TeacherDance

My Poetry Madness Poem - Slice 17

2012-03-16T22:13:00.001-06:00

The March Slice of Life Challenge is with Ruth and Stacey at the Two Writing Teachers blog

As I wrote earlier this week, I participated with 63 other Poets on the internet in a kind of Ode to the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament, where we wrote children's poems for Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 (Kids' Poetry. Under Pressure.)

Visit the webpage. Look at the results of the pairings, and read all the wonderful poems that were written. We were each given a word as a prompt, where we had to write a maximum of 8 lines that included the word at least once. My word was paternity. I've been reading about more the emphasis being made on non-fiction writing so immediately thought I would write a non-fiction poem, hence the work about penguins (a favorite paternal story).
I competed against a published writer extraordinaire named Donna Martin and lost by just a few votes. I am rather proud that the day's voting was back and forth with our poems’ votes, and thought both were good. The interesting part that sometimes happened with the pairings is that unbeknownst to each other, some, like Donna and me, wrote poems that were quite similar in content; ours were both about animals and the way they behave. What serendipity!

Here is my poem, and here is the link to Donna’s. Her word was prowl.

Paternity Patience

The emperor penguin does not ignore 

His given chore, of perilous paternity. 

He stands and waits. He waits and stands. 

It seems for all eternity.   

While the momma empress swims for need 

And gobbles feed, expressing her maternity. 

She glides and dives; she dives and glides. 

It appears with taciturnity.

Keep watching. The next 16 pairings happen soon!

photo credit: Martha de Jong-Lantink via photopin cc

For SOLSC 16 and for Poetry Friday - I'm going to the Poem Farm

2012-03-15T23:12:00.001-06:00

The March Slice of Life Challenge is with Ruth and Stacey at the Two Writing Teachers blog

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Greg at Gotta Book.

Amy Ludwig Vanderwater, a poet who creates the wonderful blog The Poem Farm, read one of my blog posts about teaching memoir a few weeks ago, and invited me to write about the process a bit more if some of the students wrote memoir poems. Three of the students did do that, so you will find a post about me and my class at Amy’s blog today. Enjoy the poems; they are special.
If you would like a beautiful poem by Amy to inspire your writing, here is a link to one of her poems.

photo credit: Olivander via photopin cc

A Memory of Stars - Slice Fifteen

2012-03-14T23:11:00.002-06:00

The March Slice of Life Challenge is with Ruth and Stacey at the Two Writing Teachers blog

My mother, grandmother and aunts all created quilts. My mother was also an artist and loved originating the designs while my aunt created the tried and true quilts that many made, like Sunbonnet Sue and the Log Cabin designs. Both were crafts people in unique ways, and showed me by modeling that if I chose to, I could do anything. I did do quite a lot of sewing and crafting during the years I stayed home with my children, but when I returned to teaching, it became harder to find the time. I admire anyone who takes the time to persist in such a large project as a quilt, like my mom.

One birthday, after my family had moved a few states away, and visited only a few times a year, I received a large box from my mom. I figured she had packed a gift for me, along with some other 'add-ins' for the kids. When I opened it, there was this quilt. I hadn't known it was a project because the last time I'd visited, she had been working on one of the quilts where you embroider squares, then put them all together. The added surprise is that this quilt displays so many stars. I have collections of several kinds of stars in my life, in jewelry, cookie cutters, and so on. This special affinity for stars started with a tease from a grandfather who constantly told me I was so special because I was born with a star on my birth certificate! Of course, as a young child, I believed him. It was only in my adult years that I actually saw my birth certificate and realized that what he said was just a loving phrase. However, my mother remembered this from so long ago, and made the quilt for me-full of stars. She was a special mom!

The first round words in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 (Kids' Poetry. Under Pressure.) have been sent out and 64 Poets are busily writing poems. My poem is in that first round. Second round words are up today. It's very exciting!

Mardie's Post Brings The Bread Man - Slice 14

2012-03-13T23:00:00.001-06:00

Thanks to Ruth and Stacey, The SOLSC Challenge is at theTwo Writing Teachers blog

Mardie, in her blog, Mardie’s Notebook, wrote about her passion for all kinds of bread. As I also am a lover of bread, I loved every grainy word! How strange our minds work, because also while reading the words, I immediately remembered a part of my life growing up that connected to bread. No, it isn’t the homemade rolls made by one grandmother or the biscuits created by the other; it is a memory of the Manor Bread Man.

The Manor Company had a fleet of trucks that did home deliveries in little towns, saving trips to the grocery store. Just as the milkman comes to our house today, he came twice a week to deliver fresh loaves of bread, breakfast pastries, and an extra treat of conversation. Remember this was the time in the 1950’s after World War II that held the difficult shortages and food rationing. We do not look upon white sliced bread as anything good nutritionally today, but then it was a time that women began to want to do things more easily. Some were beginning to give up rising early (no pun intended) to bake bread, plus other time savers were appearing like wringer washers and electric ranges.

When our bread man appeared, he brought the regular order, and stepped into the house with a giant tray of goodies: brown ‘n serve rolls, Danish pastries, tiny powdered donuts and more. He and my grandmother had a friendly chat, and I was given permission to choose something special. I suspect we gained absolutely no value for our bodies from these gluten-filled baked goods, but a visit from a deliveryman on a sunny morning surely sustained the lonely housewives’ souls.

This decade after the war was a transitional era for women with new time on their hands when husbands went off to work. The fifties hold more important ideas to ponder when thinking about housewives, but this time, I’m just remembering the bread man as an exciting visitor at my grandparents’ home when I was a little girl.

photo credit: Big Grey Mare ~ Back--But Barely via photopin cc

Postscript: The first round words in Ed DeCaria's Madness! 2012 (Kids' Poetry. Under Pressure.) have been sent out and 64 Poets are busily writing poems. It's very exciting!

Slice Thirteen - A Good Number For This Craziness

2012-03-12T22:04:00.002-06:00

The SOLSC Challenge is at the Two Writing Teachers blog hosted by Ruth and Stacey - Lots of Great Words To Read!

During the next three weeks, a crazy guy named Ed DeCaria at ThinkKidThink is hosting a bracket of 64 poets to stand up to the test of writing a children's poem with a word given at random, and competing in a bracket (a la the March madness basketball tournament). He may be a basketball fan, but is possibly even more of a poetry fan. Crazy me, I joined the group, and if there really is safety in numbers, there are sixty-three others whose names are also on that bracket. Want to know more? Click on the blog's link. Those in the first round received their word last night, but I won't receive my word until tonight. Thanks to everyone who is slicing for through your words I'm learning to be a better writer every day. I need all the help I can get!

Here is my reflection of this in poetic terms:

I have anxiety attacks
when contemplating
competition.
(What if they are so much better?)
I want my performance
to be
the
very
best.
(But when the phrases bend left,
and the rhymes feel stretched)
I wonder how others
will perceive words
I have written?
(Will there really be a gold star?)

Then,
I tell myself:
Settle down,
relax,
(Take deep breaths, or is it deep kneebends?)
Write only for
improvement.
The formal slip states:
It is permitted
to be less
than perfect.

I earn
a large pat
on the back.
(Better than disquiet,
better than worry.)

I have grown a little more.

Reading Monday - Slice of Life 12

2012-03-11T22:03:00.000-06:00

Reading Wrap-Up is my twelth slice with Stacey and Ruth at the Two Writing Teachers March SOLC

You can hook up with this kitlit meme: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA at teach mentor texts, thanks to Jen and Kellee! Please visit to find out what others are reading!

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is another meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys, a variety of reviews to find even more books for your TBR list.

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I had the pleasure of filling in for the librarians last week while they taught a class in the tech lab. While I say pleasure, it’s also a challenge for me to be in our school library. Once I start browsing, it’s all over; the books pile up to read! At least it didn’t cost me any money.

In between helping students I managed to read some terrific picture books:

A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka – This year’s Caldecott winner. – A wordless picture book that would be good with students to help them find the details that help ‘tell’ the story. It’s a cute story.

A Day’s Work – by Eve Bunting – illustrated by Ronald Himler – Any Eve Bunting is good. This is a sweet story about a boy who helps his grandfather to find day labor work. He makes a mistake that would be a good discussion by readers about honesty and consequences.

The Greatest Skating Race – by Louise Borden – illustrated by Niki Daly – Based on an adventure with two children having to help a friend escape the Nazis by skating the canals of The Netherlands to another country. The illustrations are beautiful; the story is inspiring.

I recently bought Hans The Hedgehog – by Kate Coombs – illustrated by John Nickle because I read her wonderful blog, The Book Aunt – I can imagine reading this aloud to enjoy with young children as well as to use as an example for students writing their own fairy tales. It has all the lovely parts: love and faith, honesty and integrity, and the happiest of endings. Kate talks about her newest book that is on my TBR list, Water Sings Blue, on the link above.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio – I think I slowed down my reading of this book because I read it, and sometimes re-read pages, thought much about it, and savored it. So many have written about it that I won’t say more than it is a wonder-filled read that touched my heart for so many children (and adults) that face physical challenges. I thought of those I know personally and the soldiers coming home from our long fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you want to read a longer and beautiful review, read Tara's post yesterday at A Teaching Life. I believe the book can make a difference in how one looks at others, making a beautiful conversation with a group.

I finished The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne for the book group I’m teaching. We’ll have our final book group meeting next week.

Next: I’m sticking to one book: Same Sun Here, by Silas House and Neela Vaswani. It’s starting well and so far is interesting to read a book written in letters. I haven't read many pages yet because I'm reading so many blog posts in the Slice of Life Challenge.

Finally, I am stealing a quote from a book reviewed on a Nerdy Book Club post I read recently. The quote is from a paranormal book titled Shatter Me, by Tahereh Mafi: “I spent my life folded between the pages of books." I haven’t read the book yet, but isn’t that quote terrific?

Happy Reading!

Slice of Life Number Eleven - My OLW - Looking for the Ordinary

2012-03-10T22:26:00.000-07:00

The SOLSC Challenge is at the Two Writing Teachers blog hosted by Ruth and Stacey - Come read!

Last Thursday, Ruth Ayres wrote this post on her blog, Ruth Ayres Writes-Discover Play Build, about the power of the ordinary, writing about mundane topics that shine in one’s life as important. It’s a wonderful post about those little things that often go unnoticed.

My One Little Word this year is comfort. I have written about it a couple of times, how I chose it and poems that comfort me in my life. Today I have tried to find those tiny things that give comfort in the most unassuming ways. They are there and we take them into our lives gladly, but mostly without noticing. As a writer, I am now giving power to them, as Ruth writes, power to the ordinary.

These things add to my comfort:

a new bar of soap
the newspaper on the driveway
a dishwasher I don’t have to unload
a message on Facebook from a former student
the smell of shampoo
more than one coupon in the newspaper I can use
a chickadee’s call
pictures on my frig
a new quote I like
my flannel sheets
a pink lady apple
a visit from a neighbor
a basketball game when my team wins
a full gas tank
finding a bird's feather on a walk
a glass of iced tea

I’ll keep watching for more! What little things make your life more livable?

We've Made It To Slice Number Ten - Be Proud!

2012-03-09T22:16:00.000-07:00

The SOLSC Challenge is at the Two Writing Teachers blog hosted by Ruth and Stacey - This is the tenth day and if you've made it this far, you're beginning to create a great habit--writing every day!

I have carried around an old Newsweek essay that I've shared both with colleagues and students. I thought you'd enjoy the thoughts that this writer shares about appreciation. You can find it here.

