. I tried and tried, but the computer indicated that the item could not be found. After playing with it for about 30 minutes it dawned on me that the ceremony was being held in San Diego and wouldn’t be held until mid-day East Coast time!

All day long people were slipping by the library to see if I knew yet. One of my colleagues was completely unable to imagine that I would be able to keep quiet once I knew the results of the awards. She tried to wear down my resolve, but I could not be worn down or tricked. It seemed like the suspence building would enhance the experience of the group.

People started gathering before three and immediately wanted information. The suspense was so strong you could have cut it with a knife. When they arrived I gave them each a string of gold beads (Mardi Gras beads, but they were gold, round and resembled medals), pointed them to the direction of our round, gold confetti and offered refreshments. Round and gold things ruled the day.

When we were all accounted for, at 3:15, I made the announcements. We started with books we had read which won other awards, moved on to the honors and culminated with the Caldecott Medal winner. You can easily see that our list does not correspond, even marginally, with the winners. Some of us had seen two out of the three books. We are all anxious to get ahold of copies of the award winning books to peruse and evaluate.

It will be very interesting to look at them and try to guess which elements in these books made the committee choose them. Reading as many books as we did and not having access to them all simultaneously, it is very interesting to go back and revisit. We did do this with some, but not all of the books. The books we read at the beginning sometimes looked less appealing when revisited and sometimes we appreciated them more. It is a task we are anxious to undertake to further our own skill and perception.

The work of our meeting followed. We had to evaluate our journey:

How had we changed?

What had we learned?

What do we take away with us?

How will this experience change us as educators?

When we were through talking and filling out evaluation forms, I gave out prizes. I had enough prizes for everyone. Most of the prizes I collected at Midwinter in boston last. I threw in a couple of small gift cards to bookstores. Participants were delight to “win” something and it build fun feeling.

Now what is left for me to do is paperwork to fill out and my own self-reflection. The focus group took an enormous amount of time, but yielded correspondingly enormous benefits. Would I do it again? Yes, but there are many things I would tweak so that it would go smoother. That’s another post.  

The Big Day!

Today is the day that the Youth Media Awards will be announced. I look forward to this day every year, but this year the excitement level is up. The Mock Caldecott group is fueling my enthusiasm with their own.


If you are interested in following them this morning the ALA's Youth Media Awards page will stream coverage for a limited number of viewers. I hope to get my computer turned on early enough to be one of those viewers. You can also get information about the winners by following on twitter. The hashtag is #alayma.


Our group will be meeting to hear the results, deconstruct the experience and evaluate.


Looking forward to a day of excitement and illumination.

New Blog - Picture Book Inspirations

I'm pleased to announce my new blog: Picture Book Inspirations. I noticed that Purple Glasses Club was becoming a catch all for my many interests. Part of the reason I did not complete my 60 post challenge is that I spent most of the summer writing, brainstorming and re-envisioning my direction. From this Picture Book Inspirations was born.

Picture Book Inspirations will be a destination for the ways in which picture books inspire me, projects which I take on after reading picture books, writing and art projects which I hope may some day be picture books and news.

What I hope to feature on the blog:

Art Criticism – In order to appreciate picture books it is helpful to have some background in art appreciation. I will be posting mini-lessons to help us all become more adept at talking about the art.

Guest Writers – I don’t have any lined up yet, but I hope to have some guest writers post about what inspires them

Techniques – Know how those illustrations were made? If you answered no, you are not alone. I will be posting information about the process of making illustrations. Hopefully with photos and videos.

Writing Challenges – Information about writing challenges I am taking part in and ones that you can take part in too.

Drawing Challenges – Same as for Writing Challenges

Current Events – articles, events, congratulations, kudos, sympathy.

Other stuff that I have not yet dreamed about. 

I hope you will come and join me there. The welcome mat is out. I've just moved into the site, so it will be a while before the curtains are up. You're welcome to join me there anytime.