Today was one of my favorite homeroom activities of the year. At our school, all the students create an IB Binder: a two inch record of their time in middle school. It has sections for reflecting on exemplary work, service and the community they are part of, and character, also a scrapbook, and some nuts and bolts information about the IB Middle Years Programme.
As sixth grade teachers, we work with the students to set their binders up and guide them as they begin to use these notebooks as portfolios. When the kids leave at the end of the year, we hold on to their binders over the summer until that designated day when all seventh graders come back to their sixth grade homeroom for a few minutes to collect their work and move it to their current homeroom.
After three weeks with my new homeroom students, we've begun to establish our own rhythm and pace. The kids I have this year are easy to get along with, and I'm already enjoying them a lot. As teachers, it is our job to look forward, and after sixteen years on the job, I've learned to let go of one group and throw all my energy into the next. But... today, when those dozen kids that I spent every morning with last year came back to collect their portfolios, I knew how much I missed them by how happy I was to see them and how sorry I was when they grabbed their binders, and, with a cheerful wave, went off to their new homerooms.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
One Highpoint of the Weekend:
Singing Sugar Mountain with Treat on our road trip up to Hershey for Josh's birthday... who could resist such an awesome song as we drove past Sugarloaf Mountain? Plus, I liked the way our voices sounded together.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Thirty-five Thursdays
The other night my writing group had our monthly meeting. The four of us have been writing together for three years. We're all teachers, and the start of the school year has been supper-hectic for all of us. Rather than crank out something for the sake of the meeting, we agreed to re-visit the first pieces we wrote for the group.
I was really interested to take a look at our early work and compare it to what we've been writing lately. Sure enough, there were some significant details and differences. Two of us wrote about events and people that would be fictionalized to become major parts of the novels we're playing with. Three of us wrote much longer and more detailed pieces than we've written in over a year. There wasn't any noticeable growth; in fact we laughed about how our increasing comfort with each other has allowed us to become kind of slackers.
I remember working on that piece for our first meeting; I was coming off my Writing Project summer, and my writing fluency was good. I was also really into the self-examination and discovery that the personal narrative genre can provide. I wanted to bring a piece I could share with confidence, too. All of those things added up to a thousand pretty well-crafted words, and I was pleased to find that the writing held up three years later but sorry that I haven't written anything quite like that lately.
And so, our meeting gave me some things to think about in respect to myself as a writer, just as I knew it would. Thanks you guys.
I was really interested to take a look at our early work and compare it to what we've been writing lately. Sure enough, there were some significant details and differences. Two of us wrote about events and people that would be fictionalized to become major parts of the novels we're playing with. Three of us wrote much longer and more detailed pieces than we've written in over a year. There wasn't any noticeable growth; in fact we laughed about how our increasing comfort with each other has allowed us to become kind of slackers.
I remember working on that piece for our first meeting; I was coming off my Writing Project summer, and my writing fluency was good. I was also really into the self-examination and discovery that the personal narrative genre can provide. I wanted to bring a piece I could share with confidence, too. All of those things added up to a thousand pretty well-crafted words, and I was pleased to find that the writing held up three years later but sorry that I haven't written anything quite like that lately.
And so, our meeting gave me some things to think about in respect to myself as a writer, just as I knew it would. Thanks you guys.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Revelation
Who knows why I'm still thinking about school on a Friday night. The lessons that I have planned for next week are new for me, and that could be part of it. I usually try to complete any assignment before the students to do myself, just so I have a sense for the challenges or pitfalls. I have to be honest, though, most of the time students find ways around my road blocks, but then they are stumped by some task I took for granted, so it all usually works out. I think it's best to be open about that-- it builds community when the teacher is willing to admit that she or he doesn't know it all. Well, let's be clear, it's the admission, not the lack of knowledge that the kids respect; credibility relies on you knowing your subject most of the time.
But I guess that brings us back to my thoughts tonight. I want to know what I'm doing next week when I introduce the lesson. It's the found poetry thing that I've mentioned in previous posts. There are many variations of this activity made available on the internet by generous teachers, and basically, students select a powerful prose passage, and cut it to a free verse poem. I gave it a go before I left school this afternoon, and it was kind of challenging the way I have it planned.
Most lessons of this type start with a model prose passage, then show a model of a poem that has been "found" there. They ask students to focus on which words, phrases and images have been selected for the poem. My idea tonight was to have the kids start instead by identifying what they took out to get the poem and then to develop a theory about poetry from that. It just seems a little more concrete to do it that way, but I'm sure they'll let me know.
But I guess that brings us back to my thoughts tonight. I want to know what I'm doing next week when I introduce the lesson. It's the found poetry thing that I've mentioned in previous posts. There are many variations of this activity made available on the internet by generous teachers, and basically, students select a powerful prose passage, and cut it to a free verse poem. I gave it a go before I left school this afternoon, and it was kind of challenging the way I have it planned.
