What I See

A few of you asked me to blog this poem. It's kind of scary putting it into cyber space but what the hell! I added a stanza. It's still being worked on but I wanted it to end with more hope, the hope I feel in my heart.

What I See

What I see,
shattered girl at seven.
Sees daddy make a choice.
Death is more important than them
and he squeezes.
Drywall splatters like
the blood that could have been.
Her two year old brother cries
not because he knows what happened,
because then he wouldn't cry.
He'd be stuck like her,
frozen in the thought
that daddy's favorite girl
has just seen his shame.

What she doesn't know,
what I can't say but want to scream
is that our lives,
separated by decades,
parallels to the point of fear.
That men still do this
after our advancement and promise.
They throw our emotions like banana rinds.
Left to be slipped on for years.
That their pain is worth more than ours,
than the innocent.
And I see it now,
what I see in this girl,
I see in me.

Yes she is damaged,
how could she not be?
But she is not broken.
She should not be excused from life
because she experienced so much already.
This girl is fearless.
Golden skin, sun streaked hair.
She’s knives of of light in my life,
I’m a star lit up in hers.
Because if we can crush it with our bare toes,
the hate and regret in our hearts,
then we can be stronger than he ever was.
We can see everything,
We can see!

Final Reflection Letter

          SI is over. This experience has been an overpowering explosion of knowledge for who I am as a writer and teacher. When I first came to SI I felt like the geek at the cool kids party. Being a new teacher, I didn’t know what I brought to the group. It was as if everyone was thinking, who let her in here? That is the reaction I get at team planning every week. Because I’m a new teacher, I have nothing to offer. But these doubts and fears did not take long to diminish because I realized what this space is. It isn’t a competition for who had the best demo, blog entries or even breakfast food. It is a space for possibility: my SI experience in three words.

Possibility as a writer. I’ve always written. Maybe it was a short story idea scratched on a post-it note or a treasured poem hung on the wall. Lately though, I’ve fallen away from it. Maybe I’ve gotten too caught up in the everyday hustle of life and I have forgotten my long lost friend. SI has renewed my love of writing. To sit, in a space, with no motive but to write for me. I’m not writing a research paper, or grocery list, or lesson plan. I am taking the time to get my thoughts on an issue I value on paper. It is so freeing. I must have forgotten that feeling the past few years. Yet it is very present now. The past two weeks I’ve been dreaming of stories. Stories that need to be told even if no one but me ever reads them. This desire to write for my own purpose is what writing is made of.

Possibility as a teacher. In two short weeks I have taken away more knowledge about teaching, practical and theoretical, than my entire undergraduate experience. Not to discredit my university in any way, but there are some things that cannot be taught in a traditional classroom of pre-service teachers. In this classroom it is not about just the learning offered by administrators, it is the learning of other teachers. It is their willingness to share ideas and not be afraid to express their doubts. The idea of, who is an expert, came up this week. Although we all strive for this in our profession, none of us are. If we are experts then there is nothing else to learn. Yet we have proven that not to be the case these past two weeks.

What I will take away from SI is the new knowledge that teaching isn’t a competition of the best but a collaboration of smart professionals.  In the school year to come I will use much that I’ve learned these past two weeks. There is so much to take away: from the demos on writing, to the web programs, to the ways of thinking about teaching and learning. There is nothing we did that I don’t value. Not only did it give me “stuff” to use, but the first clear model of what an exemplary classroom looks like. I hope to get there some day.

All That and a Bag of Chips Digital Campagin

How do we change negative perspectives the public has on teachers? We think it comes from the inside. Rashid talked about the "teams" we create in schools and how they are implied versus embedded.  It's something we "have" to be a part of not "want" to. So how can we make this happen. It's not an easy task but here are some ideas:

-Show and Tell: Each teacher is responsible at the school for sharing one "new idea" at each staff meeting. That way it's not this huge professional development workshop that takes up loads of time. Just short chunks of very valuable information

-Leaving my door open

-Ask questions until my eyes bleed. Maybe if I keep doing it others will be more willing to ask me.

-Communicate even if people aren't listening. When I give suggestions at staff meetings I won't let their giggle, about how I'm a newbie, deter me from talking. They will listen and maybe something will sink in.

What do you think?

