Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

This book by Anne Lamott is the next CUWP Reading Group Choice. We will be meeting October 7th at 5:30 at the Provo Brick Oven. I am really looking forward to reading and discussing it.

Structures for Conversation

A fellow EC NINGer posted this great link to a demonstration of many different classroom conversation styles. I think this will be a great resource.

EC Ning Websitute

An idea for project based learning.

Literary Ladies Book Group Ideas

Camp Yearbook Wrapup

I just spent three days at Josten's Camp Yearbook at the Cliff Resort at Snowbird. Wow - I learned so much my brain fills like it is going to explode. I had two students with me, and we were all energized and excited about our next year's theme: Shift_.

I am most excited about the switch (shift) we plan to do in making our book more of a story telling experience. I am still processing everything I learned, but I will probably do a brain dump here in the near future.

So why did I choose a picture of a zip line to post here? Because I freaking did this!!! Actually, the tram ride to the zip line tower was WAY scarier than the zip line itself. Long, slow, high rides are my worst nightmare - think Ferris wheels - yuck. The zip line itself was pretty exhilarating and fast. WOOT!!!!!

New York Times Lessons

I frequently use articles and lessons from this source. Now they have made it even easier to use with this link: Teaching Topics from The Times.

Reading Ladders: Leading Students from Where They Are to Where We'd Like Them to Be

This is the latest book club from the EC Ning. I am really enjoying both the book and the conversation on the Ning. Lots of good ideas floating around there. More to come...

Thank You Donors Choose, Wells Fargo, Eccles Foundation, and Bing

So, I have been extremely blessed in the last few months to have three! projects funded through Donors Choose. I've received (or will receive next year): two classroom sets of books and a flip video camera. I am so excited. This is how it all happened:

On the first project, the Eccles Foundation matched my donors, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation covered the rest. The project was funded in one day, and I got a set of The Poisonwood Bible and some classroom library texts.

The next project was languishing for a while until I got an email from Donors Choose about a promotion that the site called Bing was doing. All you had to do was go to their site, fill out a quick form, and they would send you a $5 gift card for a Donors Choose Donation. Well, I filled out the forms for every person in my family, and Mike and Alison did their part, too, and I quickly had the 2nd project (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and more class library novels) funded, thanks to another match from the Eccles Foundation.

I was on a roll, so I submitted a third project, a flip camcorder, and with the help of more Bing donations and others, and the Eccles match, that was funded.
 

I just submitted a fourth project today for a class set of 1984. That match money is too good to pass up.

I've learned some things while doing this.

1. Proposals with matching funds are more likely to get funded.
2. Once you get within 50 dollars of your goal, people are more likely to donate to your proposal
3. I love Bing, the Eccles Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Zombie Haiku

We had so much fun doing Zombie Haiku at CUWP that I had my students do some in October. They loved it! (Maybe a little too much)
Here is the PowerPoint I used to introduce it. I actually embedded the things I link to into the presentation.

Not "Were" Wolves

So, I guess I'll be reading this for a while. From the blurbs on the cover, it sounds good. This is the next book that the Literary Ladies will be reading for our book group.

This book was written by my neighbor, Kristen Chandler! I just picked up three signed copies.

Here is Kris, posing with her book at her house (photo credit).

A Little Chinglish, Anyone?

The New York Times ran an article on Chinglish, and then they invited their readers to submit examples. I laughed so hard I started crying. Enjoy!

Sensory Writing

I've been trying to do a little more with sensory writing this semester. In addition to writing about art, I've had the kids eat a Rice Krispy treat while writing about how they would describe it to someone from another planet, and I've had them compare a character from The Importance of Being Earnest to a tootsie roll pop. The kids seem to like it (and the treats don't hurt their engagement, either).

Digital Memoir

So, this week I am having  my students use Windows Movie Maker (or I-movie if they have a Mac) to create a PSA. Next year I may want to use something like this in my memoir/tell my own story unit, just to shake things up. It won't be the only thing I do, but I think it would create interest in what they are doing.

For My Next NCTE Trip!

This flight attendant packs all of this into one carry-on bag. And, she doesn't even have to sit on the suitcase to close it!!

