Temporarily signing off

I have a paper due--and I can't believe I'm using that as an excuse! Early next week, I'll write one long wrap-up post on the last week of the CTWP. See you soon!

Coaching (Day 13 & 14)

Hi, Mapuana! I can indeed read your comments now--thanks for all the great ideas! And let me assure you that the Open Institute in July will be a lot like what we are doing in the Summer Institute--we can't do everything, obviously, but you will definitely get a good taste of NWP. And that reminds me, I still need to send around that e-mail to all our July participants. I'll do that this evening.

Today I had my coaching time for my demo (which will be on Tuesday). Mostly it involved listening to my ideas, making suggestions and answering questions.

Today's demo was fascinating. Not only was the presenter from another country (and showed the educational system comparisons), but she is also in special ed. To begin the demo, she handed each of us a post-it note with a typical special ed label on it and a few brief descriptions of what that label meant. We then role-played. She is a brave, brave woman to ask a group of teachers to role-play students to that extreme. But it was fascinating to think about how our particular disability or condition would affect our learning and how a teacher might have to work with us in a different way. My label, btw, was emotional/behavioral disorder. I was anti-social and couldn't control my anger, tending to act aggressively toward others. Interestingly enough, I was seated next to an ADHD student who had poor impulse control. We quickly figured out we were a volatile situation waiting to happen (and acted accordingly, of course). In any case, it was eye-opening, to the extreme. I am continually in awe of teachers who work with these special students.

Tomorrow, pot luck and guest author. It's David Rice, author of Crazy Loco. I saw him at the conference here in September, and he was a lot of fun.

Assessment (Day 12)

Interesting discussion today on assessment. We read a couple of articles, including the first chapter of Rethinking Rubrics. I admit mixed feelings about rubrics--I share the author's general philosophy about grades, about authentic assessment, about anti-standardization, etc. But when I get to the end of the day and face a stack of 50 essays--well, I love me a rubric. I suppose it's like any educational concept--can be used for good or evil. Discussion will continue tomorrow, with Lori and Jan Schaeffer (our Open Institute leader) leading a discussion on A2I--the assessment to instruction research project of the CTWP.

My haiku log was well received. Fabulous demo today, a great exercise in observation and writing from different points of view. It involved writing about a picture, but ended up forcing the writers to focus in on small, seemingly insignificant details. It's amazing what kind of stories came out of that one little teeny-tiny detail.

My log day (Day 11)

Today was my turn to keep a log. Others have done newsletters, video, digital storytelling. I chose haiku. The demo today was about technology, so I thought it would be fun to combine the ancient & the modern. I won't share all my little haikus, but I'll include a few.

Journals
Shirley’s reading for the morning journal writing included the memorable line, “you can’t order a poem like you order a taco.” It spoke of how writing poetry is a process of reinventing whatever life gives us and asks the writer to make a list of where writing hides for you, being specific.

Fast food poetry
I’ll have a sonnet to go
Yes, I would like fries.

Book talk & discussion
The book talk today was on The Best For Our Children: Critical Perspectives on Literacy for Latino Students edited by Maria de la Luz Reyes & John J. Halcon. There was much discussion on the chapter called “Parent Narratives: The Cultural Bridge between Latino Parents & Their Children,” which redefines the notion of “parental involvement” through a culturally specific lens. Lori recommended two books: City Schools and the American Dream: Fulfilling the promise of public Education (Peter Noguera) and Authors in the Classroom: A Transformative Education Process—how to use writing to connect with parents’ lives (Alma Flor Alda).

More to put on the CBWP library list!

Sacred Writing Time
We had a full hour of very quiet writing time, which was given the above label. I wondered if this might be in response to some of the silliness of last week, a way to help us refocus on the writing.

Liz began by asking us to freewrite on the word “intention” for a couple of minutes, then nearly everyone “popcorned” their response. Liz discussed the mind/body/soul connection involved in writing, and asked us to close our eyes and think about what we have been writing and want to be writing. We then paired up to share our completions for two statements, using a maximum of three sentences: 1) I am writing . . . ; and 2) It’s about . . ..

She shared the story of stealing (oh my!) a clever do not disturb sign from a New York hotel, which simply said "forget about it." So it’s our job as writers to put up our metaphorical forget about it sign and simply write, putting everything else out of our life. This is the Sacred Writing Time.

Fuggedaboutit
Do not disturb my writing
Lest my words be lost.

