journal

If I were to join a club it would be for everybody. As described in the story Horris, Morris and Dolores, the club of girls or boys only is a thing of the past.

I like to do activities that are typically boy activities and would prefer not to be in a segregated club. When a club excludes boys , the girls become gossips and are not supportive of their own individuality. I am happier in a world with boys.

Am I willing to have my beliefs challenged? Yes, The use of talking outside of the box. Inside the box makes me incomplete. We start finding answers when we stop finding blame.

Teaching in the 1980’s was something smart women did. In the elementary grades the pay was embarrassingly low. The 535.00 per month was just enough to put me on the list of free and reduces lunch. I whined and complained. The teachers who taught High School earned double that. They were appreciated and put in an academic light because they were specialized.

So, here we were. Women who decided not to be nurses. We were teachers. There were no frameworks to guide us, no set of standards to print off of the nonexistent Internet. Times have certainly changed.

Along came the spider, sneaking into our profession and spinning a weekly knot web of mediocrity. The ten month degree completion program. The women and men were no longer literate. We needed to fill the classrooms with credentialed teachers- and paid a huge cost. We created the documents to prop teachers up with. Teach this, not that. Say it this way, not that.

My love of teaching, of creativity was beginning to bang up to a wall of teachers who had a love of working from 8:00-3:00. Teachers who looked at my passion as a job. These teachers loved the scripted world of Saxon Math. They openly said things like, “I don’t do math.” How ignorant. I bonded with the older group, the smart women and men.

As the years moved on I learned to communicate my love of teaching. To ask questions of new teachers that I hoped would help them ponder the rest of the job. The part of the job that was creative and loving and nurturing. I wanted to see this in my new colleagues.

I wonder if the extra pressure on our career will begin to weed out the weak and lazy. I hope that in the end of this attack of “No Child Left Behind”, there will be teacher’s who have the vision and intelligence to do this job well. I hope that the people who came into teaching because they thought it was easy, will simply be left out.

You see Andrea talking to Ann. What are they fussing over? Then you see Katrina. You are certain that there has been some sort of problem. Ann brings the girl’s to you. “Andrea, tell Miss Myers what you were talking about in the bathroom.”

She hung her head, a mop of golden curls obscuring her face from yours. Tears glistened in her eyes but did not spill onto the previously made tracks. Ignoring Andrea, you turn to Ann, to ask for details. Ann is gone, vanishing into a cloud of pink and blue back to her class.

Katrina. “Katrina, what happened?” you know that Katrina is probably behind the “crime”, whatever that might be.

“We were in the bathroom talking, that’s all.” Katrina stared you in the face with the unmovable challenge of whether you will pursue more truth or leave it at that.

A knowing smile, cocky, almost bragging that she was going to say it again. “Well, Andrea wanted to know what it was called, so I said.”

The paleness of Andrea’s arms couldn’t hide the bruises. The dirt spots on her neck and legs suddenly took on the appearance of fingers. Her shallow cheeks with dark circles.

You look up, just then to see Andrea’s mom, two little brothers and her new puppy. “Katrina, you don’t need to talk about this kind of thing at school anymore. Now, off to play. Andrea, do you need to tell me anything?”

I remember having to write a report about the state of Oregon. I don’t know if that was my very first report or not but I remember planning way ahead. I didn’t even consider that the state would be assigned instead of chosen. I just wanted to write about Oregon. My mom was born there and we visited relatives often. The summer before fifth grade we took a trip to Oregon and stopped at the state capital so I could collect information for next year’s report.

The capital was so shiny and I thought it was the biggest most impressive building I had seen, outside of our own state capital which we had visited the previous year. The whole family was with us. I collected every handout available and we toured the capital. We took lots of pictures.

Then the year began and we had to actually write this huge report. It had a pretty cover I got to use a wood burning kit to create. Then I painted trees and the ocean on it.

But, the writing took on a different task. Basically there was an outline to follow and it closely mimicked the World Book Encyclopedia outline. The report took on the formal look of paragraphs. I remember not being ready to turn it in on time and pulling my first late night homework night. My mom and dad let me stay up as long as I needed to in order to finish. It was a weekend rush to finish.

