Poet-in-Residence: Part II

To be honest, my second day of intensive poetry workshop was kind of exhausting-- I've done a lot of writing over the last two days. The good news is that my students have, too. In fact, so has the principal and so has the counselor who each spent an entire class period with us today, and who both fully participated in all the activities.

What a powerful message it sent to my students to sit around a huge table elbow to elbow with their teacher and principal, all of us scribbling furiously away, playing with words and experimenting with ideas, reading what we'd written loud and proud, and applauding the efforts of our fellow writers.


when i got here the world smelled 
like blond bombers and cuban missiles,
but two years later, when my brother 
was born, blue beatlemania 
and baby aspirin were in the air.
From five my sister was surrounded by the scent 
of a dusty gray tabby cat.
back then, my father smelled like cold pennies and neckties 
and my mother like birthday cake and bridge,
and our street had the distinct aroma of pink cookie cutters.

these days my house smells like river rocks
and bicycle tires on smooth pavement,
a suggestion of  wood smoke floating beneath it all.

Poet-in-Residence: Part I

I'm still not exactly sure how this happened, but I have a poet-in-residence for the next few weeks. Somebody in the county humanities office wrote a grant and back in September they approached me with a yet-to-be-defined idea about a couple of poets, a couple of middle school English classes, and some kind of slam event in May or June. Of course I accepted, and along the way the other poet and school dropped out, leaving me and my students the beneficiaries of the entire grant.

It's supposed to be a pilot program, so the poet, the grant writer, and I are defining it as we go along. He's a performance poet and therefore composing poems to present is his focus. He wants the students to have 5-7 original pieces to choose from and then to prepare their favorites for competition. Too ambitious? Maybe, but not if today was any indication.

I think we all appreciated a new energy in our class: Today we did list poems and the kids loved the activities; every class left chattering happily. For me it was like being in a poetry workshop all day. I wrote with the students and shared my writing in turn. It was awesome. Turns out that Slam Man is unable to do the same lesson twice, so it really was a full day of new lesson ideas and personal writing for me, and...

He'll be back tomorrow.

Testy

It's testing season and tempers are short. High stakes mean high stress, and this year is no exception. At our school everyone has something to be cranky about. There's the testing coordinator who didn't mention when she was hired last fall that she would be on maternity leave right now, and all the people who are stepping in to help do her job in addition to their own. Only they don't know what they're doing, which is not a problem unless you get mad when someone points out an error or oversight. There are the teachers who are feeling the pinch from losing all those instructional days to snow way back in February and wondering if it could have made the difference for their borderline students. There is the new superintendent who got wind of the public perception that once the tests are through it's all movies and parties, baby, and who has informed all the administrators that he will personally be touring the schools in June to make sure that is not the case. He's on a collision course with the kids who are sure that once the testing is over they no longer need to take school seriously (and the staff members who kind of agree with them). Personally, I just want the computer labs back... they're out of commission for the next three weeks. I'm also with the people who think that all of this nonsense is yet more evidence of the unintended consequences of over-emphasizing standardized testing. I mean, really.

Connectors

I met someone today who knows Kevin Bacon... what degree of separation is that?

Like everyone else, I read The Tipping Point a few years ago. I'd have to say that the part that has stayed with me most was near the beginning of the book; it's when Gladwell introduces his trinity of trendsetters, the mavens, salesmen, and connectors, those three types of people who are responsible for making anything go viral. Once I got beyond the fact that I was not in any of those categories (ahem, maven-wannabe), and was therefore really no more than just another lemming at the cliff's edge, it was those darn connectors that got under my skin. My Meyers-Briggs is probably showing when I posit that this is more than just another I/E thing:  come on... connectors are amazing! They are the evangelicals of extroverts.

We have a neighbor who is a perfect example of what I mean. She and her kids stop by regularly for a casual Hey how are ya? visit, but often when we step onto the stoop for a few seconds of socializing, they are accompanied by someone else.  In the time we've known her, we've met her mom, some friends, other neighbors, and another teacher she knows, all without ever leaving our home. I really admire how single-handedly she connects us all, and in much more than some Kevin Bacon sort of way.