Refleciton Day 7

Lil's grammar demo was very informative because I struggle with grammar so I don't feel credible enough to teach it. Last year when I taught grammar it was very disconnected, cut and dry. I'm thinking now how Lil interweaved it into the learning. Even though I was the "gong" example, she made my error an opportunity to learn because she asked me a question, "How could you change that word to be in the moment?" She didn't even use the word present tense. This just makes revision more important. Also I'm thinking about content vs. grammar.  I had the idea of writing from the car's perspective. This was genius! Yet my tense was wrong. So does that make my writing not good? No. So there's a connection there between not squashing good ideas because they don't fit perfectly into what it should be. I love Lil's presentation style also because she's so funny. Grammar is based on Latin rules that don't always apply to us. I've never been in that school of thought of letting it drive writing but needed a balance. I'm thinking of using this in my classroom and fitting it in with mentor texts. I'm going to use shared reading time to pick a children's book with high interest: Mo Willems like.  Then explore a skill for the week and how the author uses it in his/her writing. I also want to bring in the part about kids trying this out on their own. I can see them using the grammar rules to make a funny lines like Mo when exploring dialogue. The main idea I get from daybooks is: they are for thinking not grammar rules.

A lot of our demos have had this theme of identity. Who are we as writers, teachers, people? Carrie's demo is making us think about technology with facebook and how we create those identities.  When we put that identity out into cyber space we adjust it based on our audience.  Who is our audience in cyber space? It can be anyone we want it to be. I want to explore fakebook from character's perspectives or historical figures. That would be very fun!

Reflection Day 6

What Rashid was saying about critical literacy spoke to me today. After my demo he spoke about using this as a tool to get critical discussion going in the classroom.  Not just this but how we can create an environment of discourse and openess in the classroom.  Although it is not guaranteed this occur, it leads to the possibility that children will open up enough to let new ideas in and let out troubling ones.  It could extend beyond what we can do for society but what, as a community of learners, we can do for each other.  I struggled this year with my student's getting along, in SECOND grade! I feel like I'm a reading, writing, math, social studies, and science teacher but I'm also a character education teacher.  I teach them how to become people in society, how to interact. One skill I need to work on is creating the community like a family where we can be honest without fear. I find this demo was more than I expected. Not just a unit but something deeper into thinking about how we interact with others and creating that interaction in classroom.
I can't wait to try out the museum box.  Rashid's demo was helpful for me to have time to think and learn. It is not often enough I give students the opportunity to explore a topic. To read and interact. I feel restricted by time and constraints but need to make the time for these experiences.  I loved reading the background or "tipping point" of when these revolutions happened in Africa and the Middle East.  It reminded me I need to stay informed no matter how busy my life may seem. That it is important as a teacher and a citizen to look at the world through these eyes: where did it all begin? Because if we ask that question, we can make the connection to our students. Where do they begin as writers? Where do they begin as thinkers? Where do they begin as change makers in our society? In the younger grades, I want it to start with me or with an idea I give possibility to. It doesn't have to be: I really started thinking about social injustices in Mrs. Cole's second grade class. They don't have to remember ME as the source. But how cool would it be to remember the first time I got excited about discourse and how that has shape my life? hmmm...something to think about.

Great idea of the day:
Writing is composition. Writing is creating, not the genres we label. The writing studio where brushstrokes make life of our experiences.

Reflection Day 5

I really enjoyed ranting today! How empowered I felt by speaking my peace.  What was so interesting was the themes and similar problems we all had within teaching.  I was thinking of how intelligent the people around me are.  I'm a new teacher and I feel a constant need to learn and grow professionally.  I feel so blessed to be a part of this institute where people are willing to share ideas and lessons and rants that help me grow so much. 

Aileen's demo really got me excited.  I feel a little insecure when asked to write something and share it.  Not because I don't have pride in it or think it's not good. I am usually hung up on the grammar of it, especially when you're in a room of English teachers (like in SI!).  Yet, Aileen's demo was so practical.  Painting a picture with our words using some simple but powerful go to fix-up strategies for revision of grammar. It took the scariness out of grammar.  Lacy or Lil (can't remember which one) talked about how the activity opened up the possibilities of grammar instead of being restricting.  If before today you had told me that grammar can open possibilities I would have laughed aloud.  There was no way that could be true.  But her demo definitely proved me wrong. It feels freeing to know this for my own writing and for teaching students.

