TIOBE & ... Aladdin & Mean Girls?

I'm going to show these pieces today and let the kids think about any parallels they may have with The Importance of Being Earnest that we just finished last week.

Awkward

I thought it might be fun to share some more writing. This isn't my best effort, but, hey, at least I'm trying. This was a piece I wrote with my students about an awkward moment:

Awkward!!!

Denée Tyler

I am going to Arizona for Thanksgiving. I’m not going to the warm, sunny part of Arizona. I’m going to the windy, cold, desolate part of Arizona called Snowflake. Why? Well, my parents and a brother live there, but one of the major reasons for my decision was to see my grandmother. She is 84 years old and still in pretty good health, but I realize that she could be gone at any moment, so I want to visit her again while I can. The original plan was to meet up with her at an extended family turkey fest, but that plan has been torpedoed by the ultimate of awkward situations.

My husband and I have a few guilty pleasures, and one of them is watching a new television show on the CW network called Ringer. In the show, one twin sister, Bridgette, is a key witness to a murder, and Bridgette is too scared to stay and testify, so she runs to her estranged twin, Siobhan, for advice and protection. As soon as the sisters are together, they go out on a boat and Siobhan supposedly goes overboard, leaving the Bridgette the perfect opportunity: take Siobhan’s place and identity, including her husband. Convoluted? Yes. But that is only the edge of the iceberg. As Bridgette continues impersonating her twin, she discovers that Siobhan has been having an affair with Siobhan’s best friend’s husband, who also is supposedly a great friend of Siobhan’s husband. And not only that, but Siobhan (and now Bridgette) still meets and talks to this best friend, Gemma, everyday. What do they talk about? Who the mystery woman is that Gemma’s husband is cheating with.

AWKWARD!!!

What does this have to do with the turkey fest? I have many cousins in my Grandmother’s family, but I have two in particular we’ll call Tom and Bob. Well, I’ve just found out that Tom has admitted that he has been having an affair with Bob’s wife. And he’s tired of keeping it a secret, so he just wants to come out in the open and marry Bob’s wife as soon as she and Bob can get divorced. ARGGHHH. This is going to ruin every family get together for the rest of time—or at least until Tom and Bob’s wife get tired of each other and move on to someone else.

AWKWARD!!!

As I watched Ringer, I would think about how incredibly insensitive and crass the whole situation was.  I used to find it unbelievable that someone could betray a friend AND a spouse so callously. Now that I’ve seen the situation in my own family, I guess I’ll change my thinking on that. I guess people really can be that self centered and cruel.

AWKWARD!!!

Reflections on My Sixth Year

In exactly one week, I will finish my sixth year of teaching. In some ways this has been a great year; in some, the worst ever. I've had to deal with seizures (my own!) seventy-two hour EEGs, and shoulder surgery. I've been more scatterbrained than I ever remember being in my life. I've dealt with reluctant learners, one of whom was my own child. I've occasionally felt like I was doing a great job teaching and often felt like I was the worst teacher in the world.

I think it's probably time for a major overhaul of my curriculum to get me out of my doldrums. We recently read Write Like This by Kelly Gallagher for the CUWP book group, and it really got me thinking about what I'm having my students write and why. I loved what Kelly said in the book about a fantasy meeting with a former student years from now:

"Excitedly, she blurts out: 'Oh, it is so good to see you! I was hoping to run into you some day so that I can tell you that I am still writing essays that analyze the author's use of tone. I  keep a Tone Journal at home, and I apply that skill you taught me twenty years ago in the tenth grade to everything I read today! Let's have lunch some day so I can share all the essays I have written recognizing the author's tone found in all the books I have read since high school graduation."

Instead, he says he'd rather hear about the blog they're writing, or the letter they've sent to every member of congress about some issue.

Anyway, I am going to redo my curriculum so that we're doing a lot more real world writing. For example, this year I had my students write sonnets. Dumb idea. It was painful for them to do and painful for me to read.

One of my goals for this summer (and hopefully to continue through the school year next year) is to read and USE one professional book a month. Actually, maybe I'll try for two a month over the summer. I have quite a few that look like they'd be very helpful if I actually read them. Ha.

Anyway, I have one more week with this particular crop of kids, and I hope they've taken away at least one useful thing from my class this year. They did do spectacularly well on their end of level tests, and that seems to be all that our school really worries about as far as whether I'm a good teacher or not. For myself, I'd like to think the bar is a bit higher.

The Scale of the Universe

This has nothing to do with English, but it is incredibly cool: http://htwins.net/scale2/scale2.swf?bordercolor=white

Mottos for Life

Here my students are participating in the annual life motto writing portion of my English 11 Class. What a great bunch of kids!! After reading Benjamin Franklin, we take time to think about a saying that embodies them, then they make a mini-poster of it.

Newspaper Blackout Poetry

I've simply got to try this with my students this year.



http://readingyear.blogspot.com/2012/04/petty-theft-newspaper-blackout-poem.html

http://newspaperblackout.com/

Annual Yearbook Post

Once again I am celebrating the completion of our yearbook with a little peek post. This is the best yearbook we've made in the three years I've worked as advisor, and in many ways, it's been the most frustrating. We missed all of our deadlines by about 2 - 3 weeks, and I seemed to be the only one who cared. Sigh. Anyway, here it is. This is the cover.

This is one of our divider pages that further explains our theme:

Here is a shot that shows one of the fun features we used throughout--eyes with page numbers.

