Feedback Loop

On the eve of spending part of my weekend grading the first big assignment of the year, my fellow-teacher Mary and I spent a little time looking at the feedback we had received on a unit submitted (not by our choice) to a prestigious international educational organization.

Of the three ratings in each category-- beginning, using, and sharing-- we had gotten an even split between the lowest and the middle. In other words, according to someone somewhere, our unit needed some work. Whoever had evaluated it had written well over 1000 words of advice and suggestions, but to us? Rather than a road map to revision, the prose was convoluted and confusing. Plus, we have no real interest in fixing whatever they think is broke, maybe because the planner is a shadow of what we actually do in the classroom, written during time when we think we have more student-related things to do.

All of this is to say that extensive comments are a waste of time unless the writer values first, the task, and second, the reviewer, a truth I'll keep in mind as I offer my own thoughts to my students this weekend.

Interval Training

I like my work week structured like my workout:

Instead of five steady days this week, I worked one marathon day, took off a day, worked an easy day from home, and then worked two days at a brisk pace, before taking two more days off.

I think such an approach could not only build strength and stamina, but also improve performance.

Just sayin'

You Smell Familiar

Since Heidi was indisposed yesterday afternoon it fell to me to walk Lucy on my own. We headed down the hill and over to the dog park where I hoped she would find some friendly pups to run with. As we made our way along the path from the western gate to the eastern, Lucy did engage a bit with some other dogs, but she was more interested in sniffing than frolicking.

It's a phenomena we have noticed with her lately-- she's a little standoffish with dogs outside her core group, but if the pack is present, she plays with everyone. I guess even with dogs, or perhaps especially with dogs, there is security in numbers.

At any rate, we were about halfway through the park when a blonde doodle and a berniedoodle puppy ran over not to Lucy, but to me. They were both jumping on me like I had a bag of treats, which I did not. Their owner sat on a bench engrossed in her phone the whole time, even as I sternly told them "off!" and "off!" again.

Eventually, they got to Lucy, and they greeted her enthusiastically, too. She played a little with them, but not as strenuously as I wished. A couple minutes later, we moved on down the park. There was something about those dogs that stuck with me though, and when I got home I asked Heidi if she knew them. It wasn't until today that my brain itch was finally scratched. When our dog walker came to get Lucy, she told us there was a doodle fest at her house: Harper and Gatsby were over.

Harper and Gatsby! A blonde doodle and a berniedoodle puppy I have met many times when we've gone to pick up Lucy from the dog walker. They were right-- they did know me! I just didn't recognize them out of context. But who knows what Lucy was thinking?

Shetland

"Is your peerie lad givin' you trouble?" Detective Inspecter Jimmy Perez asked the wife of a person of interest.

I hit pause. "What does peerie even mean?" I asked Heidi. We were watching the 2nd episode in the latest season of Shetland, a BBC One series based on the classically British crime novels of Ann Cleeves. We stumbled upon the show whilst channel surfing early in the summer, and we have been hooked ever since by the rugged isolated beauty of the land which is mirrored in the rugged isolated integrity of the main character and his team.

So much so, that we have begun planning our some day trip there, with stops in Scotland and Norway, since the islands lie in the North Sea right between the two. But before we go, we have to master the language a wee bit more, do we nae? Peerie? Means small, like the peerie ponies and sheep dogs that bear the name of the islands, and is a synonym for wee, but I'm sure there are some subtle differences that we'll learn when we're there.

Truth in Imitation

This year we are approaching personal narrative through the lens of food memoir on the theory that it might be more concrete for the sixth graders and also inspire them to write on a novel topic rather than rely on those 2-3 experiences they describe year after year. (You know them-- the bike crash, the outdoor lab overnight camping trip, the time they fell off the monkey bars and broke a bone, the loss of a grandparent).

To springboard into the unit we are using Knoxville, TN, by Nikki Giovanni, a short poem full of sensory detail, food, and a strong sense of place. After we read it, students think of a beloved place of their own, brainstorm details, and write a poem using Knoxville as the model. As a fellow writer in the class, I went through the process and composed my own poem.

Here it is:

Acadia National Park, Maine

I always like summer best--
You can pack a snack bag
and roadtrip 12 hours
and listen to audio books
and play name that tune
until you smell the Maine,
fir and pine and balsam,
and eat lobster every night
and wild blueberries
you picked yourself
and gingerbread
and popovers
and hear the gulls call
and the waves roar
at Thunder Hole
and climb all 26 mountains
crossing warm granite ledges
with cool breezes
and swim in icy ponds
under impossibly blue skies
and wake up every day
with your whole family
just like you did
when you were little.

Tails on the Trail

This morning we took the dogs for a quick hike up at Great Falls, the national park that offers some word class hiking along the Potomac River Gorge, just 30 minutes north of Washington, DC. The weather was sunny and dry, if rather warm for late September, and I was surprised by how few people we met along the trail. We did see an exceptionally speedy box turtle and a couple of young deer, all of which raised wonderment in Lucy and her buddy, Beckett. The ranger on the horse, though? Well that just raised an alarm, and we were a bit abashed as we pulled our barking dogs off the side of the trail. The ranger had a bit of a sour look as they passed, but horse didn't seem to mind at all.

Taco Cat

One of the fun things about spending a few weeks in Rochester, MN this summer was the street festival that was held every Thursday. Music, food, and craft vendors lined the streets across from the Mayo Clinic and just a few blocks from where we were staying.

My mom really enjoyed the cauliflower tacos that one of the local restaurants was serving, so much so that we set out to develop our own recipe. We started with all the components she liked-- cauliflower (of course), corn, quick-pickled cabbage slaw, tortilla strips, and a creamy salsa squirted over the top, and from there built our own versions of each: a little more spice, a little more acid, a little less heat, a little more greenage.

We enjoyed those tacos more than once while we were there, and tonight when I made them for our dinner here in Virginia, I was missing my mom and the time we spent together this summer in Minnesota.