Most lessons of this type start with a model prose passage, then show a model of a poem that has been "found" there. They ask students to focus on which words, phrases and images have been selected for the poem. My idea tonight was to have the kids start instead by identifying what they took out to get the poem and then to develop a theory about poetry from that. It just seems a little more concrete to do it that way, but I'm sure they'll let me know.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Group Dynamic
I've known a lot of kids over my teaching career, both individually and collectively. It's funny how a group takes on a personality of its own; any teacher will tell you it's true. At the end of last school year, rumor had it that we had a good group coming up-- the fifth grade teachers reported that these were the nicest kids they'd ever taught.
And they ARE nice. I sat in the theater this afternoon as 200 sixth graders listened and asked questions about the IB Middle Years Programme that we have at our school. They were very polite and eager to participate; they asked terrific questions that showed they were listening and engaged. Before that, we had our first class meetings of the year in my English classes. We use Glasser's model, and the counselor comes in to facilitate a student-directed agenda. The first session is usually taken up by guiding the students to set rules for the group, but every meeting includes compliments and the chance to identify topics to discuss.
In each class, I looked around the circle and listened carefully to each of the comments, not just its content, but also the spirit in which it was offered by the individual student. I tried to observe how the comments were received by the group as well. These kids were super-positive-- it was great to hear how happy they are with the school, and their teachers, and each other, too.
I'm curious though: how does that happen? How does one group develop characteristics different than another, even though the members of each are very similar? Where does a group dynamic come from? Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
And they ARE nice. I sat in the theater this afternoon as 200 sixth graders listened and asked questions about the IB Middle Years Programme that we have at our school. They were very polite and eager to participate; they asked terrific questions that showed they were listening and engaged. Before that, we had our first class meetings of the year in my English classes. We use Glasser's model, and the counselor comes in to facilitate a student-directed agenda. The first session is usually taken up by guiding the students to set rules for the group, but every meeting includes compliments and the chance to identify topics to discuss.
In each class, I looked around the circle and listened carefully to each of the comments, not just its content, but also the spirit in which it was offered by the individual student. I tried to observe how the comments were received by the group as well. These kids were super-positive-- it was great to hear how happy they are with the school, and their teachers, and each other, too.
I'm curious though: how does that happen? How does one group develop characteristics different than another, even though the members of each are very similar? Where does a group dynamic come from? Not that I'm complaining, mind you.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
ISO Poetry
We read Knoxville, Tennessee, by Nikki Giovanni, as our common text today. The poem turned out to be a good bridge between the Writers Read focus of this week, "How do writers use sensory details to create an experience for the reader?" and the question that we use to help us find subjects for free verse poems, "Where does poetry hide?".
After we read it together, the students highlighted one detail from Knoxville for each of their five senses, and we also talked about where Giovanni "found" her poem. I shared my own list next, and then the kids got a good start on theirs, too, before taking them home to continue with.
For our next Writers Read, the students will choose a descriptive passage from their independent reading and do a found poetry activity with it. After that, they'll do some free-writing on one of their poetry topics, taking care to include sensory details, and then we'll work to cut the free-writes into poems using the same strategies, as well as some mini-lessons on free verse poetry.
After we read it together, the students highlighted one detail from Knoxville for each of their five senses, and we also talked about where Giovanni "found" her poem. I shared my own list next, and then the kids got a good start on theirs, too, before taking them home to continue with.
For our next Writers Read, the students will choose a descriptive passage from their independent reading and do a found poetry activity with it. After that, they'll do some free-writing on one of their poetry topics, taking care to include sensory details, and then we'll work to cut the free-writes into poems using the same strategies, as well as some mini-lessons on free verse poetry.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Where Does Poetry Hide?
...in the scruff of my dog's neck, right between her ears and her shoulder blades
...in the way the charcoal burns red hot in the chimney before I dump out the coals
...on the cool side of my pillow at 3 am
...in my mother's handwriting
...in the window of my classroom when I drive by in the summer
...in Halloween
...in the stack of waxed cardboard cartons of vegetables at my CSA pick up
...in the chain-link pattern of sunlight on the pool bottom
...in my fireplace
...in potatoes
...in my sister-in-law's eyes-- what color are they anyway?
...in playdoh
...in getting up early on Sunday morning and cooking
...on my bike
...in reading the newspaper
...in Adirondack chairs
...in my grandmother's diamond ring
...in cold tap water
...in Russian tea cakes (or are they Mexican wedding cakes?)
...in Scooby Doo: this time the monsters are real
....in La la
...in the way the charcoal burns red hot in the chimney before I dump out the coals
...on the cool side of my pillow at 3 am
...in my mother's handwriting
...in the window of my classroom when I drive by in the summer
...in Halloween
...in the stack of waxed cardboard cartons of vegetables at my CSA pick up
...in the chain-link pattern of sunlight on the pool bottom
...in my fireplace
...in potatoes
...in my sister-in-law's eyes-- what color are they anyway?
...in playdoh
...in getting up early on Sunday morning and cooking
...on my bike
...in reading the newspaper
...in Adirondack chairs
...in my grandmother's diamond ring
...in cold tap water
...in Russian tea cakes (or are they Mexican wedding cakes?)
...in Scooby Doo: this time the monsters are real
....in La la
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