I also got a lot from the writing circles demo from Tara.  She solved a problem I had been mulling over for a while: how do I balance what my students need and what I am required to give them?  I want to make writing activities and lessons that inspire them and make them value writing.  Yet I have struggled with balancing this with the small moment plague that is second grade.  She talked about a schedule for writing circles where writer's workshop is three days a week and writing circles is two.  I think this balance would lend enough time to what I was required to do and authentic writing of choice that kids want to do.  I'm not saying I'd do writing circles every week.  But it could be built into my schedule where these two days I know we're doing something off the grid, for our own purposes, and for ourselves because that's what writing is for.  Not to make a small moment AGAIN because New York says so.

Preping for my demo tomorrow and revising my draft on google docs tonight. Learning is fun!

Found this on NWP Connect

Lil's free writing this morning on things that bug us about education led me to rant and rave about teacher cuts.  Why oh why do policymakers cut teacher and TA positions to save money when we do so much outside of school already.  With less teachers, how can we do all this with less support?
Found this on NWP Connect, something to think about:
No Clear “Quitting Time”
 --a composite list poem written by the K-16 teachers in the Great Valley Writing Project. 
 *A snapshot of teachers' lives after hours, inspired by Mike Rose's 5.16.11 blog.
After school,
I buy notebooks for students;
take pictures at the Winter Formal;
go to a school play;
watch a student race in his track event;
purchase pizza for the yearbook kids;
have lunch with former students;
write letters of recommendation;
see students’ entries at the Ag show at the Fair;
watch a student compete in her first auto race;
and create a backpack full of supplies,
a secret surprise for a student who needs it.

After school, I respond to student writing,
tutor students,
and do research.

I call every parent in the first weeks of school to introduce myself (roughly 150 students);
I meet with concerned and unconcerned parents;
I buy book after book of new teen literature to provide my students
with a wide array of books to read.

I spend the night with students for a community service project called Kids in a Box;
run a 7th and 8th grade girl’s book club;
serve as a club adviser for The Writer’s Guild.
I arrange field trips,
contact parents, create and revise my curriculum,
and plan and organize more fundraising events.

Each year, during my Spring Break, I go to Washington, D.C. with the 8th graders.
I give money to a student so he can afford college necessities;
donate to the wrestling team;
keep in contact.

I print 4x6 photographs of students performing Hamlet in costume;
arrange wall bulletin boards to show off student work;
make Portuguese sweet bread with my students;
attend a sober grad fundraiser;
and purchase a t-shirt to support the cause.

I supervise yearbook and the advertising that goes with it;
write recommendations for club officers;
attend sporting and dance recitals for former and current students and
for the last two weeks of the school year,
I offer a homeless student a ride to school.

I organize a pre-post school-wide writing assessment;
participate in staff vs. student fundraisers; and
read adolescent lit. to add to my “tool kit.”

I help students write personal statements for college applications;
organize a book drive for our school library;
listen to other teachers and when asked, offer suggestions.

After hours, I make copies, enter grades, write more letters of recommendation.
I tutor students one-to-one in writing conferences before and after school;
haunt used bookstores looking for books to fill my classroom library;
send books to my former (fantastic) student now in prison (a life sentence for a gang-related murder).

I play on the faculty basketball team;
attend pizza fundraisers and students’ dance shows;
spend the weekend in the school photo lab with my two kids
so I can meet the yearbook deadline; and
I set up a reward for a student who struggles and when she improves,
stage a celebration.

After hours, I read books on English Language Arts;
read The English Companion (a Ning for English teachers);
plan lessons;
read and respond to more student papers; and
look for engaging information to supplement district adopted materials.

I take a group of twenty kids on a college tour, a two day trip;
host a pool party for my AVID kids;
attend basketball games; and
open my home for student book group discussions.

Sometimes I drive kids home when their parents can’t or won’t.
Sometimes I dream about angry, violent students who have threatened me.

I attend a student’s church play;
and orchestra performances.
I sponsor girl’s volleyball and pay admission to encourage a good turnout.

I buy new clothes for a student after her house burns down.
I make lunches for students who have no lunch.

I edit articles for Write Voice, the Great Valley Writing Project’s Newsletter;
submit articles to California English.
I write.