We did a fair number of wow pages. Here are two examples:

And we tried to do a modular, sequential book with cutout highlights, etc., so here are some examples:

It was a ton of work, and I am so glad it's done. It's always a great feeling of relief to get it finished. Now we just need to do the insert and make a movie.

Blue, Blue, My World is Blue

Here is another sample of my writing from the writing circle groups in our class.

Blue: A Couch Story

Denée Tyler

1981 – Blue Macramé Couch Belonging to David and Sandra D________

A large and roughly handsome football player in the middle of an intense game of “Do You Love Your Neighbor?” slams his full body weight into the couch and breaks the entire macramé frame. The couch is never quite the same, and the boyfriend fades into distant memory.

1986 – Blue Flowered Couch from the Side of the Road in Atlantic Highlands, NJ

A new mother comes home from the hospital to find that her husband has dumpster dived a couch to replace the folding chairs formerly used. Her rear end is eternally grateful even as she soaks the whole thing in Lysol.

1989 – Blue Velveteen Sectional with Double Recliners

Industrious mother dumps entire bottle of rubber cement on a seat cushion while making quiet books to entertain a precocious three year old. After much scraping, soaking, and crying, everything looks almost good as new.

1995 – Blue Velveteen Sectional with Hide-A-Bed

Hyper five and nine year-olds use bed as a makeshift trampoline. All is well until the springs separate from the frame and the entire bed drops abruptly to the floor. No one is hurt, just too scared to tell mom.

1999/2000 – Blue Corner Section of Aforementioned Velvet Sectional

During an epic New Year’s Eve party, the corner section gets one too many fanny-first dives and completely gives way, leading to a chair that now sits approximately ten inches off the ground. Many fingers are pointed, but no one will admit to being the final fanny.

2007 – Blue Velveteen Sectional/Blue Microfiber Theater Group

Family spends all day carting large heavy couches up from the basement. Many walls are dinged, and fingers are smashed. Couch goes to its new home down the street in order to make way for new microfiber theater grouping (all recliners!!).

2009 – Blue Microfiber Theater Group

Family discovers that all recliners can be a bad thing when there is a flaw in the recliner release mechanism. After several of the new chairs break, father gets fed up and replaces the mechanism in every chair.

2011 – Blue Microfiber Theater Group

Family enjoys leisure time together stretched out on their recliners enjoying marathon viewing sessions of The Amazing Race, Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, and Nickelodeon’s Avatar: the Last Airbender (the TV series, NOT the movie). All couches currently in working condition. Life is good.

Introversion--Are We Killing It?

As Gods Go, Money is One of the Worst

Yet another fantastic link that I can use with Swift's "A Modest Proposal" this year. Hopefully it will get my students thinking and writing.

I love the references to Ireland -- that's why I think it will work so well.

Digital Storytelling - Possibilities?

I went to a conference on digital storytelling recently, and this video was suggested as a possible writing prompt for students. I think this would work in well with a narrative unit at the beginning of the year tied in with Sherman Alexie and Tim O'Brien selections.

I am ______________
Don't judge me before you know me.

The Perfect Accompaniment to Zombie Haiku

A great way to get students excited about the undead. I love the animation.

Replying to Poetry

As I was searching through my renaissance files, I rediscovered this little piece of poetry I penned in 2008 in response to The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.

(Hey, I'm just trying to keep up with Sir Walter Raleigh!)

Validation for Our Class Time Spent in SSR

It think I'll share this with my students and parents.

Verissimo Toste, an Oxford Teacher Trainer, talks about the best way to build extensive reading into your normal routine for best results:

A New Post at Last!!!

Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

It's amazing and kind of sad what a few seizures and a shoulder injury can do to your productivity. I feel like I've been sort of sliding along this year, just doing, and not really reflecting or motivating myself or my students, sadly.

Well, I just watched an hour long webcast about Flipping a Classroom that has made me think and got me excited about teaching again. I think there are a lot of things I can do with this. I think it would really help my students if they were writing in the classroom with me there to help them and doing some of the more mundane things at home. So...I am giving my first flip assignment today.

Flipping a classroom is when you move direct instruction and other things that don't require student interaction into the "homework" time and move the homework into class time, so the teacher can be the expert in the room and interact with the students and see how they are doing. It reminds me of what Penny Kittle talks about in Write Beside Them.

Writing Circles

It's that time of year when my students and I participate in writing circles. I do it along with my students. Here is some of my work from this year:

Back to School Night, Take 2

Here's my new Animoto for back to school night, reflecting my new changed up curriculum for the year.


Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Documentaries

Frank Baker, who is a regular on the EC Ning, just brought my attention to this wonderful collection of documentaries: http://current.com/shows/fifty-documentaries/.

He also has an amazing website, Using Documentaries in the Classroom, which is a great resource for teachers wanting to use documentaries.

Thank you, Frank!

Kelly Gallagher Workshop

The Kelly Gallagher writing and modeling workshop sponsored by CUWP this Saturday was, literally, amazing. I left feeling so energized!

I took copious notes, but for now I'll just leave you with a favorite story. Kelly sat by the CEO of a "big computer company" on a recent flight. The CEO mentioned that they strive to hire the best and the brightest--graduates of Harvard, MIT, etc., but they have a hard time finding candidates. Kelly asked why, and the CEO said, "Because it's really easy to find really smart people, but it's hard to find smart people who know how to think."

Wow. That kind of sums up my job in a nutshell. I (try my darnedest to) teach kids how to think! That's why I think my job is so rewarding.

Inquiry Based Classroom

Webinar with Jeff Wilhelm: