One of my favorite reading activities is giving students directions to fold a paper airplane. Practical and easy to assess, kids will go back to those instructions again and again to get it right. And when they do? They fly.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Clash of the Titans
In this era of high stakes testing, any teacher will tell you that the math and language arts (specifically reading) departments drive the figurative bus, which in our case is definitely bright yellow. In general, these disciplines maintain a wary truce, each convinced that their skills and content actually provide students with the keys to success. Oh sure, math may claim to be an objective subject, but language arts recognizes that construct for the oxymoron it is.
Often these two plan school-wide events; meant to be fun and engaging, at middle school they are transparently self-promoting and usually a little lame. March is a big month for both departments-- the 2nd is Dr. Seuss's birthday which has been designated Read Across America Day, and the 14th? Well, this year, a little before half-past nine in the morning, it will be 3.14.15 9:26. It's the Pi Day of the century!
At our school, the proximity of two such momentous occasions made for a little bit of a prickly meeting this afternoon-- we have almost too much celebration scheduled. Maybe we should declare them both holidays and take a couple weeks off!
Often these two plan school-wide events; meant to be fun and engaging, at middle school they are transparently self-promoting and usually a little lame. March is a big month for both departments-- the 2nd is Dr. Seuss's birthday which has been designated Read Across America Day, and the 14th? Well, this year, a little before half-past nine in the morning, it will be 3.14.15 9:26. It's the Pi Day of the century!
At our school, the proximity of two such momentous occasions made for a little bit of a prickly meeting this afternoon-- we have almost too much celebration scheduled. Maybe we should declare them both holidays and take a couple weeks off!
Monday, February 9, 2015
There's a Place for You
We got a new student on our team last week. He is in my homeroom, reading, and English class, so I have had some time to observe him. Coming in at this point in the year, a kid has to make a social call-- will he align with the teacher or with the students? A common dynamic is the new kid who has nothing to lose by defying the establishment and flouting the routine for the attention of the other students. Of course I want them to make friends, but not at the expense of the productive dynamic I've worked the last five months to forge.
This new guy has made a gentle venture in that direction. Soft spoken, he is self-effacing in the quiet confusion he broadly expresses about academic expectations, but it amuses his peers even so. The morning announcements can be particularly rich material for his act-- who are these strange folk and their odd pronouncements?
Today, though, there was a trailer for the international film we will air for the whole school on Friday, and when they said it was from Mongolia, his interest was genuine, and he moved to a seat where he could better see the screen. As the video rolled, he sighed and proclaimed, "My Mongolia! I would know you anywhere!" and I knew, that come Friday, he was going to have the attention of our class in a very positive way, as an expert on something he loves.
I don't think we'll have much more trouble after that.
This new guy has made a gentle venture in that direction. Soft spoken, he is self-effacing in the quiet confusion he broadly expresses about academic expectations, but it amuses his peers even so. The morning announcements can be particularly rich material for his act-- who are these strange folk and their odd pronouncements?
Today, though, there was a trailer for the international film we will air for the whole school on Friday, and when they said it was from Mongolia, his interest was genuine, and he moved to a seat where he could better see the screen. As the video rolled, he sighed and proclaimed, "My Mongolia! I would know you anywhere!" and I knew, that come Friday, he was going to have the attention of our class in a very positive way, as an expert on something he loves.
I don't think we'll have much more trouble after that.
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Applied Weather Report
As much as we talk about the weather, most people, including me, don't really understand it: cold front, warm front, jet stream, high pressure, low pressure, what? All most of us care about is should I bring a sweater, an umbrella, or both tomorrow?
We live in a little development tucked away on a hill bordered by some woods, but the interstate is less than half a mile away, and there are train tracks not too much further beyond that. I know, because I know, but I also know, because when there is a low pressure system in place, I can hear the hum of traffic and the rumble of the trains, but high pressure keeps those sound waves where they are.
Neat, right?
We live in a little development tucked away on a hill bordered by some woods, but the interstate is less than half a mile away, and there are train tracks not too much further beyond that. I know, because I know, but I also know, because when there is a low pressure system in place, I can hear the hum of traffic and the rumble of the trains, but high pressure keeps those sound waves where they are.
