Six-Word Memoirs

This year I'm again using a studio approach to memoir, giving my students lots of opportunities to collect material through writing exercises and other short assignments. For example, yesterday we had a guest poet who did "I Remember" list poems with the kids, and today they composed six six-word memoirs each and posted them to our class's online discussion board. Here are some of my favorites:

The teacher never saw it coming.
That baseball bat was my favorite.
Never let Mom cut your hair.
Who stays frozen in freeze tag?
Bad things happen on slippery floors.
Geese hate sharing with each other.
Your parents are not good dancers.
Stay away from my pet monkey.
The foam cubes smelled like feet.
Bike + speed bump = crash.
Long car rides are worth it.
Jellyfish are like sneaky little spies.
My first yellow card was stupid.
The medal gleamed in the sun.
The diving board was my nemesis.
I will avenge my squished rabbit!
My name means victory in Arabic.
Ignore the question, "How many fingers?"
We got away from the police.

The final product will be a Tom Romano inspired multi-genre piece that incorporates the best of what each student has. They will take vignettes, maps, comics, poetry, and even a six-worder or two, and weave them into and around a more traditional narrative memoir. Constructing a multigenre piece requires the higher order thinking skills of analysis and synthesis, and also provides kids ways to organize and express their ideas using multiple intelligences.

That's the concept, anyway. This part is new to me, so I'll be interested to see how it all turns out.

So, here is my own half-dozen six-word memoirs:

Those tadpoles never had a chance.
Every beach house needs a kite.
Round one goes to the dog.
Watch out! Bigwheels don't have brakes.
Broken thermometers taste like sharp mercury.
He can't cross the street alone.

Good Call

A student walked up to me today and said, "You're going to give me a lolly pop." I raised my eyebrows, and she continued, "I have a joke I know will make you laugh."

"Let's hear it," I said.

Three guys were driving through the desert when their car broke down. They decided to walk for help. The first guy said he would carry the water in case they got thirsty. The second guy volunteered to carry the food in case they got hungry. The third guy started unbolting the door from the side of the car. "What's that for?" one of the other guys asked. 

"In case we get hot, we can roll down the window," he answered.

Yep. She was right.

Another Note to Self

I took the day off to run some errands and take care of some routine medical appointments. As it happened, nothing took as long as I thought it might, and so I arrived early for everything. What a revelation! I'm usually a one-or-two-minutes-late kind of a gal, but I found that when you're early it's a lot less stressful. So what if you can't find a parking space right away? You have time to spare. Who cares if the elevator is slow? No worries. I relaxed guilt-free in every waiting room until my name was called either right on time or even a little early.

I think part of my tardiness trouble may be the start time for school. To get everything I need done in the morning and be on time for work, I have to get up by 5:30. Even though I've been doing that for fifteen years, it still seems way too early for me, and I cling to those few minutes of extra sleep, so when I get up I'm already behind. Then, too, I fall into the trap of trying to cram too much into a day, so that I'm always rushing to finish this so I can run do that.

How can I make every day more like today?

PS-- I named this post before I checked to see if I had used the title Note to Self before, and it turns out that I had, almost exactly a year ago, so I retitled this one. I'm glad I checked, because that other post was good advice, too.

And in this Corner...

I've always liked the movie Stand By Me, probably because it has so much that appeals to me personally: the boys in it are roughly the age of my students; it takes place in Maine; it's based on a short story by Stephen King. And then consider the cast: River Phoenix, Kiefer Sutherland, Jerry O'Connell, Will Wheaton, and Corey Feldman. Great movie.

One of my favorite scenes is when the boys are sitting around the campfire and they have the following exchange:

Vern: Do you think Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman?
Teddy: What are you, cracked?
Vern: Why not? I saw it the other day. He was carrying five elephants in one hand!
Teddy: Boy, you don't know nothing! Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman's a real guy. There's no way a cartoon could beat up a real guy.
Vern: Yeah, maybe you're right... It'd be a good fight, though!

I thought about that tonight when I heard Michelle "Waiting for Superman" Rhee on Marketplace talking about the value of competition and how it relates to education. After hearing her perspective, I think this would be another really good fight:

Michelle Rhee vs Alfie Kohn

Family Is as Family Does

Over the weekend we drove 900 miles to Buffalo and back to see Heidi's nephew, Kyle. He lives in northern Mississippi, and part of the reason we made the trip was because his mom won't allow him to spend "unsupervised" time with us, since we're a same-sex couple. It's okay if Heidi's folks are around, so off we went to their home for one of our twice-a-year visits.

It turns out that even though Kyle is only ten, he has a facebook account. Evidently, his mom approves of that. So anyway, in between the sledding, and the magic tricks, and the homework, and the alchemy, and the charades this weekend, we friended him.

Tonight when I signed in to fb, I had the following alert: Kyle added you to the group Family.

I clicked Like... but what will the rest of the family think?

No Lolly Pop For Them

I'm more than a little confused as to why the Hollywood Foreign Press (aka the Golden Globe Awards) insists on treating the movie The Kids Are All Right as a comedy. I can't say I found it the least bit amusing, but maybe it's just me. That reminds me of a joke:

Q: How many lesbians does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: That is NOT funny.

The Other Side of the Coin

Sometimes when kids or their parents know they will be absent for one or more days, they ask for the school work in advance, and then we the teachers dutifully write directions, gather assignments and materials, and send them home. More often than not, we never see them again, and that can be kind of frustrating.

As it turns out, Kyle brought a lot of homework with him this weekend. He's missing a couple of days of school in order to visit his grandparents in Buffalo, so his teacher sent along several assignments in all of his subjects. Our first reaction was no problem-- who better to help a fifth grader stay current on his school work than two teachers?

Oh how naive we were. His spelling has taken hours, and we're still not sure that he's doing it right. There is still reading, social studies, and math work to go. He's trying to be responsible, but he loses focus after a certain amount of time, even with a licensed teacher sitting by his side.

No wonder we don't get that work back.