Auggie, from that marvelous new book Wonder, by R.J. Palacio says: “I think there should be a rule that everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their lives.”

This is my standing ovation for all the slicers in this challenge. Happy Saturday and Happy Writing! Thank you for all my support too!

photo credit: Anirudh Koul via photopin cc

Poetry Friday Plus Two Writing Teachers Challenge #9 Means Writing!

2012-03-08T20:23:00.001-07:00

The March Slice of Life Challenge at the Two Writing Teachers blog - Thanks Stacey and Ruth. Poetry Friday is hosted today by Myra, Fats and Iphigene at the Gathering Books blog. That means wonderful things to read everywhere!

I posted a poem about saying goodbye last Tuesday, The Lonesome Swing, and in that introduction I mentioned a personal project I’m working on about different ways of looking at children (mine, others, and grandchildren, too) growing up. I’ve trying to write a series of poems at different stages in a life, essentially saying goodbye each time. The poems so far are rather nostalgic; I hope to put them together in a book with pictures of my grandchildren (10 ½, almost 3, 7 months) at the particular stage I am describing in the poem. Part of this comes from my talks with my own children, watching my daughter be pregnant last year, the children growing and changing so fast. Another part is that I love telling stories through poetry, and I love poems of goodbye, so I thought this would be a good way to combine both passions. Someday I hope to put it all together in a book for my grandchildren. As we often say, it’s nice to have a goal and an audience to write for.

Real feedback is welcome. I appreciate it. Here is the first one:

(1)

I’ve lived with you now

nine months-

heaven time.

I know you rolling,

kicking and shoving,

not always gently

but reminding:

“I’m here, I’m here.”

Even asleep

I feel the weight of you,

the song of your whisper,

humming “Here, here.”

Now it’s time

to seek you,

meet you,

greet you.

I’m not at all ready

to say goodbye to

you and me,

to have it be

you

and

me.

Paying Homage to Read Aloud Day - Slice No. Eight

2012-03-07T22:21:00.000-07:00

The March Slice of Life Challenge at the Two Writing Teachers blog - Thanks Stacey and Ruth, for giving us this challenge.

Yesterday was World Read Aloud Day. Mary Lee Hahn wrote a beautiful post on her blog, A Year of Reading, of why classroom teachers read aloud to their students. I won’t try to say it again; her reasons are beautiful and persuasive. However, I do have a brief story of a read aloud that turned into something so important in my classroom future.

One motivation I had when I chose the books to read aloud was to find a book that fits the class needs. One year students in my class didn’t seem to be meshing very well into a community, and they were not supportive in ways that I thought important. They didn’t show much sympathy for others, and needed help in walking around in other classmates’ shoes. I chose to read the book My Left Foot by Christy Brown. As we talked about his life, both the teasing he endured and the love he was given by family and some of his siblings’ friends, I was able to bring the stories into our own personal lives, to include the challenges others we knew faced every day. The book brought us to realizations that people are able to face huge obstacles and bring joy into their lives despite those obstacles. It was a book that changed the classroom feel, and I am convinced that reading the book together helped me guide the class community into a better understanding of others, and of themselves.

For those of you who don’t know, I teach in an independent school and taught middle school aged children for many years. I am now the literacy coach for my school. When I taught I always had students for two years, sometimes three, before they left for high school. The summer after I read My Left Foot, one of my students had a terrible accident and lost an arm. Of course, I couldn’t have known this was going to happen, but the fact that the year previous this student had participated in all the discussions and had heard the book read with his returning classmates made all the difference in welcoming him back with the incredible challenges he was facing. Was it serendipity? Was there some higher power helping me choose this book? I don’t know, but I do know that this and other books have helped me be a better teacher for my students. This is just one example. I imagine you who are teaching have one, too.

Slice Number Seven - Loving Clouds

2012-03-06T22:40:00.000-07:00

The March Slice of Life Challenge with Stacey and Ruth, such a pleasure at

their blog, the Two Writing Teachers. Come join us!

In Colorado, we have sunny days and blue skies 300 days a year. When there is a cloudy day, we are not pleased. We whine, complain, cry, grumble, moan, gripe and sometimes wail.

We ask when it will all disappear. We say things like, “What has happened to the weather?” or “Can you believe it’s been cloudy this morning?” We wonder: “Do you think the clouds will last long?” We look out and say things like, “Come on Mr. Sun” make your usual appearance!” and “Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, please Mr. Sun, please shine down on me.”

So, although I count myself as a Coloradoan, (I’ve lived here most of my adult life) I want to admit that I love clouds. I love the names of them and the look of them. How can one not adore these beautiful words: cumulus, stratus, cirrus and nimbus? I think we should have more of them. How else can we teach our children how to find pictures in clouds if there are none?

A couple of days ago my husband and I were returning home. What I saw ahead as I drove appeared to be the last of the mountain front that had offered clouds and a few flurries early that morning. By afternoon the front had dissipated and had become an enormous cloud, consolidated and beautiful. I took the photo from the front of my house.

Weather Prediction for today: Cloudy with Flurries!!

Slice Number Six - The Lonesome Swing

2012-03-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

The March Slice of Life Challenge with Stacey and Ruth
Can Be Found at their blog, the Two Writing Teachers.

Come read and enjoy some creative writing by many many terrific bloggers.

Sometimes working with memories can bring feelings of nostalgia. I don't always like looking at old scrapbooks because it makes me sad. It doesn't always happen, and there are other times I do like looking, but I try to be a mindful person and I dwell in the present most of the time, or plan for the future.
Dictionary.com defines nostalgia as a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a formertime in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends.
I have many fond memories. I've been writing some parts of my time with one set of grandparents, and some different ways of looking at my children growing up. I enjoy the way I'm writing to remember happy moments in my life, different people, places and events. I wrote this poem as a part of my remembering, just a little look at the past.

The Lonesome Swing

The lonesome swing
Ring around the rosy
Becomes a distant memory
Pocket full of posy
The years flip by
Ashes, Ashes
Time to say good-bye
We all fall down
I alone pause

photo credit: 27147 via photopin cc

Monday Reading is also my Slice # 5

2012-03-04T22:12:00.003-07:00

Thanks to Jen and Kellee, you can hook up with this kitlit meme: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA at teach mentor texts! Please visit to discover terrific books others are reading!

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is another meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys, a variety of reviews to find even more books for your TBR list.

And-it's my fifth Slice of Life challenge at the Two Writing Teachers, Stacey and Ruth's, blog. Amazing to read so many slices from everyone. This is becoming part of my reading for every day, too! Thanks to everyone for their clever and beautiful writing.

My week has really been a totally disorganized and discombobulated week full of reading bits and pieces. Have you ever had that kind of week when there is so much to do, especially read, and little time for it?

This is how I’ve read:

Still choosing short stories for the immigrant short story group. If you’d like a list of what I've chosen, I’d be happy to share.

I was asked to find a few picture books for talking about family things, and as I was browsing in our picture book reading room, I found books by Peter Reynolds: Ish, Someday, and The North Star, all of which are about the uniqueness and blessings of our lives, and the need to follow our dreams. I found this out because, silly me, I sat down and read them. I didn’t really have time to read them, but still, they were there and looked so good. They were.

I have read a few chapters each night from The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne for a book group, a lot to take in amidst the whirl, and the need to support this particular group well as we read and talk

I re-read a number of Dr. Seuss books because I was wandering (in my mind) around trying to figure out what to write for Poetry Friday and Dr. Seuss’ birthday. I shared about this book of Seuss’ early life in my post last Friday: The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough, edited by Richard Marschall.

These aren't the books I'm writing about, just some of my TBR list, or, like Miss Malone, the ones I need to take to school for students because I have read it. It shows a bit of why I think I have so much to read. There are more out of sight!

I just received Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrations by Jon Klassen. I am now in love with this book like everyone else. It reminds me of that proverb, Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. I imagine it would provide much 'yarn' for conversation in the classroom.

Because I'm reading The Boy In The Striped Pajamas with a group, I thought it would be nice to give them a positive story along with it. Most of them have also read The Book Thief, and we don't have much time. I found a good picture book titled The Yellow Star, The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark, by Carmen Agra Deedy and illustrated by Henri Sorensen about the story of the Danish king and what he did to oppose the Nazis.

I’ve read so many blog posts that my brain is swirling with too much information, and no one’s is difficult to read. But, so far, it’s been great to see and read all the slices and “wonder” what will happen next!

And finally, I’m still reading Wonder by R.J. Palacio. I know many have said they couldn’t stop, and I feel that way, too, but there has just been too much to do. It’s a marvelous book, and I’ll finish it soon. I’ve read many heartfelt reviews of it, most recently by Kevin at his blog, Kevin’s Meandering Mind two days ago.

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Next – finish Wonder and The Boy In The Striped Pajamas. Perhaps begin Same Sun Here so I can follow along with Jen and Colby Sharp's conversation about it at Jen and Kellee’s Teach Mentor Texts blog and Colby's blog, SharpRead.

Happy Reading this week everyone!

Slice Number Four - Memories Greet Me Every Morning

2012-03-03T23:23:00.001-07:00

I'm a part of the March Slice of Life Challenge with Ruth and Stacey at the Two Writing Teachers Blog, and almost 200 other incredible writers! WOW!

Sometime in the near future, I know that my husband and I will need to move for various reasons: to be nearer my daughter and her family, my work, and places in the city that we like to visit (museums, etc.). It will make parts of our life easier. And my connection in this post with moving is that I'm beginning to choose what I'll want to keep, and what I will leave behind, so I've begin really looking at what is in my house. But this story isn’t about moving, this post is about stories written on certain items in my house, the things I believe I must take. I imagine that you own such items too.

Because it’s Sunday, a slow-coffee morning for us, I thought I’d share some different cups that live in my kitchen cabinet. Each one, when chosen, makes me remember certain people and places with them.

Here's where these memories live.

A cup I kept from my mother's cabinet. Whenever I visited her, I would choose this cup. In the final months of her time in her home, she began giving things away, and she gave me this, knowing that it was special to me.

One year, my students created a coffee table top mosaic for our school's auction. I bought old china from thrift stores so that student could break it up and use the best pieces to make the picture they had designed. This cup was never chosen, so I took it home to remember that fun time we had breaking dishes, messing with plaster, and creating a masterpiece.

I took long trips with students every year I had a classroom (middle-school aged). We traveled to Washington state and DC, to Mexico and Costa Rica, on sailing trips in both the Pacific and the Atlantic. One of the last trips was to New York City. I bought this cup as a souvenir of that exciting time.

A student's parent brought me this cup from Starbucks one day, filled with cafe mocha. Once a week she dropped in with more to fill the cup, and to chat about education.

This is a cup I had made via Snapfish for my husband for an anniversary gift not too long ago, as you can see from the grandchildren's pics on it. The words around the cup are our song, the one that goes "Oh we ain't got a barrel of money, maybe we're ragged and funny, but we'll travel along, singing our song, side by side!"

This is a cup from a dear aunt, who was like a second mother to me. She often mailed little gifts to say hello, and this is one of them.

This is from a student recently who knows how much I love to read. It came with a dry erase pen so I could keep a list of my TBR's

This is a cup from my children's childhood. Both of them loved it, and now the grandchildren use it, passing it on so that the younger ones can enjoy it, too. It says: "Who lives in this cup?"

And here is who lives in the cup.

My mother loved coffee and every year we gave her a cup. This is an early Starbucks Christmas cup that we found for her, and when she died, we got it back. So this, like the first one, says mother to me and I remember coffee with her and talk and lots of laughter.