28 Ounces of Inspiration

My school bag is a backpack. After nearly 17 years of teaching, my third pack is nearing the end of its life. As a right-handed person, I carry my bag on my left shoulder, so all the padding is gone from that strap. In addition, it has handy double zippers for both the main compartment and front pocket, or at least they were handy until one zipper on each stopped working-- now I have to remember to zip the main all the way to the left and the pocket over to the right. (Or is it the other way?)

Even so, I don't really want a new pack... they don't make them like this anymore, and I feel like it's my fault that it's not lasting longer. I carry way too much around with me all the time.

For example, I have two professional texts in my backpack right now. They're so good and inviting that I try to steal 20 minutes every afternoon to read a little bit of each. One is Pyrotechnics on the Page by Ralph Fletcher. The premise of his newest book is captured in the subtitle: Playful Craft That Sparks Writing. Fletcher is all about finding the fun in writing through wordplay and other rhetorical flourishes, mostly by using the writer's notebook to collect and experiment. The book is complete with craft lessons and helpful appendices, and it's even dedicated to one of my students' favorite poets this year-- Naomi Shihab Nye.

The other book I carry with me is called Hidden Gems. Katherine Bomer challenges us to find what we admire about unconventional writing, both in modern texts and by our students, and to use that to stay student-centered in our increasingly standardized world. She also offers very practical suggestions for teaching, assessing, and grading. (Coincidentally, Nye makes an appearance in her book, too.)

Both Fletcher and Bomer remind me that writing need not be forced drudgery. I for one am not interested in spending 5+ hours a day convincing my students that what we are doing is "good for them." Some keys to keeping it from becoming just another chore are to keep it fun and to celebrate each original voice, and these two books have loads of good ideas for anyone like me.

Poaching

We spent part of this Mothers Day with my brother and sister-in-law and their boys over at her parents' deserted place. I hadn't been over there since her mom died and her dad moved to the assisted care facility. Since then, Emily and her brothers have been dividing and moving and sorting through their parents' possessions, but there's still a lot of stuff left. "It seems like a junk shop in here," I blurted out when we walked in. "In a good way," I tried to recover, "you know the fun kind of shop where they have lots of cool stuff?" There were sighs of agreement, but we all knew what I meant.

Vic and Judy were avid gardeners, and it wasn't too long ago that theirs was a stop on the annual garden tour that our county historic association organizes each spring. Judy graciously served ice cold milk and fresh cookies to all who visited that day.

One of the hand-me-downs we got from them is a poaching spade. My brother was practically rhapsodic about its utility when he delivered it to us a few weeks ago. Novices that we are, it seemed like a stretch to muster the appropriate gratitude for such an item. As most of the work in our garden has been weeding so far, the small shovel has gotten limited use, but it seems pretty good for digging. Today I found out how it got its name.

We were over there to take plants that we wanted from their garden.  My nephews used the spade to neatly dig them up and place them in empty pots that we collected from the bench at the back of the yard. When we got to our own garden, we used the same shovel to make an equivalent hole and dropped the plants we had poached right in, just as if they had always been there.

I'm really glad to have them, and as it turns out, that shovel really is pretty slick.

Gene Pool

We took our three-year-old friend Savannah to the farmer's market this morning so that she could pick out some flowers to plant in our garden. Waiting in line to pay for some marigolds and okra, I spotted my brother a few vendors down waiting in line for strawberries. "Savannah," I said, "my little brother is over there."

She was immediately intrigued. She has a little brother of her own, and as we waited we talked about how when they were grown up, they might run into each other around town, too. We paid up and headed over to catch my brother. He was charmed to meet Savannah, and immediately engaged her in conversation. "Do you have a little brother?" he asked.

She told him she did. "But he's just a baby," she said.

"Well, when you're grown up," my brother told her, "you might see him places like this and he'll be big like me-- I'm Tracey's little brother. Can you believe it?"

It didn't seem to bother Savannah at all to have the exact same conversation twice in a row. To her credit, she even acted surprised.