The report had to be almost fifty pages. I carefully wrote and rewrote in ink. I was careful to change all the big words and to break each individual World Book sentence up into three or so littler sentences.

I got an A-.

Poster for each type of animal…vertebrates: mammals, fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles

Group talk, create a card with their name on it, she used stickers, write on back. Where do you live? Habitat, What do they look like? Physical feature, What they eat? Food/prey, Who are friends and enemies? (Predator, friends), What do they like to do or play? (Niche, role, how they move)

Wanda was a very small ant. She was hatched from the pupae after a few weeks as larvae. She wanted to be a guard for the ant colony. She wanted to be stronger than most of her friends who could only lift 10 times their weight. She thought if she would get her thorax to be a little bit more buff it might help.

Every morning Wanda spent a little extra time looking at her antennae in the mirror. The one on the right was a little bit longer than the one on the left. That worked pretty good for her when she was sniffing out food for the colony. One day she was walking upside down and her antennae got stuck on a piece of tar on a tree. She played with that antenna now and wondered if that was why it was a little longer.

One day Wanda was asked to go down into the ant hill and visit with her queen. Queen LuLu was really big. She could fly and would sometimes come outside to see if all of her girls were working hard. One day she saw Wanda grabbing a huge piece of candy dropped by someone in the grass. Wanda knew that the queen thought she was a hard worker.

Ants live in hills. They crawl really fast, even on people. There is never just one ant (well, sometimes the spy ant is alone), they live wiht millions of other ants. Some ants bite. Their bodies have three parts, head thorax and abdomen. There is a queen ant who has all the eggs. Worker ants go out and get food to bring back.

I wonder if they eat while they carry and work or if they just take the food back and store it up for later? They have 8 legs.

· Can have more than one queen.

How odd to write about why someone should learn about me. I mostly feel unimportant. That is possibly the one quality that has helped me to move over and let the people in my life shine. I didn’t have a very easy time growing up. I didn’t measure up to the family expectations and was reminded of that fact often. In spite of that fact I have stood tall, never giving up on any task, even when I didn’t want to do it.

I decided to teach. Teaching is easy for me. Self reflection aobut teaching is not easy. Teaching others to teach is not easy because I am not very reflective by nature. I know that I love the challenging wounded kids. I push through until the kids are thriving.

In 2004 I saved twelve thousand dollars to take my son to Papua New Guinea. We went with our church. The task was to purchase all of the materials to build a college in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea near Kudjip. The college was built in the hospital compound and was to be a training center for nurses. I was very afraid. I didn’t want to go to this scary uncomfortable dirty place. But, I wanted to give back to my world and to teach my son to live by my basic foundational belief. To whom much is given, much is expected.

We went. I did laundry while my son did construction. The building will make a difference to the people of PNG.

So, on a daily basis, I work to build children into successful people. It is hard to be patient and always so strict. Then, one time, I gave to my world. Even when I am afraid I persevere. I work with a team and do my best to always promote others us more important than myself.

Does everyone need to be a leader? Can a person avoid all leadership in their lves? I suppose these answers all hinge on your definition of leaders.

I am a leader and have always been a leader, even if I am a leader of only myself. I look at the loved ones in my life and ask if they are leaders. Even the people who have followed me with unending faithfulness are leaders in one way or another.

The fact that most people become parents means that they are leaders. I therefore conclude that all people move in and out of leadership roles.

I moved into school leadership roles and found that I really didn’t’ like some of the leadership responsibilities. I was put in the limelight when I started teaching technology to teachers. I love doing that. The technology buffers me from the prying eyes of the teachers. I love helping “newbies” and being able to encourage them to strike out into the world of technology.

I moved from this position to that of curriculum and instruction at a district. I loved that, working in assessment and trying to encourage teachers to continue the fight. I loved backing people up with whatever documents I could and by continuing to promote technology and equity.

Then they put me in front of people and told me to teach this and to teach that. I was not happy being asked to discuss issues that I felt the teachers in the room new more than I did about in the first place. I wanted to be behind people, not in front of them.

I was eventually put in a site administration position and I loved it there too. I was the backup, the support. I was there to encourage teachers and to work with at risk students. I was there to do the grunt work and to continue meeting the needs of others.