Neat, right?
Saturday, February 7, 2015
The Ox
We saw this year's Oscar-nominated documentary shorts today, and they were interesting but offered a rather bleak window on the world, one that was difficult to gaze out of at times. Probably the hardest one for me was The Reaper about a Mexican meat packer. Most of the 32 minute film is a graphic account of his job at the slaughter house.
My brother and I sat side by side, and I knew what he was thinking as we watched, because I was thinking the same thing. In the summer of 1979 we visited a high school friend of ours who lived outside of Chicago, and her dad thought it would be good for us to tour the slaughterhouse where he was a USDA inspector. The plant in the movie was a lot like the one we visited 35 years ago.
I've written about the experience before. Here is an excerpt from my piece:
Heat shimmered up from the asphalt parking lot surrounding the urban corral, and the smell of livestock and some other thick odor was suffocating. The August mid-morning sun reflected off the windshield of one of the cars, hitting me dead in the eyes. I turned my head to avoid the glare and saw a hundred head of terrified cattle standing hock-deep in piss and mud. Two men in filthy t-shirts and waders prodded the cows forward toward what appeared to be a double stall. Another man with big orange headphones under his ball cap stood in front of the cows, just outside the two-pen, holding a broomstick with a shiny metal cylinder at the end. He raised it surely, touching the end of it to a spot on the first cow’s forehead, right between its eyes. There was a small bang, and the cow fell dead in its stall. He shot the next one, and the whole pen rotated like a giant wheel with four spokes, dropping the two dead cows beneath, and opening two vacant stalls for the next in line.
“Did you see that?” our host exclaimed. “Now that’s efficiency! Your Pepsi generation could learn a thing or two there, eh?” I grimaced and nodded politely, but with a shrug. I looked over at my friend, Renata; she avoided making eye contact. “Let’s go inside,” her father continued, holding the huge silver door to the slaughterhouse open with a flourish and a bow.
Shouldering my way through the long plastic streamers that insulated the entryway, the first thing I noticed as I crossed the threshold was the visible vapor of my breath. My heart leapt as if it were the first cold day in winter, and the crispness of the refrigerated air made it seem much cleaner. I felt wide-awake and free of the fetid stockyard that we’d left behind. As Dr. P. signed us in, there was a lot of hearty laughter and backslapping, and I knew right away that we were VIPs— guests of the USDA meat inspector. As we stood waiting for our tour to begin, the death of the cows outside played over in my mind in a slow-mo loop. They were upset; their sides twitched and their necks twisted; their eyes rolled back white in their heads, and then they were dead, and more scared cows took their places.
We saw the rest of the meatpacking plant in the next couple of hours. It wasn’t long before the welcome cool of the place turned dank. We started at the bottom, near the conveyer belt where the cows dropped. A rubber-coated worker clipped their tails to a hook on a wire that lifted them so that they floated along upside-down, suspended from a winding industrial track overhead. They barely paused at the first station, pirouetting gently as a man beheaded them with power saw, letting the heads drop onto a belt that whisked them away in another direction. Zip, zip, zip, zip—four hooves and hocks removed and tossed into a plastic lined dumpster. Next stop was a quick slit down the gut, and hundreds of pounds of entrails sloshed to the belt below, where off they were carried, as well.
Chilled now, we walked along rubber mats over floors of slick concrete with lots of drains. There were hoses on each wall, sluiceways beneath the belts, and pools of bright blood everywhere. The cows, most black, but some a rusty auburn and white, swayed along beside us matching our pace before jerking to a stop and being seized at the shoulders by two robotic arms with clamps for hands; they pulled the hides off the animals like a sweater from a sleepy child. Fortunately, the clatter of the disassembly line covered whatever sound that that procedure makes. In fact, it was too noisy to talk, and that was a good thing, too.
Once gutted and skinned, the headless carcass was quickly quartered and was soon even recognizable as cuts of meat from the grocery store. Dr. P. pulled a blue stamp from the pocket of his pristine white lab coat, and a small group of employees smiled proudly as he ceremoniously thumped it down on the deconstructed rump of what had been a live animal no more than an hour ago. “USDA Prime!” he exclaimed to our applause.
