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!!!

Digital Writing Workshop

I had a great time at this conference today. I was introduced to an online writing site called youthvoices.net. My mind is running with all the possibilities. I tried something similar to this earlier this year, but it fizzled out. This site looks to be much more user friendly, and it has a lot more student writers on it.

The opportunities for peer review and peer editing with this format are amazing--I can't wait to give it a try!

Why we need stories

I just finished my Chaucer unit. I had my students read/experience some of Chaucer's tales (The Knight's Tale, The Miller's Tale, The Reeve's Tale, The Nun's Priest's Tale, The Pardoner's Tale, and The Wife of Bath's Tale). I had my students write tales similar to Chaucer's after we read some of the tales: a beast fable for Chaunticleer (NPT), an urban legend for the Pardoner's Tale (cautionary), and a riddle or question tale for TWOBT. Then we spent one day telling each other our newly created tales. I think next year I will write a tale so I can be one of the tellers, but this year I played The Host and drew their names out of a cup. Anyway, the story telling -- especially in sixth period -- went so well. One of my students told a story deriding conservative Utah County, and that led to rebuttals (manufactured on the fly with the epilogues they were supposed to have for their stories) from several students. It was eerily reminiscent of the Miller/Reeve and made for a great day.
In the past I've had students find and tell a story -- it was a much more meaningful assignment when they had to write and tell a story.

Next year I think I'll try having the students write an original fairy tale rather than a riddle tale. That one was much too hard for them to grasp.

Thoughts on Beowulf and Chaucer

1. I liked using the chapter from Grendel, but I need to edit it for length.
2. Using the Star Trek Beowulf was fun - I need to edit it.
3. Add the part where the Pardoner and Summoner talk to Chaucer after the first tournament to my Chaucer Clips Movie.
4. Get more info on urban legends and riddle tales - give students more time.

The Things They Carried

I just ran across this article and photo essay from Time Magazine that would go so well with this novel.

In his classic story collection about the Vietnam War, Tim O'Brien wrote that what G.I.'s carried into battle was determined by necessity, specialty and rank, and "to some extent by superstition." Three decades later, the 145,000 Americans serving in Iraq rely on their own talismans to protect them from the barrage of sniper bullets, mortar fire and roadside bombs that have claimed the lives of more than 2,700 of their comrades. The Marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment spent much of this year deployed in Ramadi, the heart of the Sunni Triangle and one of the most dangerous outposts in Iraq. The things they carry are often emblems of love or faith, reminders of home and a higher purpose. PFC Phillip Busenlehner's good-luck charm is an angel pendant given to him by his best friend's mother last year before Busenlehner left for boot camp. The case it came in reads, "An angel to give you strength to overcome any challenge." The pendant has been blessed by three priests and the Pope.

Lance Corporal Richard Caseltine wears a dog tag that belonged to his grandfather, who fought in the Korean War. "It is older than I am and means the world to me," he says. "I haven't taken it off since I got it." He was wearing it on April 8 when a bullet hit him in the head. He survived and returned to duty. "God was with me and so was my grandfather," he says.

Corporal Michael Compton carries a plastic bag containing a pair of his wife's underwear. She gave it to him before his first deployment to Iraq, when they were still dating. "She said that she would stick by me," he says. But on a patrol outside Fallujah, the bag fell out of his pocket and blew away. "I thought it was long gone," he says. A week later, while "out in the middle of nowhere," he noticed a plastic bag and picked it up. The underwear was inside. "I couldn't believe it. I guess it was a sign because, sure enough, when I got back, me and my wife got married. I deployed again to Iraq, and I figured I should bring it with me. After all, if it found its way back to me, maybe it could guide me back to her."

Other Ideas:

I love this book, and my students typically do too. I try to prepare them for the structure of the book, as well as the idea that this is a book about truth and storytelling as much as it is a book about war. We spend time discussing the idea of story-truth vs. happening-truth, etc.

One activity I did with my students which worked nicely was character interviews, an idea I got from Carol Jago. Students were assigned a character, and then came up in front of the class (typically in groups of three or four) and were asked questions by the rest of the class as though they were the character. The students really enjoyed the activity, and it had them thinking deeply about character relationships and motivations, as well as using the text for questions and support. As I recall, we did it after reading, but you could really do it at any point(s) throughout the novel.

One thing that could add relevancy is comparing the book and the things/feelings the characters are going through and feeling to the current wars in the Middle East. Is there a soldier that you could have come to the class to discuss with students what being a soldier, etc. is like? I think tying it in with the wars that are going on now, making the things the read and see on the news more real, is a great way to show how literature reflects life.

Friendly Letter

I found this great friendly letter example that I want to share with my students. Right click on it to go full screen.

Jim Burke at NCTE 2009

Penny Kittle's Britton Award Speech

I got to talk to Penny at NCTE; she is as nice as can be.

Stories and Standards

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Stories and Standards