I wanted to stay there, to stay at a site and to feel part of things. That was not to be. I moved on and found my place with at-risk students. I love this too. I love the work and the job security. Then the economy falls apart and I am told that my position is at risk. Damn.

“What is right with you is more powerful than anything that is wrong with you.”

Pwople who are confident of doing well in a task, and fail, approach the next task by working harder. People who expect to fail believe they lack the ability to succeed. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Tony was an only child and lived with his mother. He didn’t know his father. Tony had some real support in his life. His mother, Sharon was a larger than life Italian hair dresser. She was “there” for Tony.

Tony had a very large extended family whom he visited often. He went home every day after school to his grandmother. Tony was in my fourth grade classroom and again the next year in fifth. Tony could not read, not at all.

We taught reading groups and Tony was in the lowest. Finally testing to the special education resource specialist program. I think Tony was the first student I would have targeted as a true dyslexic.

One day I decided to go to one of the kids ballgames. I didn’t know it would be Tony’s team, but I knew that the kids had talked about a time and place. Tony beamed. I praised Tony and worked with him after school. After two years in my classroom he still could not read. No reading teacher ever seemed to break through Tony’s problems. However, he was able to succeed.

I know I made a difference for Tony. I taught him to trust his mind and never taught him to read. He could pass any subject matter class by listening. He needed tools to do it. His mother would be needed for his entire education to convince teachers that he could learn material, pass oral tests instead of written.

I have run into Tony’s family many times throughout the years. I taught his cousins and even socialized with his aunt. Then a few months ago I saw his mom. She said Tony had died in a car accident. Not a result of drunk driving – a pure accident. We cried together. She told me about his son, little Tony. How she hoped one day that he would have a teacher like me in his life.

As I look at the resiliency that Tony showed, I think of his sense of humor, his sweet sensitive side and all of the pain school caused him. A true dyslexic whose ability to learn about things was given the correct place in his academic life. He had a great support system who all held high expectations for him.

I know he played sports and was nutured by coaches. His special education support staff were always honest and held high standards and regard for him.

I don’t really know what kind of teenager he was, as it cost him dearly to succeed with barely passing grades. He was resilient, maybe in spite of me. Schools couldn’t have done it alone.

I have clear memories of the small hardcover books where Sally, Jane, Dick and Spot all played. I don’t know how old I was. I only remember hating my name – Sally Jane. All the kids would giggle and point at me when Spot chased Sally. I decided that I was not going ot stay in those books.

So, I took extra books home. I read every day until I could read the big books our house was littered with.

My mom read to us all the time. I remember going to the library since before I even have memories. We each checked out our ten book limit,k three times a week. But, my mom’s favorite book of all was Green Eggs and Ham. I know we each h ad a copy. We wrote in the books with pencil or crayon. Every book on my mom’s shelves to this day has one of our names scribbled in. I wrote Green Eggs and Ham over and over as I tried to dump Sally, Dick and Spot.

Then one day I took in my mother’s childhood copy of Heidi. During reading groups I sat and read Heidi.

Access what you already know or think hyou know and think about how the new knowledge fits together

A symbol is a way to communicate an idea without using the written word. Some symbols include written words. Symbols often create an emotional response. The symbol of the American Flag for example evokes in me a feeling of pride and then at the same time a feeling of belonging. Some are universally recognized. Stands for an idea, country, place or activity.

Wife is the most fun part of my life right now. I wake up and get to be happy each day. I enjoy pleasing my husband. He encourages me to be smart and funny. I like to cook for him because he appreciates the time I spend. He never pressures me so I feel more like doing things to please him. Only one time did he pressure me to do something that made me afraid, now I love to do it and am not afraid at all.

As for being a mom. I am not feeling very successful in this area of my life. I know that becoming a mom was the single most important event in my life. It changed me, changed how I practiced my profession, turned me into someone I still don’t recognize. I wonder how things would have been different if I had been a young mom instead of an old one.

Teacher, that’s easy. I often think, “They pay me to do this?” It is a delight most of the time. I think this was a hard year and I really needed to have a break this summer. The work is challenging and I never repeat anything I do. Working with multi-grade students is extra challenging and fun. I used to be about my career but now I am about life.