In the back seat on the way home I noticed that the cuffs of my new Osh Kosh b'Gosh overalls were damp. A thin ribbon of blood soaked the sharp edge of blue and white pinstripes. It never washed out.
My brother and I sat side by side, and I knew what he was thinking as we watched, because I was thinking the same thing. In the summer of 1979 we visited a high school friend of ours who lived outside of Chicago, and her dad thought it would be good for us to tour the slaughterhouse where he was a USDA inspector. The plant in the movie was a lot like the one we visited 35 years ago.
I've written about the experience before. Here is an excerpt from my piece:
Heat shimmered up from the asphalt parking lot surrounding the urban corral, and the smell of livestock and some other thick odor was suffocating. The August mid-morning sun reflected off the windshield of one of the cars, hitting me dead in the eyes. I turned my head to avoid the glare and saw a hundred head of terrified cattle standing hock-deep in piss and mud. Two men in filthy t-shirts and waders prodded the cows forward toward what appeared to be a double stall. Another man with big orange headphones under his ball cap stood in front of the cows, just outside the two-pen, holding a broomstick with a shiny metal cylinder at the end. He raised it surely, touching the end of it to a spot on the first cow’s forehead, right between its eyes. There was a small bang, and the cow fell dead in its stall. He shot the next one, and the whole pen rotated like a giant wheel with four spokes, dropping the two dead cows beneath, and opening two vacant stalls for the next in line.
“Did you see that?” our host exclaimed. “Now that’s efficiency! Your Pepsi generation could learn a thing or two there, eh?” I grimaced and nodded politely, but with a shrug. I looked over at my friend, Renata; she avoided making eye contact. “Let’s go inside,” her father continued, holding the huge silver door to the slaughterhouse open with a flourish and a bow.
Shouldering my way through the long plastic streamers that insulated the entryway, the first thing I noticed as I crossed the threshold was the visible vapor of my breath. My heart leapt as if it were the first cold day in winter, and the crispness of the refrigerated air made it seem much cleaner. I felt wide-awake and free of the fetid stockyard that we’d left behind. As Dr. P. signed us in, there was a lot of hearty laughter and backslapping, and I knew right away that we were VIPs— guests of the USDA meat inspector. As we stood waiting for our tour to begin, the death of the cows outside played over in my mind in a slow-mo loop. They were upset; their sides twitched and their necks twisted; their eyes rolled back white in their heads, and then they were dead, and more scared cows took their places.
We saw the rest of the meatpacking plant in the next couple of hours. It wasn’t long before the welcome cool of the place turned dank. We started at the bottom, near the conveyer belt where the cows dropped. A rubber-coated worker clipped their tails to a hook on a wire that lifted them so that they floated along upside-down, suspended from a winding industrial track overhead. They barely paused at the first station, pirouetting gently as a man beheaded them with power saw, letting the heads drop onto a belt that whisked them away in another direction. Zip, zip, zip, zip—four hooves and hocks removed and tossed into a plastic lined dumpster. Next stop was a quick slit down the gut, and hundreds of pounds of entrails sloshed to the belt below, where off they were carried, as well.
Chilled now, we walked along rubber mats over floors of slick concrete with lots of drains. There were hoses on each wall, sluiceways beneath the belts, and pools of bright blood everywhere. The cows, most black, but some a rusty auburn and white, swayed along beside us matching our pace before jerking to a stop and being seized at the shoulders by two robotic arms with clamps for hands; they pulled the hides off the animals like a sweater from a sleepy child. Fortunately, the clatter of the disassembly line covered whatever sound that that procedure makes. In fact, it was too noisy to talk, and that was a good thing, too.
Once gutted and skinned, the headless carcass was quickly quartered and was soon even recognizable as cuts of meat from the grocery store. Dr. P. pulled a blue stamp from the pocket of his pristine white lab coat, and a small group of employees smiled proudly as he ceremoniously thumped it down on the deconstructed rump of what had been a live animal no more than an hour ago. “USDA Prime!” he exclaimed to our applause.