Now if they can figure out how to roll up ARCs and other books, I won't have to pay the $25 dollars and up I had to fork over in Philadelphia.

I'll have to practice this technique when we head up to Camp Yearbook this summer. I wonder if I can get all that and a laptop and printer in one bag? Hmmm. . .

Ideas for Poetry Portfolio

I used these ideas with my students to get their minds wrapped around poetry, but also to get their minds thinking that words are everywhere. These exercises helped them get ready for our Poetry Out Loud competition.

1. Ekphrastic Poetry:

2. Cento: From the Latin word for "patchwork," the cento is a poetic form made up of lines from poems by other poets.







3. Road Sign Poetry



4. Word Ticket/Paint Chip Poem

First-Time Yearbook Teacher Has Success!

As some of you may know, I took on my school's yearbook class this year in addition to teaching my other classes. It has been both a fun and frustrating experience. I know I've learned a lot--probably more than my students, actually!

Anyway, our yearbook is almost finished (we just have one more file that a senior editor needs to upload on Monday), and I am experiencing a great feeling of accomplishment and pride for my little staff. Our theme was Technically Speaking, and we really took that theme and ran with it. Here's our cover--it looks like a computer hybrid between a Mac and a PC:

The actual cover looks way cooler than this--this is just a small file drawing of it.

Our pages themselves look like internet sites, except for our first and last pages, which look like a computer desktop and the infamous "blue screen of death."  Here are some examples (if you click on them you can see a larger version, I think):

It's been a ton of fun making UCAS themed near copies of various websites. (I hope you recognize Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, and Youtube.)

Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words

I was first introduced to this book at CUWP. I've been wanting to use it ever since, and now that we are doing Poetry Out Loud, this is my big chance. We spent about half of a class period making word tickets. Word tickets means that the students had a big pile of magazines and newspapers from which they were supposed to choose interesting words. After they got their words, they cut them out and glued them onto carnival-type tickets.

I had every student choose ten nouns, ten verbs, and ten "others," so we had around 900 words or so by the time they had finished. Then everyone got 10-15 random words and used as many as they wanted to create phrases and images to inspire poetry. My students had a fantastic time choosing words (and it was very educational, too, as they spent a lot of time arguing and teaching each other which words were and were not nouns and verbs). I will post some of their best works here after I've gone over all of their portfolios.

The Secret Knowledge of Grownups

I bought this book at CUWP, and I've been meaning to use it all year as a Scribble. I finally found a time when I thought it would work well, since my students were learning about Romanticism. Romanticism privileged children and childhood, right? So--what better time to write from a child's perspective.

In the book, the author takes those basic nagging rules that all parents have: don't pick your nose, eat your vegetables, etc., and comes up with a wacky secret reason behind them. For example, you shouldn't pick your nose because you might accidentally deflate your brain.

My students took the ball and ran with it. They came up with some great secrets--about everything from aiming urine to talking to strangers. I gave them a 17 x 11 piece of paper and had them fold it like a book. They put their rule and the supposed reason (Eat Your Vegetables - Because they are good for you.) on the outside and then they put the real secret reason and optional illustrations on the inside. As a culminating activity, I had the students pass their completed booklets around the class. That way everyone got to see what their peers had come up with, and we all got to have a few laughs.

A New Resource. . .

I just discovered a really great site: http://comp2reflections.blogspot.com/. I think this same blogging lady has a couple of other sites, too. I think there is some stuff here that I can use. Yippee!!!

CUWP Reading Group

Well, due to my general insanity, I've taken on yet another project. I volunteered to be in charge of the reading groups for CUWP. The last book we read was The Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks. Our next book choice is Penny Kittle's Write Beside Them. We will meet on the 3rd of June and discuss the book. So far it has been a lot of fun. I sometimes get a little over my head with book groups for professional books. I've purchased all the books for the EC NING groups, but I've only ever finished three of them: Jim Burke's What's the Big Idea?, Tom Newkird's Holding on to Good Ideas and Kelly Gallagher's Readicide. Anyway, here is looking forward to a new month of school - only 33 days of instruction and 3 days of testing until the last day of school. Yikes!!!