So every morning when I open the cabinet to choose a cup, I imagine all these people and events shouting out at me from the past.

A Gift of Words

2012-03-02T22:39:00.002-07:00

Slice # 3 - SOLSC - with Stacy and Ruth at the Two Writing Teachers blog. Join us!!

Thanks to all for the comments. It's such a supportive thing to hear what others think.

As a teacher, one mostly lives in the present and the future. Life fills up with so many tasks, it's difficult to look back to former students and wonder what they're doing. I am friends on Facebook with some, most of them grown by now, but there are a few students I think of now and then and wonder how they're doing, if they're happy with their choices of high school, friends, classes, etc. Some of these students I had for three years; we became very close. When I wrote about Expo at our school a few weeks ago I was looking forward to seeing some alums who return to visit. If you read my post you know I visited everyone's display and took many photos. I stayed as long as possible, but had to leave early for personal reasons. I missed seeing any of the alumni who came to visit.

I was sad, but sometimes circumstances change what can happen, and I had to give up the evening. Expo was a success and that was important too and I had been able to congratulate so many students and their teachers for all the accomplishments.
When I returned to school the next time, I had some wonderful compensation. Several notes from my former students sat on my desk saying how sad they were not to find me there. One, a senior now, wrote with such maturity I could see that he had grown up and was getting ready for his next step, college. Although I didn't get to see him in person, like here in the slices, I 'heard' who he was in his note. He ended his long note about what he was doing and his future plans like this: I would be lying if I said I did not miss being in your class. I regret not coming back more and above all else, I miss your advice: your willingness to take time and hear what a student is saying is lacking in some of my classes. Thank you for everything, Linda. No one could have prepared me better.
Again, I am sad that I missed the visit, but the gift given meant so much too. I am grateful.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss-a poem, a book, poetry Friday, and SOLSC-Whew!

2012-03-01T22:35:00.001-07:00

For all things poetic, visit Dori at Dori Reads! It’s Poetry Friday!

I’m Writing also for The Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC) at the Two Writing Teachers blog!

Could there be anything more clichéd

or old hat, simply out-of-date made

than to celebrate wildly

and settle in mildly

while reading about Seuss escapades?

I grabbed all the books I could find

to keep moving along with this rhyme

I found several missives

that kept me in stitches

And figured out Seuss blessed us in kind.

These first words of Seuss’s creation,

early laughs - stories of our nation

found zany, early words,

showing always absurd

his beginning imagination.

Happy Birthday dearest Dr. Seuss,

May Lorax and Grinch be ever loose,

Mr. Brown, and Horton too,

They are why we savor you

Thank you for all you produced!

Linda

photo credit: garlandcannon via photopin cc

Last week, I started thinking about celebrating one of our beloved children’s poets on his birthday. Although I know there is nothing wrong with acknowledging great appreciation for all the words he’s written, all the drawings he’s made, and all the causes he’s touched, I wished to find some new things to say about him.

I combed our library and found that out of many, all of his books were checked out but one. This is a collection of Theodore Geisel's early works, titled The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough: Early Writings and Cartoons. Before his fame as a children’s writer, Ted Geisel was a writer and illustrator for humor magazines. In this book is a collection of some of his funniest cartoons about all sorts of silly subjects, and his words are sometimes nonsensical but hilarious.

In the 1920’s, a behaviorally outrageous time before the crash, many humor magazines in

colleges were popular, and according to the introduction of this book, many wanted to mimic the Harvard Lampoon. One weekly was titled the Judge, and there were other magazines like the Cornell Widow, the Michigan Gargoyle, and the Princeton Tiger.

Also, there was the Dartmouth Jack O’ Lantern and a student named Theodore Seuss Geisel who created cartoons for his college paper but that soon spread across the nation. According to the book’s introduction by a Richard Marschall, titled “Just What The Doctor Disordered”, Geisel took his mother’s maiden name, added the designation as Doctor, and began to delight many with his ‘bizarre character types, outrageous puns, and corny captions.” The mood of the 20’s was irreverent and a rising star named Corey Ford, of the Jester, called them A Time of Laughter. One example in the book is a drawing of a cellist looking at a pianist. Seuss uses an old joke in his drawing. The caption reads: “Curse you, Mr. Whitmann, once more you are off your Beethoven!” “And again, my dear Gershwitz, you have flown off the Handel.”

Here in this book for adults you can find and enjoy the humor you’ve laughed over with your children for years, and here are the ancestors of all the beautifully strange zoo of animals Geisel created for children, like the Grinch, the Lorax and Horton.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss and thank you for all the gifts you’ve given us.

As all poems are wordy gems, I must share one more little example from the book, although not a poem. One page is titled, Just What Is A Vernacular Anyway? The page claims to show answers to a nationwide survey sent to ask what is meant by the phrase “They were talking in the vernacular.” In one part, a cartoon shows two men in a small plane, looking at one another and obviously conversing. They have leashes that lead to five funny animals on the ground. In part, the caption says that a vernacular is “a sort of a yachting hat worn by the drivers of aerial sled dogs. As only one man can wear one hat at a time, the phrase should be corrected to read, “They talked in two Vernaculars.”

I hope you can find the book and enjoy it as much as I have.

Tabula Rasa

2012-02-29T22:15:00.000-07:00

It's The Beginning of the fifth year of Ruth's and Stacey's The Two Writing Teachers March Slice of Life challenge, and my second year. It's my first anniversary! I am proud of myself, but also proud of all who chose to keep going and keep writing and keep thinking through this year in the group. I'm looking forward to more fun everyone. Thank you Stacey and Ruth for staging this challenge.

When I was in the classroom, in writers workshop and in our unit work, I shared, gave some lessons in poetry, and conferred with those students who wanted to write poetry, but for about 10 specific weeks of the year, I met with a poetry group, those students in my class who wanted to devote more time to poetry, and to write in a supportive group who loved poetry.

The group varied from about 10 to 15 students and it was actually more fun with a smaller group, more time to share and talk about each others’ poems. The structural plan varied little. We met; we each shared a poem by someone else and told why we liked it. Students were to put the poem in their writers notebooks and record a little of why. By the end of the group, students had at least 10 poems they had found they loved, and sometimes were able to see a pattern of their favorites.

Once we began to meet, it was a pleasure to give a brief mini-lesson, usually with a poem I wanted to share, to share their ‘outside’ poems, and then spend most of the time reading the poems we had written. During that period, I modeled how to comment and give support to the authors and sometimes there was a pertinent point I could add about something or other about poetry. Perhaps it was about word placement for emphasis, or enjambment, some poetic device.

One part I loved was that I collected his or her newly written poems the morning of the group meeting and made a poetry packet for everyone for the meeting. It is powerful to see one’s words, to read them, and to have the audience be able not only to listen but also to see the poem. Usually I had the student read twice, and then we commented. Sometimes it was for a line we thought was wonderful, sometimes we were so touched, we sat silent for a minute, and sometimes, it was to suggest movement of a word, or a re-working of a sentence.

Every group member was there to write poetry, enjoy poetry, feel supported as we wrote, and to improve our writing. I did not have a specific agenda for the group but followed their lead in what they liked and where they seemed to be in their writing. Remember I had taught them about half of the year already, and some I had for more than one year. The group was led through choice and each improved by their engagement with many different poems by different authors, both those shared and classmate-written, and with their personal writing. I learned too, and sometimes used a student’s model to write my next poem. Others sometimes tried an idea I had shown.

If you are reading through this, I hope you are connecting my group description to the Two Writing Teachers’ Slice of Life Challenge that begins today. We choose to take the challenge, we write, we take ideas from others and try that kind of writing, we observe styles and, sometimes innately, incorporate them into our style. We support through comments, and at the end, we have experienced exceptionally wonderful examples of good writing from those who are passionate about it.

I loved my poetry groups and miss them very much. Blogging and being part of the Two Writing Teachers slicers and more recently the Poetry Friday group (who overlap some) have been substitute groups I value. More importantly, I hope that you as teachers see the parts of a writing group that are so important in any classroom. One writes, shares, receives support from and gives support to others, and works hard to get better. That’s it. It doesn’t take a written curriculum to do that. It’s all about choice.

Can't Forget This Special Day

2012-02-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

My Leap Day

It takes the earth 365 calendar days

to orbit the sun,

Something termed drifting takes its toll. (I didn’t know we were

drifting; I thought we were barreling through space.)

I think I

am barreling through space,

right here

right now.

They say we cannot feel it because of the earth’s gravity and

other physical stuff like that,

but I feel that movement,

so fast,

so fast the time.

So every year adds up to about six hours

drifting.

After approximately six hours

in our year of drifting,

we synchronize the season with our selves,

and our calendar.

to check that everything is really okay,

so that the sun

can return to the same

exact

spot
in its orbit every year.

If we stop

to contemplate this,

we will see why Leap Day

being added as discretely

as possible,

every

four years,

adds to our pleasure as human beings.

What will you do with this gift of a day?

topsy-turvy weather - nearly always in Colorado

2012-02-27T22:40:00.000-07:00

Come join everyone slicing at the Two Writing Teachers blog with Ruth and Stacey!

Last Friday I wrote about a snowy day and shared poems about snow. This past Saturday we spent the day with our granddaughters and the temperature rose to 60 degrees. We are used to change here in Denver but this was quite a difference. It was a lovely day with the girls and I thought I'd share some photos of our time.
Ingrid will be three in April and is a wonder to be around. When she lies down for her nap it is our custom to read two books of her choosing. She still loves Goodnight Moon and lately Red Light, Green Light also by Margaret Wise Brown. This time the routine was the same: "Which two books today, Ingrid?" "Gramma, can we do three books?" "No, you know what we do, two books." Ingrid replies, "How about two and a half?" Well, we did do that, and a few poems too. It's quite fun to be a Gramma!

According to accuweather.com, "Amarillo, Texas, and Jackson, Tenn., have more snow than Chicago this season. There have been mornings when temperatures in Louisiana and Florida have been colder than Maine at the same time."

Snow-still on the scene!

So we stayed in the yard to swing.

Grandpa held baby Imogene.

Who continues to be serene.

While Ingrid wishes most for spring!

Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"

A Good Week of Reading!

2012-02-26T23:00:00.001-07:00

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is another meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys, a variety of reviews to find even more books for your TBR list.

Also - This Thursday, March 1st begins the monthly Slice of Life challenge at the Two Writing Teachers, Stacey and Ruth's, blog. Check out this post to find out all about it! It's a wonderfully supportive group of writers, a personally rewarding month, and there are prizes too.

I read quite a bit last week, but have just a few to review. Part of my reading included many short stories, from the various anthologies I spoke about in last Monday’s post, so I could choose a few for my short story group.

One pleasure was finally reading Bigger Than A Breadbox by Laurel Snyder. There are several lovely reviews about this book that give their ideas about it, at the blog Literate Lives and at the Children’s Book-A-Day Almanac blog. I enjoyed the voice of this young twelve year old girl trapped in her parents’ turmoil and separated from her home and her best friend by being taken to her grandmother’s house (who thank goodness was a good grandmother) and told she had to deal with it as best she could. It seemed so real to hear her thinking through every part of the book. Snyder painted a realistic early adolescent who at times made such impulsive moves that I found myself wanting to shout, “no, no, not that way” or “don’t do that” and “watch out”. How does the saying go: “we live and learn”. And through the adventures of the book, Rebecca did learn.