Some days I think small acts of attending mean the world;
other days it is harder to tell.
One thing is for sure:
in a teacher's life, there is no clear quitting time.

grading

I'm reading Elbow's Ranking, Evaluating, and Judging article.  Some parts make me think he's taking a line right out of my life.  Elbow talks about "why we hate it so when students ask us their favorite question, "What do you want for an A?": it rubs our noes in the unreliability of our grades."  I can't remember how many times I've asked or thought, "What do I have to write for an A." It has been about the end product, not the learning process, the journey of learning the material.  That's because most the time what I've been learning was not valuable to me. Teacher's rankings lead many A students to "end up doubting their true ability and feeling like frauds--because they have sold out on their own judgment and simply given teachers whatever yields and A." I can't count how many times I've given teachers what they want and felt no pride on even agreement with what I've written.  Every time I got an A on the paper.  I call this being an expert at BS and at one point thought that's what writing was.  If I had wrote a paper I believed in that didn't follow what granted an A I wouldn't have written another one.  Ranking was and is important to me. Yet the problem with evaluating Elbow notes is that different readers have different interpretations of what is good writing. Elbow suggests many examples to have less ranking and more evaluating.  Yay! One question answered!

Reflection Day 4

Wow what a day! I am overwhelmed in a good way with the various resources I have gained in such a little bit of time.  From Lil's workshop today I have gained so many resources into my inquiry of critical media literacies.  One I found called thebubbleproject.com is a good tool for having students critically look into media advertisements by reading between the lines.  I read a study done with fourth graders using this and was amazed on how intuitive these kids were. I'm considering putting this into my demo which went from too little, to desperately needing to be condensed after today.  I'm also interested in book vs. film critiquing and how children can use this in writing--maybe persuasive reviews of which to choose for viewers/readers.  Entertainment Weekly is my favorite magazine so this is right up my alley. 

The Workshop Workshop was very helpful also in considering how to restructure my writer's workshop time to be more meaningful and engaging.  I've been making the steps to get away from every child doing the same thing during writing but I struggled with new and innovative ways to switch this up.  I have centers throughout my day so adding these to writing is a great idea.  I'm considering permanent centers such as conferencing or revision circle and also changing centers based on need/theme.  I'm thinking on different "inspiration centers" with books, internet, video clips, and audio to inspire the unit we're working on.  I'm also looking at centers where kids and read, write, draw and talk. 

Is it August yet so I can get started?

Arspoetica

Poetry about poetry

When I wrote of Kathy's dream
an angel with fluttering wings
I remember such release
to get it out, of that need.

When I wrote the poems of hate
for those girls that crept and scraped.
I remember burning tears
followed by cemented angry courage.

When I wrote the lines of love
of my other self completing.
I remember knowing beyond fear
that he would be mine forever.

Reflection Day 3

Richard Ford: "Clearly, many writers write for reasons other than a desire to produce great literature for others' benefit. They write for therapy. They write (queasily) to "express" themselves. They write to give organization to, or to escape from, their long, long days. They write for money, or because they are obsessive. They write as a shout for help, or as an act of familial revenge. La, la, la. There are a lot of reasons to write a lot. Sometimes it works out OK."
Why do writers write?  I definitely write to express myself. As I worked on my digital timeline today I thought about middle school.  Hoarded up in my dark dank room writing poems of angst on scraps of paper and kitty covered journals.  I think that is where my true writing began.  Where I really wrote in response to something that had happened. A shout for help.  What are the reasons our children write? Can any professional paper really answer that question when everyone's answer is different.  I'm finding a block in my inquiry into why we write from that perspective.  Yet there are countless resources from writers and would be writers on why they write.  The question may be: why should kids write? Maybe my young kids don't know why to write yet.  My head is currently hitting the brick wall.

Why we write/what we write

I'm exploring why we write and what we write when we do.  When not given a prompt or a picture to base our writing on, why do we choose to write what we do?  For me, I mostly write about my background. Experiences I've had in my past that shape me in good or not so good ways.  We write what we know right? Here are some essays online from famous and not so famous writers about why they write: http://whywewriteseries.wordpress.com/

Reflection Day 2

I can't believe how much writing I have produced in only two days. From blogging to poetry, my short story about cemetary beach, and my prezi presentation on my digital timeline of writing.  My fingers should freeze up any moment from typing and scribbling my pencil across the page.  There have been a lot of good ideas flowing today.  I took to the idea of what is writing? It is so different to so many people. To some self-realization and others punishment.  It makes me think how I portray writing in my classroom.  I think of A Purificaiton from this morning, "I have not been happy enough."  I get so caught up in get this assignment done so it can hang on the wall when the real important part I'm missing.  The process--the give and take of writing that feels smothered by school and apparently by me.  I need to create a happy space of experimentation.

