Tag Archives: writing

Looking Beneath the Surface

I suspect my neighbors thought I was crazy as I crawled around the lawn in my skirt when I got home from work today. I had spotted some new mushrooms growing this morning and noticed that one had a hole where you can see through to the inside.

After unloading my work bag and feeding my cats, I attached the macro lens to my iphone and set out to get a closer look at the underside of the mushrooms. One had been kicked over and lay with the underside exposed. It was already turning brown on the exposed texture that is in such contrast to the smooth outside surface.

And then I got down on my hands and knees to look through the hole along the edge of the mushroom top. I peered through first with my eye…and then with the lens of my camera trying to capture the interesting layers I spied beneath the surface.

These mushrooms remind me that what I see on the surface doesn’t always capture the complexity of what lies beneath. My classroom is like that too. There is so much about each of my students that isn’t visible unless I take the time to bend down and look carefully beneath the surface. And sometimes I need a special tool, like my macro lens, to bring those interesting layers into focus. Sometimes that tool is those informal conversations that I have with the students near me as we walk in lines. Other times it is the opportunity to listen into a discussion a small group is having about a math concept or a story we have read. Oftentimes it is through my students’ writing that I learn the most. Their stories reveal their interests and their experiences…and show me what they know about reading and writing and science and sometimes even math and social studies. Looking at a piece of student writing is like looking at the underside of a mushroom. When you take the time to get beyond the surface, there are layers and layers that unfold and reveal new information that helps me know my students and helps me help them learn.

What have you learned from a student lately?

Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge: #113texts

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When we select books to read in our classroom we begin with well-written books about topics we want to address as part of our instruction. Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox is a lovely, well-written book that has been around for a long time. (Published in 1989)

This book is about a young boy who lives next door to an old folks home and has made friends with the old people who live there. One of his best friends–Miss Nancy, who has four names just like him, seems to be losing her memory. When Wilfred Gordon hears this he goes to the other residents asking what a memory is. Their responses: something warm, as precious as gold, makes you laugh, makes you cry…prompt Wilfred Gordon to go home and find these for Miss Nancy. He collects his interpretation of these things called memories into a basket to share with Miss Nancy. When Miss Nancy unpacks the hen’s egg, seashells, puppet, and football she begins to tell the stories she remembers when she examines each object.

We started the school year a few weeks ago reading this book as a way of demonstrating the power of things to elicit stories and memories. We asked students to bring in an object or artifact that represented something important or special to them and/or their families.

In addition to using this book to teach the concept of object-based thinking and writing, we also used it this week as a mentor text for writing. We like to “mine” the books we have read for interesting sentences to help our students broaden their understanding of sentences, grammar, and conventions. As our first mentor sentence of the school year we looked for a sentence that was accessible to our first graders and still “meaty” enough for our more accomplished writers.

We decided on this sentence:

He admired Mr. Drysdale who had a voice like a giant.

Asking our students what they noticed, we were able to identify the use of the simile (a voice like a giant), proper nouns (names), and pronouns (he). We also talked about the verb admired as well as the basics like the use of a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and period at the end. After a couple of examples of how we might follow the pattern of this sentence from Mem Fox, students set off to write their own sentence following the pattern.

Here are a couple of examples:

First grader, E, wrote: I love my bunnies because they love me.

Second grader, B, wrote: He loved his dog Milo even though he shedded on him if he brushed onto him.

Third grader, C, wrote: I admire LEGO makers who have a way of making awesome sets.

And another third grader, M, wrote: The people love to watch Emily who surfed the waves that were as tall as mountains.

You can see that not all students were including the simile…yet. But all were able to expand a sentence similar to the way Mem Fox did in her sentence.

There are many other ways to use Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge as a mentor text. Mentor texts are all around us, as close as those classroom bookshelves. Take a close looks at some of your old favorite read alouds, you’ll be surprised at all the opportunities to use them as writing mentors!

Sorting Quiet

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Today was a sorting and categorizing kind of day in my classroom. Yesterday we read The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood.

In it she describes quiet in lots of evocative ways…here’s a couple of lines:

Last one to get picked up from school quiet. Swimming underwater quiet. Pretending you’re invisible quiet. Lollipop quiet. First look at your new haircut quiet. Sleeping sister quiet.

Then we asked our students to think about the best kinds of quiet they have experienced. They had so many wonderful ideas including things like lost in a good book quiet, waking up before everyone else quiet, playing your favorite video game quiet, watching your favorite cartoon on television quiet… They wrote their best kind of quiet on an index card before the end of the day.