Lazy Bum, wow I am certainly that. I can sit for hours just watching tv and working on the computer. I have no burning need to clean the toilet in our master bath which so desperately needs cleaning. I only water when the lack of water is so obvious that the bushes and trees will certainly die.

I am struck by the details of your trip. So much interaction with the Native Americans, some of it good and building of relationships, some of it destructive. I wonder why the people of your time do not swim. The challenges and fears that must have overtaken them as they faced the racing rivers of the trip.

I wonder if the man shot by the Indian in the shoulder lived or not. Taking the horses and stealing their things made the trip all that more difficult.

Traveling only 8 miles in a day. I would like to see how many days it would take us to travel between Redding and Chico with the many river crossings that would need to take place.

Our babies were little. Marcus was only three, Cody and Kyle were one. It was the fourth of July and our family was meeting for their annual family vacation at Lake Almanor. Mom and dad had a “cabin” on the lake and we all converged with our growing families to spend the week together. The “cabin” had only two bedrooms, this year one for my family and one for my brother’s family. My sister, Karen, was bringing her boyfriend, Jeff (currently husband of twenty years). My parents stayed in the converted garage apartment where they could have quiet and escape our late night games.

Cody and Kyle were born the same month and were just celebrating their first birthdays. Both boys were in the early stages of walking and loved to roll all over each other. Marcus was our big boy, pride and joy. We all adore him, the first of the next generation. But, this is not a story so much about the boys as it is about Jeff.

The first day at the cabin we noticed some white hardened droppings on the back of the brown rocking chair that I had purchased for my mom upon the birth of her first grandchild. We decided that there were bats living in the ceiling. We didn’t notice Jeff becoming more and more nervous as the evening wore on.

Jeff was the newest addition to the family. Karen and Jeff were not married yet but they had been together for years. Jeff lived at my parents house in a little apartment that they added on just for him. They were engaged but not “living together”.

At the cabin there are tons of creatures that seem to want to move in each year. We have had chipmunks, squirrels, mice, a raccoon and many many bats come to visit. The house is used as a rental part of the year and the renters just don’t understand that you have to keep the doors closed at all times.

Jeff and Karen had to sleep in the main part of the house on two couches, no doors to protect them. The cabin had a very high two story vaulted ceiling with two beds upstairs on the landing. I didn’t understand why they didn’t sleep there the first night. The first morning the babies woke us early. Jeff and Karen could sleep through anything. We looked over and saw Jeff sleeping with a tennis racket hugged to his chest.

My brother, Stan, Marcus and Cody’s dad, is a lot of fun. He found something to put on Jeff to scare him. Jeff jumped up and started swinging that tennis racket. We all laughed and teased him unmercifully. He was so afraid of the bats that he could barely sleep.

We had been at the cabin for five days and nights. The babies were crawling all over each other. Marcus was busy trying to snatch a toy from Cody with his normal trading technique, “I will give you this if you give me that.” All of a sudden, thunk, thunk, thunk!

“Ahhh, What was that? Get the babies! Get the babies! Are they alive? Run! Everybody get out!” Jeff started to squeal like a little girl. Of course both babies had been scooped up and Marcus warned not to touch them. Three very dead bats had landed right on top of the babies and toys.

We concluded that Jeff had been so afraid of having bats during the night that he had been sleeping with the lights on full. The bats were unable to get out to feed and had eventually died from thirst probably.

The sad part of this story is that this was the last year my family got to sleep in a bedroom with a door that closed. From the year that Jeff and Karen got married, we gave them the bedroom so that Jeff wouldn’t be afraid. I am sure that there is a lesson in this for me on the fine art of manipulating people and the environment to secure my own comfortable place.

