NaNoWriMo Cometh

Yesterday, we held the inaugural meeting of the new writing club at our school. My sister-in-law, the art teacher, sponsors an afterschool art club for kids who either can't take art or who wish they could have more, so I figured why not apply the same principle to writing? Kids frequently complain that they don't have a chance to do their own kind of writing in school, so we aim to give them the opportunity and the audience. Even so, when I explained the idea to a couple of my former students, they dismissed it as just another version of study hall or homework club.

Still, we persevered, and four kids actually showed up for the first meeting. Since National Novel Writing Month starts Tuesday, we hooked them up with the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program, and boom, boom, boom, boom, four novels were born. The young authors were particularly taken with the "Dare Machine," a random generator of crazy curve balls you might try to work into your novel. Example: We dare you to add a waterfall, fireworks, a unicycle, a wrestling match, and a poetry slam to the next chapter.

Heck! You can create a couple of characters and write a novel based on the challenges alone.

By the end of the day today, we had a couple of more novelists signed on, simply by word of mouth. It looks like it's going to be a fun month.

Curveball

Today's common text was Litany by Billy Collins, a hilarious poem that lives up to its name in metaphors. After we read it, I asked the students to choose their favorite to share with the class. Then? They had to fit that particular metaphor into the next draft of one of their own free verse poems.

Sure, some of their attempts were the waft of the bat and the tiny cloud of dust from the catcher's mitt,

(and the rules of the game were that they could cut it from their next draft if it wasn't working for them),

but some were the towering fly that the outfielder lost in the sun,

and others were definitely the cork in the bat.

Baby, You're a Firework

We're working on figurative language in my class these days, and the notion that something can mean two (or more!) things at once is right on that imaginary line that divides the abstract from the concrete thinkers. I know it's tough, and so I am patient, providing as many different ways for them to explore this concept as I can. Ultimately, the objective is that they will be able to identify, explain, an use these writing tools. Maybe even use them as effectively as, say, Katy Perry does in her song, Firework, which we read, listened to, and annotated today.

Perhaps it was their familiarity with the text, or their enthusiasm for listening to pop music in school, or both, but almost every student was able to see how a plastic bag drifting in the wind might feel empty and useless, not to mention how a house of cards could feel weak and vulnerable.

A+ for you, Miss Perry.

Just Another Day at the Office

"Do I have something on my head?" a student asked the other morning.

"Besides your hair?" I joked. "I don't see anything."

"Look," he insisted, turning around and pointing to the back of his closely shorn head. I saw what he meant. There was a swoosh of green marker a little below and to the left of his ear.

"How did that get there?" I wondered out loud.

He spat the name of another student like a curse and added that she had done it on their way out of their homeroom.

I promised to speak to her about the incident and asked if he wanted to go to the bathroom and wash it off.

"Can't you just get it off?" he pleaded. "I can't even see it!"

I'm sure my brow furrowed, but I looked around the room and then grabbed some hand sanitizer. With a little squirt and a quick rub, the offending mark disappeared. Just then, the bell rang, and the student went off to his seat to record his homework as I started the class.

I Beg Your Pardon?

This morning, as my homeroom students were organizing their binders to prepare for the day and the week ahead, I overheard one of them use what sounded like inappropriate language. "What did you say?" I asked him sternly from across the room where I was assisting someone else.

He repeated himself with no remorse what so ever. I was confused, and certain that I must have heard him wrong, so I stepped over there and asked him again. "What did you say?"

He said it again, and then I said it. "Did you say 'Oh shit'?" I asked.

"Yeah," he told me, still with no sign of distress.

Of course our conversation had drawn the attention of everyone in the room, and there were several stares and a few giggles. It took me a minute, but I finally considered that this student, a second language learner who has only been in the country a little over a year, might not understand what he was saying.

"Do you know what that means?" I asked him, watching closely for any indication that his response might be dishonest.

"No," he answered, finally with some alarm, and I believed him.

"Well," I told the class, "I guess this is a good example of why we should make sure we know what we're saying."

There were nods of agreement as they turned back to their binders.

Great Idea, Mar

The other day I was gathering the materials to make corn husk dolls with my students. The information that the husks were available in most area supermarkets was met with skepticism from several colleagues, until I explained that they were in the Latin food section, because you need them for tamales. "Are you going to make tamales, too?" my friend Mary asked.

"No," I answered in a tone of voice that clearly expressed the absurdity of the idea, but even as I was verbally dismissing the concept out of hand, the wheels of my cooking brain were turning. "Maybe," I amended my reply almost immediately, and before Mary could say a word, I said, "Yes! I am going to make tamales! Vegan tamales!"

So, even though I have never made tamales before, that is what we are having for dinner tonight, and it was a lot of fun to adapt the recipe, too.

Thanks, Mary!

With the Benefit of Time

We saw the re-make of Footloose today. You might think a generation later, we would identify with the older generation.

Nope. That no dancing law is still totally bogus.