Today to help us think about sorting and categories we read Shoes, Shoes, Shoes by Ann Morris–a book about shoes from around the world used for a variety of purposes. We thought about the categories our shoes fit into…and the ways they cross categories: school shoes, running shoes, playing shoes… And then, in groups of four students shared their best kinds of quiet and thought about ways to group their “bests” into categories. We asked each group of four to try to find 2 categories that their 4 index cards would fit. They came up with lots of categories: electronics quiet, family quiet, in-the-zone quiet, playing quiet, learning quiet…

And as a class we were able to narrow their categories down to four that we will use to create a class graph of our best kinds of quiet tomorrow. Can’t wait to see what the data tells us!

What’s your best kind of quiet?

Developing a Practice

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One of my favorite weekend morning activities is the opportunity to lounge in bed and read. It’s such a luxury since even on weekends I often have to be up and about and out of the house early. This morning I was reading Natalie Goldberg’s latest book, The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life With Language. I’ve read most of her books–and while this one doesn’t rank as my favorite–the chapter I read this morning on the importance of developing and committing to a practice struck me. Here’s what Natalie says about practice:

…we established a different slant to practice other than “practice makes perfect”: It’s something you choose to do on a regular basis with no vision of an outcome; the aim is not improvement, not getting somewhere. You do it because you do it. You show up whether you want to or not. Of course, at the beginning it’s something that you have chosen, that you wanted, but a week, a month in, you often meet resistance. Even if you love it, inertia, obstacles arise: I can make better use of my time, I’m tired, I’m hungry, this is stupid, I need to listen to the evening news. Here’s where you have the opportunity to meet your own mind, to examine what it does, its ploys and shenanigans. That’s ultimately what practice is: arriving at the front–and back door–of yourself. You set up to do something consistently over a long period of time–and simply watch what happens with no idea of good or bad, gain or loss. No applause–and no criticism.

To get myself blogging, I gave myself a challenge (maybe that is one variation on a practice) to write and post a blog daily for 30 days. That short term challenge felt doable. I didn’t create the challenge for myself because I hoped to become a professional blogger (or writer), but because I wanted to feel what it would be like to consistently blog. But, I am on the verge of establishing a blogging practice. I have continued to write and post daily on this blog, well past the 30 days of the challenge…but I am sure as the school year begins on Tuesday that this daily practice will need to morph to a regular practice that is more like a three times weekly practice. But what I love about the practice is that I have written and posted every day–even when I was tired and couldn’t seem to think of anything interesting to write. I have pushed past my comfort zone and figured out how to generate ideas and get something composed each and every day.

And I can authentically share my experience of developing a practice with my students. I can help them develop a regular writing practice. It doesn’t have to be my practice–writing and publishing a daily blog post–but the act of developing a practice and “showing up” on a regular basis help us each learn something about ourselves. It also helps us to develop those valuable traits of persistence and grit–hanging in there even when things seem hard. Because ultimately it’s our drive that determines success and learning. Talent is great…but effort over time is everything.

This reminds me of my time working for McDonald’s Restaurants before I decided to go into teaching. Ray Kroc, McDonad’s founder, was inspired by this quote by Calvin Coolidge…which I kept for years on the bulletin board in our home office.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Natalie recommends keeping a log of your practice–even if you skip–and rather than giving up when you miss a day, just make note of it and resume the next day. I like this recommendation…and I like that my blog keeps track for me. I can easily see which days I have “practiced.” What practice will you develop?

Urban Art?

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There are two of these nailed to the telephone poles on either side of this bridge-like structure near my school. I passed them yesterday without stopping, but today I had to take the time to capture a photograph. They have me wondering and asking questions.

Are they urban art? An advertisement for something? They can definitely work as a writing prompt! What do you think? What story would you tell?

Building Stamina

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Today marks my 45th blog post. It also marks my shift from a focus on summer work back to my classroom. Tomorrow is my official first day back–a day that will be filled with seeing familiar faces, catching up on summer activities, meetings and more meetings, and working to prepare the classroom and plan for an engaging start to the new school year.

The beginning of the school year always feels hard. Even with 2/3 of our students returning (or maybe in spite of it), we want to set a tone and begin to build community that will set the stage for a year filled with learning. Co-teaching makes it easier…and harder. We have each other to work through our ideas with, and our ideas get examined and turned inside and out as we each consider how that idea might work…or where it might fall flat. We have lofty goals for our first, second, and third graders–and we have to remember that they are still very young, so sometimes we have to temper our own enthusiasm and consider how to help our students build the stamina and resilience to reach (and exceed) the goals we set.

