New Toy

I'm composing this on my brand new iPad. The other day I mentioned to my students that I had this gadget on order, and I was surprised by their enthusiasm. "Will you bring it to school?" somebody wondered.

"Can I touch it?" another girl asked.

My answers were yes and yes. The oldest of three, I'm a really good sharer; plus, what fun is a new toy if you keep it all to yourself? The students seemed beside themselves in delight, and one even posted about our conversation on her slice that evening--

Just in case we really needed reminding that technology is supremely engaging to kids.

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the SOLSC challenge.) 

Preparing for the Future

Today, I finally found the time to deal with all the greens from my vegetable share. The CSA farmer who provides our locally grown produce plants a wide variety of greens every winter. Just this week alone we had English cress, new star mustard, tender leaf mustard, and Chinese thick-stemmed mustard. Left from last week, I had napini, two kinds of kale, and a bunch of spicy arugula.

Sometimes, I cook to showcase the individuality of a particular green, but today I did what I always do when I'm inundated: I got out the ten quart stock pot, boiled some lightly-salted water, and dumped them all in. Four minutes later the leaves floated to the top like tiny emerald dishrags. The window by the sink clouded with steam as I drained them and then shocked them in ice water. Once they were cool, I lifted them from their icy bath and back into the colander, leaving behind the last of the gritty sand that had given them life.

The most labor intensive step came next. Working in batches small enough to fit my hands, I squeezed the water from them and tossed around 10 compact green balls to my cutting board. After that it was a rough chop chop with the chef's knife and into a zipper bag-- one pound and fifteen ounces of green goodness bound for the freezer and some future meal. 

As I worked, I was reminded of a wonderful poem by Todd Boss: (Be sure to check out his very cool project, Motion Poems.)

Were I to Wring a Rag

--no matter how much
muscle I might have   

mustered—my mother   

was like to come along   

behind, reach around   

me to take it up again   

from where I’d left it,   

lift it back into my line   

of vision and in one   

practiced motion from   

that strangle in her bare   

hands and thin air work   

a second miraculous   

stream of silver dishwash   

into the day’s last gleam . . .

~Todd Boss

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the SOLSC challenge.)  

Censored

Running a Slice of Life Story Challenge for a bunch of sixth graders on the verge of full-blown adolescence has had its moments, both rewarding and challenging. Many days, I feel like I've been walking a tightrope between encouraging the kids to write authentically about what's going on in their lives and their minds and keeping their posts appropriate for a school activity.

For example, here's a slice from today (the bolding is mine):

Today we were supposed to be hosting a party for no reason with some of my dad's college friends. Apparently they didn't check their calendar and now they can't come. Now my dad is really grumpy because he was looking forward to drinking a lot of beer and other adult beverages. I like parties but luckily we have invited other friends of ours that also like to "have a ball". They have a kid in 3rd grade that is very aggresive. The last time he was here we were jumping on the trampoline and he gave me like five nut shots. I'm very scared of him. Today I will wear pads. Just in case. WISH ME LUCK!

What to do? Well, my Saturday night solution was to excise the bold passages (it actually works out just fine without them) and reply to him as follows:

This post is really testing the limits of what is appropriate for school, C. You may notice that I deleted a couple of things.

I will also take up the conversation with him in person on Monday. Before my intervention, another student had already read his post. Here's her reply:

Wow Ms. S. you edited A LOT! And I thought the first one was rather hilarious. OH WELL we are on the school grounds of the internet.

I posted once more to the thread. My point exactly.

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the SOLSC challenge.)  

What's a Motto?

Today I asked my students to come up with working mottos for themselves. Here's the list:

"We Are ONE!!!!"
be wild and have fun
A friend's eye is a good mirror
Speak the Truth or die without!!!
Live your life.
Better Late Than Never & Never Late Is Better!
Loving My Life:)
up down up down up down side to side
Stand Stong or Crawl Weak.
The Present:Live in the present never the past
Stand out, don't blend in!
WHEN IN DOUBT, GET HYPER!
The pen is mighter than the sword
life is good life is unfair
work hard unless you dont want to
Anti-Madrid
Anti-Madrid continuation
"If you want something done right do it yourself ! "
No pain no gain
When You Use It Believe It
we're the kids of the future
Life is Unfair
Follow the yellow brick road!!!
The Impossible is Possible
work hard feel great
It makes sense if you don't think about it.
aim high shoot low
new shoes cause for new rules
" why so serious?"
Be Who You Are, And You Are Who You Be.
Save the Best For LAST
I'm All In!
Drop it or be dropped!
A clever person solves the problem, a wise person avoids it.
Love to skate on ice, October
Don't listen Don't talk!
Sparkle As Bright As A Star, But Shine As The Person You Are
To Be Yourself, Never Anyone Else
Will it matter 20 years from now.
"Do it once, possibly do it again"
Work hard, live easy
"Anything is possible, the impossible just takes longer" (o_0)
be nice or back off
From the moment we are born, we begin to die.
No Blood, No Foul
Live Free Or Die Hard
Free living
Possibilities are Endless, Just Find Them.
The old is better than the new.
If You Embrace You Ace It, If You Bail It You Fail It
A shining star is what you are!!!!!
TALK, ANNOY, EAT, PLAY, ANNOY, PLAY GAMES, AND SLEEP
Joga bonito, Red Devils
IF GUYS CAN DO IT GIRLS CAN DO IT WAY BETTER