Snakes and tarantulas
dogs
lawn mowers
swimming pools
Fords and Pink Cadillac’s
Bicycles and balls
Wheel Barrows
Tools

Names of family and Relatives that link to your past
Aunt Donna and Uncle Pat
Grandmother and Grandfather
stories about Lapham Grand’s

I have taught you, now I will trust your choices,
don’t do anything to lose my trust

I am from: Are we moving again?
San Jose, Saratoga, Atascadero
Chico for three generations
Cars and houses
I am from: When can I read?
San Francisco Chronicle
Books being Read
Books being Spoken
Aunt Donna’s stories
I am from: Did you feed the dog?
Cats for the kids
I am from: What will you be when you finish college?
Working hard
Never rely on anybody
Swimming Pool life style
I am from: Is it my turn to wash or dry?
Cleaning every Saturday
Clean your room
Yard Work and Projects

Melted tar stuck to my feet
I am from: What did you do to cause that?
Speak Properly
Fords and Pink Cadillac’s

Sit up straight at the table
I am from: Did I give you permission?
hypocricy
Do as I say…
I am from: Why are you crying?
Take care of Karen
Check in at eleven
Be smarter than you are
Clean your car
I am from Who Drank the Last of the Milk?
Special K Bars and five pound of fudge
John, don’t eat that…
Menus, recipes and shopping lists
I am from: Why is your music so loud
Dad dancing to jazz
Piano’s, Trombones and Clarinets
I am from: I want a new drug…

The sky grows dark with thick black clouds. The clouds hang heavily as the wind picks up. There is a flash in the sky but not rain yet. I count one-one thousand; two – one thousand; three-one thousand… and more. Each rumble makes me nervous. Jumpy reprimand from Mike as he moves to the meat store to get the groceries we were after.

Flashback to the 70’s when Mike was nearby hit by lightning. I think of home now and wonder if he is safely indoors.

Then the rain comes to wash all of the exhaustive places where we can’t hide from the lightning that is reaching out to get us.

Select six people who have influenced your life. For each person write images, stuff and memories

I am usually afraid. I can’t think of many times in my life when I was not afraid. Be strong, never cry, show no weakness were the teachings of my family. “You are smart enough o do anything you want in life.” were words that were spoken often by my mother. I don’t know when I decided that it was okay to be like my mom. I don’t have all of my mother’s qualities because I am afraid often.

My mom loved to cook, still does. She was a better cook before the invent of no-fat foods and the watching of cholesterol. The house was clean, we were taught to think, question and use our brains. Mom never worked in the yard and she never sewed, but she could knit. The thing is that mom is amazing in a lot of ways. Always together, always strong and never afraid of a challenge.

Mom wanted me to be a success in life, to be strong and brave in every way. She knew that she could not teach me all of the talents that would serve me in my life so she tried to fill any gaps she might have with teachings from others. The shooting lessons, horseriding, piano, clarinet, scouts, swim team, and even etiquette courses were on my schedule. Success was not in question.

Even sharing a strong will, college education and love for my father, my mom and Grandmother did not really click. Grandmother was ever-so-proper, mom was strict and knew how to behave for each situation, but was not a snob. Grandmother was Grandmother, never granny or gram. Mom was never Mother, always mom.

Grandmother graduated and secured her teaching credential in 1918. She was a homemaking teacher in Oakland before she became a mother. Of course, that was something my mom would want to capitalize on as she built my set of self-sustaining skills. And it was a task of love and passion that my Grandmother took to heart as she endeavored to teach me the gift of sewing, cooking and domestic engineer.

I wasn’t afraid of sewing because I knew that my Grandmother was a master and would be sure I learned. I was afraid of disappointing her or failing in my mom’s eye. I was afraid of staying two weeks at Grandmother’s instead of one, afraid of missing my family.

Sewing came easy to me but the clothes never really felt good or looked right when I tried to wear them. I must have been around seven when Grandmother took me down to begin my sewing lessons. I remember walking down the narrow wooden staircase to the basement. I counted 15 stairs, not counting the final cement step.

There is always a smell of old cars in the basement which steps down from the garage. I walk past an old white ringer washing machine tub. The kind you plug in and have to use carefully so you don’t get a finger smashed as you wring the water from the clothes. Finally opening the door to Grandmother’s living room, I stop to look things over.

Grandfather had a work bench on one wall. The rest held all of the treasures of a seamstress. A mannequin that you can change the size of by turning brown knobs seemed to greet me. Shelves filled with boxes of fabric Grandmother hadn’t decided how to use. Two sewing machines, her ironing board and cupboards specially designed to hold thread, bobbins, and other necessary gadgets.