And because our students loop up with us we can’t depend on our favorite activity from last year, or read that book that worked so well with last year’s class. Each year we need a fresh approach to getting started–new books to read, new ideas to get writing started, new ideas for getting to know each other. It’s what I love about teaching a multiage class–and what makes it hard!

So I’m reminding myself to breathe. And to appreciate the little things. When I got home today after a long day in the classroom (I know, my official first day back is tomorrow–but we worked all day today!), I realized I hadn’t taken the time to look for any patterns to photograph. But the plants above the kitchen sink caught my eye…so I took out my macro lens and started noticing. I ended up capturing the centers of a number of plants. Do you see any patterns?

I also spent a little time in the back yard watching Geoff work with the sprinklers. They have been dysfunctional for most of the summer. He dug them up and replaced the parts yesterday and today was adjusting the spray to both cover the yard and not hit the house. There’s something relaxing about spending a bit of time in the yard, feeling the cool evening breeze, and watching the water spray. (We now have fancy rotating sprinkler heads!)

I’m sure that sprinkler pictures are not what readers look for in a blog post–but the act of appreciating the spray of the sprinklers helped me to clear my mind and reframe my thinking. I know we’ll figure out how to get this school year started and I know I will love my new students and I know that my returning students will rise to each new challenge as the school year progresses. As teachers, we also have to remember that we have to build our own stamina and resilience as we reach for our own lofty goals! It has taken stamina and resilience to get to this 45th blog post too. Some days it’s hard to write and I feel like I have nothing of worth to say…and then I breathe, try to focus on and appreciate the little things and dive into the writing. Some days are filled with false starts…but by sticking with it, I always learn something about myself and I hope something that will help my students.

What do you do to refocus when things feel hard and you feel anxious? How do you build your stamina and resilience?

Poster Poems, Found Poetry: Remixed

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One of my fellow #clmooc-ers, Vanessa Vaile, posted this invitation in the G+ community to remix, hack, create found poetry…and it’s been sitting in the back of my mind, waiting for the opportunity to find its place on my blog.

This morning the twittersphere handed my this poem and it has stayed with me all day, begging me to think about ways to remix and recreate and combine it with my photography.

The World Is in Pencil

BY TODD BOSS

—not pen. It’s got

that same silken

dust about it, doesn’t it,

that same sense of

having been roughed

onto paper even

as it was planned.

It had to be a labor

of love. It must’ve

taken its author some

time, some shove.

I’ll bet it felt good

in the hand—the o

of the ocean, and

the and and the and

of the land.

Source: Poetry (November 2011).

And so, here is my remixed version:

The World Is in Pencil: Remixed

Pencil in the ocean

and the land

Authored with labor

roughed by silken dust.

Love it

shove it

take time

to feel, to handle

Until you can see

as if it was planned

the world

inked on paper.

A map of your life.

This photo was also remixed. Taking a photo I took earlier this week,

I wanted to create a sense of pencil and sketch, roughed and labored.

I used the app Sketch on my iPhone to create this effect.

Here is the original:

Try your hand at found poetry…I invite you to remix mine or find

something that speaks to you. How might you remix a photo or

other image to go with it? Be sure to share!

One Shot, Two Ways…Revision, Photo Style

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One of the benefits of blogging is that other people like and follow my blog…and when they do that I often take a glimpse at what they are blogging about–it’s a lot like my experience with the CLMOOC. Yesterday shotwithmyphone.com liked my blog post and I spent some time perusing the photos he posts…all shot with his iPhone (like me!). One of his posts was titled One Shot, Two Ways and is part of a challenge posted here. The challenge invites photographers to take two photos of the same shot–one with a vertical orientation and one with a horizontal orientation and to post them side by side.

Inspired by those ideas (and looking at a few photos) I decided to try a variation on that theme and show two views of the same photo–one original and one with some editing and filters applied. In some ways the editing process I apply to my photos feels a lot like revision in the writing process. It’s the part of the process where I zoom in (or out), crop out distracting details, brighten up the setting, or change the mood. In many cases, revision in writing and editing in photography transforms the end product and helps the reader/viewer see it differently.

Here’s are a couple from my beach walk on Sunday:

And here’s a couple from yesterday’s excursion to the Living Coast Discovery Center:

There are times when I post my photos without editing, but I like experimenting with how to take a photo and work with it to convey the message I have in mind–or one that emerges as I play with it.

What do you think? How does the editing change the way you see the photo? How does it change the message of the image? How does this relate to writing and writing instruction? I’d love to know your thoughts!

10 Picture Books on August 10th

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I’ve done a couple of recent posts about mentor texts I use in my classroom and recently I noticed a challenge by some other teachers about a Picture Book 10 for 10 Challenge. #pb10for10 Their invitation is to share ten picture books you can’t live without on August 10th. So today is August 10th…and my picture books are all in my classroom.

