I See

My glasses broke about six months ago. They were trifocals and I'm pretty sure the prescription needed updating, because I was getting headaches after wearing them sometimes. An inveterate procrastinator, I've been able to make do with only reading glasses since then, but I think it might be time to go in. I'm suffering from frame envy.

I've been noticing eye wear everywhere. This afternoon it was in the movies. We saw Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Gary Oldman plays 1970's era spy George Smiley in a tale that flashes back and forth over a period of several years. It can be confusing, too, except that he gets an eye exam early in the picture and chooses new frames. Of course I was all over that, and as a result? I could always tell the past and present from the glasses he was wearing.

For the record-- I liked his first frames better, but the next pair was really authentic to the time period.

Spoiler Alert: He gets yet another pair at the end of the movie. Do you think that might mean something symbolic?

A Million Little Pieces

My students are working on memoirs and their second drafts were due today. The following message was in my email inbox this morning.

We read J's story which is due today. There were a few sections with inappropriate content, we have discussed this with him and he will make necessary changes. He can stay after school today to complete or use time this weekend. Thank you for understanding.

Uh oh. The last I had seen of the piece was a little silly, but not too far out of bounds for a sixth grade boy. I talked to him first thing. "What's going on?" I asked.

"My parents are totally over-reacting," he sighed.

I asked to see the draft, and there were a few things that I knew I would suggest editing out. I replied to his mom at lunch.

The drafts that were due today were not intended to be in final form. I encourage the students to take creative risks in their writing, but I agree that J's piece was not appropriate for school as it was written. One of the objectives of the assignment is for students to choose a memorable event from their lives and to consider how it shaped them and what their actions and reactions in that situation reveal about them. When I talked to J about his story, he explained that he had only presented the perspective of his eight-year-old self. Today he worked on adding what he learned from the experience, what he thinks now, and making clear that he and the boy mentioned are still friends. He should continue working on it over the weekend.

He can also start a new piece on another topic if your family would prefer. Please contact me with any further questions.

A little later I found out that J the author had been taking liberties with the facts.

Thank you for your quick response to our concerns. The content of the story did not reflect the incident as it occurred or how J has felt when similar situations have occurred in the past. He is struggling a bit with his identity recently and I understand he would like others to see him with a different bravado. Thank you for providing the specifics of the assignment, I see he still needs to address the other points of the assignment as well.

It looks like J is going to be doing some revising this weekend.

Will Write for Donuts

We had 12 students attend our little writing club today. Their challenge was to write in second person, and they wrote some pretty good stuff. I like to think it was for more than the chocolate frosted chocolate donuts, but who cares if it was?

This was one of my favorites:

You grinned and laughed as they flew around, glowed and disappeared, on and off. You would grab them out of the air and hold them, staring at them in awe. You would always let your fireflies go. You didn’t want to hurt them, but letting them go would make you so sad. You were so little and so happy, then. This story will be our secret.

I remember you at every age and I know that one day you will be someone extremely important. There are so many people around who will help you on your journey. I am sorry that I am not going to be there to help you along the way.

Oopsie

Was that me who said "irregardless" at a meeting of English teachers?

Oh my.

Found Poetry

We have a neighbor who goes by the name of Peach. I've never been formally introduced to her, but I know her well from the rather loud conversations she has at the pool with anyone who will engage with her. I know, for example, that she was devastated when Tim Russert died, she is feuding with her sister, and she doesn't care too much for cats.

Who knew she was a post-modernist stream-of-consciousness poet, though? Take a look:

their are rules in condo living one is Noise and another is Trash when to bring it out when not to tonight a bag of trash was left outside all broken up i kicked it over found a letter with address on it walked it back to its owner . the owner of the trash came out and looked at me like a deer in headlights and said Oh i was going to walk it down later when i get the baby to sleep i handed her Her Trash

I like it.

Goldilocks and the Three Balloons

We had our school-wide science fair last week. The way we run it, all students create a project and all staff members are judges. Even though the event is ultimately a very positive and successful one for the majority of our school community, this policy can create some conflicts, too.

For example, one of the projects I judged was a blank board. I honestly did not even notice until I picked up the evaluation sheet and fastened it to my clipboard. When I looked up, I laughed. The student smiled and shrugged. "So, tell me about your science fair project," I said. She didn't even bother to explain the absence of the Introduction, Materials and Procedures, Results, Graph, Pictures, and Conclusion. She simply plunged in with a description of her experiment which involved balloons filled with different amounts of helium, static electricity, and hang time on the wall.

And she almost had me. I could imagine a situation where she had not been able to produce the required elements for her display, and the experiment itself seemed fun and interesting-- the benefit of the doubt was all hers. "But why?" I asked when she told me her results, "why do you think the middle one stayed up there the longest?"

She shrugged. "Who knows?"

"Could it have been the helium in the bigger one pulling up?" I tried.

She looked at me blankly.

"Or the weight of the smaller one pulling it down?"

"Maybe," She looked bored. "Or the other one was probably just right."

Take It Easy

It's always fun to browse through iTunes and look for the holes in your music collection. For a couple of bucks here and there, you can wile away the hours lost in nostalgia. Sometimes it's shocking to realize what you don't own, especially given its prominence in your past. Such was the case today when I downloaded the Eagles Greatest Hits.

When we were teenagers my mom used to blast that album on the 8-Track player and let it loop endlessly while she cleaned the house on weekend mornings. That and the vacuum were kind of hard to sleep through, but we did our best.