One additional thing I loved was that the book surprised me often. Most of the time, even if I like a book, I can predict what an outcome will be, but this time, Laurel Snyder surprised again and again by changing the paths that Rebecca took. These changes in direction created a consistent interest in the book. If used as a read aloud or in a book group, it would invite very interesting conversations.

Well, dear Rebecca did live through the book and she did learn as you see partly here: All of those things were just words. When I tried to think of words that meant anything, they just sounded like words. They didn’t sound like the sights and smells and the memories and the weather and the people and the day after day after day of living in a place. I couldn’t explain home.” Thinking about that, pushing the stroller along, I thought about what it might feel like to be a writer, a poet. To be able to use words the right way, the best way, so people could see what you were saying. The way the poems Mr. Cook read out loud made me see things. I bet it felt cool.

It was terrific that Laurel Snyder seemed to understand so clearly what children feel when parents divorce, or at least move apart for a while. Parents are going through so much themselves that it is difficult for them to see the children’s turmoil too, so Rebecca tries to fix her life in an unusual way, through magic, and a breadbox. And fixing her life is not easy, which she figures out, but eventually there is support there too. It’s a magical and hopeful book.

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Two recent books I purchased at the Colorado Reading Association Convention, both ‘finds’ that I wasn’t familiar with, both stories of the childhoods of two important people in our American history.

Coming Home - from the life of Langston Hughes written and illustrated by Floyd Cooper with words written so poetically about the childhood of Langston Hughes. He is portrayed as a lonely boy living with his Gramma although he sometimes saw his parents. In his spending time alone in town, the author wrote: He would ride his ears around the city. Through Market Street where everyone sang the song of haggle.

Minty – A story of young Harriet Tubman written by Alan Schroeder and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. Araminta was Harriet’s birth name. In the introduction, Schroeder admits he took liberties with the facts in the story, but there is also truth in it, like the time Minty was made to check muskrat traps in a river although she couldn’t swim. Pinkney’s illustrations fill us with the emotional details of young Minty’s courage to defy her master and eventually to run away.

Finally, here are two additional books I would recommend that I read this week:

The Bookshop Dog by written and illustrated Cynthia Rylant, a sweet story that will be adored by anyone who loves to visit a small book store and meet the resident dog.

Kindred Souls by Patricia MacLachlan, her most recent story out just this month. I can't remember ever disliking a book by Patricia MacLachlan and this newest one did not disappoint. For creating the warmest feelings that everything will be okay while addressing difficult life events like death and loneliness and leaving home, MacLachlan writes it well. The books can be for every age, but are there especially for the younger child, for parents and teachers to share beautiful stories while discussing tough challenges. Like all the others by Patricia Maclachlan, don't miss reading this one.

Many loving stories tell about community and people helping people in need. These four books fill hearts full.

What’s Next? I keep saying what I’m going to read and often change my mind for different reasons, but I think I’m headed next for Wonder by R.J. Palacio and still am reading more anthologies looking for stories about immigrants. I have many anthologies from which to choose, just need to read to find what I think fits.

Happy Reading Everyone!

Snowy February Means People Share Snowy Poems

2012-02-23T21:10:00.003-07:00

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jone at Check It Out, so please go over to check all the poems out!

There are a number of connections to this post today for Poetry Friday. February is our second snowiest month in the Denver, Colorado area. March is traditionally the snowiest, so there is more to come! We have had a lot of snow this February, and today, the 23rd, is another snowy day. We’re supposed to have 4-6 inches, not the blizzard of earlier in the month, but still a messy day to drive, although beautiful when viewed out the window. Wednesday, yesterday, was 65 degrees! Our weather continues to be topsy-turvy, and never boring.

At school I seem to be the person with whom poems are shared. Everyone knows how much I love poetry, and recently a friend sent me a snowy poem by a teenager. The day today made me remember it again. It opens with these words:

SNOW

Deep in the night it comes

Covering footprints of summer

Purifying the landscape of the year’s sins

The rest of this snowy poem can be found here.

I love that there are places now online where our students can publish. Teen Ink is one of those sites and it’s been a marvelous pleasure to past students when they had something published outside of regular school, whether online, in a print or online magazine, like Stone Soup, or for a contest. Today, teachers can help even further by setting up classroom blogs or by using Posterous or one of the other online applications for sharing. Writing to an audience, other than the teacher or classmates, has rarely been easier. And knowing one has an audience to write for is empowering to the writer. Even though we tell ourselves we are writing for ourselves, having someone read the words, and respond to them is nice, smile-making, motivating.

A few other snowy poems in which you might find a favorite are by

Billy Collins – Snow Day “Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,”

Claude McKay – The Snow Fairy “Throughout the afternoon I watched them there,/

Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky,

Mary Oliver – Snow Geese “Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last!”

Wallace Stevens – The Snow Man “One must have a mind of winter”

Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Snow Storm – “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,”

I imagine you have a favorite too that I haven’t listed.

Thus, I share a snowy poem from Teen Ink. I especially enjoyed this young poet’s words about life slowing down in order to observe things around us more closely. Before I begin again that yearning toward spring, I think I will stop and enjoy the beauty of this snowy day.

Expo Has Come and Gone - Here's A Taste

2012-02-21T06:43:00.001-07:00

Slices of Life on Tuesdays Are Hosted by Stacey and Ruth

at the Two Writing Teachers Blog

My school’s Expo was held last Thursday. Excitement permeated the school in interesting ways in the days before. It’s always interesting to me that while the getting ready for the crowds holds challenges for everyone; the days before the event are calm, with students so focused on finishing their displays that it is eerily quiet in the school. As I explained in a post a few weeks ago, each student studies an individual topic around which the curriculum is written. Expo is a day and evening of celebration of the learning thus far for the year, with displays of products completed by each student.

The ways in which my school works is a difficult thing to explain in a few sentences, but in my many years’ experience here I believe much of the approach to learning has to do with questions. I thought I would share the beginnings of the school year with students and what I’ve asked them to do with me as their teacher. Each teacher might do this in a slightly different way, but the basics are the same, all having to do with questions, the answers discovered by both the student and the teacher: What are possible topics of interest? Why? What would you like to increase your skill in? What are your strengths? What might be challenges for you in these strengths? Where are your areas of weaknesses? What might be some ways you can improve these?

I realize that these are sophisticated questions for very young students, yet their teachers follow similar paths to discovery. They are the questions I asked my middle school students, who answered them through beginning research of their unit topic choices, through several conferences with me, and often through talks with their parents. No matter what the age, they are their ‘wonderings’ about something. I have been lately interested in reading about teachers who are exploring the site Wonderopolis because the site mirrors the goal of my school for its students, to find topics to wonder about and to pursue deeper learning within that topic.

After deciding on the topic, and answering some of the questions, a unit of expectations is written by the teacher for each student with input from the student. Weekly assignments are derived from that unit as the student’s weekly goal. The intent of the questions remains the same, but the ways they are asked depend on class levels and with each child. Teachers assess constantly by observing what a student is communicating through the work and through conferring often. A path may start one way and then veer another depending on new information learned and the needs and interests of the student. It is complex, but encompasses all that is being discussed as inquiry and/or project based learning. Students are motivated when they have choice, and Expo is a celebration of the results of their learning choices.

I’ve included a slide show of examples of displays from all the classrooms. Some of the photos show students in process of completing the work and some few show visitors. I didn’t include the crowded evening with parents, grandparents, neighbors, but at that time, the classrooms and halls are filled with those interested in visiting as many displays as possible and learning about the topics themselves.

I visited all day Thursday, asking questions as the students played host to their displays, and taking pictures of representations of the work. It was hard to choose what to show. Over 250 topics have been researched. My mind was swirling as I ended the day, full of questions of my own about certain topics. It is a satisfying celebration of work well done.

Next, students will continue on their journeys with the same topics or will choose another topic of inquiry for the remainder of the year. Lifelong learning is a continuing journey we want all our students to enjoy. Please take a look at some of the photos. There are many, but I wanted to include some from all the ages, five through fourteen.

Slide Show - Expo

Reviews for Monday - Reading Wrap-Up

2012-02-20T06:02:00.001-07:00

You can hook up with this kitlit meme: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA at teach mentor texts, thanks to Jen and Kellee! Please visit to find out what others are reading!

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is another meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys, a variety of reviews to find even more books for your TBR list.

There are some wonderful reviews already written about the book I read this week. You can find two here and here. Sometimes I think books that are reviewed as wonderful are challenging to get into. This was one for me that started slow, and turned out, well, wonderful, just as everyone said.

I read The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis this week, and found that this young woman, Deza, grew more beautiful as a wonderfully strong character as I read page after page. She did what she had to do to survive some very hard times in the Great Depression. After hearing the terrible news about her father missing from a fishing trip on Lake Michigan, Deza shares her feelings: And as I sat on the couch wrapped in Mother’s arms, I felt big hunks falling off of me and thumping to the ground. This must be how a tree feels in autumn when it watches the leaves that have been covering it all summer start to be blown away.

It must feel this hopeless and lonely.

Curtis’ writing is filled with metaphors like the one above that show feelings so real I can imagine the young readers he writes for relating to the feelings even if their life’s challenges are different.

Deza’s next words show her strength, that she must not give up. She thinks: I knew I really had to reach out and pick up the fallen pieces and pull them back. This young woman keeps this strong core through all the book and as she matures, she manages to do some amazing things that support her mother, too. Later in the book she says: I’d learned not to cry or even get angry when all sorts of calamity befell us. I’d learned not to take it personal when people barked at Mother and Jimmie and me about walking across their property. I knew how to swallow the sadness that washed over me when Father used to come home and we could tell by the way he worried the brim of his hat when he asked how we were doing that there’d been no work. I thought I could control it all.

And then this man called Jimmie “sir” and all my hardness melted away.

I believe this is why everyone’s hardness melts away as they read about this character who is called “My Darling Daughter Deza” by her father. Toward the end of the book, she again shows she is a survivor. Hoping is such hard work. It tires you out and you never seem to get any kind of reward. Hoping feels like you’re a balloon that has a pinhole that slowly leaks air. But she doesn’t quit, she doesn’t give up, and although hoping is hard, she does keep hoping.

How can one not like this young woman who has overcome hardships we only imagine? Not me, all the previous reviews are right; it is a terrific book.

As I wrote last week, I am preparing for a short story reading group that will examine short stories and those that speak to the immigration experiences in California today. I haven’t read all of the following books, but they are full of good stories, some essays, and poems that are specific to my group. Here is the bibliography:

Neighborhood Odes by Gary Soto

A Fire In My Hands a book of poems by Gary Soto

Living Up The Street short stories by Gary Soto

Leaving Home stories collected by Hazel Rochman and Darlene Z. McCampbell

First Crossing-stories about teen immigrants edited by Donald R. Gallo

Border Crossings - Emigration and Exile Icarus World Issues Series
American Street, A multicultural Anthology of Stories - edited by Anne Mazer

The first story we will read together is the title story “First Crossing” by Pam Munoz Ryan. It is about a young Mexican boy whose rite of passage is to steal across the border to begin working with his father so they both can send money back home. Men do this and return home about every six months just to see family. It’s both a scary and a sad story about sacrifice and courage for loved ones. The introduction of this anthology states more than 70 different languages are spoken in the public schools of Sacramento, California.

What’s Next: Mostly stories from above and The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne for another book group coming up. I brought home A Step From Heaven by An Na (about immigrant’s experience) and Bigger Than A Breadbox by Laurel Snyder (which I still haven’t read).

A Poem of Loss

2012-02-16T21:59:00.001-07:00

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Myra, Fats and Iphigene at Gathering Books.