A Quick (ha ha) note about Friday (Day 10)

No time to say much about Friday, except that we had a visit from a Aly Tadros, a singer/songwriter, who talked about songwriting and a bit about the music business. She played a few songs, including one that might be featured on "Grey's Anatomy" next season.

She was fabulous, and is going to be in Corpus in August. Check out her website (includes a few downloadable tracks): www.alytadros.com

Oh, and by the way, she is only 21 years old and self-taught on the guitar.

A Good Tired (Day 8 and 9)

Wow, I hit a wall yesterday. I was so tired and once the SI was over for the day, I took a break from writing and reading about writing. Of course, I recovered from word overdose by more words--went to Half-Price books and got a mystery to read.

I feel much better today and managed to complete my memoir assignment during writing time, despite the best efforts of my tablemates to distract me (this effort involved pet websites and brownies--they know me way too well already! :). It was like the intensity of the room all of sudden turned into a little bit of punch-drunkenness. Everyone was cheerful, involved, and interested, but maybe a little silly and then a bit anxious to leave in the afternoon. I wonder if this is common--that about the halfway point in the institute, there needs to be some kind of mini-break. (I might ask Liz about this tomorrow.) Perhaps we should have had the breathing woman this week. I could go for another session of linguini. Tomorrow is Friday, and we have the potluck (salad theme) another author visit--this time a songwriter. Should be fun!

In the last two days, we have had writing time, response groups, and demos--all the usual. I continue to surprise myself with how much relatively decent writing I am capable of doing in such a short time. Granted, I have much less distraction here than I would back at TAMU-CC, but even a half-hour spurt of concentrated writing has yielded a surprising amount. (Boice was right!) Confidence in my ability to write, and to write fairly well has skyrocketed. Even if I got nothing else out of the SI, that would make it all worthwhile. I am almost willing to call myself a writer (almost) as well as a writing teacher. So even though I was tired, and needed a little break, it was a good tired--born of hard, meaningful work rather than frustration.

Of course, this also means I have no excuse now not to get an article or two out pretty soon.

Yesterday, we also finished the very interesting conversation on writing in the digital age, and I am left with much food for thought about the need for technology-rich educational environments and what the responsibilities of writing teachers are for teaching that technology.

The demos the last two days have been great, both involving collaborative writing activities. I continue to be impressed by the activities presented and how many of them are applicable across grade levels.

Jan is going to bring in a couple of TCs to do sample demos in our Open Institute (all part of the package!) I'm also very excited, because we worked out a plan to bring my summer English 3360 class in on Wednesday of that week to participate for an hour or so in the Institute. I cannot wait for them to meet that roomful of awesome teachers!

Lucy Calkin's Former Student Visits (Day 7)

Without a doubt, the highlight of the day was a visit from Katherine Bomer. I didn't realize that she was one of Lucy Calkins' students and worked with her on what she affectionately referred to as The Box, the extensive unit plans Calkins published through Heinemann. Even if I knew nothing about her pedagogy or her history of writing a famous burnout-because-of-NCLB-and-testing essay, I would be a fan. She listened to our stories, responded to questions thoughtfully, acknowledged concerns, and celebrated everyone in that room as dedicated and caring professionals. She had a lot to say about The Box and how districts and/or individual teachers should & should not use it. We should put her two books on the list for our CBWP library (if they are not already there), and maybe see about bringing her to Corpus at some point.

I also met with Jan about our Open Institute--it's going to be good, y'all. I'll put more about that in an e-mail. I will also put together an official distribution list for the July participants and ask for a reply as an RSVP.

Today was my day for a booktalk. I had chosen Breakthroughs: Classroom Discoveries about Teaching Writing, ed. by Amy Bauman & Art Peterson and published by the National Writing Project. It's a collection of essays that were originally published in The Quarterly, which was NWP's journal, now online as The Voice. Lots and lots of strategies for writing at all levels and subjects (begins with an essay on science writing, for instance).

And finally, we did a jigsaw puzzle discussion on a few articles we read on writing in the digital age. I use this technique quite a bit in classes, although I didn't know it had an official name. Each group takes one of the essays and becomes an expert on it. Then we shuffle the groups, so that each new group has one person from each of the old groups--one expert on each article, who then teaches it to the rest. I called it "divide and conquer," but I like jigsaw puzzle better--a much more peaceable metaphor--it's all about putting things together.