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the SOLSC challenge.) 

Cold Snap

Around here, they are predicting temperatures 10-15 degrees lower than the average for the next week, but I really don't mind. As lovely as spring is in this part of the world, I'm not quite ready to pack away my turtlenecks and fleece. There's a practical element to my appreciation of the unseasonable coolness, too. Today I picked up my CSA veggie share and came home with a shopping bag full of greens. I truly love greens (ask me about Colcannon some time!), but they take a lot of room in the fridge before they're cooked, and I still have some from last week that I haven't gotten around to eating, or at least blanching, chopping, and freezing. Thursday night of a busy week is not my first choice for dispatching ten pounds of assorted leafy vegetables, so fortunately I was able to toss the bag onto the porch where they will be fine until Saturday.

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the SOLSC challenge.)

Speed Reading

Today the students took their lists of complaints from yesterday and highlighted the top 8-10. Then they ranked them in order of personal importance, chose one, and wrote a couple of paragraphs describing the problem as best they understood it. My original plan was for them to read it to a small group and have the other kids ask questions, but this morning as I was walking the dog I had a different idea.

I arranged the tables in my room into a loose circle with chairs on the inside and on the outside. Once their writing was complete, They paired up, with one student on the outside and the other across the table on the inside of the circle. We set the timer for 1 minute and 20 seconds, and at the beep, the kids on the outside read their writing and when they were through, their partners asked questions. The authors were not to answer the questions, but rather record them on the back of their sheets.

When the timer went off, the inside person moved to the right and another student took the vacated seat. This time, it was the inside group's turn to read and the outside folks asked questions. And so it went for 15 minutes or so. By the end of class, each student had read his or her work four or five times and had a list of ten questions or so.

It was great! The kids were very focused and engaged. It was quick, peer-centered, and there was lots of movement, but clearly directed. Before we began, I read them an example I had written, which was about the incursion of coyotes in our urban area. I deliberately made it a little vague, and we brainstormed questions as the timer ticked down. They figured out that they could ask questions about both the facts of the situation and my stance on it, and I advised them that a good question might always be "What can you do about it?"

What indeed? That will be the next lesson.

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the SOLSC challenge.)

Uncovering Objectives

Today, as the first step in the Writing for Change unit, I gave my sixth grade students the opportunity to gripe. Oh my goodness, such a positive reaction to any assignment I have not seen in a long time. "Really?" one student asked, "You want us to write a list of complaints?"

"Oh, yes," I told them, "I do."

"Can we use names?" someone wondered.

"Better not," I said. "Describe the behavior that irks you, not the person."

"Can it be anything?" another asked.

"Yes. Anything that bothers you, large or small."

They worked diligently for 15 minutes or so, and then it was time to share their concerns, but first we talked about how to respond. "Don't offer solutions," I advised. "Don't minimize the problem by saying it doesn't bother you, and don't make the conversation about you by saying it does. If you have to say anything, just say you can see how that would be frustrating, or embarrassing, or whatever."

That was hard for them, and it was hard for me, too. Hard to let it go when someone complained about boys who skip, girls who are ugly but try to dress cool, people who wear the wrong color shoes. Those were probably the most shallow, but most of the concerns they chose to share were minor irritations at best: People who give away the ending to the book you're reading, people who snap gum, too much homework on the weekends, cold pizza at lunch, teachers who say, "I'm waiting," getting in trouble the one time you haven't done anything, having your grandmother tell her life story to the cashier at the grocery store, dancing in PE, and so forth.

I liked how concrete they were, though, and I told them so. "But if you look at your list for more serious problems, what do you have?"

Of course they had plenty of big issues, too: Natural disasters, animal cruelty, hunger, homelessness, poverty, government spending, lack of respect for religion, random violence, smoking, diseases, etc. They were still listing as the bell rang.

I over heard two girls talking as they left the room. "That was great!" said one. "We actually got to complain in school!"

"I know," her friend answered, "but why do you think we did that? Wait! Do you think we are going to use writing to actually do something?"

(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the SOLSC challenge.)