Elizabeth Bishop was a respected, but an obscure poet until after her death in 1979. According to The Poetry Foundation “her reputation has grown to the point that many critics, like Larry Rohter in the New York Times, have referred to her as ‘one of the most important American poets’ of the twentieth century. Bishop was a perfectionist who did not write prolifically, preferring instead to spend long periods of time polishing her work. She published only 101 poems during her lifetime.” Yet in that lifetime, she won the Pulitzer Prize for North And South, and the National Book Award for The Complete Poems. This site also states “her reputation increased greatly in the years just prior to her death, particularly after the 1976 publication of Geography III and her winning of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.”

Although some sites I read seemed to believe this poem by Elizabeth Bishop is about divorce or separation, when reading it, I believe the loss could be different things that happen in one’s life. Bishop appears to believe that this grief of loss takes practice, and perhaps then one might accept it. Like all poems, it speaks to each reader personally.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

and you can read the rest here at Poets.org, as well as find other poems by Elizabeth Bishop.

photo credit: jmtimages via photopin cc

Weeding The Gardens of Our Memoirs

2012-02-13T22:20:00.001-07:00

Tuesday Slices of Life are enjoyed with Ruth and Stacey at the Two Writing Teachers Blog.

Last week, in my final, I’m sad to say, memoir class, we discussed finishing up the pieces. We’d already done some revision and they were ready to say ‘done’, but I wanted one more conversation about narrowing down to exactly the words they wished to say to their audiences.

Valentine’s Day is today and to me that means flowers and spring are on the way. Despite the fact that there is much snow on the ground at my house, and icicles are hanging from the eaves, I am receiving a few seed catalogs online (I’ve gone paperless!) and beginning to imagine my flower beds.

How does this connect to the above revision lesson? Well, I thought of the flower beds and weeds, and how flowers look so much better without weeds crowding them. I must tell you that this is not an original idea. I wish I could give credit to where I have read about it in my reading, but I’ve used it with success several times in the past years, so know it’s been a while since I first saw the idea.

I talked to my students about words that crowd the important messages they wished to communicate in a memoir. As we cut out the weeds to make room for the flowers, we remove the words that are unnecessary. However, sometimes we like the weeds that grow, and although they fill in spaces that seem bare, weeds choke the flowers eventually. Just as we sometimes fill in spaces with wordy sentences, as writers we need to find the unnecessary and delete them. We made a short list of words that might be considered “weeds”. They are words like “very” and “most”, that only weaken the word (just as weeds weaken flowers), and we also determined that the writer personally must choose longer phrases that don’t fit.

I hope the lesson was helpful to the students. I have them just for a short time since I am teaching the group as a part of three different writing experiences their teacher wanted them to have. They will return to their homeroom classroom and write other things, hopefully remembering the weeds in their gardens.

-------------------------------------------

Finally, last week, for Poetry Friday I shared several antique Valentines I have from my mother-in-law, who was one of those teachers who, after leaving high school, taught in a one-room schoolhouse in the 1920’s. She rose well before sunup, saddled a horse, and left for the country building where her first duty was to start the fire. I love these special Valentines, quite different from the ones we see today, and wanted to share one with all of you too as my Valentine wish.

Oh let’s make life

a jolly lark

A picnic if you

please.

And it will be just

this for me

If words you say

are these:

I Love You!

Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone!

Reading Jill Paton Walsh-A Chance Child

2012-02-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

This is an award-winning challenge hosted by the Gathering Books blog,

You can hook up with this kitlit meme: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA at teach mentor texts, thanks to Jen and Kellee! Visit to find still more books for your TBR list!

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys, a variety of reviews to find even more books that you can't live without.
---------------------------------------------

I love Jill Paton Walsh’s book, The Green Book, and have put it into the hands of many students, but most of the time recommend it for a terrific read aloud to middle grade readers. It is a good opening to post-Apocalyptic literature, and gives a surprising, satisfying and hopeful end.

So, when looking for an award-winning book for the challenge hosted by the Gathering Books blog, I was happy to see another book by Walsh. It is A Chance Child by Jill Paton Walsh, which won the Phoenix Award in 1998. According to the Children's Literature Association site, this award is given by them, an organization of teachers, scholars, librarians, editors, writers, illustrators, and parents interested in encouraging the serious study of children's literature, created for a book originally published in the English language, and intended to recognize books of high literary merit. The Phoenix Award is named after the fabled bird that rose from its ashes with renewed life and beauty. Phoenix books also rise from the ashes of neglect and obscurity and once again touch the imaginations and enrich the lives of those who read them.

In A Chance Child, the main character’s name is Creep, whose abusive mother names him that and we also find she keeps him in a cupboard most of the time. The opening scene is a dump, from where he takes off along a canal in an abandoned boat. An older brother Chris, who keeps Creep alive by sneaking leftovers to the cupboard, searches frantically when he finds him missing. Although the main story concerns child labor of the 1800’s, there is a link to today’s time in that this family treats their children poorly as well. Walsh seems to want us to see the connection that children are at risk no matter what time they live in.

The book alternates between the stories of Creep in his boat, and Chris on his search, and we find Creep has somehow slipped back into the 19th century, where he meets two runaways. The reader is thrust into the cruel world of child labor. Walsh describes the lives of young children during this Victorian time who work twelve hour plus days in terrible circumstances, while the older brother Chris eventually seeks and finds information about his brother in old historical documents at a library. It’s a complicated and heartbreaking story, made all the more troubling knowing that Walsh has done her homework so well in the research of labor conditions of that time. There is some satisfaction in the ending, however, but sharing that will be telling too much!

Here is one scene from one of the work experiences of the children, many of them pre-teen: One day working at the pot bank was much like another. The first comers to work, very early in the morning, were the little children. They came before the light to kindle the fires in the drying room. There was coal ready, piled damp and cold on the wharf by the riverbank, for the master saw to that. As to dry sticks and ready sparks, that he did not trouble over, but the boys must find those for themselves. So they crept in and out of the hovels, where the furnace mouths blazed red, spaced all around the bottom of the great firing kilns, and the firemen kept watch, ready to chase and beat any child they saw taking out a shovelful of fire; and yet till someone succeeded no new fires could be lit at all, and a beating from the mold workers when they arrived loomed nearer, and stiffened the courage of small creatures risking a beating from the firemen now.

This book is slim, but an extraordinarily well put together time fantasy. I was reminded of the atmosphere of David Almond’s book Skellig as I read. The descriptions of the landscape, the terrible work conditions and the characters are beautifully drawn.

Wikipedia has a good article about Lewis Hine, whose photos aided the end to child labor and the formation of the National Child Labor Committee, which is a non-profit organization in the United States that serves as a leading advocate for child labor reform. Although the book concerns children in Great Britain, similar conditions were happening in the United States also.

Picture Books this week:

I Am Different! Can You Find Me? by Manjula Padmanabhan I just read a review of this from Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading and the next day walked downstairs to a colleague’s primary classroom to tell her about the book (we exchange good finds), and she had just checked out the book from the library. It is a book that can easily cross ages from kindergarten up to encourage good discussions about differences and varied opinions as to what is ‘different’. Please read Mary Lee’s review.

When I was talking with my colleague, she also shared The Wishing Tree by Roseanne Rosethong, another good picture book about wishing and learning that wishes might turn out to be granted in different ways than expected. It’s a good story to encourage conversation about the meaning of cultural traditions and the fact that things are not always what they seem.

What's next: I didn’t finish The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis, but love it so far. After that I will need to prepare for two book groups I’m starting in a couple of weeks. One is reading The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne and another will examine short stories about immigrants in California, background reading by middle school students who will be traveling to California in April. I will be scanning anthologies by different authors looking for about eight or nine stories. If you have a favorite already, I’d love to hear about it.

photo credit: Dystopos via photopin cc

photo credit: John McNab via photopin cc

The Fifth Year of Two Writing Teachers' March Slice of Life Challenge

2012-02-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

It is the fifth year of the March Slice of Life Challenge with Ruth and Stacey at their Two Writing Teachers blog. This link speaks about starting a blog if you need one, but the basic challenge is to post every day in March and to support others through your comments. At this post, scroll down to see the comments of others who blog with us. It's such a supportive and wonderful community of bloggers. One learns much about oneself and others by writing. Please take the plunge and join us.

Sweetness for Valentine's Day

2012-02-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

Poetry Friday is hanging out with Laura Salas-Writing The World For Kids

If you love Valentines

and the sweetest of rhymes,

please read these poems today

written in old fashioned ways!

I had a wonderful mother-in-law named Helen. She warmly welcomed me as a new daughter into her family. Through all the years and visits, she and I had fabulous talks about just everything: raising children as well as politics, people’s behavior along with town events, the virtues of hand-mixing batter or use of an electric mixer. I never heard her say a bad word about others, nor did she complain about anything. As they say, she kept a stiff upper lip, even in the most sorrowful times, like when her husband of many years died suddenly of a heart attack soon after he retired. Broken dreams. She was a kind woman who helped out at the church nursery well past seventy and continued to play the piano for church when needed until the last year of her life. I loved her and still miss her. She just made it into the 21st Century, after having lived almost all of the 20th.

My dear mother-in-law Helen was one of those teachers who, after leaving high school, taught in a one-room schoolhouse in the 1920’s. She rose early, saddled a horse, and rode to the country building where her first duty was to start the fire. Like that story told so eloquently by Charles Portis, she had grit. And, as a true woman of her generation, she saved everything! I am the proud recipient of many old-fashioned Valentines given to her (Miss Helen) by her students, probably about 1928. I thought since we will celebrate St. Valentine’s Day next Tuesday, I would share a little sweetness with all of you.

Here are photos of some, and the rhymes found inside are beneath. Many are intricate, lacy, and pop out. A few have been altered like little hearts have been cut out in them, and it’s clear that it was hand done. You may be able to see which are the pop out ones, but photos did not show that very well.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

To my Valentine

Your voice is like a

song bird

The sweetest thing I’ve

ever heard.

May you be always happy, gay,

And joyous, as you are to-day,

Is what my ardent hopes express

For you, my Love,

and nothing less!

The whole world

loves a lover

So they say—I hope

it’s true,

‘Cause then the world’s

in love with me

‘Cause I’m in love

with you.

Dear Teacher,

Don’t overlook

This One

from

You’re my Valentine

‘Cause you’re sweet

as you can be.

I hope my heart will

reach you

And be there right

on time,

It’s just chock-full of

loving thoughts

For you, dear Valentine.

Oh let’s make life

a jolly lark

A picnic if you

please.

And it will be just

this for me

If words you say

are these:

I Love You!

The Valentine I’m sending

Is sealed with kisses two.

Which I trust will reach you safely,

For both are meant for you.

Of all the girls I know

You are the very best.

To me you seem much brighter

Thank any of the rest.

Postman, handle this with care!

I’m sending my heart to a lady fair,

Who is an old sweetheart of mine

And I want her to be: My Valentine.

I think that I shall try a line,

I hope to catch a Valentine,

There’s only one I want, ‘tis true.

Oh! Can’t you guess that one is you?

Comfort - My One Little Word - In the classroom

2012-02-07T05:36:00.001-07:00

Tuesday Slice of Life Is Hosted by Ruth and Stacey at Two Writing Teachers. Check It Out!

Toward the end of October 2011, Ruth Ayres wrote on her own blog, Ruth Ayres Writes-Discover, Play, Build of the importance of noticing the tiny things. One line from Ruth continues to strike me as important in the classroom as it is important in the details of our lives. She writes: This is true in life, teaching, and writing. So I decided to challenge myself to writing small, looking for the tiny in order to make big realizations.