In the back seat on the way home I noticed that the cuffs of my new Osh Kosh b'Gosh overalls were damp. A thin ribbon of blood soaked the sharp edge of blue and white pinstripes. It never washed out.
Friday, February 6, 2015
Job Interview
My students are about to embark on a project where they will work with a partner to create a piece of fiction written in the form of letters exchanged. How to pair them most effectively? Such questions are the authentic stuff of education.
For my part, I want students to feel they have had some choice, but I don't want them to set themselves up for unnecessary difficulty or even failure, so I have devised an activity called "Job Interview." The kids think about what they want in an ideal work partner and generate a list of questions. Then, they conduct interviews of their classmates to see who might best fill the position.
It's always amazing to see how seriously sixth graders take this activity. Their questions are probing and their responses are earnest and quite thoughtful.
How are you as a writer?
My handwriting is really neat.
But what about, you know, the ideas?
I have a good imagination, too.
Okay, good!
Do you have any ideas about this project?
Yes! I know what I want to write about!
Will you compromise if somebody has a different idea?
[Long pause...] I will listen to anything.
In the end, they submit a proposal ranking their choices to me, the CEO of our operation, and, so informed, I assign the teams.
For my part, I want students to feel they have had some choice, but I don't want them to set themselves up for unnecessary difficulty or even failure, so I have devised an activity called "Job Interview." The kids think about what they want in an ideal work partner and generate a list of questions. Then, they conduct interviews of their classmates to see who might best fill the position.
It's always amazing to see how seriously sixth graders take this activity. Their questions are probing and their responses are earnest and quite thoughtful.
How are you as a writer?
My handwriting is really neat.
But what about, you know, the ideas?
I have a good imagination, too.
Okay, good!
Do you have any ideas about this project?
Yes! I know what I want to write about!
Will you compromise if somebody has a different idea?
[Long pause...] I will listen to anything.
In the end, they submit a proposal ranking their choices to me, the CEO of our operation, and, so informed, I assign the teams.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
And the Other One is Giving a High Five
I was walking around the class room this afternoon monitoring 11 pairs of sixth graders engaged in lively discussions about a couple of characters in the short story we had just read together. I paused at one table, confused to see a large stainless steel soup spoon laid next to a binder as if set for lunch. "What is that?" I asked the student sitting there.
"A spoon," he answered.
"But why is it there?" I continued.
"It was in my pocket," he told me.
"From lunch?" I guessed.
"Nope," he said.
Then why?" I wondered.
He shrugged. "I have no idea. I just reached in for a pencil and there it was."
Years ago, on the first cold night of Autumn, we took Josh and Treat, then ten-years-old, to a "haunted forest" for Halloween. Emily pulled last season's warm coats from the back of the closet and the boys squeezed into them, then stepped back so we could evaluate the fit. They were snug, but fine for one evening and Treat slipped his hands into familiar pockets as we headed out into the cold dark.
"Hey--" He paused at the door and produced a pair of underwear. "What are these doing here?"
We laughed and figured that he must have stuffed them away after an overnight trip either to our house or his grandparents'. "Are they clean?" I asked. "Because they might come in handy if the forest is as scary as they say!"
"A spoon," he answered.
"But why is it there?" I continued.
"It was in my pocket," he told me.
"From lunch?" I guessed.
"Nope," he said.
Then why?" I wondered.
He shrugged. "I have no idea. I just reached in for a pencil and there it was."
Years ago, on the first cold night of Autumn, we took Josh and Treat, then ten-years-old, to a "haunted forest" for Halloween. Emily pulled last season's warm coats from the back of the closet and the boys squeezed into them, then stepped back so we could evaluate the fit. They were snug, but fine for one evening and Treat slipped his hands into familiar pockets as we headed out into the cold dark.
"Hey--" He paused at the door and produced a pair of underwear. "What are these doing here?"
We laughed and figured that he must have stuffed them away after an overnight trip either to our house or his grandparents'. "Are they clean?" I asked. "Because they might come in handy if the forest is as scary as they say!"
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