“Today we are going to start by making an apron. You can keep it here and use it when we cook.” Grandmother said as she pulled a box off of the shelf. She chose some pretty blue and white checked fabric, a bag of lace and a big bolt of brown paper. “We don’t have a pattern so we will make our own. We will cut one out from this paper.” Then she began to draw and I began to cut. The fabric was laid out and we put the paper pattern on top of it.

“Lift and line up the pattern of the fabric. The design needs to line up exactly so that you have a clean pattern to work with. If you cut things out sloppily you will never be able to make anything worth wearing.” I expected to put a bunch of pins down to attach the paper to the fabric (that was how my Kathy’s mom did it), before we cut but was surprised when Grandmother pulled out a box with heavy little iron weights. “Put the weights on the edges of the pattern. You need to learn to have a steady hand. A good seamstress doesn’t jab a bunch of pins into the fabric because the holes weaken the threads. Use the weights to hold the pattern down. Then you need to use extra sharp scissors, hold the fabric up and cut along the pattern. Watch for the fabric’s natural thread bias and detail of the pattern of the fabric.”

Before the day was over I could proudly wear my homemade apron while cooking with Grandmother. No blood was shed, no frustrating or embarrassing moments with my wonderful loving Grandmother. I wanted to take that beautiful apron home to show my mom, but we didn’t use aprons at my house, we used towels and the front of my t-shirts.

Mom appreciated Grandmother for her strength. Grandmother’s many gifts were shared with us and helped me to be a woman of many different talents, hidden gifts. I never taught my son to sew but we did to many creative homey craft things together throughout his youth. Shhh, don’t let on I told, I am afraid he will be embarrassed.

Note to self: You are not Elliot.

Interview one another
Looking for:
1 Where do they live? (habitat)
2. What do they look like? (physical features)
3. What do they eat? (food/prey)
4. Who are their friends or enemies?
5. What do they like to do or play

Parallelogram

Technology plays a role in my classroom but it is not quite where I would like it. Technology needs to be accessible to all students in both home and school environments. The technology gap is widening and will create an unequal learning environment for my students if we don’t do something systematically to change the way we address access.

Students should begin to look at technology in much the same way that they look at using pencil and paper. The tools are available to teach and learn more effectively with the use of technology.

Technology must be used to access our world. Digital photography is a big need for my classroom. Working with video and music is another area that I need to promote. The use of i-tunes, streaming video, PowerPoint, etc…

Technology is motivating. Kids want to put their work out in a different way. Most kids use technology for social networking, not for academics.

1. Writing traits = good writing = Traits of a Good House
You have a general form/structure/organization when looking at a house, writing is the same way. Showed many different structures of homes and then related that all stories need to have the basic rules of a house.

2. Shift from the teacher as an audience so that the audience is larger and they may want to hold onto the product.

4. Technology issues 1. Understanding that Internet may not be true. 2. The ability to identify text in all situations, online is being forced. 3. To innovate and apply knowledge creatively, make it your own.

5. NCTE Challenges for Writing Teachers: Evolving Technologies and Standardized Assessments

Tech Ideas
National Public Radio

My lifelong friend, Kathy Hann, says I should write a book. I wonder if I could possibly put onto paper the stories I tell when we are visiting.

This is year 30 of a lifelong career in education. There is still so much I don’t understand about the human experience and I treasure each interaction with my students and families. Why was I lucky in being born to a success driven family who are loyal to one another given with the deep dark secrets of my family. All of my siblings have had lives filled with happiness and middle classs working class events.

This is a book of short vignettes, some will bring tears, others laughter. All of them will be truth, as I saw it, lived it and have reflected on it.