Whenever I am struggling to find a topic on which to write, I return to that post to re-read it. I have copied it to put into my writer’s notebook. This time, like so many other times in my posts, I am making connections. I’m connecting again to Ruth’s ideas, I’m connecting to my One Little Word, Comfort, and I’m connecting to the classroom and teaching. The quote I chose for my first page in my One Little Word book is this: Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things in which smiles, and kindnesses, and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort- Humphrey Davy. I am also connecting to Diana and her blog, One Literacy Coach because she sometimes posts such creative and thoughtful graphics like Wordles or something from Tagxedo in her posts.

These are the little things that support, that bring comfort to those with whom I work because I want to communicate that I care about them, them personally along with them learning. I know that you all have chosen your own personal acts of kindness in order to provide comfort. We all need it; we all need to give it. I think I’m beginning to embrace my One Little Word!

Here is my Tagxedo of the things that give comfort to students in the classroom and now the teachers with whom I work:

Two Books Based on Truth - But About Lies

2012-02-06T06:23:00.001-07:00

I managed to finish two books this week: The Blood Lie by Shirley Reva Vernick and An Elephant In The Garden by Michael Morpurgo (War Horse). They are both fiction stories, but based on truth.

The Blood Lie is an alarming story about a little girl lost, prejudices jumping to conclusions, and will be useful in middle school or higher in discussing how people act out of fear when they encounter differences, and the terrible result of a seed planted with rumors and lies. In this particular story, one person needed to move the searchers out of the woods where people were searching for the girl because he was waiting for an illegal liquor delivery. (It was the time of Prohibition.) So, he told the story that Jewish people made sacrifices of young children in order to use their blood on special holy days. It is based on an event that happened in a community of Massena, New York in 1928, when a young girl disappeared and a Jewish boy was accused of her murder. Five years later Hitler held the reins of power in Germany.

Incidents based on the book’s lie have occurred in Russia as recently as 2008, and even more recently been reported in Canadian and Swedish newspapers. The author further reports that in 2004 alone, there were more than 9,000 reported hate offenses in the U.S., according to the FBI. The book is not exciting, but does raise the tension for the reader to discover what will happen to the boy and his community when such lies are told and believed. It does not extend information like the thoughts of others very much, is quite brief in showing any opposing beliefs by non-Jewish friends. I often found myself wanting to know more about the opinions of everyone, and continued to ask myself what would I do in this situation. Using this as a read aloud would bring about much discussion of the sometimes-complex difficulty of doing the right thing, understanding actions by placing them in historical context, considering challenges today also. It is not an enjoyable story, but by studying and discussing the actions and reactions of various people in the community, perhaps we will learn something about ourselves, and our students.

An Elephant In The Garden is a book I grabbed in our school library because I thought it was an interesting title, looked inside to see that it might be another middle grade title (it is), and brought it home. It’s a quick read, based on a story from Belfast, Ireland, about a woman who was given permission to care for an elephant at night during World War II. During World War II, when cities were being bombed, or under the threat of being bombed, zoos decided that when the bombing happened, the animals had to be destroyed, for their own protections and for the community’s.

This story was adapted and placed in Dresden, Germany when a mother, her teenaged daughter and young son had to flee when the Allies were bombing the city of Dresden so heavily. The mother worked at the zoo, and brought the young elephant home at night. They ended up fleeing with the elephant and saving a young Canadian pilot who parachuted from his plane. The predominant story is that of their flight to gain the safety of American troops. The book is told by the teenaged daughter, but it begins in modern times with another single mother who works in a nursing home, and who, with her son, befriends an old woman who turns out to be the teenaged daughter in the book. Each part of the book begins at the nursing home, then turns to the words of the older woman who wants to tell her story of “an elephant in the garden” that previously had been thought to be her ramblings whose memory was not quite right. It is an interesting weaving of the two parts with the consistent theme of telling the truth. Like The Blood Lie, this book too brings up questions of the integrity of telling lies. Is it okay to lie to protect oneself and others? When is it not okay? I can imagine rich conversations about this book throughout the action in the story. The other theme concerns the tragedy of war, the separation of families, the destruction of ways of life, no matter if one is the enemy or the ally. It would be an excellent book for middle readers.

I am reminded of two other books from World War II that tell of this horrible result of being at war, both poignant, excellent and informative: Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya that concerns the zoo in Tokyo, and The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackermann about the Warsaw zoo.

Now: Currently reading A Chance Child by Jill Paton Walsh, concerning child labor, and TBR-The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis.

Finally-I'd like to share this by Carl Sagan: What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.

Happy Reading Everyone!

A Favorite Anthology

2012-02-02T20:38:00.002-07:00

All the Poetry Friday posts this week can be found at The Iris Chronicles with Karissa.

It’s been a long week, yet I am being renewed by attending our state’s annual Reading Conference. Some days are better than other days as all of you know and I am happy to be able to do something different besides my regular job.

If I cannot run off to a conference full of inspirational people and conversation and books, often I turn to a book that was gifted to me a few years ago by a colleague. It is a poetry anthology titled Teaching With Fire, Poetry That Sustains The Courage To Teach, edited by Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner. Considering the year’s challenges to teachers and the newest steps to be taken with the common core standards, it seems that each teacher should be given this book, or at least a poem from it, for personal restoration when there happens one of THOSE days, sometimes weeks. The book is organized into sections like Hearing The Call, Making Contact and Daring To Lead. A brief essay from a teacher, sharing what makes the poem a special one in his or her life, prefaces each poem.

As I browsed my copy of the book, I looked at the poems I had marked with sticky notes. Three are from William Stafford, and those are the three I will share. Each is one I love, and each connects to a personal story that makes me love it even more.

The first is The Way It Is, the whole of the poem found here.

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

When I moved out of the classroom a couple of years ago, my school held a party for me, and our head of school gave a speech of gratitude, something that was both lovely and a little embarrassing. I had loved this poem for a long while, but he surprised me by using it as an example of my work. It was such a compliment, and seemed magical that it was a favorite poem already.

The second is You Reading This, Be Ready, all of which is found here.

Starting here, what do you want to remember?

How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?

What scent of old wood hovers, what softened

sound from outside fills the air?

When I taught, I was one of the Advanced School teachers teaching the middle-school aged classes. Each year the school, and my colleagues and I, held the important ceremony of Continuation for our students who were moving on to high school. It is a rite of passage of great importance to the students at our school. Each student gave a speech; every student in the school attends, as do immediate families, close neighbors, aunts and uncles, and so on. And my colleagues and I also spoke. Each year I began a search for just the right tone, the right theme, and for me, because of my love of poetry, the perfect poem. And this poem fits a leaving so beautifully, and holding on to a moment of time so poignantly. If you can imagine: our Continuation is held in an old gymnasium, with high windows streaming in the sun, onto an old wooden floor.

And the third poem, Silver Star, the entirety is found here.

To be a mountain, you have to climb alone

and accept all that rain and snow. You have to look

far away when evening comes.

When in the past I have taken students on long overnight trips, I made a big deal out of students finding poems and/or quotes to inspire all of us on our journey. One year I used this poem for our inspiration. We were not going to the mountains (we live in the Denver, Colorado area), but we were going to see Mount Hood from the air, and I knew it was an amazing experience when that large mountain began to come into view. It felt as if Stafford had written the poem for Mount Hood, and additionally one can see the verse as a metaphor for strength. As I researched this poem, I also found that it is one of the Methow River poems published on plaques along the river that runs from the heart of the Cascade Mountains to the Columbia River. In the year before Stafford died, he fulfilled a commission from some forest rangers who wished for better words for their interpretive signs. Here is that wonderful story of some of Stafford’s last poems.

I realize I have only told you of the Stafford poems in this marvelous anthology. There are others that I marked, and still others to be enjoyed, by such poets as Nikki Giovanni, Mary Oliver, Adrienne Rich, and Czeslaw Milosz. If you are intrigued, please find a copy to browse, and find a poem that touches you in your own life, as these above have touched me.

Teaching About Expectations - Learning About Them Too

2012-01-30T21:55:00.002-07:00

Slice of Life Tuesday can be enjoyed at Two Writing Writers

It’s an exciting time at my school right now, and teachers are using different methods to help students understand the attributes of satisfactory final products. In written assignments, all of us give the expectations of an assignment, yet seeing examples of real products are important too. The week of Valentine’s Day also happens to hold another important day at my school, an event we call Expo, where every child in the school creates a display of their unit of study learning so far this school year.

As I’ve explained before, each student in my school, kindergarten through eighth grade, studies a specific unit topic of their choice around which the curriculum is built. The nearest I can describe to you about Expo is that it’s similar to a science fair, except there are no prizes and no best of show. Everyone creates a display of the work they have accomplished during the year, the learning they have achieved. There are three-way boards filled with reports and illustrations, artistic 3-D depictions of things as diverse as the Globe Theater, the Golden Gate Bridge and life-sized dolphin. Also, there might be dioramas of survival shelters, posters of advertisements that use stereotypes to sell, sketches of famous people that have been researched and so on, and so on. In recent years, more computer screens are in use, showing Powerpoints and Prezis, videos and artistic slides. Some students offer hands on activities that connect to their topics. There are many displays to view during the day and evening of Expo. In the evening, students sit and/or stand with their work to greet visitors and answer questions about the topic.

During these weeks since the holidays, students have been organizing their already researched work, and at the same time, developing and finishing new products to add to the displays. Since many students have experienced Expo, all but new students know what to expect on the day, but teachers still discuss the attributes of good final products as they have all year.

One of the good practices that all teachers do during the year and up to the time of Expo is to take students to see other student work. For example, if a student has decided to make a poster of the information he has discovered about the environmental issues of polar bears, he will need to understand the attributes of a good-to-see poster. His teacher might take him to view posters already displayed in the halls to take notes in his journal about what he sees that he might incorporate into his own work. Or if a student is planning a diorama of a working farm, it will be helpful to visit another student’s diorama to try to notice all the good things about it. With the youngest students, they might just need to view a diorama in order to understand what it is first, then to examine all its parts.

Even if it doesn’t work to have other classes to visit, it is good practice to show visuals of the product you are asking students to create. Sometimes, I would make the product myself first, and have the class evaluate it. What looks right? What could be improved? How would you change it to improve it? It’s the same as writing with students. If you can show even an approximation of the assignment’s expectation, it will show more than just giving the assignment orally or in writing.

One additional good thing about viewing other work is that students see additional possibilities of how to communicate their learning. They might be looking for good examples of posters, but also notice that someone has created a book instead, or a timeline, or ? School displays of student work can be used as a marvelous catalog of information for other teachers to use with their students. I hear students walking by often during these days, and hear the teachers too. “What do you see that appeals?” “How could you record that in your journal?” “What stands out for you?” “What is a favorite on this bulletin board? Why?” “What colors look good together?” “What are the colors you might choose?”

It is such a great time during this part of the year at school, and anticipating visitors and celebrations of the learning is also a fun part of it. We all look forward to Expo!

Isn't Every Week Full of Wonderful Books?

2012-01-30T07:15:00.003-07:00

You can hook up with this kitlit meme: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA at teach mentor texts, thanks to Jen and Kellee! Here you can discover what others are reading and what they’re saying about them!

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now…who knows, you might discover that next “must read” book!
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I browsed my school library this week, and found there are books there that should be off the shelf and into the classrooms. You may be familiar with some, but I hope you find a new one here, too.