I had almost abandoned the idea of sharing my picture book favorites since I don’t have easy access to them today. But then I spent the morning with my SDAWP colleagues at UCSD thinking about complex texts–both reading and writing–which led me to think about the ways I use texts in combination in the classroom. So I started thinking about some of favorite picture books for the classroom…and how I often layer books to create more complexity and deeper meaning with my students. These books come from the top of head (with the help of the web to sort out the actual titles and authors)…you don’t get pictures or excerpts…just what I can remember!

I’ll start with a few that I used with my students to examine abstract concepts. Most of them use the idea of color in different and interesting ways.

1. The Other Way to Listen by Byrd Baylor: This book is a gem (like most of the others by this author). I love the way she describes colors using senses other than sight. I wish I had my book handy to include an excerpt! Read it — you won’t be disappointed!

2. The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottin: This book, all in black in white, is gorgeous! The use of texture and Braille add a fresh dimension to this book…and reinforces the need to use powerful sensory language in descriptions.

3. The Sound of Colors by Jimmy Liao: This book describes the experience of a blind girl as she travels in the New York subway system. Imagination takes the girl on a powerful journey. What do you experience when you aren’t able to see?

4. The Colors of Us by Karen Katz: This books offers way to describe the colors of our skin in beautiful and appreciative ways.

5. What Does Peace Feel Like? by Vladimir Rudunsky: This book is a collection of similes and metaphors from students describing peace–helping to bring some concreteness to this big and abstract concept.

6. If… by Sarah Perry: This books takes a fanciful journey into the imagination and invites students to imagine if worms had wheels and other fanciful and surrealistic ideas.

And I also love books that are about math and nature. Two more favorites that I used this past year to support my students’ understanding of the Fibonacci sequence and its appearance in the natural world.

7. Wild Fibonacci: Nature’s Secret Code Revealed by Joy N. Hulme: This book explores the appearance of Fibonacci numbers in the natural world–mostly focusing on the spiral.

8. Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman: This book is another look at Fibonacci’s sequence and spirals using spectacular illustrations.

And to round out my ten, two other books I purchased this summer and intend to use with students this year.

9. One Hen by Katie Smith Milway: A book about micro loans and how small investments can make a huge difference in someone’s life.

And one more math and science focused book

10. Dave’s Down-to-Earth Rock Shop by Stuart J. Murphy; This book combines geology and classification as the characters devise new ways to sort and display their rock collection.

I look forward to seeing what picture books other people love. I’m always looking for new books to inspire my students’ thinking and to help them understand complex concepts. I’m especially interested in those hidden treasures that somehow don’t get the attention of the large bookstore chains…and yet have wonderful content, language, and illustrations. What picture books do you love?

Condor’s Egg: #113texts

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Jonathan London is probably best known in children’s book circles as the author of the Froggy books, but he has many wonderful books that are varied in content and well written. I mentioned Dream Weaver a couple of days ago as my contribution to the #113texts Mentor Text Challenge. Today I want to tell you a bit about Condor’s Egg by Jonathan London.

Condor’s Egg is a realistic story about a family of California Condors in the wild. As is typical with London, the language is lyrical and carefully chosen. His use of verbs evokes movement and creates a sense of action. And as an added bonus, there is factual information about California Condors at the end of the book as well as a guide to using the book with children.

During the 2012-13 school year, after reading the book as part of our study of birds, we used a number of sentences from this book as mentor sentences for our students to study and then to replicate with their own content.

Here’s one sentence we studied: Circling, he rides the warm air, higher than the tops of the clouds. This is a tricky construction with the main part of the sentence between the parentheses where extra information is often deposited.

T (a second grader) created this sentence–a close approximation: Roaring, they start their engines, then the drivers shoot off the starting line.

J (another second grader) came up with this one: Building, Steve builds a square house, nice and safe!

Here’s one from a first grader (Okay–I know it’s not fair–this is a talented writer!): Running, she goes through the house as fast as she can, trying to get away from the pretend monster.

And here’s one more second grader: Diving, she is determined to catch it, landing on the dusty floor of the canyon.

We used many sentences from this book and explored creating our own sentences following the pattern of London’s sentences. By doing this my students had opportunities to try out new sentence structures, which later showed up in their own writing.

I was thinking about the Jonathan London titles that I use…here’s a few:

Dream Weaver
Condor’s Egg
Puddles
The Waterfall
Like Butter on Pancakes

How have you used London’s books? What titles do you like?