Classroom 2.0

I just joined Classroom 2.0. My page is really bare bones right now, but check it out when you can.

Getting Started: Creating CWPs

Heinemann just published a lovely series of three booklets by Jim Vopat entitled Micro Lessons in Writing. I am so excited about infusing these micro lessons into my classroom, starting with some of the ideas presented in the first of the three booklets, Big Ideas for Getting Started. In fact, I loved one [...]

My Writing Workshop Bookshelf

I’ve unpacked nearly all of my boxes. While I know a few of my titles are missing, I just wanted to share my Writing Workshop Professional Bookshelf. Some of my favorite titles are in here, though some are also missing (e.g., I cannot locate Book #4, 5, & 6 of Lucy’s Series of [...]

POETRY FRIDAY: On Turning Ten

I’m still in my Billy Collins Poetry Kick. Here’s one that purely captures the essence of making it into the double digits of life!
On Turning Ten
The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light–
a kind of [...]

My Last Day in New York City

It rained today. Hard. Really, really hard. I had to run the windshield wipers on the highest setting just so I could see out. Hence, I didn’t do everything I had hoped to do today.

I actually went to H&H on the Upper East Side this afternoon for lunch. [...]

WN Entry: Moving

Right now I feel like the young girl (actually Patricia MacLachlan) in Maclachlan’s Memoir What You Know First. I’m preparing for a move from one east coast city to another and it feel so enormous and huge.

My boxes are stacked up throughout my apartment leaving little room for me to walk. There is [...]

Strategy: Use photos to tell a story

I often have my students bring in photographs of them at special times in their lives in order to help them spark their memory (and write a small moment story.) I discourage them from bringing in posed family portraits since, unless you got into a fist-fight with your little sister before the snapshot at [...]

WN Entry: Fireflies

I stepped out of the car in New Jersey last night. Home sweet home, I thought. I was coming home to my parents’ house for two nights.
I slammed the passenger door to shut and was about to walk into the house when I saw a spot of yellow light flicker on [...]

Poetry Friday: Credo (A poem about love)

Credo
I believe there is something else
entirely going on but no single
person can ever know it,
so we fall in love.
It could also be true that what we use
everyday to open cans was something
much nobler, that we’ll never recognize.
I believe the woman sleeping beside me
doesn’t care about what’s going on
outside, and her body is [...]

titles.

Found this fun blog post which gives great tips for writing titles.  Have fun checking it out:  The Sexy Art of Writing Headlines That Kill.  (I can envision focus lessons for many different levels with this one.)

capturing life.

My husband had left for 14 days for Peru, South America.  During the time he was gone, I tenaciously captured our life through photos and blog posts.  My son and I didn’t do anything out of the ordinary — simply lived life.  I’ve been reminded that all of this simple living adds up to big meaning.
Too [...]

Looking at Your Place: Making a Memory (WN Entry)

Everyone who attended George Ella Lyon’s Session on Saturday Morning had the opportunity to make a memory after thinking about a drawing a floor plan of a home they’ve lived in. I went through the entire first floor of my parents’ house and listed one memory from each of those places, including the garage [...]

I met George Ella Lyon!

George Ella Lyon and I started communicating with each other this past winter when I needed to request permission for my students to mentor their “Where I’m From” Poems after hers when they were writing DEAL WITH IT! Powerful Words from Smart, Young Women. We had dinner in Louisville on Friday night, along with [...]

Poetry Friday: A Poem by Billy Collins

I’m still on my Billy Collins kick. This has been going on since Saturday… I’m just loving his work. Here’s one I especially like:
Introduction to Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a [...]

poetry friday

I just love Maya Angelou. This one has me thinking — what does frighten me? Certainly not Friday the 13th! <smile.>
Life Doesn’t Frighten Me At All
Maya Angelou
Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn’t frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn’t frighten me at all.
Mean old [...]

WN Entry: Noticing People

As I walked through my day today, I noticed the small things that people do that we often overlook. For instance, during my layover at O’Hare, I noticed that one of the women who was assembling cheeseburgers was doing it with a smile on her face. There was such love put into each [...]

Haiku

I pulled the grays out
but they’re sprouting back again
they make me feel old.
I wrote this after hearing Billy Collins speak last week. I thought it might be good to write a Haiku, especially if I’m going to teach this form to my students this-coming school year. (I’ve never taught my kids Haiku before [...]

Rethinking Independent Writing Projects Plan Sheets

M. Colleen Cruz wrote a stellar professional book, Independent Writing Projects: One Teacher, 32 Needs, Topics, and Plans. Her book inspired me to get my students going in Extended Day last year.
I was reflecting on the Independent Writing Project Proposal Form I gave my students in June, which I adapted from Cruz’s [...]

Ode to My Second Cupcake

Ode to My Second Cupcake
You come from Buttercup Bake Shop
On the Upper West Side.
You sat amongst other delectable creations,
Waiting to be picked.
Your cake is golden.
Your icing –
Vanilla
with green food coloring
Added for effect.
I bite into you
As a smile spreads
across my face.
The white sprinkle balls
on your north end
Crunch between my molars,
As the sweetness of your frosting
Melts on [...]

Did You Know 2.0

Here’s the link in case you want to pass this video along to someone else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U
To join in the Shift Happens Conversation, click here.
I particularly like their discussion questions, which are as follows:
# What are your initial reactions to what you saw in the presentation?
# How are these changes manifesting themselves in [...]

Advice from Poet Laureate Billy Collins

I heard Poet Laureate Billy Collins speak today at Columbia University’s Roone Arledge Auditorium. He was fascinating, funny, and filled with ideas for teachers on how to be better teachers of poetry. Here are some of his tips:
* Some good questions to ask kids about poems are:
1. [...]

Poetry Friday: The Poets’ Room

THE POETS ROOM
has nothing in it.
No comfortable furniture,
no TVs, voices,
clocks ticking, nothing
except beats of air and blood
pulsing through your lungs.
You take a clean breath
and quietness comes in.
Your favorite films start flaring
on theatres of walls, whenever
you are brave enough
to chase your images
with words.
In a future with few blank walls,
libraries are hushed museums,
where crowds devour your books.
Others [...]

Fourth of July Parade

Hear the blare of bugles,
Hear the beat of drums,
Hear the sound of marching feet.
Down the street there comes,
Playing, marching,
Marching, playing,
In the sun and shade,
All the music,
All the color
[...]

Resume Writing

How many kids do you know that have resumes? Well, I now know five since I just helped to create resumes for five of my former students on Career Kids, which is a website that prepares students to take charge of their future.
I’m starting to believe that resume writing is a type [...]

Writing About Reading

I wrote the following in a reflection after hearing Ellin Oliver Keene speak at Teachers College on April 3rd, 2006. I think what I wrote then is worthy of mentioning on this blog right now as we, as literacy educators, think about the ways in which we’ll assess our students after they read.
“Ever since [...]