These first two books give some views of different cultures, and the way small differences really don’t matter, that people have the same needs no matter what culture: the need to love, to be needed and to eat! The next two are true stories of the persistence of the human spirit in personal passions. The final one is a story teaching the lesson of liking oneself.

How My Parents Learned To Eat Ina R. Friedman with illus. by Allen Say

Eating styles and habits separate people. This is a sweet story told by a little girl about how her parents fall in love and try so hard to please each other by learning the ways the other one eats. It’s one of the early books illustrated by Allen Say.

Arctic Son by Jean Craighead George illustrated with paintings by Wendell Minor

Jean Craighead George, author of Julie of The Wolves, My Side of The Mountain, and my favorite, The Talking Earth, takes us to a new culture, showing her usual love for both the culture and the environment. The story is that of Ms. George's grandson, Luke, who lives in Barrow, Alaska, near the top of the world. This is a lovely tribute to the Arctic, particularly the Inupiat Eskimo way of life, and includes some of their language also. The illustrations are beautiful.

Dave the Potter – Artist, poet, slave by Laban Carrick Hill illustrated by Bryan Collier

There is a good review of this by Andi Sibley at A Wrung Sponge. It’s a true story of a slave who became one of the most important potters of the 19th Century and he was also a poet, inscribing some of his poems into the pots. Some of his pots are still in existence. A link here to a South Carolina history site tells more about Dave and his work. The book is both beautiful to see and to hear for it is written in verse.

That Book Woman by Heather Henson illustrations by David Small

It’s always wonderful to find a book that celebrates books! And this is one, a history of those persistent enough to travel by horseback to remote areas to bring books to families, especially children. Here is one link to what is titled Packhorse Librarians in Kentucky during the W.P.A. era. I discovered one other book about them, titled Down Cut Shin Creek: The Pack Horse Librarians of Kentucky. I could find no reference to this any other place in the US. It’s a fascinating story.

Cabbage Rose by M.C. Helldorfer, illustrated by Julie Downing is another book with a strong and independent young woman whose life changes when she is given a ‘magic paintbrush’ where everything she paints becomes real. It’s a story that includes the family that doesn’t treat Rose so well, and the young woman who makes life good anyway and is rewarded with magic. But, it also gets more complicated with the love of a prince, of course, and the challenge to Rose’s self-esteem, a theme of liking oneself no matter what. In today’s society of ‘looking good’, the book could spark a good conversation about personal values.

Last week I spoke about the first book I read by John Green, An Abundance of Katherines, and this week I read his latest, The Fault In Our Stars. Two weeks ago I finished and wrote about A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. You may hear about these books and feel they have dealt with topics too sad to read about, but the stories are not only about loss because of the premature death of a loved one, but they are also stories of teens choosing to live life as beautifully as can be lived even when one learns firsthand that it can be so fleeting. They were both powerfully sad and equally inspirational. A personal tragedy recently happened in my own family, and these books touched me even more because of it.

I loved meeting the characters in The Fault In Our Stars, Augustus and Hazel. They are lovingly drawn teens who are smart, quirky, silly, impetuous and thoughtful, kind and loving. They are ill, and honest about their illness, learning that life and pain are partners in each of their lives. One revelation to me about those living with imminent death was that they take risks because they must, but also think of friends and family “after death” as often as they think of themselves. It is genuinely a pleasure to live for a while with these two young teenagers.

There are often passages that I find poignant and memorable in books. There were those here in John Green’s book, too. I found this truth in the book, as I found others, and hope you will read to find your own. The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.

What's Next? I've started The Blood Lie, by Shirley Reva Vernick and it will be an interesting read! And, I think I'll be returning to my own school library searching for other picture books, plus I'm going to the Colorado Chapter of the International Reading Association Conference this coming Thursday and on. I'm so excited to see what books I do discover.

A Different Kind of Lullaby for Poetry Friday

2012-01-26T22:41:00.001-07:00

Poetry Friday is hanging out today with Jim at Hey, Jim Hill.

My father-in-law and son, a long time ago, final run!

My husband’s father was a railroad engineer for Union Pacific in the last years of his long railroad career. We now have a number of different train memorabilia in our home because of him. My husband talks of many trips his family took on the trains. It sounds like such fun and I am also nostalgic about train trips after reading Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express and watching old movies where love and intrigue reside on the rails. I grew up with others taking those trips and took one myself, with my Girl Scout troop, to Washington D.C. Imagine the hours of giggling, hardly sleeping there and back! I am grateful to our leaders who sacrificed their time and maybe sanity by taking us.

It’s a delight when I find prose and poetry about train travel, I read the words, and sometimes find them memorable enough to read to my husband. Lately, on a website called The Daily Poem, a particular poem appeared with such rhythm and sweetness that I wanted to share it with you, and of course I shared it first with my husband.

I also found a little about Alicia Stallings, who is still writing and has published several books of poetry. She is known as a classical poet, has translated from the Greek and lives with her husband and son in Athens, Greece. More poems and a short bio can be found at The Poetry Foundation.

Lullaby Near The Railroad Tracks

by Alicia E. Stallings

Go back to sleep. The hour is small.

A freight train between stations

Shook you out of sleep with all

Its lonely ululations.

The rest can be found here.

The sheet music to an original composition that was created for a choir using Lullaby Near The Railroad Tracks by Paul Crabtree can be found here, .

As I researched, I found one more poem by Stallings that I thought wonderful to share, titled Fairy-tale Logic. I imagine that students might love this particular poem about fairy tales.

Fairy-tale Logic

Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks:

Gather the chin hairs of a man-eating goat,

Or cross a sulphuric lake in a leaky boat,

Read the rest of those heinous tasks here.

My One Little Word - Needed Exploring

2012-01-25T21:54:00.001-07:00

I signed up for the One Little Word class, and have completed the first assignment, have found some few quotations I like, and written about poems that give me comfort, just as writing poems do, too. I have read others’ posts that talk about their word, and have been interested in what they have invited into their lives because of that word. The posts have been heartfelt, full of feeling and purpose and inspiration.

My word is COMFORT, and the quote I chose is: LIfe is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things in which smiles, and kindnesses, and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort, by Humphrey Davy. I have since discovered that Davy was a British chemist who is known for discovering the anesthetic effect of laughing gas (nitrous oxide), among other things. It gives me a laugh, not kidding, that the quote I chose was spoken by the guy that discovered the properties of laughing gas. Terrific, quite an invention.

And so I begin thinking of all the things, like this quirky fact, that means COMFORT to me. I have chosen to tie some things in my life to the synonyms of COMFORT in Webster’s Online Dictionary.

Assurance – That the coffee will be made when I arise in the am, that the water in the shower will be hot and that the sun will rise. There is a Mescalero Apache Song I used to read on campouts with my students when we rose with the sun to set off on our adventures:

The sunbeams stream forward, dawn boys,

with shimmering shoes of yellow.

Cheer – Two people sent me poems this week, knowing how much I love poetry. A student stopped in to have a talk.

Consolation – One usually thinks of this as ‘second prize’, not so good, yet I see it as the tiny events that happen when big things don’t: a coupon for something I never get to save money on, a joke that both my husband and I laugh over at the same time, a few words or lines in a book I’m reading that touch me especially.

Reassurance – Going to the neighborhood Italian restaurant and being greeted as an old friend is better than the meal, which is very good.

Solace – In times of distress, there are a number of people who are there, and will be there, always.

So, that is ‘comforting’ contemplation for my One Little Word this time. It was a good thing to do, to bring the word forward more deliberately into my life. The word COMFORT derives from the Latin confortare, to strengthen, and those things listed above do that for me. Two parts of the word COMFORT make the whole. This time I concentrated on myself, the kinds of comfort that are meaningful in my life. Next time, it’s time to venture outward, to find the COMFORT I can give others.

photo credit: James Jordan via photopin cc

Using Online Tools for All Kinds of Writing

2012-01-23T22:12:00.001-07:00

I'm having a great time in the twenty-one day comment challenge at Mother Reader, but my reader is still filling up. Check out the challenge here. Tomorrow is the final day!

The Slice of Life posts are hosted every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers

After reading the New York Times article concerning future changes in education, and discovering that February 1st is Digital Learning Day, a specific day set aside for adding to your digital learning expertise in order to apply it to education, I thought I’d recommend a few sites that I recently used in an online tools class. Here are some things that happened:

I used Diigo, a bookmarking site (like Delicious if you use that) that you can use with a group or class by acquiring an educator account. Each student has access to the personal ‘library’ set up online of the pages and sites I wanted them to explore, plus they could also recommend other tools they found and/or had already used to tell the rest of us about. You can bookmark, sticky note and highlight specific portions of text. You can add as many tags as you wish. You can give assignments as to the approach of the link given.

I found that the group loved it and looked forward to checking their account to see what had been recently added. I imagine that students could send poems to share & to comment on within the site, or other kinds of text could be shared with a group, or a partner. One project done: I sent several articles of current interest to the students, and we had an online discussion of them with all of us sending comments. One other idea is that students could send a review of a book read and others could agree or disagree with the review after reading the book.

Here are other sites used that might be good for writing workshop:

Make Beliefs Comix—Students can create their own stories & then make a comic of them.

WhenInTime—A timeline building site-impressive, for non-fiction research & communication of the discoveries.

Popplet—for organizing information, for presenting photos, perhaps with short poems. It’s a great visual site.

Glogster—A ‘teacherlight’ account is $29.95 for a year, & you can have up to 50 accounts, perhaps share with another teacher? You can also, like many sites, sign up for a free trial account. It’s a way for students to create posters of their information online, & they are also printable.

Wikispaces—You can create a free educator account and there is an easy way to create individual student accounts with passwords without using real e-mail addresses. We created a Wiki with each student writing a page of tips for good research displays. Each took a part of the ‘how-to’s’, wrote their ideas, then everyone added to the original. My next project is for my memoir writing class. They’ll be able to write their text as a page on the Wiki, and receive feedback for it.

If you like Wordle, you’ll love Tagxedo.

When you use photos or other media for writing inspiration or illustration, it’s good to have less worry about copyright. Here is a site giving numerous links for copyright free images.

Finally, for all bloggers, a free photo site for blogs called Photo Pin. Here's a beautiful photo I found there. It looks like a mystery story to me. What do you think?

I’m having fun finding new ways to invite creativity with words online. There is so much out there, and students may be embracing new things faster than we are. I hope you’ll find something of interest here!

photo credit: *clairity* via photopin cc

What I'm Reading - Late January

2012-01-23T07:52:00.001-07:00

Just watched the awards! Have read some, knew of some & some are ones I guess I'd better look up! Very exciting day for the authors and illustrators. I'm excited for them!

I'm participating in the twenty-one day comment challenge at Mother Reader. It's been terrific finding new blogs to enjoy. It's over on Wednesday. Check it out here.

You can hook up with this kitlit meme: It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA at teach mentor texts! Here you can discover what others are reading and what they’re saying about them!

It's Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It's also a great chance to see what others are reading right now…who knows, you might discover that next “must read” book!
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A colleague and I ate lunch together the other day and shared new picture books we have recently acquired. She showed me two wonderful books. The Child of The Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton, illustrated by Raul Colón is a memoir told by the author, the youngest child of Andrew Young, one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties and a friend and follower of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She tells the story in her own words of her family’s and other’s involvement in the marches for the right to vote. The book ends with the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. She writes for younger children, explaining the background of the term Jim Crow and telling of sitting under the table listening to the talk of her father’s and mother’s friends whom she calls her Civil Rights Family, people like Dr. King, Ralph Abernathy and Randolph Blackwell. The illustrations are realistic depictions of the scenes described in the text. It’s a good introduction to this history for younger students and for adults, to contemplate the difficult acts that this particular family and others chose even with their small children. It’s inspiring and informative!