Time is now

In revision groups I realize how my group mates are writing stories of their families.  Memories of when they were young.  I realize how important it is to document our families histories because if we don't tell the story then who will?  I think I will take this opportunity (SI) to explore my family history and document it.

Writing comes from love

In response to Rebecca's demo: Memories of writing notes to mom as a kid and writing baby Lilly's multigenre book:

Writing comes from innocent love,
from child's gift to mom
or adult's gifts to child.
I think on sweet notes
I signed and she adored.
Picked wildflowers to compliment
and presented wrapped in wet paper towels.
Dirty knees and tough bare feet
ventured into bumblebee ridden fields
for wild weeds that looked pretty.

And now I write for her.
Little baby wrapped up tight,
of what I wish hwer to see
and what I want her to find.
She cannot read but can say, "read?"
She will someday and know
this writing comes from love.

Grading

How many times have I graded a child's paper? How many times have I said, "Wow they didn't try at all here."  What if I put my writing up to be graded? I would feel helpless, vulnerable.  I would feel angry at someone passing judgement on my inner thoughts and feelings.  There is a reason why I didn't blog before. I don't want people reading my thoughts-they are mine alone. 

What's good...

As I was writing my draft last night I kept thinking....is this good? What is the obsession we have as teachers, as people, of what is good and what sucks? If I think it is good does that make it so? Or does some professor or author need to deem my writing good for it to be?  Lots of questions...little answers, I hope to answer.

Reflection

I'm thinking hard in many ways now: demo, inquiry, drafts of personal pieces.  I'm thinking hard on personal/emotional thinking and dialogue in response to the article read today.  We used the road sign: slippery when wet to describe this one.  I think on my mom and how a lot of her relationships have been slippery and wet and how this contrasts and is similar to my life.  The Murray cards made me evaluate what her parents thought was important: marriage and babies and what she told be was important: education. Yet although she told me countless times to get my education before a husband I didn't listen to her, but rather did both. I'm running with the theme that children are smarter than their parents because we have their experiences and our own to know what to do and what not to do. I hope my kids are smarter than me!

digital excitement

I'm so excited about all the digital media websites and apps listed on the wish wall.  I love to create these types of videos/comics for personal and professional use.  I can't wait to sink my typing fingers into these media outlets.

Review of Negotiating Critical Literacies with Young Children By Vivian Maria Vasquez

 Critical literacy can be fit into the regular mandate curriculum by making it go beyond the required curriculum. Critical literacy seeks to place importance not on predetermined or prepackaged curriculum but on what students are interested in.  Also, critical literacy should not be added as an “extracurricular item” but should become “central” to the curriculum.  There are a few common elements of critical literacy in a typical school day.  This includes a class meeting  and setting a meeting agenda about what will be discussed.  Reflecting is a way during these meetings to make connections and discuss various topics raised.  Read-alouds can also be used to introduce or reaffirm a topic presented.  Critical literacy starts by the student’s themselves voicing questions that they are interested in.  From these questions, an entire year’s curriculum can be created through connecting main ideas or themes that the children are interested in.  These themes are inquired about through artifacts such as plays, letters, newspapers, or books.  Critical literacy is gained by learning in the moment based on student’s interest or concerns.  However, this learning must be acted upon to give the inquiry purpose and must extend beyond merely talking about it. Critical literacy uses social critique, social analysis, and social action to understand the world and change it.

For me, I find I have participated in critical literacy without even knowing it.  This year we did book reviews, created scripts and performed for selecting our class president, and voiced our opinions on policy maker's decisions about our schools.  However, the step I didn't take that is very clear in Vasquez's book is making the connection between all this learning  and linking it by themes to make a yearlong chart of our learning.  I think this would be very powerful for students and give their learning a sense of purpose that wasn't always there this last year.  I hope to push myself to do this next year.