Making Poems - Writing Exercises for the Classroom, Nancy McCabe Francoeur, 1988 (get a copy, out of print)

The Literature Workshop – Teaching Texts and Their Readers by Sheridan D. Blair ISBN 0-86709-540-7

Classroom Discoveries About Teaching Writing edited by Amy Bauman and Art Peterson, National Writing Project – ISBN 1-883920-18-3

The Voice – NWP Vol. 11, Num 2, 2006, Article Writing Project Examines Technology in the Classroom

Rural Voices – Place-Conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing – by Robert F. Brooke ISBN 0-8077-4365-8

Series – Animal Lives by Sally Morgan Animal Lives 8 set (ISBN 978-1-59566-489-1)

Sometimes the hardest things in life is knowing which bridges to cross to bear and which to burn

The breakthrough to the puzzle is relevant and the journey is exhilarating (Einstein, I think)

The Writing Project is designed to support writing through time, place, theme, into the real purpose of using words for the power of words.

Effective conclusions never restate the obvious – 1. Reflective 2. Connect fact to opinion 3. Provide new info to reader 4. Demonstrate new info for the reader.

Tension – in a paper it is not conflict but is putting two opposing feelings side by side. In film it is called montage

Reading Between the Lines – April 8, 1997. Employ balanced approach between sight and phoneme awareness. Use controlled text.

Almost everything I like was created because of a want or need, everything that nature hasn’t taken care of.

My Turn – Newsweek – Articles – Presentation by CeCe (In presentation section)

Word Study Books
You Are a Writer Books
Memory Monday
Book Tuesday
Work Wednesday (skill, character, facts)
Think Thursday (Answer a question, eg Why do people …)
Freewrite Friday

Journal – Think Book – I wonder if I should get more this August. Provide nice hardcover to fill and refill new ones all year.

Statue of Liberty/Washington Monument – get string and helium balloons and let them see how far up the string goes.

Read work quickly so you do not read for errors…if you are just reading to see if it is a good paper

Read this set of papers as fast as you can and identify the top paper (use top two papers) Identify why.

Give kids highlighter to find the place where their actual story begins…lots of times the writers have things that don’t mean anything.

Teach to cross out the part that is not needed in the paper, cut it out and save it for the next time.

Good topics – reader can relate, shows emotion, shows tension (a little struggle)

Spelling – find five words in your writing that you think you misspelled. Write them three different times to identify the word that looks right, circle the one you like best. (activate prior knowledge, look for word chunks, word parts, phonics, visualize, chunk, write it more than one time) Every few weeks go through and choose your hardest word

o Example – what is harder, flabbergasted or piece (peas, peace, piece) mush harder. Flabbergasted can be sounded out and then bb remembered.

o Children learn to spell by reading and writing, by the time you are 18 you can spell about 50,000 words. Spelling words only account for 13,536 words…no transfer anyway. Reading like a writer is what makes the difference.

Highlight your golden line – edit that one sentence – write on a card to share

Publishing – Making Writing Public Ideas: mug designs, magnets, bookmarks (word using textbox), posters (informational), top ten ways to see, posters for Internet Safety, Open House, looping poems, retell a folktale with digital pictures and use dialogue bubbles, storyboard things first. You don’t always get what you want.

Challenges for Writing Teachers: Evolving Technologies and Standardized Assessment: Anne Herrington and Charles Moran

· Donorschoose.com – put up your project and what you want to do with it, to get money

Interesting quote to think about writing as a club that they can be part of. The idea that school is the place to be introduced to the club of writers is also an interesting thought. There is a club of writers and readers but is school the place where we begin this journey? The journey of reading was bridged at home, certainly. The use of writing for thank you cards and letters that invited me to parties was also done at home. What is the thing about school and the idea that school is the center of the universe.

I find my own group of fellow teachers being basically egocentric. They don't make enough money...me either. They have too many kids, work too many hours and nobody appreciates them, me either.

The first quote is that the overemphasis of the elimination of mistakes will result in the elimination of writing. That is true, I do feel that I must approach writing with the idea that someone will read it and to be sure that they can understand what I am saying. I want to be read but I think that writing is the fun part of all this.

Writing is possible. How do kids learn that they can't write? I guess that comes from home, not from school....or does it. Playing is who we get things done. Playing is why we love teaching, because they pay us to play.

I heard that at a doctors office visit, the most important thing is to wait at the end of the meeting where people will either remember or just blurt out the underlying, maybe embarrassing things that they came for in the first place. I wonder if that is like it is in school, when we are asked our opinion we tend to give the most socially secure protective advice.