“R” is for Research by Toni Buzzeo with illus. by Nicole Wong is an alphabet book that takes the reader through the research process from the Assignment to finding the appropriate books to Organization to use of the Internet responsibly. It’s up to date, including Verification of facts, use of the web and an Evaluation checklist. It’s a book that could support a research project for all ages over and over. The illustrations are wonderfully realistic, showing scenes of work in the library and classroom. I can envision using this as a text to create a classroom book of references with each child creating a page.

I certainly missed John Green week as proposed by Jen and Kellee a few weeks ago at TeachMentorTexts, but now I can say I’ve read my first John Green book because of their enthusiasm for his books. I chose to begin with An Abundance of Katherines, and I loved it. I have lately been immersed in numerous middle grade books, possibly because of the search for reading the books offered as possible Newbery winners. So, I haven’t read a book that I view as a book for mostly high school students, maybe mature eighth graders in a while. I liked the quirky characters, trying to figure out their worlds, and I liked again seeing the energy and enthusiasm that Green managed to imbue into these characters, just like high school students are.

I enjoyed “the immutable tangle between the Dumper and the Dumpee; the coming and the seeing and the conquering and the returning home.”

I agreed with “You can love someone so much, he thought. But you can never love people as much as you can miss them.”

I was sad when “Colin was watching all the things he’d thought were true about himself, all his I sentences, fall away. Suddenly, there was not just one missing piece, but thousands of them.”

And I laughed with the use of the word, “dingleberries”, so apt and poignant between friends.

Finally, I smiled with “And so we all matter—maybe less than a lot, but always more than none.”

If you remember your children as teens or if those children are still with you, if you teach teens or if you have any kind of connection with them, read the book, and discover the wonderful story woven between the lines above.

Next week—goals to finish two: I’ve already started The Fault In Our Stars by John Green, out just a week and a half ago, plus I won the book, The Blood Lie by Shirley Reva Verick in the autumn, and have put it off too long. I’m looking forward to a great week of reading!

Poems Can Be Memoirs

2012-01-20T05:31:00.003-07:00

This time, Poetry Friday can be enjoyed with Elaine at Wild Rose Reader!

I wrote a poem of introduction this week.

I’m teaching students how to write memoir,

to write their lines, a knit of who they are,

with tiny rows that knit one, then pearl two

in colorful skeins of yarn. They can do

a word or more, sew them all together.

Lay the pattern well, it really doesn’t matter

what they choose as long as some truth weaves part

and most that’s kept comes finally from the heart.

There will be prose and poetry written in this class, and I wanted to share a few poems that I will share with students to show them possibilities. We’ve started to find the seeds of what memories we want to write about. Now we’ll write, but then choose the audience we’re writing for, and finally the style, or genre to use to communicate our choices.

Here are some poems I’ll share with my students that have pleased me as memories of the poet’s lives, all different looks at someone’s tiny moments.

The Summer I Was Sixteen by Geraldine Connolly

The Turquoise pool rose up to meet us,

its slide a silver afterthought down which

we plunged… The rest is here.

A Geography of Lunch by Mary Jo Schimelpfenig

My mother asks me if I like my sandwich.

I say I haven’t tasted it yet.

“What are you doing? Are you dreaming

off into space?” she says.

The rest is here.

Marcus Millsap: School Day Afternoon by Dave Etter

I climb the steps of the yellow school bus,

move to a seat in back, and we’re off,

bouncing along the bumpy blacktop.

The rest is here.

Back In The Playground Blues by Adrian Mitchell

Dreamed I was in a school playground, I was about four feet high

Yes dreamed I was back in the playground, and standing about four fee

high

The rest is here.

I hope you’ve had a few memories rise as you read these. If you have favorites you can share with me, please do. I will appreciate it!

A Wrinkle In Time - Still A Great Read After 50 Years!

2012-01-18T21:23:00.001-07:00

This is my first review that celebrates award-winning books to be read and relished, hopefully more than once, sometimes for a lifetime. The ALA will announce 18 awards next Monday, including the renowned Caldecott and Newbery Medals, the Coretta Scott King Book Awards and Printz award, so it’s a good time to start the challenge I have taken at Gathering Books blog. Thanks to Myra and Iphigene and Fats from GatheringBooks for hosting the 2012 award-winning books challenge.

It is the 50th anniversary of the publication of A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle, which won the Newbery Award in 1963. A Publisher’s Weekly article here tells of the year’s plans of Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group to commemorate this beloved book, including a 50th anniversary edition that will be released soon. And here is one of L’Engle’s acceptance speeches, when the American Library Association honored her in June, 1998 with the Margaret Edwards award for Lifetime Achievement In Writing in the Field of Young Adult Literature.

According to a Study Guide from Glencoe Publishing, l’Engle once said: I start with what I know with all five senses, what I have experienced, and then the imagination takes over and says, “But what if—” and the story is on. So, how does one review a book that has been in our consciousness for 50 years, has sold over 10 million copies, and even if someone hasn’t read it, they will always say, oh yeah, I know that book? I think I will just respond to the reading I’ve just completed. This is what I enjoyed this time.

I read from an old and tattered paperback that belonged to my daughter, issued in 1973. The back of the book quotes Library Journal: Characterization is excellent; the enormity of the setting is handled with sensitivity, and suspense is well-sustained…Provocative reading for discerning teenagers. And from Horn Book: Fascinating…it makes unusual demands on the imagination and consequently gives great rewards. I agree, and yet wonder how many highschoolers are reading this. It is rated as a 5.8 reading level, yet I know that some are using it in book groups for fourth graders. And what did I think as I read? There are exciting moments in this text that young students can love, and there are oblique references to the Bible that I had a tough time understanding until I did further research. I could find no statement that L’Engle meant this for the very young, but the Newbery award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children, according to the American Library Organization Newbery Home Page. It was written for children, with respect for their ability to figure important things out. That, with all the other books she wrote, is who L’Engle was, a children’s writer.

What I liked: L’Engle’s ability to make us gleeful with anticipation in her descriptions. There was a faint gust of wind, the leaves shivered in it, the patterns of moonlight shifted, and in a circle of silver something shimmered, quivered, and the voice said, “I ddo nott think I will matterrialize completely. I ffindd itt verry ttirinngg, andd wee hhave mmuch ttoo ddoo.”

I loved the small jokes set into the tension that allowed us to breath once in a while. In one frightening scene as Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin are being fed by dark smocked men right after they have met the man with red eyes, seemingly the speaker for IT. I read: There’s something phoney (sic) in the whole setup, Meg thought. There is definitely something rotten in the state of Camazotz.

I noticed: The beginning of the argument for being alike. As Charles Wallace is being drawn into the power of IT, he argues with Meg. On Camazotz we are all happy because we are all alike. Differences create problems. You know that, don’t you, dear sister? This push and pull of sameness being important is the argument that rings true for numerous political ideologies such as communism, socialism and fascism. There are many books written that decry taking away one’s personal rights, among them The Giver by Lois Lowry and 1984 by George Orwell, of “Big Brother is watching you” fame. Students who do not know science fiction should enjoy seeing that people in books have big challenges as we do in our real world of past and present day conflicts. There is a wonderful passage with Mrs. Whatsit using the structure of a sonnet as an analogy. She talks of the fourteen lines in iambic pentameter, a very strict rhythm and meter. She continues: And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it? Further, But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn’t he? Later in the conversation, she ends with: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you. Our lives are compared to a sonnet. L’Engle says: A strict form, but freedom within it.

The unusual and loving characters were caring as well as effective: Mrs. Whatsit is the youngest of those strange beings that come to help the Murrys find their father. She says, Wild nights are my glory, yet she remains stable and helpful. Mrs. Who, the practical one who speaks in illuminating quotes in foreign languages, like Le Coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait point. French, Pascal. The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing. The next, and it appears the one with most power, Mrs. Which, who speaks rarely, but somberly and with drawn out consonants of the beginnings and endings of words. Mrs. Which, along with Aunt Beast who appears at a crucial time in the story play large roles in the book, and however unusually portrayed, L’Engle manages to keep the loving traits of the characters intact.

Finally, it is important to me as it was to my daughter that the strongest character, the protagonist, is Meg, a girl. She is willful, opinionated, decries her differences but holds fast to them because that is who she is, and she likes herself. In her world of early adolescence, she is shown to want to be liked, but resists the compromises that her peers wish in order to be accepted. She shows heroic characteristics in her capacity to step forward to do right without compromise. A most wonderful thing is that readers can continue to watch Meg grow up in the later books in the series.

This is a brief book by some recent standards. It is less than two hundred pages. I could describe other scenes I loved, show different beautifully written words, but I hope if you haven’t read it lately that you will give some time to an old classic children’s novel.

Sometimes Teachers Just Need To Stand Back

2012-01-17T06:10:00.001-07:00

I'm having a great time in the twenty-one day comment challenge at Mother Reader, but my reader is filling up. Check it out here.

The Slice of Life posts are hosted every Tuesday by Stacey and Ruth at Two Writing Teachers

Ingrid, my two and one-half year old granddaughter, spent the weekend with us. She is a delightfully energetic young child, always going, going, and rarely serene like her new baby sister. Here is part of our trip to the school playground right by the park behind our house.

The apparatus is one of those tinker toy-like structures, lots of climbing in various ways and one can climb back down, or slide down on one of six slides. Ingrid has gained much self-confidence from attending pre-school since September. This time, she was ready to try most everything except those climbing parts that simply were too high for her. Remember this is the playground for elementary students. I watched and reveled in her curiosity. She went down the slides on her backside, frontside, and head forward, and climbed up them. This might be because she knows that there are rules about slides and she, with her grandma’s approval, was allowed to try all those forbidden ways this time. She is in the ‘no’ and ‘why’ stages all the time now. She also climbed some of the way up on two of the climbing towers that seemed to fit her small hands.

What struck me as I observed is that I walked around with her, would say things like ‘that bridge bounces if you jump on it’ and Ingrid would eventually get to the bridge, jump joyously shouting ‘bounce, bounce, bounce’. Then she would look at me and just smile and smile. She also explored the pea gravel that covers much of this part of the playground. She picked it up and let it fall through her fingers, she threw it up the slides so it would rattle as it came down, and then she made a big discovery.

“Grandma, why are the rocks up here?” She meant on the metal mesh floors of the play space.

I said, “Maybe the kids brought it up here on their shoes.”

She said, “I want to bring it up, too.” And so she did, but it all didn’t stay, and she noticed that some fell through the little holes. She sat down and examined the rocks that were still there, went back down and grabbed two more handfuls. She dropped the rocks, watched some go through and some stay. She repeated this more than one time.

I asked, “Ingrid, what are you doing?”

Her answer: “I’m looking at the rocks that fall through the holes.” Back down for more. She sat down and looked and looked, and that is when I took the photo. She looked up and said, “I need more big rocks.” She proceeded to go back down, carefully chose a few bigger pieces of pea gravel, and brought them up to drop and see that they did NOT fall through.

This learning by doing is such a big deal. The teacher in me that stood back and watched with just a bit of questioning was having a good time accepting the learning and applying this to my own teaching. Sometimes, at all ages, it’s better to stay out of the way and let the learning happen.